![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fandom Trope of the Day: Yellow Spandex
May. 14th, 2008 11:49 am”You actually go outside in these things?”
“Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex?”
-Wolverine and Cyclops, X-Men (and yes, there are people who wanted Logan to wear yellow spandex)
Yellow spandex is the term I’m creating just now for anything that is widely accepted by the fanbase, but is too untenable for general audiences. Now, we can all agree there are things in comics that just don’t translate to film. Unfortunately, there generally tends to some (read: all) disagreement about what is yellow spandex and what is a vital component of a property’s appeal. According to fans, no comic book movie ever failed for being too faithful to the source.
For instance, in Batman Begins, after repeated exhortations to surrender, Ra’s Al Ghul persists in trying to slaughter millions. Batman lets him die with the badass one-liner “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you either,” allowing Ra’s to reap a karmic award and incidentally taking out the head of a terrorist organization that knew his secret identity.
In the comics, of course, Batman would rescue him. This commitment to the sanctity of life has both practical (it allows supervillains to keep coming back issue after issue) and dramatic (it allows for conflict between “the easy road” and Batman’s ethical stand) reasons. In the movie, though, it would make him look effing retarded.
Expect lots more yellow spandex discussions to pop off as Frank Miller’s radical reinvention of The Spirit approaches release, despite the fact that the last Spirit fan died in 1982. And if you weren’t born yesterday, you’ll probably remember a thousand and one yellow spandex comments on Heath Ledger’s Joker before we all kinda got used to him not sounding like Mark Hamill.
“Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex?”
-Wolverine and Cyclops, X-Men (and yes, there are people who wanted Logan to wear yellow spandex)
Yellow spandex is the term I’m creating just now for anything that is widely accepted by the fanbase, but is too untenable for general audiences. Now, we can all agree there are things in comics that just don’t translate to film. Unfortunately, there generally tends to some (read: all) disagreement about what is yellow spandex and what is a vital component of a property’s appeal. According to fans, no comic book movie ever failed for being too faithful to the source.
For instance, in Batman Begins, after repeated exhortations to surrender, Ra’s Al Ghul persists in trying to slaughter millions. Batman lets him die with the badass one-liner “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you either,” allowing Ra’s to reap a karmic award and incidentally taking out the head of a terrorist organization that knew his secret identity.
In the comics, of course, Batman would rescue him. This commitment to the sanctity of life has both practical (it allows supervillains to keep coming back issue after issue) and dramatic (it allows for conflict between “the easy road” and Batman’s ethical stand) reasons. In the movie, though, it would make him look effing retarded.
Expect lots more yellow spandex discussions to pop off as Frank Miller’s radical reinvention of The Spirit approaches release, despite the fact that the last Spirit fan died in 1982. And if you weren’t born yesterday, you’ll probably remember a thousand and one yellow spandex comments on Heath Ledger’s Joker before we all kinda got used to him not sounding like Mark Hamill.
