[Exclusive] Kevin Smith’s Top 5 Comics He’d Like to See Turned into Blockbusters

Kevin Smith is in Australia at the moment, touring the country with his pal Jason Mewes for a series of banter filled evenings and audience Q&A. The last stop of the tour is in Sydney for the GRAPHIC festival at the Opera House, which celebrates graphic storytelling, animation and music. Kevin Smith is hosting an event called Superhero Multiverse. You probably know his movies like Clerks, Mallrats and Dogma, and maybe you’ve noticed the multiple references to comic books in each of his movies. The dude is obsessed; one of the early champions of superhero comics in mainstream media and one of the first film writers to crossover into the comic book world, writing issues of Daredevil, Green Arrow and Batman. In between making movies these days he hosts a collection of podcasts, best of which is Fatman on Batman, a weekly celebration of all things related to the Dark Knight.

Ahead of his Superhero Multiverse discussion, which will cover his childhood obsession right through to his most beloved characters becoming box office mainstays today, we asked him to list five comic books that he’d most love to see adapted to film before he dies; comics that deserve to be seen as big and expensive as possible.

1. Spider-Man: Fearful Symmetry / Kraven’s Last Hunt by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck

A fantastic story about Kraven, who was kind of like a joke villain in Spider-Man’s universe, finding out that he’s sick and going on a massive, big hunt for Spider-Man. He takes Spider-Man out, not killing him but burying him alive and putting on his costume to see what it would be like to be his ultimate foe. Spider-Man’s left for dead underground, it’s a very psychologically compelling storyline.

2. The Question (DC Comics, created by Steve Ditko)

I think this character lends itself to cinematic representation, you’re talking about a dude with no physical features. Batman shows up in an alley and you’re like, “Why would someone dress like this?”, but if you’re up to no good and someone taps you on the shoulder and you turn around to a guy with no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no ear-holes, like, you would kill yourself. You wouldn’t even have that dude bring you to justice, it’d be terrifying.

3. Matt Wagner’s Mage: The Hero Discovered

An Arthurian mini-series which was set in Philadelphia, it wasn’t so much King Arthur as it was Kevin Matchstick, a guy with a bat who finds out that he’s the only who can take out the Umbra Sprites. It’s this fantastic late '80s, early '90s comic book mini-series.

4. The Lost by Marc Andreyko

A mini-series about Peter Pan’s world but the Lost Boys grow up to be street hustlers. It was a really interesting take on Peter Pan lore and could easily be adapted into movies, I know we got another Peter Pan movie coming up but this one was truly original in the comics.

5. The Kingdom of the Wicked by Ian Edgington and D’Israeli

A wonderful graphic novel about a world of toys that had gone bad. Really dark, really well done. I actually tried to get it to turn it into a feature, I really thought it could stand to make the leap but nobody was into it, they were like, “This is too dark!”

Kevin Smith’s Superhero Multiverse (with special guest Jason Mewes) is on at The Sydney Opera House on Monday September 28 from 8pm. For more info and to book tickets head to the GRAPHIC website.

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