Has the Avengers ruined everything?

Don’t get me wrong – I think the Avengers was a very, very cool movie. It was fun, it was funny, and it managed to satisfyingly balance every superhero, which even some of their own movies couldn’t quite do. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a testament to how great a movie about people who dress-up in costume and befuddlingly both commit and stop crimes (vigilantism is a felony in some jurisdictions) can be when it isn’t afraid to go back to its roots.

Before the Avengers we had mediocre superhero movies – not quite exploitative action movies you can love to hate, and not quite emotionally resonant commentary on the criminal justice system. Then, in 2008, The Dark Knight and Iron Man were released. By then, most superhero movies were contrived. Most were too heavy on the origin and skipped the best parts. There was no exploration of the human psyche, no introduction to relationships an intelligent audience could fully invest in, and very little respect for the source material. And we loved them. We wanted every movie to be as good as them.

Yet these movies didn’t revolutionize cinema. They aren’t the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, they don’t compare to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and they’re far from In The Mood For Love. But they were some of the first big steps in superhero films that one day could be revolutionary. The Dark Knight has one of the most memorable villains of the last fifty years, maybe longer, in any form of fiction. Iron Man was one of the first films to embrace the obscurity, madness, and tongue-in-cheek nature of a superhero without the grit most films get bogged down with while keeping the stakes and the enjoyment.

Then Marvel released its slew of what they refer to as Phase One. The rest of the Avengers got their own movies (or, in the case of Hawkeye and Black Widow, shared a movie). An entire shared universe of dynamic main characters and cross-over story arcs was made, culminating in a fantastical, immensely enjoyable conclusion to Phase One in the Avengers.

Then began Phase Two. Iron Man 3 and now Thor 2 have taken in huge earnings and are, even though reception is mixed, successful movies. We have a name for the next big movie, Guardians of the Galaxy and a name for the next really big thing, the Avengers: Age of Ultron. Personally, I was excited as hell for Iron Man 3 and Thor 2.

So why do I have a sense of disappointment the size of Midgard? Am I having Whedon-withdrawal? Am I just not a fan of dark elves and nanotechnology? I don’t think so (and as far as dark elves and nanotechnology go, I’ve played far too many pen and paper characters of those exact description to dislike them). What I feel is something else. It’s just disinterest.

When I went to the theaters to see Iron Man 3 I was ready to see something great To be wowed. And then I sat down, grabbed my beverage, and was not. But Robert Downey Jr. was fantastic as Iron Man, and his character arc, though it didn’t really go far, was interesting as hell. Hell, even the plot was fun – if not nearly as good as some of the comic book stories they should have drawn from. Against what should have been a pretty good, fun movie, I found myself very thoroughly uninterested. Which to someone who has read comic-books enough that I know the difference between Silver Age and Golden Age bags and boards (go with Silver Age, they were the biggest and are generally the most durable) and taught myself ethics based on Alan Moore monologues (hmm…. this would explain why I’m psychotic, wouldn’t it?), is very bad.

So I thought maybe I could wait a few months and see Thor 2. That could be fun. And I did. I sat back, ordered a vanilla porter (because Alamo Drafthouse knows what a theater should be like) and was… once again underwhelmed. And once again, I liked Chris Hemsworth. He was charming and Thor’s narrative was interesting. But it all seemed so wrong. Days later I still don’t care about Asgard or pretty much any of its inhabitants. I like Loki more than the damn protagonist, and as likable and funny as the human crew was, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about the Aether or whatever the dark elves were trying to steal from Natalie Portman. Not because she’s bad – but because she didn’t matter.

Nothing in Thor 2 mattered. Because we know how superhero movies have to end. You can’t kill Thor any more than you can kill Conan O’Brien. And any viewer knows it. And this is the problem with bad superhero comics, too. Yet there are plenty of great superhero stories that exist despite this limitation. And that’s because they almost never focus on the physical stakes of a confrontation. All-Star Superman has some of the best superhero story lines of all time and it features the powering-up of an already nearly omnipotent character. X-Men on the whole is only at its best when it explores the Other and its allegory of mutantkind as compared to the oppressed. The Avengers best stories aren’t when they’re fighting gods, its when they’re battling with themselves.

This is because there is nothing literarily interesting in seeing Superman break Zod’s neck (not that Man of Steel was interesting at all in any other ways…). Superman is a sun-god – show me something classical or get the fuck out. This is why the best part of Spider-Man 2 wasn’t the visually exciting bank heist or the train scene but the truly emotional end to Doctor Octopus.

Superhero movies are a genre that are in a rut. It is going to take something very big and very emotional to get them out. Because I think I’ve found out whats been bothering me about superhero movies, and what’s going to be bothering everyone else about them pretty soon. They’re heartless. Sure, we get some once and again in a good one. But they’re like a slick guy at a bar – good-looking, funny, charming. But they’re not good for anything but a cheap fuck and cab fare. If superhero movies want to stay a genre that matters (and not go the way of Transformers they need to dial up the ethos a hell of a lot.

Or else we’re all just going to get fucked.

 

– Also, in every Marvel movie I’m now just going to wonder why the one hero doesn’t immediately call the other heroes and say “I may need a little help.” Just a thought.

 

What does everyone else think? Am I dead wrong or am I making some sense? What are you looking forward to seeing from the superhero genre?