"Superhero Fatigue" is a Myth

[Jackie Daytona]

A popular thing to say these days is that "people are sick of the superhero genre". Um, no. They aren't. Let's talk about that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(serial)

Superhero films have existed almost as long as film itself has. While the last 10 years has seen an explosion of these types of movies, it's a genre that has always existed.

In the 1940's it was Batman. In the 1950's it was Superman. In the 1960's it was Batman, again. In the 1970's it was 'The Hulk'. In the 1980's it was Batman, yet again!

The 1990's branched out. Seeking alternative superheroes. There were so many. Such as, 'M.A.N.T.I.S.' or 'Blade' or 'Spawn'. 'The Powerpuff Girls'. Even strange parodies like 'Meteor Man'. But also going back to orginals. Like the shows 'Lois & Clark' 'X-men: The Animated Series' or, once again, 'Batman: Animated'.

The 2000's had the Dark Knight trilogy. 'Ben 10'. 'Justice League: Unlimited'. And well, you probably know most of the others from this generation.

The idea that no one wants a superhero show is simply false. The problem is that the quality of these shows has declined.

In fact, superheroes are TIMELESS. Even in B.C. you had stories of Gods coming to earth. Hercules and Thor. Or men fighting Gods. Like in 'The Odysey'. Or various and convoluted tellings of Egyptian myth. People imbued with incredible power and doing incredible things.

Because that's appealing. Power fantasy is something that will never die. Ever.

Still don't believe me? Consider the isekai genre. I cannot even BEGIN to count the number of books and animes written in this genre. I bet some of you reading this have never even heard of it. Well, I gotta tell you: It's nuts.

A MINIMUM of 5-6 of these animes release every year. Never heard of them? You aren't alone. I had no idea. It's an endless rabbit hole. There are so many no human can possibly see them all. (Believe me, I've tried. I just keep finding new ones.)

But, uh... I'm getting ahead of myself. Isekai has this trope. That is, a male gets everything he wants. Power, money, girls... basically everything a guy could possibly want.

The reason American superhero films are declining is because of the people behind them. They don't want to do power fantasy that appeals to men. Instead, they want to do stuff that appeals to all audiences, or women specifically.

Captain Marvel, Wandavision, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, America Chavez, Ironheart, female Black Panther, female Thor, Wasp, Rey Skywalker, female Hawkeye...

Whatever happened to, y'know, 'The Avengers'? Hulk, Thor, Ironman, Captain America. What happened to the JLA? Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Batman. This is what people want. Not whatever the industry is trying to push.

Instead, they kill-off and/or side-line all these characters.

No one is waiting for the Bedrock[en.wikipedia.org] movie. No one cares. Just like no one cares about Kamala Khan or Kate Bishop.

My point is that the industry isn't serving the fans. They are serving themselves. They don't want to do male power fantasy. And that's the core of most comic characters.

Simply consider the OG grandaddy of them all: Superman. A guy with such overwhelming power that he can defeat any normal person in a fraction of a second.

But we don't get a Superman movie. Instead, we get Dr. Strange. Supposedly the most powerful mage in all the Marvel universe. That trained hard to gain his power. Capable of tearing that universe apart. That requires help from a teenage girl with one power. To defeat a woman on the same level as himself just because she is.

. . .
. . .
. . .

Nah, I'm just wrong about all this. Clearly no one wants a superhero movie. They haven't been happening for literally EVER and I'm just some idiot with a keyboard.

[permanent name]

It's an ancient genre. I could probably try listing more, however I'm a bit fatigued already.

Is 'Space Jam' a butthole person film? No, and it tried so hard. That's why nobody likes it.

People have become obsessed with buttholes and butthole media, like Elden Ring. The 'butthole souls' of the series, a series largely defined by buttholing in the first place.

That post took much longer than I want to admit, and the hardest part is just digging up series for it. Trying to sift past the imitation buttholes like saints row or gta and get down to the real deal like Maniac Mansion or Braindead 13. Daikatana is practically balanced on the edge of buttholing, whereas every. Single. Red Faction game is as deep in the butthole as it gets, and is about making even more buttholes.

Way of the Samurai 2: butthole. Way of the Samurai 4: butthole. 1 and 3? Normal games.

Space Engineers? More like Space Buttholers. No seriously name one mechanic in that game that isn't about exploring buttholes, and one basic design that isn't clearly a butthole or a butthole filler. You can't.

Astroneer? Buttholeneer. Sea of Butthole Thieves. EVE Butthole. Elite Buttholing.

etc.

[☎need4naiim☎]

Originally posted by Sir Seanicus, Esq.:

Capeshit.

Check 2006 Formula 1 Monaco GP podium.

There was a "superhero" there.

[Mad Hatter]

Originally posted by permanent name:

It's an ancient genre. I could probably try listing more, however I'm a bit fatigued already.

Is 'Space Jam' a butthole person film? No, and it tried so hard. That's why nobody likes it.

People have become obsessed with buttholes and butthole media, like Elden Ring. The 'butthole souls' of the series, a series largely defined by buttholing in the first place.

That post took much longer than I want to admit, and the hardest part is just digging up series for it. Trying to sift past the imitation buttholes like saints row or gta and get down to the real deal like Maniac Mansion or Braindead 13. Daikatana is practically balanced on the edge of buttholing, whereas every. Single. Red Faction game is as deep in the butthole as it gets, and is about making even more buttholes.

Way of the Samurai 2: butthole. Way of the Samurai 4: butthole. 1 and 3? Normal games.

Space Engineers? More like Space Buttholers. No seriously name one mechanic in that game that isn't about exploring buttholes, and one basic design that isn't clearly a butthole or a butthole filler. You can't.

etc.

This is easily the best Ted Talk I've been to. OP could take some pointers from you.

[☎need4naiim☎]

Originally posted by Pudge:

they need a extra powerful enemy to have anything to fight and they are always just as boring. i also don't like their strange outfits

Agreed.

They don't try to solve the problems of the helpless, the powerless.

Even A-Team, Knight Rider, McGyver have MORE realistic help for us, PEASANTS, despite their own problems. That's why those series will never be forgotten.

[permanent name]

Garth Merenghi's Dark Place.

[Mad Hatter]

Originally posted by permanent name:

Garth Merenghi's Dark Place.

https://youtu.be/GjOEcoMy2fI

❤️

[☎need4naiim☎]

About their outfits, they got extra ridiculous after 1995~.

1989 Batman was just enough.

[Mad Hatter]

Originally posted by ☎need4naiim☎:

About their outfits, they got extra ridiculous after 1995~.

1989 Batman was just enough.

Bat Nipples 👀

[☎need4naiim☎]

Originally posted by Mad Hatter:

Originally posted by ☎need4naiim☎:

About their outfits, they got extra ridiculous after 1995~.

1989 Batman was just enough.

Bat Nipples 👀

Though almost all of them do suck nowadays, it is not the case when a Superhero movie is done PROPERLY, with right tones, without getting extra ridiculous on "power" and detail and "realism" aspects:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ygK7sAavO0c

[Γαῖα]

When we escape the world war symbolism that gave rise to such a character and the tech savvy detective, comics were by far and large only the consumption of kids whose games were often more than not fantasy based pretend.
Kids nolonger have to pretend and haven't since the console. Now its all control a prefabricated character and thus reducing a movie to just a movie so as to titillate an audience with CGI.

I wont lie, seeing as a much older adult ironman compared to my childhood of pictures in comics and my own drawings was quite something but it didnt stoke the flames that burnt as a youth and was instantly disgarded as just another movie or tv show to watch when i wasn't doing something else.
A superhero as opposed to a hero is a naive proposition to all but a child and is on par with the idea of man without fences living alongside a T rex.
For an adult its not about a hero but about a single heroic act, that if portrayed right can be committed by a person as human as you and i. I would even go as far as say the more the hero is like ourselves, the more the character is liked.

[superslayer]

Superhero fatigue is a real thing it just only applies to casual movie fans. Hardcore super hero fanatics will watch any and all the slip served up by Disney like the consumer drones they are.

[Fire Angel]

DC Characters ranked by number of ongoing comic issues published in their name.

1.Batman (2,524)
2.Superman (2,062)
3.Wonder Woman (909)
4.The Flash (800)
5.Green Lantern (552)
6.Superboy (480)
7.Green Arrow (329)
8.Aquaman (328)
9.Nightwing (289)
10.Catwoman (285)
11.Swamp Thing (284)
12.Supergirl (262)
13.Captain Marvel (248)
14.Batgirl (218)
15.Robin (210)

[Hathaway]

Originally posted by Jackie Daytona:

Originally posted by Hathaway:

No, its a certain type of corporate profit driven fiction, implications of events and powers in stories cannot be truly examined, just reset or ignore, there can be no depth, it is superficial as their costumes, there can be no real conclusions as they need to keep things going on for the next product.

This is to imply that any big-budget production is for profit. Well, duh. Companies make movies to make money. It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.

Do you exclusively watch only indie films? Or something?

A multiverse doesn't destroy depth. It only adds to it.

For instance, let's say Superman dies. Well, they can just bring in a Superman from another reality, right? Sure, they could. However, this would leave a universe without a Superman. Which would have consequences. Comics don't just ignore stuff like that. It's taken into account.

At a certain point the stated goal of something stops being just that as people with no skin in the game infest the system. They've clearly been willing to forgo profits to shovel poisoned dreck into circulation, even as they continue to follow the factory recipe of this content must produce more content.

Randomness is not depth, it has no meaning, the idea of multiverses is just poison to lore, its an endless dilution. To paraphrase the Stalin, one death is a tragedy, a million is just a statistic.

One of the last good superhero films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT80Hyya5cQ

[Jackie Daytona]

Originally posted by Mad Hatter:

Originally posted by Jackie Daytona:

They had great actors playing popular Marvel characters. Which were all replaced by characters no one cares about. Portrayed by actors either mediocre or relatively unknown.

The best part of "Multiverse of Madness" was seeing Patrick Stewart as Xavier in the hover chair. Which says a lot. Considering he's on the screen for less than 5 minutes.

If you bothered to read my OP? You'd understand that's my point.

Jesus christ, the absolute hubris needed to think I'd waste my time reading your ramblings on capeshit. Notice how easily I summed it all up in my posts?

Anyone unwilling to read shouldn't use online forums.

[Jackie Daytona]

Originally posted by Hathaway:

Originally posted by Jackie Daytona:

This is to imply that any big-budget production is for profit. Well, duh. Companies make movies to make money. It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.

Do you exclusively watch only indie films? Or something?

A multiverse doesn't destroy depth. It only adds to it.

For instance, let's say Superman dies. Well, they can just bring in a Superman from another reality, right? Sure, they could. However, this would leave a universe without a Superman. Which would have consequences. Comics don't just ignore stuff like that. It's taken into account.

At a certain point the stated goal of something stops being just that as people with no skin in the game infest the system. They've clearly been willing to forgo profits to shovel poisoned dreck into circulation, even as they continue to follow the factory recipe of this content must produce more content.

Randomness is not depth, it has no meaning, the idea of multiverses is just poison to lore, its an endless dilution. To paraphrase the Stalin, one death is a tragedy, a million is just a statistic.

One of the last good superhero films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT80Hyya5cQ

What are you even talking about? My point is that hero stories have been around for LITERALLY ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY. Your response? "That's just dumb." Yeah, whatever.

Fiction is, ultimately, fiction. Adding a multiverse doesn't take away from that. It doesn't reduce depth or diminish the genre.