De Superman à Spider-Man: L'aventure des super-héros

This documentary looks at the history of Marvel Comics. It focuses on many of their most famous creations such as Superman, Spider-Man and Batman and compares and contrasts them. We also look back at the origins of superhero comics themselves and follow how they changed over the years and why.

This documentary was quite educational for me as I don't know a great deal about superhero comics, far less which characters are Marvel or D.C. So I did learn a few interesting things from it. I found the early years especially interesting when the format was in its infancy and then when Stan Lee went on to create Marvel itself. Although I reckon it would have been better if there was more of a focus on a chronological story arc and for the specific topics to have fed off that. This would have made for a more focused and effective documentary. As it is, it all seems to have been put together a little too randomly for my liking, jumping around fitting in various angles with little overall structure. Nevertheless, for someone such as me who doesn't know so much about the subject it was still educational even if it was a bit erratic in approach. Definitely enjoyable, however, was seeing many of the attractive stills that showcase the great artwork that so often adorned the format, which for many will always be the best thing about these comics. We do also get the thoughts of many of the movers and shakers of the comic world, whose insight is valuable. All-in-all, despite a few minor issues, a pretty worthwhile documentary.

A bland, pretty uninformative, whistle stop through the history of American superheroes. I. E. Superman & Batman, and Spiderman (with vague mentions of the Flash and Captain America, Daredevil and the X-Men) which fails to tell anyone who knows even the slightest bit about American Superhero comics anything. For one thing there is hardly any mention of any women; characters or creators. One mention of Marie Severin (over a static library photo) and one or two passing mentions of Wonder Woman and that's pretty much it. And watching this you wouldn't get the idea that there were any Black or Asian superhero characters either. Mention is made that Marvel's business model in the 60s involved keeping up with current events and trends - artists were admonished not to make their comics look like thay had been drawn ten years ago - so things like student unrest on the campuses was incorporated into story lines, as well as drug use, but where was the Civil Rights movement? Where were the Black characters who were invented in response? The Black Panther, The Falcon, Luke Cage? Nowhere. Not even in the endless rostrum camera panning and scanning of the endless number of comic book covers that seemed to take up 50% of the films running time. (Though artist Jim Lee turns up as a talking head so we know comics weren't only created by old White men.)

On the upside it was interesting to see the likes of Lee, Mike Kaluta, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, and Dave Gibbons talking - names I know from their signatures on their art but couldn't put a face to before now (even if what they had to say most of the time wasn't very informative).