50 Image Comics That Should Be Movies

Girls

The Image Comic: The Luna Brother’s sci-fi limited series centres around a town invaded by beautiful and deadly alien women who reproduce at a rate which threatens the whole world.

The Movie Version: The pair has a knack for creating comics that are visually and formally ready and waiting for a film adaptation. Girls offers a simple and striking concept, but behind that is solid character work that would give filmmakers and actors plenty to work with, including multiple Palickis.

Lead Characters: Adrienne Palicki (The Girls).

Dream Director: Josh Trank.

Casanova

The Image Comic: Matt Fraction, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon’s acclaimed series centres around the titular, reality-hopping superspy. The title recently returned to Image after a stint on Marvel Comics’ Icon imprint.

The Movie Version: The original miniseries introduces Casanova Quinn to his foe Newman Xeno and launches a cross-reality caper just waiting to make the jump to film.

Somerhalder has proven himself a versatile (and a times gleefully manic) actor ready to take on the complex and fluid title role.

Lead Characters: Ian Somerhalder (Casanova Quinn), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Newman Xeno).

Dream Director: Luc Besson.

The Nightly News

The Image Comic: Jonathan Hickman’s debut Image project established his facility for complex and intellectual plotting, a distinctive visual style and imaginative methods of representing information. It centres around a group of terrorists (or perhaps freedom fighters) striking out against the tyranny of the press.

The Movie Version: This comic would make a perfect low-budget production for an intelligent director. Carruth has already proven that he has the ability on Primer and Upstream Color .

Lead Characters: Zachary Quinto (John Guyton), Martin Sheen (The Voice).

Dream Director: Shane Carruth.

The Sword

The Image Comic: Another limited series by the Luna Brothers, this tells the tale of a young paraplegic who is gifted with a mystical sword that she swears to use against the god-like murderers of her family.

The Movie Version: The filmic quality of this series cries out to be adapted to the big screen.

With a strong central heroine and cast, powerful themes and a rich mythology, who better to take on this project than Whedon? No one, that’s who.

Lead Characters: Anna Paquin (Dara Brighton), Tom Hiddleston (Zakros), Karl Urban (Knossos), Salma Hayek (Malia).

Dream Director: Joss Whedon.

Wild Children

The Image Comic: Ales Kot made his Image debut alongside artist Riley Rossmo in this surreal done-in-one tale of a group of adolescents educating their teachers about some fundamental truths when they take their high school hostage.

The Movie Version: Fincher proved his ability to handle psychologically complex material as far back as Fight Club . His involvement in the Goon adaptation shows that he is also up to speed on the effects that would be needed to bring this trippy comic to life.

Lead Characters: A group of young unknowns plucked from obscurity.

Dream Director: David Fincher.

Glory

The Image Comic: The creations of Image co-founder Rob Liefeld are cause for scorn and amusement in some quarters.

Whatever you think of his ‘90s staples, the publisher has in recent years released some acclaimed reboots of his characters, such as Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell’s Glory .

The Movie Version: We are suffering a total dearth of female-led superhero movies. Battlestar Galactica ’s Sackhoff was born to play a sci-fi heroine of this calibre in an epic only Cameron could pull off.

Lead Characters: Katee Sackhoff (Glory), Mila Kunis (Nanaja).

Dream Director: James Cameron.

Morning Glories

The Image Comic: Hailed as the Lost of the comics world, Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma’s tale of the strange and deadly private school has the benefit of feeling that it has a definite direction, even if we as readers still have no clue where that might be.

The Movie Version: The perfect opportunity to bring together a cast of young up-and-comers to face of against the dastardly faculty of Morning Glories Academy.

We would love to see some of the talent emerging in television shows such as American Horror Story and Teen Wolf get their break on the big screen.

Lead Characters: Taissa Farmiga (Casey), Dylan O’Brien (Hunter), Claudia Black (Miss Daramount).

Dream Director: Mark Waters.

Lazarus

The Image Comic: Set in a dystopian future, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s comic centres around the families that rule over the Waste and their indestructible protectors – the Lazaruses.

The Move Version: Johnson is no stranger to sci-fi and action, and is more than capable of spinning an exciting story of the struggle for Lazarus Forever to discover her place in the world against a background of growing civil unrest.

Lead Characters: Shailene Woodley (Forever Carlyle).

Dream Director: Rian Johnson.

East of West

The Image Comic: Another new arrival from Jonathan Hickman (alongside artist Nick Dragotta), this crazy dystopian future centres around an apocalyptic conspiracy concerning the provinces that formerly made up the United States and the return of Death to reclaim his lost wife.

The Movie Version: This series, though relatively new, feels as if it is moving towards a definite conclusion. We want to see the whole saga, from Death’s return to his final showdown with the conspirators and his fellow horsemen. Lynch is the man to bring this surreal Western nightmare to life.

Lead Characters: Paul Bettany (Death), Michelle Yeoh (Xiaolian).

Dream Director: David Lynch.

The Manhattan Projects

The Image Comic: Writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Pitarra engage in a bit of historical revisionism in this tale of the secret behind the Manhattan Project. The war may be over but these legendary scientists are only just getting started.

The Movie Version: The second arc of this series really gets the ball rolling, with the cast of famous geniuses making a grab for power in the hope of creating a more interesting - if not necessarily better - world.

Lead Characters: James McAvoy (Richard Feynman), Robert Carlyle (The Oppenheimer Twins), Dustin Hoffman (Albert Einstein).

Dream Director: David Cronenberg.