Pragmatic Adaptation / Marvel Cinematic Universe

Arnim Zola: From a man with his mind on an android body to a man with his mind on a computer from The '70s.

"I’m going to kill half the universe to solve overpopulation. Yes, there are flaws with this plan, and you can spend a few hours on social media if you want a list, but the alternative was me wanting to literally fuck a skeleton."

— Thanos, The Editing Room’s abridged script for Avengers: Infinity War, comparing Thanos's MCU motive to that in The Infinity Gauntlet

Like most adaptations of decades-old comic books, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been known for changing things from the comics to accommodate the medium of film.

Films

• Iron Man changed Obadiah Stane to be an old friend of Tony's and his father's to heighten the sense of villainy and betrayal. Jarvis was changed from a butler with a fake English accent to an English-sounding talking computer, probably because another famous and popular superhero already had a British Servile Snarker. The human Edwin Jarvis is made a Decomposite Character who served Tony's father Howard.
• Iron Man 2 went a little bit further, conflating Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo into a single character and changing Justin Hammer's age to closely match that of Tony Stark.
• The Mighty Thor film didn't use the pseudo-Elizabethan English that the Asgardian characters spoke for many years in the comics, which they themselves have already dropped this highly campy element. However, while movie Thor doesn't use the pseudo-Elizabethan English, he does still speak in the largely antiquated and hammy style of the comics to largely the same effect (just minus the "thou's" and "thy's").
  • It was also decided that Thor's iconic helmet would only make one (ceremonial) appearance near the beginning of the film before being discarded due to looking a little ridiculous on the big screen. It also gets a brief nod in Thor: Ragnarok, in a way that's reminiscent of Gladiator. Loki keeps his helmet, especially when he's trying to look imposing. Hiddleston channeled his frustration with the heavy thing into his performance.
• Captain America: The First Avenger features the costume Cap wore in the comics, but it's for a propaganda show and he looks utterly ridiculous. When he gets his actual fighting suit, it's radically different and much more plausible: changes include a helmet instead of a cowl, mere decals instead of large head wings, body armor, and the red of his costume is in the form of red utility straps rather than gaudy decorative stripes.
• The Avengers took a number of liberties with the source material to make it more (in the film's view) palatable for a mainstream audience. Among the major changes were having Hawkeye forego his classic purple costume in favor of his more realistic leather outfit from The Ultimates, as well as both he and Black Widow being made into founding members of the Avengers. The plot also combines elements of both the first issue of The Avengers from back in the '60s and the first storyline from The Ultimates.
• Iron Man 3 took great liberties with its main villain, the Mandarin, while still having him faithful to the source material... in a way. Trevor Slattery's in-universe impersonation of the Mandarin was based in part on the same Yellow Peril tropes that inspired the original version seen in the early Iron Man comics, while Aldrich Killian is based on modern versions of the character and claims to be the true Mandarin. However, it turns out that both Slattery and Killian merely stole the real Mandarin's persona; All Hail the King reveals that the real one is not only still out there, but hungry for vengeance against those who stole his name. This was mostly to avoid the Yellow Peril stereotype and make it appeal to the ever-growing Chinese film industry.
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier heavily alters the title villain's origin to fit the context of the movie and its predecessor, while still maintaining much of his background. They also made The Falcon into a V.A. counselor and former soldier to better justify his inclusion in the plot. Some changes were also made to Arnim Zola to avoid him seeming too silly and "comic booky" to mainstream audiences.
• Guardians of the Galaxy has both major and minor changes, most of which will only be picked up by fans of the original material. Examples include (temporarily) turning Drax's adversary from Thanos to Ronan (to give Drax a more obvious motive), a Race Lift and costume change for Korath the Pursuer, and Yondu as the leader of the Ravagers.
  • Comics!Star-Lord had a very long personal history before he joined the Avengers. The bits about him becoming an astronaut, journeying through the Solar System, becoming a grouchy cyborg, befriending Nova and fighting in the Annihilation War would have really bogged down the film, so his backstory gets whittled down significantly.
  • Similarly, there's no mention of Drax having originally been a human who was remade as an alien. Really, "has beef with Thanos" was all they needed from his backstory, so they stayed with that.
• Captain America: Civil War completely upends its comic book namesake, changing the Superhero Registration Act into the Sokovia Accords, the reasoning for the accords (from a panicking Nitro setting off his expanded powers to kill The New Warriors and 600 others in Stanton to a suicide vest worn by Crossbones going off and killing bystanders in a botched Avengers mission), giving new reasoning between Captain America and Iron Man's disagreements (both the Accords and the possible innocence of the Winter Soldier) and increasing the importance of Black Panther, Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch (who either had bit parts or weren't around in the comic story) while decreasing that of Spider-Man (who played a major part in the original comic).
  • The film scales down the Crisis Crossover elements of Civil War to focus on a (relatively) smaller conflict between various superheroes, along with the ideological conflict represented between Iron Man and Captain America.
  • Since there are next to no secret identities in the MCU, the Super Registration Act is instead about forcing heroes to work as agents of world governments.
  • Spider-Man does not publicly reveal his Secret Identity because of the change in the nature of the Super Registration Act and because he makes his debut in the MCU here — not to mention that he's still in high school when the movie occurs. He also does not change sides.
  • The New Warriors and Nitro (the original instigators) do not currently exist in the MCU. Instead, the catalyst for the Super Registration Act is an international incident involving the Avengers. Not to mention, the original catalyst — a bunch of teenage superheroes causing a catastrophe simply to get more viewers for their reality show — would sound a little too far-fetched for a live-action movie anyway. However, while Nitro isn't involved, the incident is someone blowing himself up, just instead of Nitro, it's Crossbones.
  • Elements of Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier story arc are incorporated to tie Civil War into the previous Cap film.
  • Characters who had only minor roles in the original comic book event (e.g. Black Panther, Black Widow, Hawkeye) have bigger roles due to the differences between the MCU in 2016 and the Marvel Universe circa 2006.
  • Rather than ask us to believe all these heroes would literally go to war simply over a political issue, the film has the more concrete issue of the Avengers not having Hero Insurance and what to do with Bucky as the catalysts for the fighting.
  • Most importantly, none of the Avengers die. In the comics, Bill "Goliath" Foster and Captain America (and a bunch of C-list heroes and villains nobody cares about^note well okay, maybe they had some fans) died. The most serious casualty in the movie is Rhodey, who is paralyzed but mobile thanks to Stark Tech. Cap also does not surrender at the end of the fight, and instead remains a fugitive.
  • Also, in the comic, S.H.I.E.L.D. attempted to arrest Captain America for simply saying he wouldn't personally enforce a law that hadn't been passed yet. Here, Cap isn't a target until he actually breaks the law to help Bucky, and there is an earnest attempt to convince him to change his mind. Cap, for his part, doesn't break the law until he hears there's a kill-on-sight order out on Bucky – prior to that, he and Falcon were apparently just going to retire. He's also almost convinced by Tony to sign the accords after being arrested, but changes his mind when he learns Tony had Scarlet Witch imprisoned at the Avengers' home base.
• Perhaps the best way to describe the approach taken by Spider-Man: Homecoming to the Spider Man-mythos as opposed to the earlier Spider-Man Trilogy and The Amazing Spider-Man Series which leaned more toward Adaptation Distillation of either the classic or Ultimate Marvel comics. The film recontextualizes Peter's superhero dynamic, now in relation to Tony Stark and the Avengers while the previous films had him as the only existing superhero. It's based on him being a Kid Hero who debuted long after them, with a healthy dose of Reality Subtext (Sony cooperating with the MCU for the first time), giving him a case of Hero Worship and a need to prove himself and to belong. As with the Younger and Hipper Aunt May in Civil War, his supporting cast is also revamped to be more modern, such as this version of Mary-Jane Watson being given a significant overhaul (her name is changed to "Michelle 'MJ' Jones-Watson", she's more of a Deadpan Snarker, and Watson's origins in the first-wave feminism of The '60s is reflected by making MJ now a post-Millenial third-wave feminist social activist who regularly attends protests) and Peter's fellow high school students all being significantly more racially diverse to more accurately reflect New York City's status as a "melting pot" (as a specific example, the aforementioned MJ is now mixed-race).
  • In the classic comic books, the Tinkerer was originally portrayed as a member of an alien race using his people's out-of-this-world technology to hatch his evil schemes (before a Retcon established that he was a human masquerading as an alien for some reason). In Homecoming, he just peddles scavenged Chitauri and Ultron tech left over from the Avengers' battles.
• Black Panther has a relatively minor example, in that the Queen of Wakanda Ramonda is technically T'Challa's stepmother in the comics after his own mother died giving birth, though she still sees him as a surrogate son after raising him since infancy. In the MCU, she is made T'Challa's biological mother in the interest of simplicity.
• Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel, Avengers: Endgame, are more of an adaptation of The Infinity Gauntlet than the titular Infinity War comic, but even then makes significant changes to the former due to the changes in the MCU's continuity. For starters:
  • The first film is a loose adaptation of The Thanos Quest by Jim Starlin. In order to avoid having the plot exclusively focus on Thanos (as was the case in the original story), the movie adds in the Black Order and Outriders from Infinity, and has them attempt to claim the Infinity Stones that are on Earth while Thanos goes after the ones on other worlds. This gives the heroes someone to fight and provides an excuse for the narrative to focus on Earth while Thanos is off doing other things, since audiences likely wouldn't respond well to an Avengers movie where the Avengers are Demoted to Extras and don't really do anything for most of the film.
  • As the original Civil War event took place after the original Infinity trilogy, The Avengers were still an active team at the time of the original Infinity Gauntlet comic. However, a major plot point of Infinity War and Endgame is how the Avengers have to reunite after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
  • As characters associated with the X-Men ^note including Professor X, Shaman, Firestar, Beast, Colossus, Jean Grey, Storm, Cyclops, Windshear, Wildheart, Talisman, Forge, Rogue, Gambit, Archangel, Iceman, Psylocke, Polaris, Strong Guy, Havok, Multiple Man, Bishop, Wolfsbane, Guardian, Sasquatch, Weapon Omega, Northstar, Aurora, Valerie Cooper, Wolverine, and the Shi'ar; Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are exceptions to this rule due to being shared by the companies and Fantastic Four ^note including Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Thing, Silver Surfer, Galactus, Doctor Doom, Uatu, Annihilus, Nova (Frankie Raye), Mole Man, the Badoon, Kang The Conqueror, and the Moloids; the Skrulls, with the sole exception of Super-Skrull, may be shared between the two companies, and The Inhumans (who started out as Fantastic Four characters before spinning off into their own franchise) are also exceptions franchises were, at the time of the duology's announcement, maintained by 20th Century Fox and were not returned to Marvel until after production for Infinity War wrapped up and Endgame began filming, they were not featured in this duology. To compensate for this, Infinity War and Endgame gave existing characters who play major roles in the MCU^note including Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Black Panther, the Dora Milaje, Falcon, Captain Marvel, War Machine, and Winter Soldier who were either not present or had smaller roles at most in the original Infinity trilogy.
  • Thanos' motivation to killing half of all life in the universe was changed from the widely mocked and derided desire of wanting to get Death to love him to his more interesting plan of stopping a universe-wide Overpopulation Crisis. Furthermore, the MCU version of Thanos has his Blood Knight and Sadist tendencies more heavily emphasized to reframe him as a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, implying that this version of Thanos is still in love with Death... but as a concept, not an individual.
  • Furthermore, at least some of the characters who appeared in the original Infinity Saga that Marvel did have the film rights to^note This list includes—among others—Magus, Pip, Sersi, Firelord, Starfox, Mentor, I.S.A.A.C., Quasar, She-Hulk, Wonder Man, Namor, Namorita, Eternity, Kronos, Master Order, Mistress Love, Master Hate, Ziran the Tester, One-Above-All, Lord Chaos, Living Tribunal, Stranger, Moon Knight, Nova (Richard Rider), Eon, Sire Hate, Moondragon, Spider-Woman, Living Lightning, U.S. Agent, Speedball, Silhouette, Darkhawk, Crystal, Hercules, Doctor Druid, Nomad, Charlie-27, Nikki Gold, Major Victory, Sleepwalker, Infinity, Goddess, Mephisto, Valinor, Night Thrasher, Rage, Maxam, Kray-Tor, Autolycus, the Erik Masterson Thor/Thunderstrike, and any Gods that aren't Norse in origin; this is subject to change based on character introductions in Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame. were Adapted Out, partly due to the changes in the MCU's continuity, and partly to keep the movies from getting too crowded.
  • Proxima Midnight of the Children of Thanos has a helmet in the comics that strongly resembles that which would later be worn by Hela in Thor: Ragnarok. To avoid unnecessary comparisons between the two films, Midnight is given a set of organic ram-like horns. Her horns are also made significantly smaller than their comics counterparts to avoid falling into Narm.
• Spider-Man: Far From Home features the surprise return of The Daily Bugle. However, with print media having long since given way to the Internet, the aforementioned newspaper is now an InfoWars-esque website with J. Jonah Jameson as a Pompous Political Pundit the likes of Alex Jones.
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is also subject to this trope. Specifically:
  • In the original 1970s Shang-Chi comics, the title character was the rebellious son of Fu Manchu himself who, after being disillusioned from his father, becomes a superhero. However, this backstory would not work today for two reasons: Firstly, Fu Manchu has today acquired a reputation as the definitive Yellow Peril villain. Secondly, Marvel no longer has the rights to Fu Manchu anyway, forcing Marvel Studios to use the aforementioned real Mandarin from the Iron Man comics (who was already an Expy of Fu Manchu) as the Big Bad for this film.
  • More on the Mandarin. As stated before in the Iron Man 3 example, the Mandarin was inspired by the Yellow Peril villain trope that the aforementioned Fu codified. Since this characterization, when played straight, would never work today, the Shang-Chi film subverts it by having the Mandarin fight a Chinese hero (as opposed to Iron Man, a White Male Lead) and be the villain of a story of a predominantly Asian cast. This allows Marvel Studios to present a Truer to the Text version of the Mandarin in a manner fitting for the 21st century.
    • Another pragmatic change is the titular Ten Rings that the Mandarin wears. In the comics, the Mandarin's rings are uniquely colored, and each ring has their own power. To avoid comparisons to Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet, the Mandarin's rings are instead revised as golden bracelets that he wears on his forearms, and they're all part of the same artifact. Furthermore, the Ten Rings don't have a wide variety of unique powers, instead all having the same powers of increasing their wearer's strength and lifespan, granting energy manipulation in the form of Hand Blasts and Deflector Shields, and being able to be controlled telekinetically in a manner akin to Combat Tentacles.
• In the original comics, virtually all Eternals are Flying Bricks who come with a "standard package" of powers shared throughout their entire species (coming from their nebulously defined connection to "cosmic energy"), consisting of Super-Strength, a Healing Factor granting them Nigh-Invulnerability, Hand Blasts, telepathy, telekinesis, "matter manipulation", and illusion-casting. A particular Eternal may have a certain power they utilize more than others, but this is generally portrayed less as them being limited to that power in particular a la the mutants of X-Men fame and more them being better skilled in that certain ability (think similarly to a particular person being better skilled at woodcarving than painting). Considering how even one of the comic-accurate Eternals would be an Invincible Hero by a wide margin in any mainstream film and this film's cast will have 10 different Eternals as main characters, to preserve drama and actual stakes in the narrative the Eternals film subjects the Eternals to a hefty case of Adaptational Wimp; while all of the Eternals still have Super-Toughness as a "baseline" power along with retaining their comic-specific "specialized" abilities, only Ikaris is still a Flying Brick, and the other abilities that they all previously shared are Adapted Out to make the individual Eternals more unique and vulnerable.
  • Additionally, given that Sprite's status as an unaging teen would have made it impossible for the character to appear in more than one film (as her actress Lia McHugh will grow up before any sequel can be filmed), at the end of the movie she is turned into a human so she can age normally.
• Thor: Love and Thunder follows this in regards to Thor Odinson's personal character arc. In the comics, he becomes unworthy of Mjolnir leading to it being picked up by Jane Foster. Since he spent the last three movies going through a Trauma Conga Line, it doesn't make sense to rehash the worthiness narative again, instead favoring a Mental Health Recovery Arc that hits a snag with the awkwardness of finding out Mjolnir is being wielded by his ex-girlfriend. Taika Waititi has referred to it as him having a midlife crisis.

Television

• In the original Jessica Jones comic, Kilgrave has purple skin, which earns him the nickname "the Purple Man". Because someone with purple skin would look ridiculous in a live-action setting (and because David Tennant didn't feel like having to deal with bodypaint), Kilgrave was instead given a mostly purple wardrobe, and most scenes he's in tint him in a purple light. Near the end of the last episode, his skin does become purple-streaked as his powers increase, and he turns purple from lack of oxygen as Jessica chokes him before killing him. Kilgrave was also changed from his actual surname to a nickname , making him less of an Obviously Evil supervillain and a more chillingly human sociopath. (the exact same thing was done with Killmonger in Black Panther (2018), for the same reasons)

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