Movies and comic books have a lot in common: They're both bright and bold, loaded with color and action, and filled with characters representing the struggle between good and evil.
    "Comics are a great way to use pictures to tell a story, and that's basically all a movie is," said David Landa, owner of Dr. Volt's Comic Connection, a Salt Lake City comic-book store.
    This summer, starting today with the blockbuster "Iron Man," four comic-book heroes hit movie theaters, following the well-worn path that brought such pen-and-ink creations as Spider-Man, Superman and the X-Men to cinematic life.
After "Iron Man," his Marvel Comics stablemate "The Incredible Hulk" gets his own

movie June 13. Then Dark Horse Comics' red-skinned ex-demon Hellboy and DC Comics' classic character Batman get their second go-rounds in their current franchises ("Hellboy II: The Golden Army" will come out July 11, while "The Dark Knight" arrives July 18).
    The influence of comic books can be seen indirectly in other summer movies. For example: The eye-popping colors of "Speed Racer" (May 9), a movie based on a Japanese anime cartoon; the bulbous lettering of the hero's name in the posters for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (May 22); the loose adaptation of Mike Millar's comic miniseries "Wanted" (June 27), starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman as members of a secret society of assassins;and "Hancock" (July 2), in which Will Smith plays an anti-social superhero in need of a P.R. makeover.
    Why are comic-book stories big now? Kerry Jackson, co-host of X96's "Radio From Hell" and a comics fan, has a theory.
    "When we were kids, we wanted accurate representations of these things we loved so much, and we didn't get it because grownups were in charge of the company that made these things," Jackson said. "People of my generation are now in charge . . . of the movie companies."
    This generation's superheroes are different from previous generations' comic-book characters, too. "When you read 'Superman,' it was kind of hard to relate to Superman," Jackson said. "He was impervious to everything. He couldn't be killed, so it was hard to relate to."
    On the other hand, the superheroes featured in this summer's blockbusters are flawed creatures. Tony Stark, the man who creates Iron Man, is an alcoholic and a womanizer - not to mention a weapons manufacturer who is confronted with the human toll his products take. The Hulk is our Jekyll-and-Hyde, a regular guy trying to contain his inner beast. Hellboy is the spawn of a demon, but fighting on the side of humanity against the supernatural. And Batman, though created in the 1930s, is also troubled: A billionaire vigilante running around Gotham City in an all-black costume (with cape), haunted by the childhood sight of his parents' brutal murder.
    Comic books contain "the idea of hope, and a certain kind of strength in your character," said Faran Tahir, who plays a mercenary villain in "Iron Man." "It's really the conflicts that we have within ourselves put out there in different characters. The everyday conflicts that we have, the struggle that we have within ourselves. You have a choice - you see something, and you can do the right thing or you can do the wrong thing."
    Jackson has also found life lessons in comics. "I learned more about good and evil, about the right thing to do and what kind of human being I wanted to be, from reading comic books than I ever did in Sunday School. My moral compass isn't the Holy Trinity - it's what would Spidey do?"