You feel it; I know you do because we all do. That deep, aching, existential pain lamenting our civilizational decline: things cannot continue like this, and we know who’s causing it. They haunt our institutions while facilitating the dissolution of our social fabric.
I refer, of course, to the scourge of superheroes.
How Did We Get Here?
Since the turn of the century, there have been dozens of superhero movies and TV shows (primarily produced by Marvel and DC studios, respective subsidiaries of Disney and Warner Brothers). And despite the mid-to-late 20th century similarly churning out cinematic adaptations of various caped crusaders’ escapades — and Fox’s “X-Men” franchise kicking off right at the start of the millennium — the genre found a steadfast foothold in the post-9/11, Great Recession digital era.
Due, in equal part, to the groundswell in computer-generated imagery (CGI) technology and the West’s newfound sense of vulnerability, superhero movies provided people with comforting and aesthetically engaging stories of interesting and self-actualized men and women who fought the good fight by taking matters into their own hands. People could easily escape their social and economic woes by flocking to the theaters to see Tobey Maguire web up petty crooks, Robert Downey Jr. take on the military-industrial complex, Christian Bale attempt to restore order to a city overrun by nihilistic cynicism, and Henry Cavill ponder what it truly means to be human.
These movies were generally well-made and very positively received by critics and consumers, alike. But most importantly,
