Comparison of the movie and Volume 1 of the comic

[silverr]

 I've made some notes about the differences between the movie and volume 1 of the comic!

Notes under the cut. These were things I noticed while reading; comment with things I've missed. Small differences that were equivalent -- e.g., the room in Sudan has a videocamera on a table, rather than surveillance cameras on the walls -- I didn't note. 

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Issue #1
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• Overall Andy is more sexualized, and the team's interactions with her reflects that.
• Andy smokes almost constantly; so does Booker.
• No baklava scene in the comic :(
• Copley seems to be white (though at times he is shaded slightly darker than Merrick)
• During the mission in Sudan they don't die before taking out the attackers.
• Dizzy is about the same; the other female Marine is Stacey, a freckled ginger. (movie had Jordan, a WoC with the nearly-shaved head)
• Issue ends with Nile waking up

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Issue #2
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• Only a single page about Noriko (Japanese in the comic; renamed Quynh in the film and now Vietnamese)
• No iron maiden or witchcraft story in the comic; Noriko "fell overboard off the Horn"
• Lykon is white 
• Lykon and Andy are together for 200 years; he dies during the Renaissance
• The airplane pilot is named Wei; he's Asian (Chinese?), not Russian.
• Merrick is a tattooed muscleman, much more thuggish
• Merrick only wants one immortal  -- "the woman's hot; she'll do"
• There is no fight between Andy and Nile on the plane in the comic; no drugs, no shooting the pilot
• Andy smashes Nile's phone during the flight.
• The safe house in Paris is a semi-abandoned apartment building
• No adorable dinner scene in the safe house in the comic. :(
• Andy and Nile arrive back from Nile's retrieval to find Booker splatted (most of his head gone) and Nicky and Joe gone.

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Issue #3
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• Andy's fight is in the apartment building stairwell, not a church
• THE SPEECH IN THE VAN is nearly the same (there's one extra line; after "his kiss thrills me" there's something about "his body" and passion).
• Book tells the backstory about his family in the car on the way to the Baussenque mine hideout.

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Issue #4
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• Issue opens with the story of Andy and Achilles. Achilles was an escaped slave who fought in the Civil United States Revolutionary War (circa 1770s), then went to England, fell on hard times, and was deported to Australia. He met Andy when she was collecting bounties; they were together for 50-60 years (?), until he got old and told her to move on before someone asked questions she couldn't answer.
• Nile geeks out even more over Andy's " antiques" because she was planning to go into art history after her service.
• Note that the painting in the movie was probably meant as Andy and Achilles.
• No pharmacy first aid run with Celeste in the comic. :(
• Merrick's office is in Dubai, not the UK (was it UK in the movie?)
• Merrick is into hedge funds as well as pharma
• Merrick's doctor in the comics is a white guy, Doctor Ivan[ov]  (Movie had Dr Kozak.)
• When first presented to Merrick Joe and Nicky briefly get the upper hand, and get Merrick at knifepoint, until Ivan[ov] shoots Joe in the head.
• Merrick does the stabby thing in the comic as well, but he stabs a lot more, with manic sadism (to the point where even the guards start to side eye), and stabs both Nicky and Joe.
• Nile does not make noise about not going on the mission, and so accompanies Booker and Andy when they go to Copley's office
• Nile (revealed here to be 27) puts the security in the building on "test mode"
• Nile has figured out that Booker is taking advantage of Andy's lack of tech knowledge, because of his claim to have got his info from the "internet" from inside a cave raises a red flag. (This survives in the movie in her line asking about satellite hookup?) -- she tries to tell Andy that Booker is up to something, but isn't able to convey this before they go to Copley's office.
• Copley's entire motivation and research/conspiracy board are absent from the comic.
• In Copley's office, Booker shoots both Andy and Nile.

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Issue #5
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• Andy reveals that she's 6732.
• Copley is much more of a coward; Andy has coerce him to give them information. He doesn't come with.
• Andy, Nile and Booker jump from the 34th floor to escape.
• Comic then cuts back to Nicky and Joe; happily, we get the Malta exchange. :).
• In the desert, Andy and Booker shoot the shit out of each other until Nile shoots them both.
• Copley is on an airplane. He calls Merrick and tells him to go fuck himself, and then disappears from the rest of the comic. (i.e., he has no part in the wrapup).
• Booker, Andy and Nile infiltrate the building in disguise, with Booker wearing a kufiya (?) and the two women in niqab.
• Joe and Nicky tell Doctor Ivanov that if Andy finds them restrained and such it won't go well for him, so he should let them out of restraints... and then Joe snaps his neck because he hurt Nicky.
• Haha, the watching the door thing is exactly the same.
• Joe drops "Keene" (sorry, can't recall his name in the comic? it's something like Killer maybe?) out of a window because "I remember you -- you shot Nicky."
• At the end Merrick is cowering in a whirlpool bathtub; he's shot by all 5.
• The coda with Booker's banishment takes place in Malta, not Paris.

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Also, I grabbed a few fun screencaps while I was reading the comic: if any icon makers want to perform their magic on them, DM me and I'll get a ZIP file to you via GoogleDocs, Discord, or email.
_

Comments

[sixthlight]

I hope Greg Rucka deserves some credit but I think the involvement of female creatives producing/directing is probably also relevant!

TBF I'm picky about comics art but in particular the depiction of Joe ends up way too close to xenophobic early-20th C Western art for me.

[silverr]

Oh, absolutely! Given Gina Prince-Bythewood's other films, it's a safe bet that she especially had a large influence.

Yeah, I can definitely see what you mean re: Joe.

[starwatcher]

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I only just saw the movie a week ago, and was very impressed that both women were allowed to be competent badasses, and no one around them treated it as anything other than ordinary, like "of course women are skilled and capable leaders and fighters; why wouldn't they be?" As I watched the credits, and discovered that both the producer and director were women, I thought, "Ah-HA! Should have known; it takes a woman to show women as people instead of love interests!"

Thanks so much for this detailed comparison. Right now, I'm in the "grab every scrap of information possible" mode, and this is just very satisfying.
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[silverr]

You're welcome!

I have the comics in electronic format: if there are any pages you'd like to see, let me know and we can arrange something.

[starwatcher]

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Thank you for your offer. With that hint, I found issues 1-5 online. Gotta say, I am NOT impressed by the art, which makes the faces look like caricatures instead of people. However, I did enjoy the info I learned, like Andy was married in Australia, and Nile has had -- and is competent at -- a number of jobs. But I couldn't ask to see specific pages because I didn't know what information I didn't have but would like to know -- a definite Catch 22.

LOL, I am not comic-savvy; several times I wouldn't have been able to figure out the gaps in storyline/pictures if I hadn't seen the movie. They're interesting, but I feel that the movie definitely enhanced the story's impact and accessibility. I'm glad I got to see it, and that it's generating so much marvelous fic.

Thanks again for offering to share the digital pages; that community fellowship is one of the best parts of fandom.
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[silverr]

I agree; to me the movie improved on the comic in every way.

(The best thing about the comic is that it provided the foundation and springboard for the movie!)

[silverr]

(oh, and as for pages -- if you just tell me what scene you're interested in I can find it; the comixology viewer makes that quite easy.)