The Dark Days of Marvel Media (1977-1998)

To date, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has earned over nine billion dollars at the box office making it the most financially successful franchise in cinema history, but before that, the Marvel Entertainment Group was known for selling off movie rights to their characters for chump change and pocket lint to any studio that walked through the door, basically, their philosophy was “If the check is there, we do not care” which led to some rather dodgy comic book adaptations, ones that range from failed television pilots to movies of quite dubious natures.

The road to success is often a rocky one and the journey to what would eventually become the Marvel Cinematic Universe was pretty damn rocky and much of this was due to selling off rights to characters without worrying about such things as production oversight.  This long road began with Marvel Entertainment Group being sold to New World Entertainment, a notorious studio for low-budget movies, to that company’s acquisition by Ronald Perelman and then Toy Biz bought Marvel Entertainment Group so as to end a bankruptcy and form a new corporation, Marvel Enterprises, which then brought Avi Arad into the equation. Yeah, it’s surprising that anything positive came out of those turbulent years but even before those corporate shake-ups Marvel was trying to expand their brand beyond the pages of their comic books, so below you will find my collection of reviews spanning twelve tumultuous years of Marvel live-action movies and television shows, with all the highlights and lowlights they achieved, so just click on a poster or a link below to dive into this rather wild time.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977-1979)

Low-budget effects and clunky stunt work, paired with a crappy costume and an angry fan base and a disinterested network, doomed this show from the outset, yet it still remains an interesting moment in the history of Spider-Man.

The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982)

Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno star in a show that took the basic premise of the hit series The Fugitive and added Marvel’s gamma-irradiated superhero to the mix, resulting in one of Marvel’s most successful television ventures and a damn fine series and one of the only bright spots of this era.

Japanese Spider-Man (1978-1979)

This rather unique take on Spider-Man features an Asian motor cross racer who is gifted with “Spider Powers” by an alien so that he could do battle with a variety of alien monsters, not to mention this Spidey has a cool Spider-Mobile and a giant robot to help kick kaiju ass.

Dr. Strange (1978)

This adaptation of the adventures of the “Master of the Mystic Arts” may have strayed far afield of the source material but Peter Hooten as Doctor Strange and Jessica Walter as Morgan Le Fay do an excellent job in their respective roles.

Captain America (1979)

In this outing, we have Reb Brown as a reluctant Captain America in a backdoor pilot that should have been shelved before anyone had the misfortune of seeing it.

Captain America II: Death Too Soon (1979)

This second attempt at getting a Captain America series off the ground is only notable for the addition of Christopher Lee as the villain and Cap’s bike turning into a hang glider. Which one has to admit is pretty cool.

Howard the Duck (1986)

It’s hard to believe that the first Marvel movie to get a theatrical release was one based on the Howard the Duck comic book, sadly, all the subversive elements that made the comic so good were jettisoned in favour of generic action-comedy.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)

In this first of the made-for-television Hulk movies, following the success of the series, we find David Banner teaming up with Thor, but this is not the God of Thunder, he’s just a resurrected Viking cursed by Odin.

The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989)

In the second of the Hulk television movies, we get David Banner teaming up with Daredevil so they can do battle with the nefarious Kingpin, not a great movie but John Rhys Davies was rather fun as Kingpin.

The Punisher (1989)

Dolph Lundgren stars as the titular Marvel vigilante but any similarities to what we see in this movie and what was to be found in The Punisher comic book were mostly coincidental.  I certainly don’t remember Frank Castle meditating naked in the sewers in any of the stories I read.

The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990)

In this third and final entry in the Incredible Hulk television trilogy Banner’s search for a cure finds himself caught in the crosshairs of an espionage game and an attractive spy who is clearly not the Black Widow.

Captain America (1990)

If the Reb Brown Captain America television movies weren’t bad enough, and they really are bad, someone gave B-movie director Albert Pyun a shot at a theatrical Captain America movie, the fact that it never actually got a theatrical release is no big surprise.

Power Pack (1991)

Power Pack was an attempt by Marvel to create a series that would capture the lucrative Saturday morning children’s market but its low budget, even for Marvel’s made-for-television standards, doomed this offering to an early grave.

The Fantastic Four (1994)

A Roger Corman production that “We were never supposed to see” chronicles the origin story of Marvel’s First Family in a film that existed for the sole purpose of the studio retaining the rights to these characters.  Where’s the petition for “Release the Corman cut!”

Generation X (1996)

With an almost non-existent budget, and a collection of lower-tier X-Men, this pilot was never going to take off and only Matt Frewer’s energetic Jim Carrey-inspired performance makes this film at all watchable.

Nick Fury: Agent of Shield (1998)

Before Samuel L Jackson donned the trademark eyepatch there was this made-for-television movie starring David Hasselhoff as a charisma bereft Nick Fury, a pilot that could really have used a talking car or at least some slow-motion beach running.

It was also in 1998 that New Line Cinema brought the Marvel character Blade to the big screen and gave Marvel their first big win, which then led to the successful launching of the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises, helmed by Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi respectively, but this is not to say there weren’t some more bumps along the way because even when Jon Favreau’s Iron Man became the first jewel in the crown that would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe there were still questionable efforts being released outside of that umbrella, such as a terrible 2005s horror film adaptation of Man-Thing as well as Josh Trank’s disastrous Fant4stic, a film that exists for the sole purpose of making the previous Fox attempts at the Fantastic Four look good by comparison, so don’t be too alarmed if more cinematic potholes appear on the road ahead.