The Maskis a 1994 live-action comedy starring the legendary actorJim Carrey. It follows protagonist Stanley Ipkiss (Carrey), a hapless banker who stumbles upon a strange, ancient-looking mask that he found floating in the filthy harbor. Upon putting it on, Ipkiss transformed into The Mask, a green-headed trickster with ‘toon-powers’ who made all of Stanley’s secret desires a reality. The movie was a hit in the ‘90s and remains one ofJim Carrey’s most belovedto this day. Too bad it’s nothing like the original comic.
Before it was a movie,The Mask(by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke) was originally a miniseries trilogy published by Dark Horse Comics from 1991 to 1995. The original trilogy consisted ofThe Mask,The Mask Returns, andThe Mask Strikes Back. In the years that followed,The Maskcomic series became a cult classic, and even earned itself a few spin-off books, includingItty Bitty Maskand2019’sI Pledge Allegiance To The Mask.
In every version, the story plays out roughly the same way. Someone finds the Mask, they become Big Head (which is the name of the living embodiment of the Mask no matter who it’s inhabiting), and they are free to live out their inner fantasies while wielding god-tier power. This is even true in the film, which proves that The Mask always stays true to its core tenets, no matter the iteration. However, when it comes time to compare and contrast the comic from the 1994 film, there is one major difference: the comic is so much darker.
The Mask made its first appearance in 1987’sDark Horse Presents#10 as “the Masque” before officially debuting as “Big Head” in 1989’sMayhem#1.
Obviously, there are a number ofstories inThe Maskcomic book universe to pull from to highlight how much darker and more violent it is than the 1994 film. But, the movie only deals with the story of Stanley Ipkiss and his relationship with the Mask and those around him, so the focus of this comparison must be on the first story in the originalThe Maskcomic book trilogy, as that is the only one where Stanley Ipkiss is the main character. While that may seem limiting, rest assured, it absolutely is not.
The Mask (Movie) VS The Mask (Comic): What’s the Difference?
Jim Carrey’s 1994 Film is Shockingly Comic Accurate (Minus the Horror)
The first major difference between the film and comic versions of The Mask is how Stanley Ipkiss came to possess the Mask. As previously mentioned, movie-Ipkiss stumbled upon the Mask as it was floating in the harbor. In the comics, Stanley actually buys the Mask at a pawn shop as a present for his girlfriend, Katherine. Other than that, the respective depictions of Stanley are pretty similar. He’s a down-on-his-luck guy who gets harassed by local bikers, gets taken advantage of by his mechanics, and holds a lot of resentment and anger inside himself at all those who wrong him.
Then, when Stanley puts the Mask on for the first time after giving it to his girlfriend, things take a major turn. Appearance-wise, the movie did a phenomenal job at bringing the seemingly impossible proportions of Big Head to life, but that’s where the similarities between the comic and the movie end. As Big Head, Stanley tracks down the bikers who beat him up and brutally murders them. He uses his god-tier ‘toon-powers’ to survive getting beaten and shot by the bikers, while also using those same powers to summon weapons of his own from thin air.
In Jim Carrey’sThe Mask, ‘Big Head’ also attacked bikers and mechanics who wronged Stanley Ipkiss, but he didn’t kill anyone, and mostly just pulled pranks on them. In fact, his biggest crime in the movie was robbing the bank where Ipkiss worked, something his comic book counterpart never did.
After killing the bikers, Big Head moved on to the mechanics who were ripping him off. He stuffed a muffler in one of their heads and murdered the other one by sticking random tools from the garage in his skull. Then, Big Head took things even further by tracking down his old elementary school teacher whom he hated as a kid, and basically stomped her skull in front of a class of children. To make matters worse, Ipkiss didn’t regret any of it once the Mask was taken off, laughing at all the people he murdered as Big Head.
The BIGGEST Difference Between Jim Carrey’s The Mask & Dark Horse Comics’ The Mask
1 Scene in Particular is the Same in the Movie & Comic, but Also Mirror-Opposites
The way Big Head gave Stanley the power to take revenge upon those who wronged him in the past is infinitely more horrifically violent in the comic than it was in the movie, but there’s one scene in the comic that was adapted in the 1994 film that stands as the biggest difference between the movie and the comic.
In the film, when the police have The Mask surrounded (as he was wanted for a bank robbery and a number of bizarre assaults), The Mask used his toon-powers to break out into a song and dance, and every police officer in the area who had their guns drawn on him was compelled to join in. The Mask is then free to escape, as the dozens of officers sent there to arrest him were bewitched by his performance. That’s… not what happens in the comic.
Jim Carrey’s The Mask makes light of one of the most heinously violent moments in the comic.
In the comic, two police officers respond to Katherine’s apartment after Stanley breaks in looking for the Mask (they had previously broken up, and Katherine kept the Mask). Stanley put the Mask on before the police arrived, and when the officers entered the apartment, Big Head killed them by hitting them over their heads with a lamp. After that, the entire area became swarming with cops - and Big Head did not do a song and dance. Big Head conjured bazookas, machine guns, and grenades, and used them to slaughter the officers who responded to the call.
The Mask’s Comic Book Ending is Utterly Tragic, Where the Movie’s is Happy & Hopeful
Thankfully, Big Head’s heinous actions wouldn’t go unpunished. Right after his killing-spree, Big Head went back into Katherine’s apartment, where Stanley took off the Mask to pack his bags and leave town. However, Katherine was still there, and once Stanley had the Mask off, she shot him dead, thereby ending his reign of terror forever (though, unfortunately, not Big Head’s).
In the movie, Stanley Ipkiss’ story ends on a happy and hopeful note. Stanley defeats the villain, gets the girl, and decides that he doesn’t need the Mask to be happy, so he throws it back into the harbor. In the comic, however, there is no such happy ending for Stanley Ipkiss. Not only does he not ‘get the girl’ or ‘defeat the villain’, but he’s killed by ‘the girl’ and actually is the villain of his own story.
THE MASK Gets a Horror Reboot Closer to the Original, R-Rated Comics in New Fanart
Fan artist @bosslogic shared a new piece showing a darker side to 1994’s the Mask, in a glorious homage to the film’s R-rated comic origin.
It’s clear thatJim Carrey’sThe Maskwould have been a much different film if it ended the way it did in the comics, but truth be told, the whole film would have been completely different if it followed Stanley Ipkiss’ original storyline. Indeed,Jim CarreymadeThe Maskfun, but the original story was so much darker.
