Opinion: What should a superhero movie be?

Earlier this month a small superhero film by the name of Logan released. It has made a name for itself by becoming one of the highest rated superhero films of all time and on top of that, it’s just a good movie in general. After seeing it, I realized that Logan is what a real superhero movie should be. After being bombarded with big budget comic-book movies like Captain America: Civil War and The Avengers, my mind became warped and I believed those are what good superhero movies should be.

Don’t get me wrong, those are good movies and millions of people enjoy seeing them, but they aren’t exactly what a superhero movie should be…. They’re flashy spectacles with minimal plot progression. There have been 13 movies released in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (with 3 more releasing in 2017) and next year all these movies will begin to culminate in the first of two Avengers movies releasing in 2018 and 2019 respectively. While it’s cool to see these characters cross over and to have this story constantly unfolding across each movie, it seems like they’re missing something. They’re so focused on having this overarching narrative that each movie feels like a half-step in the plotline. They all want to connect together and therefore have to spend some portions of each movie setting up things that won’t matter for several years at least, it takes away a lot of time that could be spent developing these very interesting characters who happen to have thoroughly developed pasts.

Logan basically said “Screw continuity!” because it didn’t want to be held back. It just wanted to tell a story in one film that focused on interesting, well-developed characters that feel unique from each other. When I look at the Avengers, they all seem the same for the most part despite having different powers. They’re all witty, sassy, and funny and that’s all I see in them. Tony Stark is the only one who seems to ever have any interesting arcs, which is really ironic because he’s supposed to be the witty one. In Iron Man 3, he’s broken and suffers from PTSD after The Avengers. In Captain America: Civil War, he has serious regrets and realizes despite all their efforts… they may be causing more harm than good. His anger rises throughout the movie and at the end, he explodes, unleashing all this rage and he gets his ass handed to him. Since “Phase One” of the MCU, we really haven’t seen any other characters go through some serious arcs.

I’m not saying every character has to get angry, sad, or mean, but there should be some variety and weight to the films and their characters. Superhero movies rarely take significant risks or have stakes. In the case of the Marvel movies, nobody substantial dies or ever feels like they’re actually at risk. Maybe that feeling stems from Marvel announcing a dozen movies that are five years away from releasing so you know which characters will live to be in some sequel, but it could also come from the formulaic nature of each film. Logan took risks, granted, it had the ability to do the things it did because the two leads were going to walk away from their respective roles, but even without that it still managed to be risky.

Throughout Logan, we see a Logan that is very vulnerable throughout the movie and at any moment he could die – it adds a dynamic to the film that Marvel is missing out on. If Marvel approached each movie without announcing any sequels, they could make everything feel much more intense. Captain America: Civil War is the only movie in the MCU that felt it had any real stakes the first time I watched it. Granted, it didn’t pay off much, but I genuinely expected some characters to kick the bucket. It was exciting to watch because I didn’t really know where things might go and throughout the movie, the stakes continue to get higher and higher. It makes the movie much more interesting to watch!

Some of the best superhero stories are the ones that revolve around personal, very human stories. While doing research for this piece, I went back and watched some old episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and Justice League: Unlimited. While these are TV shows and not movies, there are aspects of them that can be put into movies.

The best episodes of the aforementioned shows put character driven stories in the foreground while action and set pieces took the backseat. One episode of Justice League, titled Hereafter, tackles the death of Superman and shows how these larger than life characters deal with losing not only an ally but their best friend and a member of their family. They reminisce about the Man of Steel recounting fun stories, even enemies realize how much Superman actually meant to them, and Batman confesses how much he admires and respects his frenemy at Superman’s grave/memorial. While there is action in this episode, that’s not the focus. Hereafter peels back the layers of these characters and delivers an emotional episode showing them in one of the most human ways possible despite one of them being an alien.

When Superman was killed in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it didn’t emotionally resonate with me as much as it should’ve. Maybe that impact was stripped away because five minutes later they reveal he’s not really dead by having some dirt on his casket begin to levitate but it also had to do with the fact that I didn’t really care about anyone else surrounding him.

Prior to Superman's death, we were rushed through Batman trying to kill him just thirty minutes before and Wonder Woman meeting him ten minutes before his death. Lois Lane was the only one who was emotionally affected by this and even that didn’t do much for me. Two of the three characters standing next to his ripped open corpse were just standing there, somewhat unaffected by what they just saw. Yes, Batman takes his death and goes to form the Justice League but that left a bad taste in my mouth because it was done to set up a sequel which confirms Superman's resurrection.

One other example that stood out to me was a Justice League: Unlimited episode titled Epilogue. The episode serves as a way to wrap up Batman Beyond and The Animated Series. Despite it having some moments I could’ve done without, there’s one very excellent Batman moment. He’s not kicking ass, he’s not making some witty remark, he shows a side he hides deep inside himself and shares an intimate moment with a child moments away from passing into the afterlife.

After being sent into kill the child (Ace) because she’s too powerful, he realizes something. This poor girl isn’t really evil in the way some other villains are. She just wanted to have fun and play because she had her childhood taken away from her while she was experimented on by the government. Batman sympathizes with her and sits with her in her final moments as she dies naturally. Not only does he just sit with her, he reaches his hand out to comfort her. In this very brief scene, we see so many different things happening without a ton of things being said. There’s nothing that has come close to this in any Batman movie. It’s not about how sad or depressed he is or how badass he is, it’s about how human he is and that’s not something we see often when it comes to Batman.

The most compelling and interesting part about a superhero isn’t their powers or costume, it’s the person under the mask. The drama and hardships they have to deal with are what is interesting, that goes for both heroes and villains. Movies like Logan are proving this and I hope studios learn from this. Hopefully, they don’t learn the wrong lesson and think everything needs to be really dark and R-rated but instead begin to make movies with meaningful plots, layered characters, and action that drives the story forward and isn’t done just for the sake of action.