The Geek Beat: Dreaming of Paper Prequels
Filed under: Comic/Superhero/Geek, The Geek Beat
Back in May, Boom! Studios announced that they would be bringing you a story you never knew you wanted: Die Hard: Year One. Penned by Howard Chaykin and illustrated by Stephen Thompson, it promised to tell the story of John McClane in his rookie year of 1976, during the heady time of the Bicentennial Celebration. If we know McClane like we think we know him (and after four Die Hard movies, I think we do), nothing is going to go very smoothly, peacefully, or without a Yippie-Ki-Yay Motherf******. The comic goes on sale this Wednesday, and I thought I'd use its fine timing to kick off a discussion about paper prequels. They're becoming more and more of a presence on comic book shelves, though they're generally tied into an upcoming release. This summer had a lot of them, as Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation, and Transformers all received a prequel comic. There's more to come, such as IDW's tie-in to Legion and Astro Boy.
But Die Hard: Year One is an entirely different sort of animal. I don't think it's the first of its kind, though it might be -- but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if this high profile book sells well, it'll spur on a whole bunch of comic prequels. In the best case scenario, they'll add a little something to the character, or simply be a fun collectible for fans. Worst case scenario, they'll be grounds for a flurry of cinematic reboots. (That was Erik Davis' prediction back in May.) But I decided to jump on the bandwagon, and offer up a few movies I'd like to see comic prequels to. You'll probably roll your eyes at how obvious my selections are (and oh, some are painfully obvious) but I offer them purely to inspire you to make a list of your own.
Let me stress that I don't intend these to be very serious, because half the fun of the movies is not knowing how the hell a character arrived at a certain point of his or her life. If In media res was good enough for Homer, it's good enough for me. That said, anyone up for a comic book prequel of The Iliad ... ?
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1. Kill Bill
I wished that Quentin Tarantino would actually pen a comic book after Playboy teased us with a 6-page comic book of Inglourious Basterds, and I just can't stop wishing. I take back what I said in that post. I do want to see a comic book prequel to Kill Bill that tells me all about Hattori Hanzo, or why Budd left the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. I want to know why the DIVAS broke up. I want origins on Vernita Green and Elle Driver. I could care less about the origin stories of the Reservoir Dogs or Jules and Vincent Vega, and I'm satisfied with what I know about the Inglourious Basterds. But I'll never get enough of the Kill Bill characters, and I know there will never be a movie prequel or a sequel that expands upon that universe. A comic book would be the next best thing. Better, because of how beautiful it could be on paper.
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2. Commando
You have a lead character named John Matrix. That name is too cool to die out with just one movie, and we know he's a man with a glorious, blood-soaked past. We know it was super patriotic and awesome because of how chipper he is in retirement. He has no demons, just a daughter who happily makes him sandwiches and is learning to turn her body into a weapon. The fact that he's a single dad screams for an origin story. Was his wife a civilian, or was she in black ops? Was she killed by his enemies? I'd like to think she was an agent provocatuer for the Soviet Union, and betrayed her politics for the love of a beefy Austrian, but then that's the story I make up for everyone.
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3. Miller's Crossing
A film noir relies on the fact that you don't know a damn thing about anyone involved, and hardboiled gangsters are that much more romantic when you don't know how they earned their scars. But Tom Reagan is so deliciously bitter that I want to know just who or what screwed him over in Ireland. Something tells me he has a long and unhappy past with the IRA. Leaving him aside, I'd be happy just to see the rise of Leo O'Bannon. Nothing's better than the long and bloody climb of a gang boss.
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4. Dirty Harry
Harry Callahan had a rookie year once too. One of the reasons I love this character is the sadness that lurks at his edges,a facet audiences overlook in favor of his cool ways with a Magnum. I'd like to see Callahan before his wife was run off the road by a drunk driver, when "a hell of a thing" made him give up on humanity altogether. Something tells me he was a really nice guy who liked puppies, wanted kids, and had his eye on a fixer upper house with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'd like to see him snap into the bitter hardass we know in 1971, particularly since he stayed a hardass unlike his chirpier successor, Martin Riggs, who found his way back to the light thanks to the love of the Murtaughs.
5. Kingdom of Heaven
I didn't particularly care for the film, but one thing I wanted out of it was to go back in time and make Liam Neeson film a prequel telling of the one character I really did like: Godfrey of Ibelin. He's loosely based on Godfrey de Boullion and on Barisan of Ibelin, but naturally there's more of fiction than fact. Cherry pick between the two medieval figures, add a dose of illicit romance and accidental pregnancy, and you'd have a wonderful bodice ripper. Plus, Godfrey's taking of Jerusalem in 1099 would be an incredible piece of blood-soaked and politically relevant storytelling.
So which films would you like to see a prequel comic for?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-29-2009 @ 9:47PM
martisco said...
District 9 really needs a prequel. We need to know about what happened 28 years back when the aliens arrived.
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9-29-2009 @ 10:33PM
Greg said...
Johnny Depp's character in Once Upon A Time In Mexico needs a prequel.
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9-30-2009 @ 4:20AM
Ben said...
Hey Elisabeth.
A couple of things: first and foremost, nice Homer reference. Secondly, and I realize that this completely misses the point of your article, but do you really want to see a John McClane prequel in any form?
I thought the brilliance of the original Die Hard was that McClane was just a regular guy who stumbled into a terrible situation and barely came out on the other side. If someone starts telling me that he was doing these epically badass things BEFORE Nakatomi Plaza, I think that would kinda dampen the magic of the first film. Thoughts?
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9-30-2009 @ 4:11AM
Elisabeth said...
Oh, I totally I agree. I actually find the idea of a prequel very silly (something I meant to stress at the beginning, but failed!), and a "Die Hard" one just seems sillier than most. Everything you need to know about him is delivered throughout the course of the film, and I never felt the overwhelming need to know more. I've never turned off the film and said "But what makes him tick? What were his rookie years like?"
If someone actually wants to write a prequel for "Commando," I could at least say "Fair enough, Matrix is a cipher" but John McClane? Silly. Really, why not tell this story with the author's OWN version of McClane? I think the story (a rookie cop caught up in crazy ass events) sounds interesting enough to place a unique character in ... you know, like they actually did in the 1980s!
9-30-2009 @ 2:07AM
John Muth said...
First of all, I hope the Die Hard Year One comic shows us John McClane handing out parking tickets and chasing down graffiti artists. The thing about prequels like this, is that it takes away the uniqueness of the character - ie. Die Hard is meant to be the first time John McClane has gone through something like this - so having him deal with something similar 20 years before makes it a little ridiculous.
Ok, ranting over, and now it's time to be a geek.
The obvious - and I'm sure Elisabeth would be behind this also - would be the prequel to Unforgiven. Sort of in line with the Dirty Harry prequel - and you could possibly replace Unforgiven with any of Eastwood's "major" westerns, where we don't know much of his character, but Unforgiven is my favorite - we could see Will Munny for the no-good, son of a b****, he was.
Secondly, I wanna see the adventures of the Nebuchadnezzar, before Morpheus found Neo - maybe even the story of him finding Trinity, and her famous hacking of the IRS database.
Lastly, I feel like seeing the actual end of humanity in Children of Men would be a heart-breaking story to see. Maybe even the early years of Theo and Julian, or the scenario that led to Jasper's wife being tortured and left comatose.
Yeah, I like up movies, can't you tell. :P
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9-30-2009 @ 4:11AM
Elisabeth said...
I actually had Unforgiven on the list, and then replaced it at the last minute. I was hoping someone would come back and add it on! :P I've never wanted to know the story of The Man with No Name, but William Munny's would be awesome. I'd settle for a comic that told us all about the Duck of Death, though... :P
9-30-2009 @ 2:34AM
GANeeb said...
Die Hard: Y1 would actually be only 12 years before DIE HARD (1976 to 1988).
Which could be kind of interesting if you think of some of the things that happened in New York from 1976 to 1988.
I mean, could he have been first on the scene to see some crazed cabbie shoot up a whorehouse in his quest to save a child prostitute named Iris?
Maybe he helped cordon off the scene of the mob hit on Joey Zaza...
Or how about that time he and Popeye Doyle shared a beer and Doyle spent all night talking about the infamous 'French Connection.'
Just a few ideas... (to say nothing of the 1977 Blackout riots [and how old are his kids?] or the '77 World Series where the Bronx burned.)
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9-30-2009 @ 3:09AM
Chet said...
I'll go along with "Kill Bill" for the sheer art of it. You know one of the issues would have to be done Chinese style, "backwards" to us.
The rest, though... sound a little too "Carlito's Way: Rise to Power."
I'm not big on prequels. Not that their stories are generally pre-spoiled, more that the first movie starts where it does for a reason: the stuff that came before was mere buildup.
But if you twist my arm, I'll take comic prequels for:
- The Big Lebowski
- The Long Kiss Goodnight
- Dark City
and a comic sequel for The Replacement Killers, thank you.
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9-30-2009 @ 4:11AM
Elisabeth said...
I wish I had thought of The Long Kiss Goodnight. In fact, I'm almost certain it was on the proto-list I had penned and lost.
I really need to stop doing all night writing sessions, it's clouding my judgment!
9-30-2009 @ 11:40AM
Chet said...
", she said at an unnatural hour...
9-30-2009 @ 4:25AM
GANeeb said...
Not really a prequel, but I always wondered if a younger Harry Callahan and LT Frank Bullitt ever had to investigate the disappearance of God.
Who was known to be a reclusive gangster known to live on a boat moored in the middle of San Farncisco Bay (from SKIDOO!)
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9-30-2009 @ 10:02AM
MovieChump said...
Just a little fun fact you might not know but Die Hard was based on a novel Nothing Lasts Forever, that was actually a sequel to the original novel The Detective. The Detective was made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra. So it kinda already has a prequel. And another little fun fact for ya since it relates to another film in your article, The novel Nothing Lasts Forever was origianlly bought to turn into a sequel to Commando. I heard a script was even written catered to John Matrix saving the building, but i've never seen it so not sure. When Arnold decided he didn't like the idea of being trapped in an office building fighting terrorists, he backed out. Thats when they changed the name of The main character of the novel from Joe Leland to John Mclane and the rest is action movie history.
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9-30-2009 @ 10:06AM
ML said...
Speaking of characters played by Liam Neeson: When I watched Gangs of New York, I was so blown away by his character at the beginning of the film that I wanted to see him back through the entire duration. (I wonder if they could make the character so compelling in a comic?)
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