I Miss the Joy of Superheroes

Liz Shannon Miller
·5 min read
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The post I Miss the Joy of Superheroes appeared first on Consequence.

Twenty years ago, this would have been the best news a fanboy or fangirl could have ever dreamed of: In the year 2023, it seems like a week doesn’t pass without some sort of new superhero-related content, whether it be film or television.

On Friday, November 3rd, Prime Video dropped both the season finale of its The Boys spinoff Gen V, along with the Season 2 premiere of the animated series Invincible. A week later, the newest Marvel Studios film, funnily enough called The Marvels, arrives in theaters, along with the Season 2 finale of tie-in Disney+ series, Loki. And there’s another tentpole coming in time for Christmas, as the Snyder era of the DC Universe comes to a close with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

It’s all a lot, and also increasingly a status quo we’ve become accustomed to. The prevalence of superheroes in pop culture means we’ve seen an incredible amount of diverse stories by diverse people being told; that said, the saturation point was definitely reached a while ago, leading to an unexpected degree of fatigue.

A natural reaction to the all-consuming popularity of superheroes is the kind of satire that Prime Video has been nurturing with The Boys, which takes a great deal of pleasure in tearing down the most sacred elements of the genre. The world of comic books went through a similar cycle beginning in the 1980s, when the colorfully costumed heroes of old became darker and grittier thanks to writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Many of those stories are still serving as the inspiration for projects like The Boys, which echo that same anti-establishment spirit.

A fascinating undercurrent of The Boys is that it’s a world rich with wild and varied superpowers, but no one really worked to attain them — one of the show’s slow-to-reveal mysteries is that powers come courtesy of a drug called Compound-V, administered during childhood ideally. Power sits differently, when it’s handed to you.

This matters because, yes, superhero stories start from a very simple place: What if someone had superpowers? (Not necessarily literal powers, as Bruce Wayne or Clint Barton would point out, but enhanced abilities nonetheless.) However, those powers are only one part of the most powerful origin stories: Did a character receive their powers via some sort of horrible accident, one that took as much as it gave? Did a character hone their abilities after some sort of personal crisis? Or are their powers a consequence of a more shocking truth about their identity?

This matters a lot when it comes to Invincible — in Season 2, half-alien teenager Mark Greyson (voiced by Steven Yeun) does still aspire to superhero goodness, but has also gotten a harsh reality check about the origins of his powers from his father, Omni-Man (voiced by J.K. Simmons). There’s no longer any joy for him in being able to fly, now that he knows his powers aren’t a gift, but a burden.

Some of the best superhero stories use these characters as a metaphor for exploring the nature of power in our society — not just who has it, but what they do with it. Yet right now, the balance feels off — and not just in the franchises set up as literal satire. Secret Invasion pushed the MCU into darker territory than ever, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, maybe the best superhero movie of the year so far, did pack in visual delights, but its take on heroism was once again dark, with Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) rebelling against a legion of Spider-People for their strict rules. The fate of the multi-verse might be at stake, but its most inspiring moment comes with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) enlisting some fellow rebels for a hero shot at the end — their actual battle set to arrive in theaters on an unconfirmed date.

These days, it’s hard to get excited even for the aesthetic thrill of a super-powered battle on screen, created by overworked and underpaid VFX artists. When Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie premiered in 1978, it did so with the tagline “You Will Believe a Man Can Fly,” and people did in fact goggle at watching Margot Kidder get swept up into the sky by Christopher Reeve. Now, such stunts feel not just possible but downright mundane, thanks to CGI — Christopher Reeve just donned his cape and tights again for a quick shot in 2023’s The Flash, despite passing away in 2004.

It’s easy to be nostalgic for the early days of the MCU right now, much like looking back on the comparatively simpler political climate of 2008, when Barack Obama made history with a campaign built on “hope.” Wonder felt more possible, then, on a number of levels. And the wave of superhero stories, repeating over and over again cynical takes on how power corrupts, wasn’t quite so overwhelming.

It’s exactly this sort of fatigue that new DC Universe masterminds James Gunn and Peter Safran seem to have in mind right now, at least when it comes to Superman: Legacy, the 2025 Gunn-penned film which will feature a(nother) new take on the Man of Steel. Said Safran, during the January 2023 press event announcing the new DC Universe slate, “It focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way. He is kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned.”

Maybe this is the kind of course correction that will pull the genre out of its critical spiral — it at least sounds like a fresh approach at this point, as everything comes full circle. In the meantime, because I enjoyed Ms. Marvel and the trailer promised a lot of kittens, I’m choosing to be optimistic about The Marvels. No matter what the state of superhero stories might be today, one lesson that endures is their belief in the power of hope.

I Miss the Joy of Superheroes
Liz Shannon Miller

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