By Kendra Hibbert
May 16, 2003
Once upon a time, book adaptations for movies were weakly written, scene-by-scene line-by-line interpretations of the film. For the most part, they still are. This summer, however, Marvel comics (and Del Ray books) have released two novelized interpretations of the summer blockbuster comic based movies that actually have something more to offer than a sneak peak at the heavily guarded plots of these films. Instead of getting any old writer to pen these books (for X-MEN 2 and HULK) they decided to ask two comic writers (Chris Claremont and Peter David respectively) to put to paper the stories of the movies for the comics they were once known for writing.
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Chris Claremont was the writer for the X-MEN comics for 17 years, starting with the early years of the first “new” team – that is Storm, Banshee, Colossus, Nightcrawler and everyone’s favorite adamantium-clawed Canuck, Wolverine. Claremont entered the comic in the second issue of these new X-men (#95) and stayed on as writer for 14 years, then went on to write the first ten or so issues of the WOLVERINE comic when it came out in the 80s (as well as other mutant-related comics and mini-series). He therefore knows a lot of the ins and outs of these characters – their history, their hang-ups and their fears – and he brings it all across in the X-2 book.
Because I don’t want to spoil the plot of the movie for those of you out there that still haven’t seen it (which based on the weekend box office, is about two people) I won’t go into specific details of the story. But just as a heads up to those of you who are planning on picking up this book after seeing X-men 2 on the big screen for the 14th time - the big event at the end of the film - the one everyone is talking about involving a certain red-headed telepath – it doesn’t happen in the book. I suspect it was kept out to prevent this surprise ending from leaking out (though I don’t know for sure). The omission is an interesting stunt and I was certainly surprised by the scene when I went to see the movie, after reading the book. Something does happen to Jean Grey in the novelization, though it’s not as big as what happens in the film (is that cryptic enough for you?).
Besides this exclusion, the X-2 book has tons more extra stuff in it that you don’t get to see in the film. Some scenes were possibly cut out of the film during editing – but some are pure artistic license from Claremont. There is a lot more here that takes place in Xavier’s school with the students, characters we all know and love from the comics who never make it too the movie (or appear in it but for not as long as we’d like). Siryn, Multiple Man, Wolfsbane, Psylocke, Kitty Pryde and Jubilee all make appearances in Claremont’s version – and Colossus has a much bigger part (feel free to let your inner Beavis and/or Butthead go wild with that last sentence). If you’re a fan of the movie or the comic this book is definitely worth picking up, especially since at paperback price it’s cheaper than going to see it in the theatres for the 27th time.
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For the HULK novelization, they couldn’t have picked a better writer than Peter David (besides, of course, Stan “The Man” Lee himself). David wrote for the comic for over a hundred issues and revived the series from the comic wasteland it was in the `80s. He’s also no stranger to movie novelizations, having written the books for THE ROCKETEER, BATMAN FOREVER and most recently SPIDER-MAN the movie.
For all appearances, David looks like a sci-fi whore. His work includes a number of books for both the STAR TREK and STAR WARS universes, typically the stomping ground of many a bad but prolific sci-fi writer. But there’s something different about David that sets him apart from his whorish peers. Every once and a while (though admittedly not always), David displays some pretty stellar writing. I was really hoping such would be the case with this book.
Although David’s history with the comic initially seems like an advantage for him, reading the book I can safely say knowing the Hulk characters gave him little or no help in writing this book. The filmmakers have chosen to go a completely different route to the Hulk’s origin and characters than that of the comic. The major players are there - Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, General ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross and Colonel Glen Talbot – but they’ve changed from the comic. The approach for this film seems to be to take the basic idea of the Hulk and turn it into a different, similarly themed story – much like people have been using characters like Dracula or Robin Hood to tell a totally different plot than the original, more or less ignoring the original source material (not to mention griping fanboys/girls on the internet).
There’s therefore not so much of a need for a Hulk expert like Peter David to be involved in the book adaptation – other than the fact that he’s experienced in writing this kind of book. Although I really liked his novelization of the SPIDER-MAN movie last year, this book seems flat and uninspired in comparison. The big green goliath doesn’t even show up until 2/3rds of the way into the story. And although at that point Hulk does some pretty hefty HULK SMASHing, it’s ultimately not enough to save this supposed “action” story. There’s a disappointing effort to really distance this story from the rest of the Marvel Universe a lot more than the other recent comic movies so don’t expect any cameos from The Leader or tongue-in-cheek references to She-Hulk. Again the paperback price makes this book a relatively cheap gamble but if you’re looking for anything besides a sneak-peak at the story-line for this summer’s greenest comic-related blockbuster, you’ll unfortunately be disappointed.
That is not to say that we should give up on Peter David’s writing altogether, he’s still got some good stories in him (I just know it). Let’s just hope this little minor setback won’t prevent studios from getting more interesting writers to compose the books based on movies so we’ll be able to find more cheap rare gems like Claremont’s X:2.
Next Column: As a warm-up for next month’s Harry Potter release, I’ll be taking a look at another children’s book series with Eoin Colfer’s new Artemis Fowl book ARTEMIS FOWL: THE ETERNITY CODE. Be here in two weeks.
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