Is Television the New Outlet for Comic Book Media?

Live-action television shows based on comic book franchises are not a new thing. It's a great way to take a property that has an immense popularity with of a sub-culture of people and bring it to the masses. Taking a comic book property and turning it into an animated series is fun and all, but a lot of the times, you miss out on the adult population of the show. Most adults are more apt to checking out a live-action show rather than an animated series because of that pesky stigma that only cartoons are for kids. 
 
The most notable live-action television series that was ahead of the trend was the Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves. According to imdb, it ran from 1952-1958, and it was a hit for kids and adults. Through the years, there were numerous television series that tried this including The Green Hornet, Batman, Incredible Hulk, Lois and Clark, and so on, but other than Smallville, fans don't get a much of a variety of live-action comic book material.
 
Comic books have gone through a lot of changes since the 50s. Horror stories were popular, then love stories were. Space adventures were popular, then westerns were. It's always been a mixed bag. However, super-heroes have always remained a popular genre in comic book storytelling. Now-a-days, while super-heroes are still extremely popular, we see more of an epic storytelling element within the stories. No longer is a storyline completed within one to two issues. Story lines usually run six issues at minimum and sometimes a whole volume of the series can be the storyline. How could these hot property books with 60 issue stories fit into the world of film?
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For the past decade, film has been the way to go for comic books. Titles like X-Men, Blade, and Spider-Man showed the public that comic books can be brought to life and they can be enjoyable for everyone. The formula worked for a while, but as each company gets deeper and deeper into their universes, it seems they're running out of well known characters and film-worthy stories. Additionally, maybe the audience is getting a little bored with the formula? How many times does the average person want to see a new person get super-powers, then beat the bad guy in a two hour film? This formula needs to change.
 

Smallville has been on the air for almost a decade now, and readers, and non-readers alike, have enjoyed it. No longer a story is constricted to 2 hours. A story can last one hour or take place over numerous episodes making it a 4 hour epic if necessary. The idea can, but doesn't have to, work for the super-hero genre. The television format is much better suited for bigger books, like Walking Dead, where there is no evil the characters can beat within a two hour period. There is no final conclusion the writer's can rush to. The story just moves along and it ends when it is ready to end. 
 
There are more and more books coming out that just don't work as 2 hour movies. Look at Hellblazer, or it's film adaptation Constantine. Sure, the movie did what it could in two hours with a character who has had his own on-going series since the 80s, but wouldn't it have worked much better as a weekly show on HBO or Showtime? Many of the more popular series, especially at Vertigo, go on for quite a  number of issues, and the book is essentially just one big storyline ( Y: The Last Man and Preacher for example).
 
With Smallville ending soon, and Walking Dead just beginning, it seems the doors are finally opening to the world of comic books. Brian Michael Bendis' book Powers seems to have found a home on FX, and Walking Dead was picked up for another season, so it seems as the door for comic related media has finally opened. Within the next couple of years, we could see more and more live-action television series based on comics hit the small screen. Does this mean that the big budget, summer blockbuster, super-hero film will disappear? Highly unlikely. Television is just a medium for stories that can't be concluded in one sitting. Audience members will most likely get those non-super hero stories that aren't self-contained graphic novels that simply are too large to tell in 2 hours. Hollywood will still be making super-hero books and those self-contained graphic novels into summer blockbusters, but the non-hero fans will finally be getting a taste of what they love.
 
~Mat "Inferiorego" Elfring is a comedian, teacher, comic book writer, and comic store employee.