When I was growing up, I read comic books.

That used to be an admission of shame. Something that nobody would own up to. It's like saying that I wear pajamas with cowboys and Indians on them...or that I still wet my bed. Justifiable cause for a thorough ass-kicking after school.

It certainly wasn't the pop culture phenomenon that it is today. In fact, that little dog-eared four-color comic that you used to buy from the rotating rack at the drug store has changed dramatically over the years. Oh sure, "Archie", "Casper" and "The Lone Ranger" are still around, but they've been overtaken by a new generation of newsprint. Comics have grown up, and so have their readers.

Until the 1970s, comics were never seen as a viable property to translate into films. Those were the sole domain of more "serious" literature: novels. "Jaws", "The Godfather", "The Exorcist", "Serpico", "2001". At the time, you couldn't give away a Batman film. No, if we wanted costumed heroes, we were relegated to TV where production values were cheap, to match the source material.

Then a strange thing happened—Star Wars became a hit. Suddenly, it was fashionable to have fun at the movies. Hollywood was clamoring for anything fantastical to cash in on the momentum created by George Lucas' monster smash...and the first comic book property to take off, as it were, was the Man of Steel: Superman.

Why did it take so long for somebody to realize that a comic book hero could be such a big seller? After all, here was a character that was recognized internationally, along with Mickey Mouse and Jesus Christ, and yet nobody thought that people would dare to dream of a movie about a flying man in spandex tights? To be sure, it was a tough sell—nobody would take the filmmakers seriously. Not even with seasoned director Richard Donner (The Omen) and a script by Mario Puzo (The Godfather)…nobody, that is, until Marlon Brando signed on. Suddenly, this was a legitimate production. Then came Academy award-winner Gene Hackman. Glenn Ford, Jackie Cooper, Susannah York, Ned Beatty, Terence Stamp...this was no dime-store funny paper...this was a movie, a "big event" movie.

Those of us who had grown up with comic book heroes suddenly saw our obsessions become mainstream. We flocked to it, without the embarrassment we suffered as kids. It became respectable to like comic books. Donner and his team won us over with terrific characterizations and a human story.

Donner called it "verisimilitude", and insisted that the character be treated seriously, and with reverence. It was part of Americana, like mom and apple pie, he said. You don't mess with those things.

It was about credibility. But not just credibility of situation, credibility of character.

By treating our childhood heroes with respect, Donner and a select few of his contemporaries, like Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and Jon Favreau (Iron Man), made our juvenile infatuations legitimate. We felt vindicated. They saw what we saw back when it was just ink, newsprint, and staples. True, they may have grafted on a bit more complexity than was there originally, but that went even further to appeal to our adult sensibilities once we'd begun to grow up. The last thing we wanted was another movie that winked at the audience, letting us know that this is all a silly joke, undermining any legitimacy that the characters may have had, and making us embarrassed to have loved costumed heroes as kids. Superman: The Movie drove home the point that the joke was no longer on comic book fans with evolving tastes, but on Hollywood if they chose to malign the source material.

Still, not everybody got it, and Hollywood continued to produce pulp movies without quite understanding what it was that we saw in those characters. So they were doomed to make comic book flop after comic book flop: Popeye, Dick Tracy, and I would even go so far as to add Tim Burton's Batman, to that "camp."

It was the wrong strategy. We didn't want to be transported to a comic book world, we wanted our heroes to live and breathe in our world. Superman seemed so real, he could have stepped out of the movie screen right before our very eyes. Donner got it right, Lester didn't. Nolan got it right, Burton didn't.

Nowadays comic book movies are big business. Huge, in fact. A quick scan of the top grossing movies over the past decade shows a definite trend towards comic books as a legitimate source for movie fodder, even as those very same comics (and graphic novels) are themselves growing in sophistication. Even non-superhero properties are getting into the act—stories that have no obvious ties to traditional comic book fare are sought after: "Road to Perdition". "American Splendor". "A History of Violence". It all goes to show that comics as a medium can transcend the men-in-tights genre and become a legitimate story-telling medium in and of itself.

Of course, comics generally remain the domain of the fantastic. Larger-than-life characters and situations are the norm because, well, just about anything that can be drawn is possible in the world of the comic/graphic novel. We are free to imagine our own worlds, our own fantasies. In a world that is too often serious and depressing, it is a place to which many can retreat. Who wants to deal with famine and war? In the real world there are no easy answers, yet sometimes we would like to think that there is a simple solution to all these problems. Someone who will take the lead and do what we cannot or dare not do for ourselves. Someone to believe in.

Since Superman: The Movie debuted over 30 years ago, our fantasies have become more and more elaborate, and with the advent of CG trickery, the ensuing films have become increasingly unbelievable. Excepting Christopher Nolan's 'Batman' films and Jon Favreau's excellent Iron Man, human characters have largely slipped back into the background while epic depictions of wanton destruction have taken their place. When was the last time you felt any semblance of emotion in a recent film? I hate to say it, but instead of becoming flesh and blood, comic book characters have returned to being, well, comic book characters once again. Plastic action figures thrown around with reckless abandon. Are we supposed to care? There is nothing for us to identify with; not the characters, nor their situations. Superman Returns failed for that very reason. Sure, Brandon Routh looked the part, but the character was not there...and in the end, we couldn't care less (my respects to the Superman Returns apologists out there, but the film just didn't work).

For now, we are back to square one, and to be honest, I find myself once again feeling a bit embarrassed to have liked comic books.

Still, for every ten comic book movies that fail, there is one comic book movie that gets it. These are made by filmmakers who understand what it is that makes a comic book property translate successfully to the silver screen: because we identify with the man behind the mask, and not the mask itself.