So is is that hard to take a story and stay faithful to it?
You would think so, the way that Hollywood tends to change story's "based on true events" or "inspired by true events".
Now with comic book movies you think it would be even easier to do it correctly, I mean a comic book is a story board already so all you have to do is film it. But them some execs get it into there head that audiences won't like it and have to change it to make it more to "our" liking so that "they" can make money.
Now that being said there are three ways a movie can go, the movie follows the source and turns out really well, other times the source is so limited that the movie has to expand on it and then there is the decision to take material and totally disregard what's in it and just keep the name.
Example: Legends of the Fall is a novella by Jim Harrison, now the movie expands on the story and flushes it out...if you like that weepy sort of..thing.
Example: Twilight bullshit by Stephanie Myer made into the worst movie this side of the Pacific. Watching it you could tell that they were missing HUGE sections of the book that obviously filled things in. 
Example: Jaws by Peter Benchley...really good book and really great movie. Yes there were parts from the book not in the movie but you would never know watching it.Now let us move on to my favorite section...comic book adaptions. With the introduction of CGI it is almost possible to do everything that is in a comic book and have it appear onscreen. Now I do realize that some things are done by company's with more money so said heroes and villains look more realistic, but that is not always the case...but we are getting off topic.
(SPOILER ALERT!)Now I just finished watching Kick-Ass and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it followed the story. There were a few parts that i really thought weren't going to make it into the film. Especially the first time that he gets into a fight, i really thought that they were going to change it so that he doesn't get owned as much. And prob the biggest surprise was that Nicolas Cage dies in the movie. In the comic his character gets it too, not the same way but still he bites it. You'd think that the biggest star in the movie would get all egotastic and tell them to change the script, luckily he is also one of the biggest comic book fans out there...he named his son Kal-El for instance. So he put his love of comic over his ego and followed the story. Thank Krom for that.
Now not all comic book adaptions are so lucky. I know that some series like have been going on for 40,50, even 70 years. So like Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-men which stories do you pull from?
I can say that the Spider-Man movies did a great job of the feel of those early comics and kept the integrity of what is Spider-Man. Tobey did a great job of making Peter awkward and then in costume to be badass. I really don't think that they should have added so many villains so quickly and then killed them off, but hey it was still a good job.
X-men was good as well....2 out of 3 ain't bad. the first one was really good, the second one even better...the opening scene with Wolverine taking out invaders in the mansion helped a whole lot. And then there was the last one, the best thing out of the movie was Beast being done really well and acted by Kelsey Grammer. But then it was crapped on by the writers and new director.
The Fantastic Four was a good movie, not the one from 1994. That one was underfunded and underacted and any other under you can think of. But the one newer one, it did a good job introducing the characters and showing the way there powers started. It was different than how it happened in the comics but at least they all had the same powers. Dr. Doom was cool but Galactus at the end was kind of shartie.
And then there was Daredevil, nice attempt but really just bad. Bad like thinking Jack, Jim and Tequila go in a shot together...gets the job done but is awful in the process.
I guess what you can deduce from all of this is that an independent comic is more likely to succeed at keeping the story and integrity then say something that has a shitload of history cuz, telling a small story of Batman or Superman is incredibly hard. But it can happen...or Joel Schumacher can come along and ruin it for everyone. If your really picky, you can pick apart any adaption...there is really no such thing as being completely faithful and including everything. But they try sometimes not very hard but oh well...but maybe your like me and you'll see it cuz it's a comic book thing or its from a book you read and no matter how bad it is you will see it. Or maybe not, hey I'm just sayin'
