Super-heroes on the Big Screen!

Hey everyone, I figured with a bajillion Marvel and DC and whatever else movies in the process of being released in such a short time period, that we should have a separate thread to talk about them!

I'll start things off with a basic question. 

What do you think about many recent superhero films' attempts to place superheroes in a modern-day setting complete with political ramifications, "collateral damage", and the pervasiveness of social media and the internet?

Does it add to the complexity and interest of the genre of storytelling? Or does it cloud the visage of these bright shiny heroes with depressingly real themes? What do you think? Is this a new thing? Or has it been done before? Does it make the world feel too small? Or is this perfect for larger-than-life heroes?

What about the differences between the superhero genre, sci-fi genres, fantasy, and how some of those lines become blurred in films like Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor. 

For easy reference (Weep not! This too shall pass...):

Nice timing on this thread; I just watched The Winter Soldier tonight. I'd always heard good things about it but after seeing and enjoying Civil War over the weekend I decided to go back and fill in the some of the blanks. I really enjoyed it; definitely one of my favorite MCU films.

NB that chart is a bit out of date. Gambit isn't happening, at least not this year, and the entire "Spider-Man Cinematic Universe" that Sony had planned out got cancelled after TASM2 flopped. There is an MCU Spider-Man movie coming out next year, though.

Forest Shepherd wrote:What do you think about many recent superhero films' attempts to place superheroes in a modern-day setting complete with political ramifications, "collateral damage", and the pervasiveness of social media and the internet?

I mean, the political themes are basically always laughably stupid if you apply even the slightest bit of critical thought to them, but they can be fun if they're not taken too seriously. I thought Winter Soldier was effective as a thriller even if the premise didn't really make sense, largely because it knew it wasn't making any profound observations about society. Cap's earnestness is effective because it's an integral part of his character and is part of what sets him apart from everyone around him, so it doesn't come across as preachy. By contrast, TDKR collapsed under its own weight, and while a lot of things went wrong there, the hamfisted themes and lack of self-awareness in any part of the movie definitely didn't help. I thought it was interested that BVS tried to address the collateral damage issue but they completely undercut their own point by ending the movie with yet another massively destructive battle in an urban area, complete with the same kind of excuse Man of Steel used (eg, "thank goodness it's after 5 PM, the city center is empty now!").

I don't think I ever much saw the point in superheroes. So I guess I must say the same for movies about them, however many they make..

I just wish all that money could be put into something new.

I like Super hero movies I see it as a form of escapism. Like cartoons, anything is possible & should be tried at least 3 times. The Heros bounce back & are usually undefeated. They do the things Id like to do. Swing thru the sky like spiderman, smash & crash like The Hulk. The political aspect ? I dont think Ive ever noticed one. Im not sure politics come into it, everything sorta seems on a neutral footing. I hope & I think, SuperHero films will always appeal to people & they will keep going I think we can see a little of ourselves in superheros, the bit that wishes it could do more, Example....Im pretty easy going, people over the years have shat on me because Ive been too Goddam soft. The little person inside keeps telling me off for it. I wanna wear a Batman suit & stand tall & firm, be part of an elite fighting team & cry..."I will smote thee with awesome force"

{{I am in a weird position here as someone who grew up reading comics and so far has either disliked or been very meh about the superhero films I ave seen so far, with one exception, but I'll come back to that because it snot on the list or in anyone's franchise.
I think the reason is I got really lucky as a comic reader, like a music listener born in time to enjoy the sixties and appreciate it, I got to grew up reading UK comics in the late 70's and through the 80's to the ealry 90's when it all went to shit again.
So I got a diet of breakthrough new talent writers doing whole new things for the first time with the medium- I was readng 200Ad, which not only meant readng Judge Dredd, bt also the work of Grant morrison, Alan Grant, Alan Moore, John Wagner, Neil Gaiman, and the accompanying break through artists to go with them, Boland, Bisely, Gibbons.
American stuff always seemed incredibly shallow by comparison, gaudy, superficial, over the top and most off putting of all heavily patriotic.
The only US comics I did enjoy and use to get from the US Commissary here at the time was Tales from the Crypt. Whose short gruesome horror stories would easily have slotted into any issue of 2000AD.
Naturally, if you haven't guessed it already the only comic book film I have enjoyed in recent years was Urbans take on Dredd}}

I guess the fact that people expect it to be cheesy and shallow allows them to get away with stuf one wouldn't in say a fantasy franchize.

{{I suppose that's part of the problem for me, the comics I grew up on weren't brightly coloured adventures, they were often, dark, dystopian, unreal, dreamlike and asking interesting questions, both in general and of the medium it was using itself.

Just in 2000AD alone I got this sort of range.

Hewligans Haircut- completely bonkers surrealist stuff with social commentary (from the people who do the Gorrilaz music videos- this is where they started in the pages of 200AD)



Celtic myth 2000AD style with the tale of Slaine the Horned God and the debut of an artists who changed how comics could be illustrated, Simon Bisley.



Chopper: Song of the Surfer, which was often very dark and emotional as well as delving into the ideas of Aboriginal Dream Time, and as you can see here, also violent.



But I think the difference with the US superhero breed of comic is, if it had social commentary I was too young and distant from it to pick enough of it up to give it depth, and the stories all seemed pretty bland and samey, and wholesome.
I know its different now, and all its gone dark and dystopian but that's because all those 2000AD writers now work for Marvel and DC, but back then the good stuff was over here.

Its got the British perspective, a mix of social satire (when the Thatcher years Poll Tax riots were happening in Mega City 1 Dredd was putting down the Block Tax riots- it was fortnightly, so was that contemporary with events, outright silly and ridiculous, at turns mocking and questioning of authority, class and sex, deeply subversive at times, very funny, and often very violent- and mostly both at the same time).
US stuff of the time just didn't get a look in, and its an impression that sort of stayed with me- even the modern 'darker' stuff still has a US slant on it, its not the 'genuine' article as it were served up as it was by those writers when they first started, or worse its American writers who are trying to copy that imported style of story telling, but cant quite pull it off.

If you want to know what the difference is between the two I strongly suggest reading an issue of the original Doom Patrol US comic, then reading an issue of a Grant Morrison one, or do the same with Animal Man }}

The only superhero I have really loved is V

{{{Another good example of the difference Figg. I mean look at two of the big UK masked comic characters- Dredd and V, both more anti-hero than hero, both existing in screwed up dystopian worlds And both ends of the scale- one an extreme totalitarian the other a pure anarchist. Even villains- Batman is as screwed up as masked heroes get n the US, his arch enemy is the Joker, a guy that smiles and tells jokes and psychotically kills people. Dredd's arch enemy is Judge Death- actual Death incarnate. In 'Necropoils' he wipes out sixty million people before they stop him. There is just a massive difference in tone, aim, scope for me during that period of comic writing, one that has not been equalled since though individual works certainly have- but the mass stuff s so much safer now than it was then, so much less on the edge, with so much less to say. And the current crop of US superhero films exemplify this for me so far.}}

Well, crap. 

I just finished a long, rambling and, I thought, interesting response to various posts within this thread. And then I accidentally deleted it by navigating away from the page....



Peace out, I'll be back later.

Oh, here real quick is the closest I ever got to reading super-hero comics growing up:

Stupendous Man

I remember reading these as a child

{{Forest- Hate it when that sort of thing happens1!! Hope you redo it though.

Azriel- Never read Thor, Victory I think I read a few of, rings vague early bells.
Does remind me of the first comics I really got into as a kid from about 6-12, Commando- ww2 based, looking back at them now they were xenophobic, racist, especially by modern standards, and often terrifyingly violent and dark, they sort of veered between the ridiculousness of The Great Escape and the Deer Hunter.







And I read Eagle for a bit, till 2000AD came along and did a lot better- it gave us Dan Dare and the Mekon.





And being Scottish every Christmas there would be either an Oor Wullie annual, or a Broons annual- that's a Scottish tradition, they've been going since 1936 and are still going strong (its either one or the other incidentally because they alternate them each year)



  }}}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Forest- Hate it when that sort of thing happens1!! Hope you redo it though.  

Azriel- Never read Thor, Victory I think I read a few of, rings vague early bells.
Does remind me of the first comics I really got into as a kid from about 6-12, Commando- ww2 based, looking back at them now they were xenophobic, racist, especially by modern standards, and often terrifyingly violent and dark, they sort of veered between the ridiculousness of The Great Escape and the Deer Hunter.







And I read Eagle for a bit, till 2000AD came along and did a lot better- it gave us Dan Dare and the Mekon.





And being Scottish every Christmas there would be either an Oor Wullie annual, or a Broons annual- that's a Scottish tradition, they've been going since 1936 and are still going strong (its either one or the other incidentally because they alternate them each year)   }}}}

Reading comics like that with your crabbit mindset - it's a wonder you weren't sent to the Black Watch

Ive seen "Oor wullie" Annuals on Ebay, they seem to go for a lot.

{{{Yeah they can go for a tidy sum at auction, especially first editions of the first annual, or stuff from the second world war era. You can get them all as reprints though.}}

Oo'er, thats good morphing