Five Comics To Read Before They Become TV Shows

Given the unprecedented success of zombie drama The Walking Dead as well as Arrow's gradual transformation from a melodramatic, empty retelling of one man's quest to find his shirt into a complex, rich and stylishly executed serial – and even considering Marvel's recent indications that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will finally stop sucking so hard – it's understandable that production studios are increasingly turning to the bottomless pit of creative ideas just waiting to be plucked from the pages and turned into a weekly 40-minute slice of sweet, profitable nerd pie.

As opposed to slices of awful, exceedingly bitter nerd pie.

So, before the next wave of graphic fiction-inspired TV shows hits the airwaves – the first of which will be Arrow spin-off The Flash – it might be worthwhile bringing yourself up to speed on some of the source material for the better viewing prospects…

POWERS

Have you ever wondered what that autistic detective on Criminal Intent would be like if he was played by Jason Patric and was a mysterious ex-superhero who had long given up the capes-and-cowls game in favour of a more legitimate form of policing the people, only to end up as the head detective on a taskforce designed specifically for dealing with goddamn metahumans?

Because, apparently, Brian Michael Bendis has.

“My only superpower is a heightened sense of self-loathing.”

Powers, an indie superhero series-meets-police procedural created by Bendis and artist Mike Oeming, centres on Christian Walker, an abnormally large homicide detective who investigates superhuman crime-doin's, usually of the murder-flavoured variety, with his razor-tongued, feisty young partner, Deena Pilgrim. Of course, there's more to Walker than meets the eye, and over the course of Bendis and Oeming's widely lauded series, the creators take us to some… let's say… unexpected… places in the journey to uncovering his long and storied past – and that's just volume one.

It's a good jumping-on title, too, if you're one of those people who doesn't like comics because of all those dang-blasted pictures – Bendis tends to be a little on the verbose side, so he generally just writes over all of Oeming's art anyway.

Preacher

A southern-US priest accidentally imbued with the living Word of God. His lover. Their friend, the Irish vampire. The international religious organisation hunting them down in their desperate search for a messiah. An undead cowboy who killed the devil and wants justice from the Lord. A character called “Arseface”. Welcome to Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's delectably demented, seminal saga, Preacher.

If all of the above is not reason enough to dive right in to what is honestly one of the finest examples of the medium of the past 20 years, then perhaps you'll be further pressed to read it instead of waiting for the show once you find out that this guy is involved in the development of its adaptation:

More like Seth NOOOO-gen, AMIRITE?

Don't misunderstand me – I don't have anything against Seth Rogen per se; it's just that Preacher isn't exactly a comedy. It's funny, sure, but I don't know that it's the same kind of funny that Rogen tends to offer up. And, besides, let's not forget that he was directly responsible for The Green Hornet, and we all remember how badly that turned out. I'm just saying, of all the entries on this list, this is (cruelly) the adaptation I am least excited about – which is a pity, because it's probably the strongest book of the bunch.

HELLBLAZER/CONSTANTINE

Let's get this straight: Constantine was not a bad movie on its own. It was kind of a crappy Constantine movie, though – not least of all because the casting and costuming department took one look at what John Constantine looks like on paper (i.e. Sting circa 1976-79) and said “screw it, let's just get Keanu Reeves”.

“Maybe if he says 'Whoa', people won't care.”

Still, John Constantine is a character that is practically gift-wrapped for serial television. Before his recent integration into the mainstream DC universe, Constantine was the protagonist of Hellblazer, a comic on DC's adult imprint label, Vertigo. In the series, a Swamp Thing spin-off that lasted 25 years and 300 issues, Constantine is a very gruff, very British blue-collar con man, sorcerer and occult detective with a heart of gold who uses his gifts and preternatural talent for chain-smoking to put the boot to all manner of miscellaneous monsters, up to and including Satan himself.

And, with Assassin's Creed IV's Matt Ryan cast in the title role, an assurance of blond hair and British accent, and a backing cast that includes Harold Perrineau (Sons of Anarchy, Oz), Charles Halford (True Detective) and Lucy Griffiths (True Blood), it looks like NBC are on-point to deliver a decent translation so far.

100 BULLETS

All right, I admit it – this one's misleading. While the other comics on this list all well and truly have the wheels in motion on their transplantation to television, Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's critically acclaimed crime noir series 100 Bullets has, since at least 2011 and like so many other potentially great projects, been languishing in development hell.

But, hey, if anything, that just gives you plenty of time to introduce yourself to the mysterious, bald-headed Agent Graves and witness his practice of providing people who have been wronged with an apparently no-strings-attached route to exacting violent revenge on their tormentors – that is, a handgun, 100 bullets, all the information they could ever need about their target, and a genuine assurance that no law enforcement agency will ever trace or touch them. It's gritty, it's violent, it's full of everymen and women dishing out delicious helpings of hot, steamy, lead-filled justice, and it's kind of awesome.

“This will teach you to steal my pens, Craig!”

But what starts out as an episodic rumination on the implications of consequence-free vengeance swiftly spirals into a centuries-spanning web of conspiracy involving European kings, old-timey clandestine societies and a single word that will either mean nothing to you or excite you like a Catholic priest at a daycare centre: “Croatoa”.

Why weren't you reading this already, again?

DMZ

The United States of America, the near future: a “second Civil War” has torn the country apart as the rival United States and Free States armies decimate each other in a conflict that has come to a head centring on the the island of Manhattan, New York City's only demilitarised zone, where splintered communities, organised crime and tribalism reign in a loosely united, desperate effort to keep the war from breaching the DMZ.

“Uh, general, I don't think our tanks are going to fit in there.” “Ugh, fine, just forget the whole thing. Manhattan's stupid anyway."

Enter naïve young photojournalist Matty Roth, who suddenly finds himself literally dropped in the middle of the war and left to fend for himself, forming alliances with citizens of the DMZ, united in their growing distrust of and distaste for the opposing belligerents. Which, you know, I'm pretty sure 85% of Australians can relate to right now.

Either way, Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's colourful, action-packed love letter to New York City and those who dwell there is on its way to the US' Syfy channel, with former Mad Men executive producers Andre and Maria Jacquemetton attached to write as well as produce alongside Gravity's David Heyman, so you can expect the same degree of attention and care to be applied to turning Manhattan into a battlefield as there was to hurling George Clooney into space, which can only be a good thing.

Mitch is a freelance writer who has never set foot in a war zone, on account of deep, deep cowardice. Sometimes he tweets from the safety of his computer, though: @mitchables.