Why Tweak the Mythos?

This week, Fanboy Radio has an interview with Paul Jenkins in which Jenkins talks about his upcoming Mythos miniseries with painter Paolo Rivera. Rivera's covers for Marvel's recent Sabretooth mini caught my attention and I'm looking forward to seeing what else he can do, but that's not what has me thinking most about this project.

Jenkins describes Mythos as a retelling of the origins of various Marvel characters that have been adapted into film (e.g. Spider-Man and the X-Men). It sounds like he and Rivera are going to be as faithful as they can be to Stan Lee's origins for these characters, but will also incorporate what Jenkins calls the "better elements" from the films and Jenkin's own contributions. And that's cool as far as it goes. I've got no beef with new looks at old stories, especially if they look as good as Mythos should.

What I find odd about Jenkin's comments is where he justifies the inclusion of movie elements by saying that the film versions contradict the comics and that the films are "really where most people's level of awareness of the characters is." He adds, that "more people have seen the movie than read the comic for any of those characters." Which is true. But hasn't it become apparent yet that people who go to see Spider-Man, but haven't read a comic in years (if ever) aren't going out and buying comics?

I see Marvel's rationale. Jenkins announces that Mythos will be collected into a single hardcover volume, presumably to go into bookstores where casual movie fans will be more likely to see it. But seriously, it's going to be put with the other comics and graphic novels where only folks interested in comics are going to go. Are the people browsing this section really going to be confused by Spidey's having mechanical web shooters? Haven't moviegoers become used by now to the fact that movies make significant changes to the books, TV shows, and comics that they adapt?

Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe it's just supposed to be a cool, beautiful book that just so happens to incorporate movie mythology into the comics versions. Maybe the marriage of film and comics was just something cool and challenging for Jenkins to try and not the initial motivation for creating this series. I hope so, because motivation is important.

Why we do things is as important as what we do. Adam Strange is a cool, pulp sci-fi miniseries and it shouldn't cheapen it to find out that it was conceived as a set up for The Rann/Thanagar War, but it does. It doesn't make the story itself less cool, but it diminishes the enjoyment of it knowing you've sort of been had. Same with Mythos. I'm sure it's going to be gorgeous and maybe it'll be cool to read too. I just hope it wasn't developed to eliminate potential confusion for hypothetical moviegoers-turned-comics-readers. If it was, the stupidity of that thinking demeans the project. We probably won't know until we see how it's marketed, but I hope this isn't the case, because damn it's going to be pretty.

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