Saving Superheroes – The Hugh Hewitt Show

Jim Geraghty chose yesterday to go on at some length about why superhero movies make a lot more money than opening weekend box office might indicate and to note that predictions of their demise just might be premature.  His primary point is that such movies produce a number of income streams not reflected in box office numbers, which is an excellent point.  I would hasten to add that these characters have survived for almost 100 years now in print indicating that they have far more life in them than one might expect.  Of course the cost of producing a comic book is such that you can absorb a failure and make adjustments – not so much with multi-million dollar movie budgets.  And yet, I think an analysis of what makes the characters so enduring might be worthwhile.

When the movies fail, and some recent ones most certainly have, I think it is because the movie makers have failed to capture that essential element that makes them enduring.  For the record I have been reading superhero comics since around third grade. (8 y.o.) So I have been reading them regularly for over 60 years, pretty much since the beginning of the so-called “Silver Age.” My collection is roughly 8000 books, exceeding the inventory of many comic specialty stores.  My office is decorated with hundreds of statues of superheroes, original artwork and prop replicas.  I think that qualifies me as a bit of an expert on the medium.

Superheroes are at their best when they are distinctly human and yet they manage to somehow overcome the limitations associated therewith to produce good – the heroic ideal.  Comic books of the recent decades have failed to capture this ideal as much as the movies.  This has been true in some past periods as well, but again, cost of production allows for such missteps and eventual correction.

Geraghty’s point that movies based on secondary characters are unlikely to produce major box office, is well taken.  But every now and then there are breakouts.  For example, he cites Wolverine as a major character, which he is.  But some of use remember the X-Men well before Wolverine made his first appearance.  (In a Hulk comic it should be noted.)  He is a breakout character.  His story is one of horrific abuse, visited upon him by a military effort to develop the ultimate weapon based on his mutant abilities, creating in him a overpowering rage and cynicism that he then spends decades overcoming to act in a good and heroic fashion.  Batman orphaned, Superman abandoned, Captain America isolated, frozen in ice until long after all his contemporaries are dead, Iron Man struggles deeply with alcoholism.  The story is always the same – overcoming all too human limitations to rise to the occasion.  Superheroes, when done properly are about bringing goodness and hope to places that seem void of it.

Too often the movies, and currently the comics, are drenched in Hollywood nonsense that there is no good and evil, or in some perverted sense of what constitutes “good.”  Too often they are dripping in the SoCal malaise where nothing ever seems wonderful, the best you can ever hope for is success, not goodness.

The economics mean the movies will keep coming for a while, but the audiences will continue to decline, and take those other income streams with them, unless they can once again recapture this essence.

And Now, The Weekly Remnants:

Climate Change and carbon – it is a lot more complicated that electric cars and wind and solar.

This is disgusting – even if she flops, which she does in my opinion.  That said, to make basketball about race and sexual orientation only makes matters worse.

California – it is no longer simply inept or grossly misguided, it is corrupt to its core.  Companies that bear the state’s name won’t do business there.   (I wonder how long it will be before that state sues over naming rights?) Law enforcement is designed to boost government revenue.  Regulatory enforcement likewise.  Finally, it looks like I ran my compliance consulting business all wrong for all those years.  I made my clients pay me when I could have had the state do it.