Contrary to what you might expect of me given that this blog has thus far been largely dominated by Doctor Who, I never really read comics when I was a kid, or even watched Saturday morning cartoons. Okay, I read the Beano, but the Beano is great. And I watched The Simpsons but so did my whole family. In fact, the heroes of my formative years were the three greatest grubby little antiheroes of all time: Dennis the Menace, Bart Simpson and Just William. You can imagine how much I wanted a catapult and pea-shooter, but apparently those are Actually Quite Dangerous or some such thing. Factor in Woody from Toy Story (who I guess is kind of like a version of the first three but older and on the right side of the law) and I think the reason I was never really into superheroes as a kid is because I already had enough role models (of sorts). Besides, superheroes were for boys. Superman and Batman and Spiderman were good for nothing but adorning the lunchboxes of all those icky males I condescended to interact with occasionally.
I think it's also the fact that superheroes were supposed to do good and fight crime and uphold ideals and that was kind of boring to me. Dennis, Bart and William were the cool kids that I was never really going to be because, despite running my mouth off at every opportunity and getting in more than a few playground scuffles, I basically cared too much about school and liked learning and shiny Well Done stickers. Those boys didn't care about authority and they let us know it. They were rebels and outsiders and, now I think about it, in many ways responsible for a series of crushes on fictional and historical characters that include, at last count, Edmund from King Lear, Robin Hood (in certain incarnations) (okay, the Disney fox but it's not weird, I swear), Byron, Han Solo and Prince Hal from the Henry IV plays. With the possible exception of Edmund, these are mostly snarky rebels living on the wrong side of the law but without any real malice to them. Bad boy with a heart of gold, you know the drill. Hey, even William Brown fell in love with the girl next door. Superheroes, on the other hand, beat up people much weaker than them and we were supposed to applaud them for it. I had little to say about these grown men parading around in Halloween costumes.
This all changed, of course, with the advent of Spiderman 2. I was just a bit too young for the first one, which came out in 2002, but I was 14 when the sequel hit our screens and ready to be converted. Admittedly, a great deal of the way was paved by the previous year's Pirates of the Caribbean but pirates, superheroes, it's all a rich tapestry. The point is, I started liking action flicks around the age of 14 - unlike lots of my friends, I didn't grow up on Star Wars and Indiana Jones because no-one showed them to me. I was the oldest child and my parents were probably reading me Greek myths or something. My new found love of thrills and spills was probably greatly aided by the kind of action movies that developed in the 2000s. The 90s saw an upsurge in gritty antiheroes, often with dark, tortured pasts, who didn't mind getting their hands dirty to get the job done - cf. all the tortured navel-gazing of Tim Burton's Batman films (the first two obviously, I'll get onto the other two monstrosities in a bit). I think the 2000s gave us a happy medium between that and the Superman/Disney black and white morality, as demonstrated by the 'Pirates' model: better CGI meant better, more thrilling, action sequences, which in turn ups the dialogue stakes because you need a whole raft of quips that are actually funny to stop the film being just one big firework. I'm not pretending Pirates of the Caribbean is great cinema but it (the first one anyway) entertained the hell out of me.
Let's get back to the point. We have me, 14, all hyped up and pleasantly surprised by POTC (seriously, I was forced into watching it at a sleepover and then bitched and moaned about it right up until Johnny Depp dives off that cliff to save Keira Knightley) and looking for another action fix. Cue Spiderman 2. Didn't see the first one, oh well, it's been referenced enough in pop culture by now, I'm sure I've seen all the important bits (by which I mean the upside-down kiss). I toddle along, check it out, and BAM. A new love is born. Suddenly, superhero films are great. I'd clearly been missing out. So what happened?
Well, two things, I suspect.
1) Comic book films had always been mainstream, but usually they were marketed towards kids and the dark underbelly of adult fans. (You know, the ones who dressed up to go to conventions and things. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I was socially inept enough when I was 14, there was no need to add fuel to the flames.) In the last decade or so, filmmakers have started making more of a conscious effort to present superhero films as something that could be enjoyed by the whole family - explosions for the kids, serious adult dilemmas for the parents. This developed to the point where the films weren't really for kids at all any more. Slap a 12A rating on it and you can get 'em in so you don't lose money but when the little brats either start whining because they don't understand why Batman keeps talking and shit instead of punching somebody, or crying because Heath Ledger's Joker is haunting their dreams like Freddy Krueger with a pencil, it's totally the parents' fault for letting them watch in the first place.
2) On a personal level, I think I just had to grow up a bit to appreciate that being the good guy could be just as interesting and cool as being the bad guy. It's odd that this happened in my mid-teens, when we're usually busy fetishising bad behaviour (usually in a very lame way - the number of girls I knew who proclaimed they'd "totally be Slytherin"...) but it sort of makes sense: I was a good girl, a bit of a social outsider and a sarcastic witch with far too many black and purple clothes. Morally good, outside the norm and prone to dressing up. That's pretty much what a superhero is.
The thing I do find strange is that it was Spiderman that got me into it. If you think about it, Spiderman is the least adult-friendly superhero. Spiderman is just kind of silly. He's called Spiderman. His costume is red and blue spandex. He doesn't even have a cape. His alter ego is squeaky-clean Peter Parker, the most stereotypical of high school science nerds lusting after the pretty popular girl from afar. I strongly suspect my adoration had something to do with the intense blue of Tobey Maguire's eyes, but 14-year-old me just wanted to hug him and tell him it would all be ok. Plus, he managed to convey that sense of wonderment that I think is/should be Spiderman's trademark - where Superman is born with his powers and Batman doesn't have them at all, Spiderman/Peter Parker never quite gets over the random gifting of these nigh-godlike abilities. And (sometimes) he really enjoys being a superhero. So the effects in the first film were ropey, to say the least, but the swinging through New York sequences in the second and third were fantastic and greatly enhanced by the joyous whooping and shrieking of the eponymous hero. If New York was my giant jungle gym, I'd certainly make some noise about it.
But in latter years, I have turned away from that particular franchise somewhat. On re-watching them, the films are far more plot-hole-ridden than I remember, with some truly terrible lines of dialogue and a lot more general silliness, a lot of which (I suspect) was unintentional. And while Tobey Maguire is very cute, he does pull some ridiculous faces. And for the life of me, I'll never understand how I failed to notice James Franco standing right next to him for the whole thing, brooding and snarling and having daddy issues. But maybe you just can't make a gritty film out of Spiderman. Maybe it's just too comic book-y. Well, we're getting a reboot soon, so we'll see.
Batman, on the other hand, has proved itself resoundingly adept at 'gritty', largely thanks to Christopher Nolan resurrecting Batman Begins from the ashes of the franchise caused by the car crash that was Batman Forever. Now there's a film that makes a mockery of the idea that adults can enjoy superhero films. But the epic fail of both Batman Forever (although, shamefacedly, I will admit to quite enjoying Jim Carrey's Riddler) and Batman and Robin has been well documented. Let other keyboards dwell on guilt and misery, etc. Nolan's films have been a resounding success, a triumphant example of a franchise that is both money-making and not totally stupid. I'm not going to say they're perfect movies but I really do like the things he did with the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy providing the Baby Blues this time around) and the Joker, plus Christian Bale's BatVoice has provided me with endless amusement while revising. Seriously, just imagine Batman is reading your notes to you. Bet they're memorable now.
Plus, Batman is different from all those other spandex-clad show-offs. He wasn't bitten by a spider or sent here from another planet. He just goes to the gym a lot and has a trust fund. He's one of us just, like, super buff. So is Iron Man, sort of, but he's also a jerk and not nearly conflicted enough which makes him very fun to watch but he'll never be my favourite. Though I don't think I've ever not enjoyed anything Robert Downey Junior was in, and that includes Ally McBeal. Fun fact: did you know RDJ was originally up for Duckie in Pretty in Pink and if he'd done it, Molly Ringwald's character probably would have ended up with him instead of Blandy McDreamBoy? I might have actually liked that movie. Plus, what the hell was her prom dress supposed to be? I get she was meant to be 'different' and 'kooky' but I don't think either of those things are synonymous with 'hideous'. Anyway.
So at the moment, Batman is the hero for me. Sadly, I don't fancy Christian Bale but I hear the third film's going to have Joseph Gordon Levitt in it, so there's hope yet. Spidey, you'll always have a special place in my heart (you never forget your first), but Batman just makes a better movie. By the way, if you're wondering why I haven't really talked about Superman, it's because Superman is very boring. Objectively. "Truth, justice and the American way"? I'm sorry, I fell asleep while you were posing front of those stars and stripes.
It's not just the wholesome, all-American farm boy thing either. Or even that I can't quite get over the phenomenal stupidity of everyone in that universe who doesn't realise that Clark Kent and Superman are identical (at least say you're cousins or something). It's the fact that he can do just about anything, unless there's kryptonite around. Gee, what do you think's going to feature in the plot this week? Ding ding ding, we have a winner, it's kryptonite. Put it like this: the ancient Greeks didn't write epics about the gods. They were gods. Everyone would saunter off on quests for the gorgon's head if they knew they could just smite her or something. Greek heroes had to be human, they had to struggle to perform their incredible feats. My favourite was Odysseus, who I think is kind of the Batman of the ancient world. No superhuman physical strength or the ability to fly or anything, just really fucking clever. (I've been trying to find other equivalents and while Spiderman is definitely Perseus - young, whiny, has ability to descend from high places - Superman could be either Achilles for the nigh-invulnerability and one inconvenient weakness or Hercules for the mad strength but both are way too human and angry and tortured.)
Plus, Batman and Spiderman kind of have metaphors going for them. Spiderman is clearly a metaphor for puberty: your body changes (waking up to find your bedsheets covered in white, sticky stuff, hair growing in strange places) and you become acquainted with a new set of grown-up problems (negotiating the work/life balance). Batman is...fear, I suppose, and how you can conquer it and use it against people, and taking charge of your destiny, and all that but it's a bit more nebulous. Superman is a metaphor for what, exactly? You can have the powers of a god but it doesn't mean you'll know how to dress well? I don't know.
Anyway, while I have to yet to see Thor (and boy, am I looking forward to that, as I would look forward to anything that combined the dubious directorial talents of Kenneth Branagh, Chris Hemsworth's not insubstantial abs and NORSE GODS), I continue to enjoy my superhero movies. The whole Marvel comics universe multi-hero films sequence coming out over the next few years? Yeah, bring it. Why have one hero when you can have Robert Downey Jnr, Mark Ruffalo (as the Hulk, WHAT?) and Samuel L Jackson all in one Avenger-y package? I kind of like the steps towards integrating the concept of superheros more 'plausibly' into our own universe, mainly because it won't work so long as Thor is popping down from Asgard for a cup of tea, and I fully expect the results to be hilarious. And, hey, there's only one Nolan Batman left to come, so you got to work with what you're given.
I'm going to back to my revision now. I'm reading Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur, which is basically a prototype comic book adventure crossed with a parody of Monty Python, crossed with the Carry On films, lurching wildly from high romance lists of who laid low who in various jousts to Lancelot getting shot in the "buttok" by the arrow of a lady hunter (now we complain about women and parallel parking, back then it was shooting straight). I'm not kidding.
And I will take very great pleasure in reading King Arthur's lines in a Batman voice.
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