The comic book genre has been well represented this year, with films like Superman, Fantastic Four, and Thunderbolts all receiving high marks from fans, and more anticipated films from the big two are on the way next year. While Marvel and DC are the highest profile names in the genre, they are far from the only companies bringing amazing comic-based stories to the big screen, and now a 1990s classic that’s not from Marvel or DC has become a streaming hit.
That new streaming hit is the delightfully oddball comedy known as The Mask, which skyrocketed Jim Carrey into superstardom. Now, The Mask is making waves on streaming, as it has now moved into Netflix’s Top 10 movies in the United States (via FlixPatrol). The film has passed by Law Abiding Citizen, Karate Kid: Legends, Kpop Demon Hunters – Sing-Along, and The Martian, and sits behind some other heavyweights like Kpop Demon Hunters (the normal version), Despicable Me 3, and Dog Man, so it’s pretty impressive.
The Mask debuted in 1994 and immediately made an impact, pulling in over $351 million worldwide on an impressively small budget of $23 million. What’s interesting though is that most don’t actually think of The Mask as a comic book movie, but it absolutely is.
The Mask actually didn’t debut in its own series, as it was part of the Dark Horse series Mayhem from John Arcudi, Doug Mahnke, Pat Brosseau, and Chris Chalenor. Mayhem featured a four-part story titled Who’s Laughing Now?, which featured the debut of The Mask concept and Stanley Ipkiss. Dark Horse collected those four chapters into The Mask #0 in 1991, which then launched into the original The Mask series, and if you were expecting Carrey-level goofiness here, you will likely be shocked.
The Mask film took advantage of Carrey’s comedic sensibilities and made his alter-ego far more off-the-wall and eccentric, and while he does do crazy things, it’s not all that violent. That’s likely part of what made it such a hit, as it pushed boundaries but didn’t venture into R-rated territory or hyper violence.
That’s not the case in the comic series, and we are diving into comic spoilers from here. Pretty much immediately upon getting the mask and becoming Big Head (which he was referred to as initially), he outright murders a biker gang that had messed with him previously. He then later goes on a killing spree of people who have wronged him in some way and even ends up killing a number of police in a full shootout before being killed himself by his girlfriend.
Oh yes, Stanley actually dies in the original comic series, and you don’t even feel bad for him because he was actually a pretty trash guy. His girlfriend, Kathy, kills him after putting on the mask, and then we see the mask move from person to person for a while, so it’s a very different story from the movie.
You can see how different the film is from the comics, and yet it does take some of its key zaniness and much of the core concept directly from them. What the film did exceptionally well, however, is build around its main star and take advantage of Carrey’s ability to morph and create chaos onscreen, and not only has that allowed it to be rather timeless, but it also stood out back in 1884 from other comic movies of the time.
To put this into perspective, other notable comic genre films that debuted in 1994 included The Crow, The Shadow, Timecop, and Street Fighter, though it’s also worth pointing out that the infamous Fantastic Four movie was also made during this time. As you can see with releases like Shadow, The Crow, and Timecop, the aim of the genre at the moment was to be a bit darker and taken more seriously, and The Mask is the antithesis of that, which provided a perfect contrast.
While The Crow is looked at as a classic and both Timecop and The Shadow are cult favorites, none of those were the box office successes like The Mask, and if The Mask had approached the film more like the comics in tone, it might not have resonated nearly as well.
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