Loosely based on it's source material, but fun, nonetheless!

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2012)

I managed to get the original Men in Black comic this movie was inspired and guess what?
It's radically different from the story written by Lowell Cunningham!
It barely resemble the original comic it was based on, but, well, nobody said it has to be 100% faithful. The 2003 Korean Oldboy movie is radically different from it's original material too, but it's still a wonderful movie!
So, since I didn't see any review here talking about the differences between medias, I decided to do one myself.
One of the first things we can point is the organization itself.
In the movie, it's a NY organization that monitors extraterrestrial occurrences and protects Earth from unwelcome guests.
In the comic, it's an organization from Tennesee that monitors all kinds of paranormal activities, since ETs to monsters, creatures from hell, mystic occurrences, etc. It's not only about ETs. And the MIB organization from the comic, looks not for the welfare of mankind, but to control it, by leaving people ignorant.
And how do they leave people ignorant?
In the movie, they use the neuralizer to erase people's minds, so they can make up a story to cover all up.
In the comic, either they kill people or they use the neuralizer (that looks like a flashlight), but different from the movie, this neuralizer hypnotizes people so the organization can take information from the subjects and then lead them to believe in whatever the MIB agent chooses to.
In the movie, J is a black man that used to work in the NYPD.
In the comic, Jay is a blonde white caucasian that was a government agent involved in suppress and infiltrate some drug dealers that ends up being captured by K and becoming part of the MIB staff, not by freewill, but by pressure.
In the movie, K is a veteran MIB agent who works to protect people. He has good intentions.
In the comic, Kay is a selfish, full of himself and obnoxious character which only thinks on himself and is capable of doing anything to complete his assignment. Even to kill people. He is portrayed like someone you probably wouldn't like to be around.
As for Zed, in the movie he is portrayed like a real person, the boss of MIB, a well intentioned old man who looks to protect Earth.
In the comics, Zed is mentioned by Kay like a real person, but he never appears. He is there just to give mission instructions and to monitor agents only.
And notably, in the movies we refer to the title characters as "Men in Black", while in the comics, it's "THE Men in Black".
Characters like the worms, Frank and Jeebes from the movie are also not in the comics, they were created specially for the movie. And as for Edgar, the man from the movie that was turned into an ET, well, he was completely altered, in the comics, his name is Horace, he is not eaten nor killed by the alien, and Jay just deals with the alien presence and settles the situation.
Also, the humor in the movie doesn't exist in the comics, which uses a more serious and cynic tone. The movie basically uses mostly elements from the story titled "Encounter" which is Part 2 from MIB Vol. 1.
Again, I'm just pointing out the differences between the two medias. I mean no disrespect to any of them, not the movie, nor the comic, they are both works that I appreciate and respect. But very different in their approach, as you just found out if you read what I just wrote.
My only complain is that the 1997 movie got more visibility than the comics so I wish they could release these comics to the big public, following the release of the third MIB movie and let us make up our minds.