Spandex and the silver screen

If you told average moviegoers during the 1940s that the major summer films of 2008 would center on superhero franchises, they’d slap their fedoras on their knees and let loose with a chortle.

During that period of cinema, superheroes were relegated to the pulp serials; 20-minute short films between the cartoons and newsreels that preceded major pictures. “Flash Gordon” and “Superman” episodes were shot on the lowest possible budget as fast as the studios could churn them out. Its filler content meant only to keep audiences returning for the variety of programming, a niche that television would more aptly fill in the 1950s.

Superheroes occasionally appeared on screen afterwards, with Christopher Reeve portraying the Superman in the 1970s and Adam West coining the campy parody of Batman in the 1960s TV series. Reeve’s success in “Superman” had been the exception to the rule up until the 2000s: Superheroes were usually confined to television.

 Television was able to preserve the episodic nature of superhero stories that carried over from comic books, with plots to destroy the world each week and cliffhangers that ensured your attendance the following week.

But it wasn’t until this decade that superheroes became summer blockbuster staples. Call it the “Star Wars” effect that attracts studios to easily licensable franchises, or maybe just an indication of how sparse Hollywood is on fresh ideas. Either way, the 2000s have been the decade of super powers on the big screen.

Starting with the success of “X-Men” and “Spider-Man,” there’s hardly been a summer without at least one hero flick topping the charts. With CGI finally able to render the kinds of effects to rival the art of the comic book medium, filmmakers don’t have to rely on camp to draw reasonably sized audiences. Superman can now take bullets to the eye, we can follow Spiderman’s course through traffic and Wolverine’s claws can slide out of his skin while reflecting Hugh Jackman’s sideburns.

I’ve heard the argument made that this trend is at the expense of cinema as an art form, which may be true. Comics aren’t widely known for the strength of their narratives or depth of their characters. However, whether academia embraces it or not, if future civilizations find anything by which to study our culture, it probably won’t be a DVD-boxed set of the “Sopranos” or the remastered edition of “Citizen Kane”; like the Greeks with Hercules, we’ll be known as the culture that idealized superheroes.

Especially this summer, filmmakers have embraced this aspect of our culture and delivered a slew of new pieces to the canon. “Iron Man” is the highest-grossing and most critically acclaimed film in the U.S. this year so far, and even the worn out “Hulk” franchise is getting a reboot after a box office failure only five years ago.

“Hancock” had the novel premise of how different a black, alcoholic superman would be treated by society, but failed to shake the cliched Hollywood treatment.
Still to come is the highly anticipated “The Dark Knight,” which is already generating Oscar buzz despite its superhero premise. Heath Ledger’s death is certainly a factor in the popularity surrounding the film, but even a nomination in an Oscar category other than visual or audio effects for a superhero movie will be a first.

So whether they’ve come at the expense of artistic filmmaking or are exploring viable new directions for cinema, superheroes are no longer relegated to second-rate status in the motion picture industry. After the success of “300,” Zack Snyder is taking a swing at the even higher-selling and more critically acclaimed graphic novel “Watchmen,” and if Samuel L. Jackson can be believed after the credits of “Iron Man,” Marvel is planning a crossover movie to star as many of their heroes as possible.

If this summer does wind up in a critical film text, it will either be for harking in a new era of character-based superhero movies, or with the same disdain most cinema doctorates hold “Jaws” and “Star Wars” for ending the 1967 to 1975 American Film Renaissance. Regardless, I’ve pre-ordered my tickets to see “The Dark Knight” in IMAX, and I think I speak for American moviegoers when I say, “More of the same, please!”