THE POP FILTER TOP TEN

BLAST FROM THE PAST:

We at YourPopFilter are aware how intimidating it can be to wade your way through years of back content. And we’re aware the viewership is growing all the time (thanks for that bt dubs!). So every once in awhile we’ll pull something from the murky past and throw it at you again. 

B-LEVEL COMIC CHARACTERS WHO DESERVE A MOVIE

(Originally posted Oct. 10 2011)

10-Black Widow

The Black Widow is a devastatingly attractive and deadly lady-assassin that will fuck you and then kill you. Most movies have to make pretty ridiculous stretches to get a character like that and this movie would be based around one. She wears all black, she fights some people, fucks a guy and then kills even more people. This would be one of the greatest shove-popcorn-down-your-gullet-until-you-can’t-breath movies of all time. And if it starred S.J., we might finally get to see a titty or two. Unless you already saw them on the internet, in which case it could star somebody else, with titties we have only dreamt of seeing. I’m looking at you Camryn Manheim. — JRN

9- Harley Quinn

Dressed like Lady Gaga at an awards show, Harley Quinn is an awesome character well deserving of her own feature. With her roots as a Joker hench-woman, her story would be crazy-nuts. Rumor has it that she was supposed to be a post-Batman & Robin movie with Madonna slated to play Ms. Quinn sharing co-Bad-guy duties with Scarecrow. I’m glad that wasn’t ever done, because it would be way cooler if she was depicted in a grittier style…I’d seriously get a boner if Hayden Panettiere was cast in this role and she was able to be a royal bitch.  That would be heavenly. -LF

8-Bucky

People not staying dead is very much a part of comic book history.  If a character dies, you can’t make money off him.  It’s that simple.  But for a very long time, Bucky Barnes was one of the few notable exceptions.  He died in the 60′s and when they finally did decide to revive him ($$$) they pulled out all the stops.  In one of the most badass retcons in Marvel history, it turns out Bucky was trained by the US government to do the dirty work Captain America couldn’t stoop to.  After his ‘death’ the Russians revived him, gave him a sweet bionic arm turned him into a super assassin.  Eventually he gets better and even becomes Captain America for a while before he…uh, dies.  Either way, this would be an awesome movie about human nature, the loss of innocence and bionic arms.  The fact that secret assassin Bucky hooks up with Black Widow doesn’t hurt either. -DT

7-Iron Fist

If you’re just judging by costume,  Iron Fist can seem kind of lame.  His green spandex and yellow mask don’t exactly invoke fear in the hearts of criminals but look past it and Iron Fist is one of the coolest superheroes in the Marvel Universe.  Besides the power of the Iron Fist, which is a pretty awesome glowing power fist, Iron Fist has a fuck ton of martial arts skills that he can fuck you up with.  Basically he’s bestowed this power by the magic city of K’un L’un, who picks a warrior once every generation.  It’s kind of like Mortal Kombat, but with spandex.  Anyway, Iron Fist didn’t always used to be so awesome as he was created to  be kind of a cheesy kung fu character.  Then Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction started writing him, added a healthy dose of grit to his adventures and he became one of the coolest heroes in the Marvel library.  If you follow that story, this would make for a  pretty excellent flick.  Just get Ryan Gosling to play Danny Rand.  He looks the part and if he can make something like Drive semi-successful at the box office then he could be box office gold here.  I’m just going to hope that  the superhero fad doesn’t die down any time soon because then maybe Marvel will run out of ideas and finally make this movie a reality.

6- Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is a more recent edition to the Marvel universe.  Granted the standard superpowers of strength, endurance and flight through the standard radioactive accident, her character is initially pretty vanilla.  Then she falls under a villains mind control and is subjected to Dean Koontz levels of sexual depravity.  (That guy writes about rape a lot.)  Kind of soured on the whole costume thing she tries to escape the super powered world by opening a private detective agency, only to find that her only clients are super heroes who need someone who understands how their world works.  A gritty noir-style murder mystery where a woman with a troubled past is drawn back in to a world she hates to solve one last crime?  In the climactic fight sequence instead of guns, they throw cars at each other?  It writes itself. -DT

5- The Great Machine

The Great Machine is the story of what would happen if a superhero capitalized on his fame to run for Mayor of New York. It has everything: religion, politics, super hero antics, personal struggle and triumph, cross-dimensional conquerors…it’s basically begging for a movie. Brian K. Vaughan is a genius, and proved he can work the screen when he made Lost watchable again for a while. He would write, Aaronovsky directs because he’s the best, and I executive produce. Find me another comic where a super hero has to figure out who’s murdering garbage truck drivers and who spray painted the ‘N-word’ on a picture of Lincoln at the same time. You can’t…those are impossibly specific challenges. -DT

4-Lobo

I’m totally gonna blow my cover here, but I don’t know shit about comic book characters unless movies have been made. But once I heard about Lobo, I really thought: “I want to see that movie” which might’ve happened if Guy Ritchie hadn’t made ANOTHER Sherlock Holmes franchise that kept him too busy to finish making this one. I am glad it didn’t get made, though, because I really want to see him in a movie as the perennial villain, like the kind that doesn’t die at the end of the movie and maybe forces a sequel. The other thought I had was if he starred in a parody movie as the retarded anti-Wolverine with muscles and no brain. I am not sure where the nerd stance is on genre self-parody, but I can promise you it wouldn’t be as campy as Stan Helsing. I’m picturing the writing acumen of the X-men animated TV series, but with real actors and a sweet special FX budget. I could envision the group of super heroes/villains sitting around in one scene passing around a mutant bowl of weed and giggling hysterically. Wait a second. What am I talking about? NO ONE would watch this movie. I need a better plan. Can somebody call Guy Ritchie?-LF

3-Y the Last Man

It’s easy to say that things should be nine movie franchises, or HBO series, so that every comic in the run can be transfered from the page to the screen. Seing as how neither of the these things is likely to happen for any comic book, tackling the Y: The Last Man movie is a little scary. The sixty issue maxi-series follows Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand, as they travel across the country as the two last keepers of the Y-chromosome, after every male human and animal in the world dropped dead. Can all 60 issues be whittled down to one movie? Maybe. But as great as Yorick’s unfolding story is, it’s writer/creator Brian K. Vaughn’s character play and dialogue that carry this thing. I don’t care if the movie covers one issue or all 60, as long as Vaughn has a hand in writing it. — RH

2-Invincible

Is Invincible the greatest superhero comic of all time? Probably not. But if it was the last superhero comic of all time, I think that would be O.K. Mark Grayson is the halfbreed son of a human and a Viltrumite, an alien race in which every member has superpowers (and moustaches). Invincible is the perfect example of how a comic can be a little post-modern, deftly guided by creators who know their comic history, and the exact amount to borrow from the past, particulary Spidey and Supes. But it’s a great original comic in it’s own right as well, creating an entire universe filled with allies and enemies. It’s also not a title that dozens of franchises or millions of dollars depend on, giving writer Robert Kirkman the ability to do whatever he wants in his universe, an odd place where dead means dead. It’s also violent as shit. — RH

1-The Boys

There are two main reasons why I am right and I win. 1) The Boys comic is so obviously the next step in superhero comic book movies. The disillusionment of Watchmen and meta-awareness of Kick-Ass is brought to fulfillment in The Boys. The “good guys” are assholes and rapists, (obviously- we all went to high school, right?) and it is up to the creeps and the rejects to keep them in check. The creeps are super creepy, though. So there are no good guys. Also, 2) the main character, Wee Hughie, should so obviously be played by Simon Pegg that I thought he was played by him in the comic. If they do make this movie, I expect casting credit. I also expect a puke bucket, because it is gory as shit.-KA