Marvelous or Mediocre; are Superheroes really super-boring?

Where do you stand on superhero movies? Given we are now twenty-seven movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe series, it’s fairly clear plenty of people love superhero movies!  To clarify, that’s 27 since the first Iron Man was released in 2008, meaning Marvel have averaged more than two releases per year. Not to mention DC movies and others that fall into the Superhero category.

Admittedly, I haven’t ever really read any of the Superhero comic series by Marvel. Photo by Erik Mclean from Pexels

So if you love them, then that’s pretty great to have movie after movie falling off the Hollywood production line. But if you don’t, big releases can feel somewhat few and far between.

That’s sort of where I sit; I haven’t been a huge fan of this genre, so much so that, up until the very end of 2021, I hadn’t seen even one of the twenty-seven marvel movies in the MCU! Which, calculating the odds of dodging 27 movies released over the last 14 years, I’m thinking the odds of never getting COVID might be lower! Too soon?

I’m not 100% sure why I don’t love the genre. I’m a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy so it feels like I should like them. I enjoy the Star Wars galaxy of films (setting aside a Phantom Menace perhaps, which I’m sure I will be forgiven for!) and let’s face it, Jedi Knights and Sith Lords are not so far removed from Superheroes and their Super Villain counterparts. Likewise characters like Gandalf and Aragon in the Lord of the Rings certainly have superhero type qualities. Not Frodo though, clearly. That trilogy would have been much shorter if he had some (any!!) sort of superpower!

So what is it exactly that has caused me to defy the odds and not see one Marvel Universe release over the last 14 years? I think I need to go back some time here to my first experiences with super-hero movies; being Superman, Batman and Spiderman back in the eighties and early nineties. I’m talking Christopher Reeve and Michael Keaton here. While I knew of Superman and Batman prior to seeing these movies (what kid didn’t?), I wasn’t a comic book reader so I hadn’t had any real engagement with the characters before seeing the films. Actually, I did read some comic books, just not superhero comics. I loved Footrot flats, enjoyed Mad Magazine (Spy vs Spy, in particular; hands up if you’ve ever dressed up as them at a themed party), and maybe Garfield from time to time.  

I mean, it’s a good costume. But not sure posing on a standard (and bright yellow) pedestrian fence, during the middle of the day is quite the image the actual Batman is going for. Photo by Ronê Ferreira from Pexels

But I digress; back to Batman and Superman. I didn’t really enjoy those movies. Maybe I was a little young to properly appreciate them. To me, Superman seemed too powerful to hold much interest. Anyone with such far-reaching powers seemed like there was no question that they would come out on top every time. Which then forced the creation of either equally over-powered villains or the introduction of a super-weakness in the form of a glowing green mineral to strip his powers away. Enter Kyrptonite. But if that then exists, wouldn’t some clever villain just mass produce the stuff, arm their entire force with it and take out Superman once and for all? Overall, I found the movies a little boring and it just felt a little too removed from reality to be relatable.

As a hero, Batman in theory was far more relatable, with no actual super-powers in his arsenal (assuming a deep, brooding voice is not a super-power); just plenty of cool tech, intelligence and old-fashion muscle. But then again, how relatable can someone with $80bn to their name really be? Yet I think in the Batman movies it was the villains that really had be struggling for engagement. I mean, a clown, a penguin, a guy that is just good at riddles and wears a skin-tight, bright green jump-suit? I’m sure there is a heap of nuance and backstory and complexity with these characters that I am overlooking. But for me, they are too much the caricature to feel believable and relatable. And yes, I do realise that their origins are in comic books, and these characters in many cases were exactly that; caricatures! I just didn’t really feel it on the big screen.

I think the thing in common with both sets of movies is that they just seem to beggar belief. For me personally, a retention of a level of realism is really important in the creation of good fictional stories. The world can be mystical and magical, but the characters need to retain humanity that I can relate to. There needs to be limits in the world they exist in, and plausible explanations when these sorts of limits are pushed out. They can have strengths and weaknesses that might be exaggerated but not to the point of being seemingly limitless. It’s at that point they stop coming across as being human. And that is the crux of it. I think as soon as they become super-human, then (for me at least) they lose their humanity and so become less relatable, which lessens the connection I can feel for those characters.

See, Spiderman is totally relatable. He might be a superhero, but occasionally he finds himself in the subway catching the late train home only to bump into someone wearing almost exactly the same outfit. Totally awkward! Photo by Ahmad Qime from Pexels

I found the Spiderman movies a little more relatable and I think this comes back to the idea of limits on his power. They were made quite a bit later as well, with the first Toby Maguire film screening in 2002. It is certainly not the villains I found relatable; like the villains in Batman I found them very exaggerated, extreme and hard to relate to. But when you look at Spiderman’s powers they seem far more limited, when compared with the extent and range of Superman’s powers or with the vastness of Batman’s resources. Because they are more limited, this increases his vulnerability and so makes him more a little more human and so more relatable. Perhaps his age had something to do with it as well; being younger may have both increased his vulnerability as a character, and also his relatable for my younger self watching Spiderman for the first time.

So are you like me and find it hard to find something to relate to in superhero movies? Or am I completely missing the point, as well as judging the whole host of Marvel Superheroes primarily on my experience with two DC Superheroes from movies now 25-30 years old? I’m open to this being the case, and so, in 2022, have finally decided to take a bit of a look at the 27 MCU movies.

My eldest son is a fan and has seen some of them but not all. So I’ve taken the plunge signing up to a streaming service, and we’ve started this exploration together which is another good reason to do it! It’s likely to take a while; perhaps most of the year given there are 27 of the damn things to get through, and more on the way! We’ve decided to watch them in release order (rather than chronological), so it was Iron Man first up.

I’ll check in through the process and complete a wrap up when I have finally caught up to the most current releases. Who knows; once done I might love then and even go back and give the DC movies another chance!