Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past few years, then you have probably picked up on the recent trend of comic adaptations for the silver screen. The Fantastic Four, The Punisher, and Sin City are just a few of the latest movies to come out based on popular comic books. So more than likely, you have been asking your self, “What’s with all the comic book movies?” Basically, there are three main reasons that comics are the latest fad for tinsel town. The first of those reasons will be covered in this article.

The video game industry pulls in billions of dollars each year rivaling other industries such as the movie industry. All of this spending on video games has made 16-24 males the most coveted market demographic. This in turn has led market researchers to look for other interests of 16-24 males, one of those interests just happens to be comic books.

It all started with the release of the PlayStation during the nineties. Sony made a bold and wise move by changing the entire marketing strategy of video games by trying to appeal more to 18-19-year-olds. Thus video games moved away from being just games to being a serious form of entertainment intended more for mature audiences. Sony’s gamble worked and they dominated the industry.

With video games at the front of everyone’s mind and living room it was cool to be “nerdy.” Songs and videos featuring such themes as the nerd getting the girl and nice guys winning are ever more popular.

In the early nineties, music was all beginning to sound very similar, like pop. A sort of garage band anti-music started called grunge. It was intended to be so against everything that pop stood for as to never be assimilated. Well, surprise, surprise it was. Today, the same thing is happening with Emo music, video games and the nerdiest-of-nerdy, the most anti-mainstream thing once thought only to be for kids who lived in their parents’ basement; comic books have been assimilated as well.

And while comic fans everywhere should be appalled by all of the terrible movies being made about their favorite illustrated publications, they’re not. The (figurative) death of their own little counter-culture niche comes not with a fight but to the sound of applause. Welcome to the machine.

But all is not lost; there are still plenty of great comics being made.

Not to mention, not all comic-to-movie conversions turn out as bad as Constantine. Perhaps it is a good thing that pop-culture is becoming more accepting of things once thought to be un-cool.

Maybe one day it will be truly cool to live in your parents’ basement, read comics and play Halo all day long. A little dreaming never killed anyone.