But if you don’t stop talking about super hero fatigue, I’m going to sock your
nose.
When you talk about “super hero fatigue” you may mean that you’re bored with
the movies, but what I hear when you say that is, “I want these movies to go
away.” Well, I don’t. If you don’t like them—if they aren’t for you—that’s
fine, whatever, go peddle your ducks elsewhere. But to my mind, they’ve only
really been good for, what, 9 years, now? Not even a full decade? Why do you
hate fun? Who hurt you? And why would you waste good ink complaining about it
when there’s hundreds of other movies, obscure and neglected, that you can
champion as only a hipster can?
Now that you know what this blog post is going to be about, feel free to chalk
it up as one of those “Old Man Yells at Cloud” posts. Or just skip right down
to the end and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. You will be wrong,
of course, and do you know why?
I did the math. I’ve got the numbers. I have data, you smug bastards. So let me
explain to you folks—many of whom are under the age of 35—why you need to
stop kvetching about the Super Hero Movie Genre and let us
Generation X folks have our moment.
My Thesis
The modern comic book movie didn’t officially begin until the year 1999
with the premiere of The Matrix. While it was not connected to a
comic series or based on established characters, the visual effects in the film
handily duplicated the fast-action and ballet-like fighting that was a staple
of comic books. The “Bullet Time” effects in particular showcased key scenes
before, during and after their execution, mimicking a “panel” in a comic.
Note: I did not include Blade (1998) in this calculation
because, while Blade’s comic book origins are well-established, he is a vampire
who hunts vampires. His speed and strength did not need any further
explanation. The movie going audience understood that from the get-go and so no
additional story was needed to justify his “super powers.” Nevertheless, Blade
does count as a comic book movie, as we’ll later see.
Special effects, and in particular computer-generated effects, have been a
staple of the movie industry since Jurassic Park in 1993. However, it took
nearly a decade to create computer-generated imagery that was able to meet the
rigorous demands of a super hero film. Even movies that were deemed mediocre as
films boasted incredible special effects and images that were simply not
possible prior to the 21st century.
Of course, that didn’t keep Hollywood from trying. The 20th century
has some of the best-and worst-super hero movies and television shows to ever
exist. And I should know. I watched all of it. Yeah, that’s right, all of it.
Look, I was an early and avid fan of super heroes. I was reading comics at the
age of 5. Collecting them by age 8. And—here’s the kicker—I was born in 1969,
which puts me at ground zero for everything that was to come along and, little
by little, improve with each try. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if you
were born anytime after 1960, then you probably feel as I do, if you’re as big
a fan of comics and super heroes as me. If you were born in the seventies,
you’re probably on board with me. But if you were born in the mid to late
1980s...you may just be the person I’m talking to when I say, “shut up your
flapping food hole” about Super Hero fatigue.
I Made a Chart
You can download a PDF of my full chart here. It took me a
while to put together, since this is not my strong suit. But I wanted to back
up my feelings, my impressions, and my memories with some actual hard data
points. So there it is, in its full glory, if you’re so inclined. Also, I
graded every single super hero movie and project from A to F. That's what we're
all going to fight about. I just know it. So go ahead and download it now and
look it over and get ready to tell me why I'm the biggest idiot the world has
ever produced because I didn't like your favorite movie from 1997. For the rest
of you, I’m going to skip ahead and talk briefly about what I uncovered.
Most of you know that modern super heroes debuted in 1938 with the first
appearance of Superman in Action Comics. Batman followed in 1939,
and Captain America and Wonder Woman came after that in 1940. Most of you know
about the Golden Age of Super Hero Comics, and you may even know about the
Silver Age and the creation of Marvel Comics in 1961 with The Fantastic Four,
followed quickly by The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man.
Marvel and DC continue to rule the roost when it comes to super heroes and
their related properties. There have been (and continue to be) other publishers
of comics, but it’s hard to topple characters who’ve been around for 60, 70,
and 80 or more years. One thing I found interesting was that the 1940s and the
1960s, both times of great interest in comic book super heroes, each had their
own attempts to capitalize on that success in movies or TV.
The 1940s were the era of the serials, or “Cliffhangers,” wherein a story was
broken up into weekly chapters, each running around 15 minutes, and exhibited
as part of a larger Saturday matinee program. These serials were sometimes
re-edited into feature length films. The special effects for these cliffhangers
was shoestring, at best, but the stunt work and action were often top-notch.
The 1950s gave rise to atomic age science fiction, and also opened up circuit
distribution for independent film companies and “packagers.” Thus, quality
varied widely, with some of the movies skirting the edge of outright
exploitation.
Television was a fixture in the 1960s, and when Marvel came along, it saw an
opportunity not on the silver screen but on the little screen. As early as
1966, a number of animated properties were developed—aimed at kids, of
course—featuring the Marvel super heroes. The 1960s also continued the Science
Fiction trend, but new fears were creeping into the zeitgeist. Planet
of the Apes is the standout from this decade. Also, the studio system
was breaking down.
The 1970s were essentially the end of the 1960s. Some speculative films were
out, but there were more Godzilla movies than super hero fare on the big
screen. It wasn’t until Star Wars changed the game in terms of
what could be done onscreen that things started to change—but not until the
1980s. However, Marvel—perhaps emboldened by its success with animated
properties, made the bewildering decision to take some of its beloved
characters and turn them into lackluster live-action properties. Only
Donner's Superman (starring Christopher Reeve) in 1978 could
save us from such mediocrity, and set the bar so high that it became the
standard for decades on How to Make a Super Hero Movie.
1980s were a heyday for fantasy films, embracing the new technologies created
by ILM such as blue screen technology and optical compositing as soon as it was
invented. Most of the time, the technology was badly applied, or worse, applied
quite well to bolster terrible films. Marvel never really got its legs under
it, doubling down on projects like Incredible Hulk TV movies and trying to
launch David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury. DC didn’t do much better, with the
Superman films rapidly declining in quality, each one dumber than the last.
Again, a last minute save by Tim Burton invigorated Batman for a new
generation.
|
|
 |
| Never forget. This is why we fight. |
The 2000s can inarguably be considered the new Golden Age of comic book movies,
now that technology finally caught up to the rigorous demands of the stories
being told. However, the old modes of storytelling and the insistence on
telling the same kind of super hero story—now a mash-up of the Superman (1978)
and Batman (1989) plot would continue to plague many of the projects for most
of the decade. When Iron Man started the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008, it
put into place one of the most ambitious world-building and franchise building
exercises ever attempted on such a large scale, and it paid off handsomely.
2010 to 2017 is not a complete decade, but I would go so far as to argue that
today’s comic book movies and television shows have supplanted the comic book
themselves in terms of the place they occupy in popular culture—as a mirror of
the times, and also as a reaction to current events. This is especially true in
the politically-charged decade of the 2010s. The success of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe only highlights the ongoing struggles of Warner Brothers to
get its proprietary DC Universe characters on the big screen.
My Methodology
First, I counted only the Marvel, DC, and Independent movies and TV shows
that were based on actual comics. There were a couple of exceptions, as you’ll
see if you look at the PDF above. Mostly for multi-media properties such as The
Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger, and The Phantom. It was only a few extra
numbers, as you’ll see. I also only counted TV shows once, even if they were on
for multiple seasons.
I left off animation because it would have ballooned the super hero list. Also,
because 95% of the animation was aimed at children. There’s a separate metric
for that, in that all of that kiddie fare drove the discourse down and made
super heroes infantile and their fans man-children for much of the 20th century.
But that’s not what I was looking at. For what it’s worth, I did choose to
count the live-action Saturday Morning Shows like Shazam! and Electra
Woman and Dyna Girl. I’m nothing if not capricious.
Then I went back and counted all of the movies and TV, aimed at American
audiences, that were super heroes who were not actually comic book based. This
is where stuff like The Greatest American Hero (1981-83) got counted.
M.A.N.T.I.S. (1995). Heroes (2006-2010). Hancock (2008). You get the
idea.
In order to give these numbers some meaning, I used the combined Fantasy and
Science Fiction genres to help “classify” them, since they have, up until very
recently, been considered part of that genre (well, sometimes they get placed
in action/adventure, but I maintain that the special effects needed to get
super heroes to work on film is equal to an F/SF film, so this was a more
accurate grouping). I looked at the number of “real” or Top Shelf
(Marvel, DC, etc) movies and TV shows by decade, and compared them to the number
of Non-Marvel, DC, etc. movies and also F/SF movies by decade to generate a
percentage within that larger group. Here are the results of that.
Super Hero Movie Stats
|
YEARS By Decade |
Marvel, DC &
Indy films |
Other “Super Hero”
films |
Other F/SF films |
% BY DECADE |
|
1940s |
||||
|
14 |
1 |
37 |
36% |
|
|
1950s |
||||
|
6 |
2 |
164 |
4% |
|
|
1960s |
||||
|
3 |
1 |
115 |
2.5% |
|
|
1970s |
||||
|
7 |
5 |
123 |
5% |
|
|
1980s |
||||
|
11 |
7 |
196 |
5% |
|
|
1990s |
||||
|
24 |
16 |
194 |
11% |
|
|
2000s |
||||
|
33 |
5 |
190 |
17% |
|
|
2010s |
||||
|
48* |
4* |
159* |
29%* |
* an ongoing statistic.
Tallies are not final.
Interpreting the Data
I deliberately pushed “Other Super Hero” films into a separate category
because, almost without fail, they only added to the signal to noise ratio in
getting good and true representations of these characters onscreen. In
retrospect, I should have included another column for animated series, as it’s
very important from the 1960s on, as keeping the characters (albeit simplified)
in the public eye. But what I’m driving at here is this: Condorman did
nothing to sell the public on the idea that super heroes were anything other
than kiddy fare, played for laughs. And that was released by Walt Disney. Captain
Nice, another live-action Saturday morning Yuk-fest, was even more stupid.
This all relates back to the Batman TV series, of course. It was played for
laughs and it was so incredibly successful, so fast, that they couldn’t
monetize it fast enough. It was a legitimate pop culture phenomenon. And
because it was so successful, that’s the well Hollywood went back to for a full
decade when Super Heroes came up. That’s why Doc Savage looked
the way it did.
That’s not to say that the major comic book companies didn’t shoot themselves
in the foot, either. For decades prior to the premiere of X-Men in
2000, Marvel comics fans groaned every time a new TV series or movie was
announced, because they just Couldn’t Get It Right. Ever. In some cases, it was
like they weren’t even trying. The Incredible Hulk was
popular, for what it was, but it really bore no resemblance to the comics.
There were no super villains, nothing to really set The Hulk in the Marvel
Universe. Ferrigno in green body paint was expensive enough. And he stormed
through Styrofoam walls, broke balsa wood tables, and even pushed cars around
with his Hulk-like strength, but it was a far, far cry from “Hulk Smash.”
Later, in the 1980s, they revived the Hulk for TV movies co-starring Thor and
Daredevil, and they were the sorriest, most inane versions of the characters
I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen them all, even the pirated unreleased TV pilots
and movies that have been shelved over the years because they sucked so bad.
And What about DC? They were defined by the success of Superman (1978)
and Batman (1989), this is true, but no one ever brings
up Swamp Thing (1981). Or the appallingly campy Legends
of the Superheroes (1979) TV special, hosted by Ed McMahon. Lynda
Carter’s Wonder Woman was initially as great as something with a
nineteen-dollar special effects budget could be, but as quick as they could,
they brought her into the modern era, where everyone wore pantsuits, and all of
the aliens were from a future or a planet that used crystals and a lot of
lycra. No, there’s enough blame to go around. By the 1970s, the ’66 Batman
TV show was in syndication, and it was a daily dose of high camp caped crusader
tomfoolery, and we all watched it, because we had no other options, but we also
all wondered why Adam West and Burt Ward were nothing—at all—like the Batman
and Robin in the comics. 1970’s Denny O’Neill/Neal Adams Batman was solving
murders. Adam West was doing the Batusi in the What a Way to Go-Go. Talk about a
disconnect.
At first glance, it sure does seem like the number of super hero projects has
increased. I think it’s interesting to note that in terms of percentages, 2010
and 1940 are the closest in comparative sizes, and I think this is due to a
similar rise in interest. Comics are no longer hermetic and inaccessible. Super
heroes are everywhere, and they function, more or less, like how they work in
the comics. This is a huge leap forward, and one that may contribute to the
decline (and maybe even the death) of American super hero comics as the
characters move into this new storytelling medium en masse.
These are good numbers to look at, but there’s one more number, very important,
that I want to talk about. Here’s where we venture, and quite correctly, into
“You Young Kids” territory. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves, for now.
Number of Top-Tier Super Hero movies prior to 2000: 65
Number of SF and “other” super hero movies combined, prior to 2000: 861
Percentage of Top Tier Super hero films prior to 2000: 7.5%
Number of Top-Tier Super Hero movies after 2000: 81
Number of SF and “other” super hero movies combined, after 2000: 358
Percentage of Top Tier Super hero films after 2000: 23%
What we have here is not only the establishment of super hero movies as a
genre, but also a clear line in the sand for people born from 1960 to 1985 and
people born after 1985. It has a lot to do with when you started consuming
super heroes. If you were born after a certain age, you just aren’t in a
position to understand why it’s important to Generation X that we now have cool
movies that don’t insult anyone’s intelligence and that millions of people are
interested in and oh yeah, also star Captain Freaking America. You
don’t understand, and I don’t know that you’ll ever have the empathy to do
so.
A Tale of Two Marks
To prove my point, I’m going to create two identical Marks. Mark from
Earth-1 and Mark from Earth-2. For clarity’s sake, I will eschew with the
standard time deviation that is problematic with the multiverse and make
Earth-1 Mark older than Earth-2 Mark. I know that there’s a small percentage of
DC comics fans who’s heads just exploded, but I don’t care. This isn’t for
them.
Mark from Earth-1 was born in 1969. He was born at a time when there wasn’t
Cable TV, and there wasn’t VHS recorders (and certainly not any DVD players).
Mark really likes super heroes, and thankfully, there’s plenty of them around.
He just has to ride his bike all over to the four or five convenience stores,
drug stores, and super markets that each have a limited selection of Marvel and
DC comics. Earth-1 Mark has to smile politely when his grandparents bring him a
handful of “funny books” to read; stacks of Archie and Ritchie Rich that do
nothing to satisfy his itch to leap tall buildings in a single bound and save
the world from the mad menace of The Joker.
Earth-1 Mark is eight years old when Star Wars premieres in
1977. Up until that time, he’s been watching cartoons (of course) and Wonder
Woman on television. He’s also been watching Shazam! every
Saturday morning. Most of the time, their super heroics are about this same; I
can’t count the number of car bumpers they both lifted up to prevent criminals
from just driving away from them.
But all is not gloom and doom for Earth-1 Mark. Even though he doesn’t have the
streaming Internet, or even cable, he has regular TV and radio. On the AM
stations, at night, he can listen to old time radio programs like The
Shadow. He’s got Power Records, actual comics with actors speaking the
lines. Those are pretty cool, and do not shy away from the subject matter. And
on TV, he’s privy to just about every super hero program from 1940 to 1968.
Shows like Batman ran in the afternoons, after school. He
watches all of it, including the Saturday morning cartoons like Batman
and The Super Friends, and Space Ghost. Even after Star
Wars debuts, it take years between projects. There is no Internet to
instantly spread the latest rumors and gossip; just controlled press releases
that state Superman II is now filming and will be premiere in
1980. Three years away.
 |
You were supposed to protect us from this, Stan! We trusted you! How could you let this happen? Do you have any idea how much shit we took for this stuff? |
Earth-2 Mark? He was born in 1985. He also loves comics. His mom takes him to the comic book shop every week to buy his latest books. He still has to avoid the other kids who might make fun of him, but there are other people his age who also go to the comic book store, and they band together, like Sand People, to hide their true numbers.
In the meantime, Earth-1
Mark can tide himself over with The Incredible Hulk, on TV, and
watch Bill Bixby turn into Lou Ferrigno twice each episode. He can watch Spider-Man,
on TV, climb up walls and shoot nylon cord out of a webshooter the size of a
disco ball and watch it magically curl around a bad guy to tie him up. He can
watch Captain America, on TV, drive a motorcycle while wearing a
giant blue helmet and throw a clear plastic shield around like a Frisbee.
He can watch Ed McMahon yuk it up with third-rate comedians in
ill-fitting super hero Spandex, on TV. And he can deftly avoid the bigger kids
in school who love to make fun of him because comics are stupid and for babies
and nothing in the larger media is proving the bullies wrong at this point.
Earth-2 Mark is 6 years old when Jurassic Park comes out. It’s the first time
he’s been thrilled and terrified at a movie, because the dinosaurs looked so
very real! Later, in his early twenties, he’ll decry the animation as clumsy
and stupid, but for now, he’s duly impressed. Mostly, though, he’s into Batman:
The Animated Series and the X-Men cartoons.
Earth-2 Mark’s dad took him to see Batman Forever but he
didn’t remember it, so he rented the VHS tape and rewatched it at his home. All
of his super hero movies are on video tape, and he can watch them whenever he
wants to, now. But the movie he really remembers seeing in the theater
was Batman & Robin, and it blew his young mind (he watched it
years later, as an adult, and was bummed to find out that it didn’t hold up, not
in the least). He also saw Spawn that same year by sneaking
into the theater, and it was super cool, because he got Spawn #1
and it’s now worth $20 and it’s only going to go up after the movie comes out,
right?
When the first X-Men movie drops in 2000, Earth-2 Mark is in line. And he comes
out of it energized. Finally! He thinks. We’ve been waiting for, like, ten
years for this. It was stupid of them to wait so long. They could have and
should have done this years ago. In fact, they should have done X-Men instead
of Blade. Now, if only they’d put Colossus in the next X-Men
movie...
Now it’s 2017. Earth-2 Mark is 29 years old. He’s been to college. He’s gotten
a degree in general studies. He now works for an online content provider, and
he writes pithy and succinct think-pieces about popular culture. But he’s
bored, now, because they still aren’t making the movies he wants them to make,
and he’s so fed up with all of these super hero movies, because, come on, this
is so 1997, people, amiright? I mean, it was fun when I was younger, but after
watching 12 Years a Slave, he simply cannot go back to movies that
don’t elucidate or instruct in some meaningful way.
When Captain America (Finally) Throws His Mighty Shield
Okay, that’s enough of that. My point, in case you missed it, was this: for
my generation, super heroes on film and TV were rare, hard to access, and
nearly always not worth the terrible effort it took to find it in the first
place. For so long, the special effects necessary to sell these stories was
sorely lacking. When the special effects got better, efforts to translate the
material suffered because of the prevailing attitude that comics were either A.
Stupid; B. Infantile; or C. Both. The only thing people could do was to try and
duplicate the success of the Batman TV show, with terrible results every time.
I really cannot stress to you just how bad all of it was. And I’m not saying,
“compared to now,” either. I mean, bad back then. Case in point: Captain
America.
I love Captain America. He’s one of my all-time favorite super heroes. Cool
character, cool costume, cool powers, cool friends, cool everything. I was a
seventies kid, and the bicentennial was huge. I had a copy of Captain America’s
Bicentennial battles. I had the Captain America and the Falcon Power Records
Book and Record set. I had the Captain America pocket books full-color reprint.
Cap was my guy.
So when I found out there was a clilffhanger serial, featuring Captain America,
and made during the 1940s, when it was cool to punch Nazis, I spent years
tracking it down...and when I found it...ooh boy. It’s not good. Dick Purcell?
Really? It’s just not. Cliffhangers are kind of cheesy and bad, but this poor
sap in the cap suit didn’t even have a shield! I mean, Come On. How hard is
that? There's nothing in the serial that is unique to Captain America. He could
have been called "Bund-Puncher McGurk" and it would have made zero
difference to the plot or the story.
Thankfully, in the 1970s, there were these old limited animation shows (and I
do mean limited) featuring the Marvel Super Heroes. One of which was Captain
America, which came with a nifty theme song that I know you’ve heard people
sing before. These cartoons were done in the mid-sixties, at a
New York studio, with crude animation and clumsy voice acting, but the art for
the cartoons was taken directly from the comics themselves. They look almost exactly
like the Motion Comics of today.
 |
| This was not cool. Not even during the heyday of Evel Knievel Fever. It sucked and we all knew it. |
By then, Stan was in Los Angeles, ostensibly heading up Marvel Entertainment,
making movie and TV deals for all of us True Believers and telling us about it
in his monthly column in the comics. That lasted until the early 1990s, but by
then, we had the direct market and some comic book magazines that kept us
up-to-date on the latest gossip—like the brand-new Captain America movie coming
out!
Featuring an Italian Red Skull, a rubber suit that looked okay, until Cap
turned his head and the molded rubber ears that were part of the mask he wore
flattened against his head and looked ridiculous. This Cap is untrained, and
flown into battle with one mission, holding a solid shield (thank you!), and he
promptly gets kidnapped by the Italian Red Skull and strapped to a rocket that
drops him into the Arctic Sea and freezes him. He’s thawed out in the modern
world, only to find the Italian Red Skull is still alive, and they have one
more fight and Cap wins.
Did I mention to you that this movie wasn’t originally released in America? It
was so bad, it ended up going straight to video—right about the same time that
Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four movie was being shelved for sucking so bad.
So, there’s Captain America’s media history. One of the easiest (you’d think)
characters to pull off: no flight, no crazy powers like eye beams or weather
control. Just running, jumping, punching, and throwing a shield—stuff that
special effects could have and should have been able to pull off since the
early 1980s.
That’s why Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) is such a
big deal. Not only did they get all of the little stuff right—the running, the
jumping, the punching, and the shield—they spent a shit-ton of money making
Steve Rogers look like a 98 pound weakling for the first third of the movie.
When Cap throws his shield and it ricochets off of two bad guys and knocks them
out, it looks exactly like how he does it in the comics. Chris Evans plays him
like a conflicted Boy Scout, which is Cap all over from the 1960s to the 2010s.
And the Red Skull was German, and a Nazi. Don’t ask me why it took so long. But
understand this: I never thought they’d do it. After seeing them trying, and
failing, so often, from the age of 7 to me in my early 40s, I just didn’t think
they’d ever do it right. Not until Iron Man in 2008. Until
then, I had zero hope.
By then, it was clear that the Geeks had Inherited the Earth. And apparently,
what we want is good comic book movies and TV shows. Is that so wrong? We’d
been denied them, all while the rest of you got romantic comedies, westerns,
gangster movies, war movies, and love stories. And we had to take what we could
get, because no one took comics seriously for decades. But there came a point
when comics weren’t stigmatized. It started in the mid-to-late 1980s with the
publication of a number of comics and graphic novels aimed at adults rather
than kids.
Somewhere in the
mid-to-late 1990s, comics stopped being popular culture’s whipping boy. By
then, it was okay to like comics, and the movies that came out, while of widely
varied quality, at least looked and behaved like comic book super heroes. It
wasn’t until members of Generation X started making these movies that they
underwent a tonal change.
Post 2000 super hero movies are still a mixed bag, right up until 2008, when
Marvel dropped Iron Man on an unsuspecting world. The birth of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe was one of the most ambitious experiments of all time; make
six super hero movies just so you can make a seventh one. Planning that far
ahead was backwards thinking to the rest of Hollywood, but it worked like a
charm. And judging from the box office numbers, it continues to work.
Most of us old-timers chuckle at how the fortunes have reversed. There was a
time that we preferred the DC movies and hated everything Marvel threw at us.
Those days, thankfully, are long gone. But it’s worth noting that our interest
hasn’t waned, just because we’re older. There’s still a lot to answer for.
Decades of mistreatment, in fact. Even if we scrape off the first seven years
of the 21st century (throwing out Spider-Man and X-Men along
with Elektra and Catwoman), even if we just start
keeping score in 2008, that’s just ten years of jaw-dropping sights and sounds,
stuff we never thought we’d ever see—such as an actual Captain America movie
that wasn’t completely stupid—ten years, compared to, what? Thirty to forty
years of insulting our intelligence, denigrating something we love almost
unconditionally, mishandling the characters and concepts that have sustained
generations of fans, beloved characters that are larger than life and mean
something personal and sacred to so many folks...four decades of Hollywood
screwing it up and making it worse.
This is our time. We earned these movies, with our money, with our loyalty,
with our hearts. We kept these flames alive, and we kept the comic book
industry afloat, and we championed these things to our friends, our family, our
boyfriends and girlfriends—to anyone who would listen. It cost us social
currency, relationships, arguments and fights—scars we carry to this day in one
way or another. This is our hard-earned and just reward, in this new Era of
Geek Culture.
They may not all be good, and some of them aren’t. But this is a relative and
highly subjective criteria we’re talking about, here. Take the worst Marvel
Cinematic Universe movie you can think of—whichever the worst one in your mind
is. Now, go compare that to anything that came out in the 1970s and 1980s. Go
on, do it. I’ll wait. Pick the worst DC movie of the last ten years and go
compare that to anything in the 1990s. See if it suddenly, magically, doesn’t
start to look amazing and wonderful, by comparison.
See, it’s all relative. And it should be. We’re talking about a sub-genre of
fantasy and science fiction movies, here. As popular now as the spy genre was
in the 1960s or the western was in the 1940s and 1950s. It will very likely
slow down on its own, due to economic pressures and interests, since Hollywood
has a time-honored tradition of self-sabotage and over-saturation. But for
right now, Super Heroes are only about one fifth of the overall number of
fantasy and science fiction movies being released in the last ten years.
So, how about you let us have this moment and stop trying to take it away?
