The thing about this boom of live-action superheroes is that, for better or worse, it is actually mimicking the source material to amazing degrees. You have the convoluted continuity involving multiple tie-ins and spin-offs. You have the non-stop reboots. You have the tension between the geeky pleasure of world-building and the castrating effects of editorial interference. And, interestingly, you’re starting to have some of the diversity as well.
Take the Marvel properties. It is impressive enough that we got a solid bunch of highly entertaining popcorn blockbusters telling straightforward superhero stories (especially the Iron Man and Avengers movies). But Hollywood has also successfully covered a lot of different ground, from the Brubaker-esque maze and all-out action of Captain America: The Winter Soldier to the otherworldly farce of Guardians of the Galaxy to the mix of schlocky sci-fi and Cold War politics of X-Men: First Class. And now there’s even the uproariously iconoclastic Deadpool! The TV shows have been great at this as well, what with the bouncy spy shenanigans of Agent Carter, the gritty crime drama of Daredevil, and the disturbingly creepy neo-noir feel of Jessica Jones. All of these are subgenres that comic fans are familiar with but many were traditionally ignored in the transitions to the screen, so it’s nice to see more people finding out that, while superheroes are generally goofy, they can be goofy in diverse ways!
In that sense, Man of Steel represents uber-violent takes on the genre like Jonathan Hickman’s and Ryan Bodenheim’s Red Mass for Mars or Warren Ellis’ and Juan Jose Ryp’s Black Summer (except that at least those had some wit). Basically, David S. Goyer wrote an Elseworlds Superman horror tale and Zack Snyder shot it like a pompous disaster movie. Man of Steel is dark, cold, and aggressive – I would say this was Snyder doing the film equivalent of all those proto-revisionist comics that tried to emulate Watchmen without fully getting the point, were it not for the fact that Snyder had already given us the definite version of that… with his own Watchmen movie!
So yeah, this week we get the sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I’ll probably watch it, sooner or later. The trailer makes it look like a hyperactive kid trying way too hard to be both meaningful and badass, but then again that’s a faithful rendition of many comics with the Dark Knight. Also, I’ve already gotten my ideal Batman movie (Mask of the Phantasm), so now I’ll just settle for a weird flick.
In a way, it’s hard to go wrong with the pair of Batman and Superman, whether they’re friends or enemies. The two characters work well together, since they’re so different and complementary, visually as well as thematically. I could go on about the alien who embraces humanity and the human who tries to transcend it, but I’m sure we’ve all written that essay in school…
Instead, here are 10 covers with the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel posing heroically as various artists explore their contrasts and parallels:
