Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, Movies, Superman, Warner Bros | Tagged: ironheart, james gunn

Comic Store In Your Future: The Superman Movie Brings In Comic Readers

Comic Store In Your Future: The new Superman movie has successfully brought people into comic stores, and it's all thanks to James Gunn.

Superman hit theaters and did something that comic-based movies have largely been unable to do: bring in people to buy the actual comics that the film is based on. Thunderbolts, Red Hulk, Sam Wilson Captain America, and so many more that made the leap to the big screen had little to no impact on sales, thanks to the movies they were in. I am very surprised that Superman the movie did. Krypto is even popular now. I even had to reorder the latest Krypto issue, which is great.

How did this happen? Out of all the customers here at Rodman Comics who have seen the movie, only one person did not give it a high review. In the first week of release, multiple customers have seen it twice. People are enjoying the movie so much that they want to check out the various comic characters related to it.

What other factor is helping Superman moviegoers get into comics? James Gunn is the man behind the latest Superman movie and the upcoming DC Comics movies. When he tweets about a comic here in the store, it sells out. He brings up the Mark Waid-written and Alex Ross-painted limited series Kingdom Come, and I am scrambling to order more of it, which is also great.

Kevin Feige, the man behind the Marvel movies, does not seem to enjoy the comics that the Marvel movies are based on nearly as much. In 2015, Kevin Feige helped get rid of the Marvel Creative Committee, which was created to provide input to the Marvel movies, which was made up of people such as writer Brian Bendis, Alan Fine, Joe Quesada, and Dan Buckley. With the Marvel movies not being as hot as in previous times, it might be a good idea to create a new Marvel Creative Committee to help their films. Brian Bendis, who is no longer with Marvel, wrote the post-credit scene in the first Iron Man movie with Stark and Fury.

Years ago, I had a group of Girl Scouts who wanted to interview me, and I agreed to do so as long as I could ask them questions. I asked them to tell me which movies were based on characters from comics. I was stunned that most had no idea. Finally, one of them googled and discovered Guardians of the Galaxy was from the comics. They were shocked; they enjoyed the movie versions of Groot and Rocket Raccoon and bought issues with them. They were having fun, and some were disappointed because I said no to those who wanted to buy Harley Quinn. The issues were too much like Deadpool, and I doubted their parents would accept it. I learned that seeing the comic-related movies left most people unaware that there were comics based on what they had just seen. The flipping through pages at the start of a film meant nothing to them.

Harry Potter was a character I had no idea about until the movies came out. Then it would often be mentioned that Harry Potter was based on books. Somehow, comics get left out as part of a character who makes it to the big screen or small screen. I read an online article about the recent Ironheart Disney+ show. It was a good article, but it never even mentioned the character's comic roots. The article made it seem that the creators of the Ironheart show were the creators of the character.

After all these years of comic-related movies, the comic book part is often not even mentioned. I usually joke at my store that Disney doesn't seem to know it owns a comic publisher. My thanks to James Gunn for letting it be known that comic books do exist and for promoting them.

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