We are currently living in the Age of Cinematic Superheroes. Superhero movies are being released in record numbers. 2012 saw films featuring Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, Batman, John Carter and Judge Dredd, as well as teams of superheroes in the form of The Prodigies and the monster of cinema that is
The Avengers.
Chances are they aren't going away soon. Since Richard Donner turned Christopher Reeves into a household name seemingly overnight, there has been a steady stream of comic book movies, sometimes a deluge, sometimes a trickle, sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes with Oscar-worthy performances.
Whether or not the movie-going public has fully embraced the genre is an often debated topic. It isn't a rare occurrence that a critic will come along and announce the death of the comic book genre on the big screen, usually immediately after a film like Green Lantern, that underperforms at the box office, or Iron Man 2, that doesn't live up to the original. Arguments about whether we've reached a saturation point abound.
Superhero films may not dominate in the fashion they do now forever, but it is unlikely that they will slow to a trickle any time soon. Hollywood is enamored by the superhero genre, filling ensemble movies like X-Men and
The Avengers with Oscar and Tony winners, legends of the stage and screen. Behind the camera is no different, with directors, writers, cinematographers, costumers, engineers, designers and every other job imaginable scrambling to be part of a franchise, not just for the money but also for the fame they bring.
Surprisingly often - surprising to some, anyway - talent is attracted to the genre simply because it offers the chance to explore timeless stories in a modern way. They realize that the characters are a vehicle for delivering a compelling story, they are not the story itself. One only has to compare Tim Burton's "Batman" to Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight." They are both darker versions of the Caped Crusader and feature The Joker as the antagonist, but beyond that they're very different stories.
The number of superhero stories currently impacting the film industry has less to do with the sudden legitimization of the comic book medium and more to do with the proliferation of media and the advancement of technology. We are now more capable of creating the world these characters live in, thus we create more.
Superman is the best early example of a contemporary superhero. Created in the 30s, he began dominating radio in 1940, alongside storied crime fighters like The Green Hornet, Zorro and Tarzan. By the 50s he had transitioned to television, where he again dominated the nation's (and some would argue, the world's) collective psyche. By the time he conquered the box office in the late 70s, critics and fans had been bludgeoned by Man of Steel merchandising and serialization for nearly four decades. That didn't prevent the film from being praised nearly everywhere, by critics and casual viewers alike.
Superman was unique because his powers were well beyond that of a human. He was the product of a century of morality tales wrapped up in detective stories and vigilantism starring Sherlock Holmes or The Shadow, that filled dime store novels and fueled imagination. Superman stood out by ignoring a seeming centuries long moratorium on giving heroes godlike powers, by creating a character that everyone wanted to be.
Superheroes have been around much longer than even the pulp fiction that spawned the term. The first English language superhero was named Beowulf. He didn't have the usual secret identity, but he certainly possessed superhuman strength, a strong personal code and the plucky determination to succeed in defeating evil at all costs.
Some argue that the secret identity is part of what makes a hero super. I say that it is just one trope that helped establish the connection between superheroes and comic books. The word originated as a descriptive for some of the heroes that populated dime pulp and newspaper pages. Superman defined the word and created an image that will be forever associated with it. His status as a comic book character and the onset of the golden age of comics cemented its use to be ubiquitous with comic books.
But superheroes are bigger than comic books in as much that comic books are bigger than superheroes. The genre and the medium will be forever sewn together, but they remain distinct. Thor is one of the most popular superheroes today, but his origin story goes back thousands of years. His first appearance is an appearance in Roman records, where he was preserved from oral stories told by the Germanic people. He was interpreted by the people of the day to reflect their culture so they could better understand him. Two-thousand years later, Stan Lee did the same thing by turning the God of Thunder into a superhero. The largest difference is that two centuries ago, neither the word superhero nor four-color comic books existed. Had they, they would have been used.
Superhero movies will never die out. Now that we've coined the term, we can use it with impunity. Before I ever cracked my first comic book (New Mutants #84, for the record), I read superhero stories every time I opened a book of Greek mythology. The immortality of superhero stories added words like Herculean and Sisyphean to our vocabulary. Long after the word superhero has gone out of style, the superhero stories we tell will still exist, even if we decide to call the heroes demigods, aliens or whatever the money word of the moment is.