I agree with you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the transition from page to screen, although obviously the execution is variable (but then comics have always been extremely variable cough cough). It’s that films are forced to fill in the gaps that exist in between the panels of comics, and they must follow a much different narrative path.

It’s like superheroes in novels; they’re just not the same thing at all as superheroes in comics, because the form is different. And given that superheroes survived in comics — despite intermittent stints in radio and television — it’s their natural habitat. Something is lost even if you try to recreate that habitat on a green screen.