For a reminder of superheroes’ roots in the hard-boiled pulp fiction of the 1920s and 30s, you only need to watch one of Netflix’s shows about “street level” heroes such as Luke Cage, Jessica Jones or Daredevil. Costumes are often dispensed with, central characters sometimes struggle to pay the rent, and powers are downgraded to a level where they’re suitable only for protecting the streets of Manhattan – rather than taking on alien invaders and all-powerful AI supervillains.
But on the big screen, with the honourable exception of upcoming Marvel movie Spider-Man: Homecoming, the genre is becoming ever more outlandish and fantastical as studios battle to hit ever-more grandiose levels of epic spectacle in a sort of superhero arms race. Not so long ago, Guardians of the Galaxy opened up the Marvel universe to a radical shift into outrageous space opera, while current offering Doctor Strange introduces us to an entirely new world of magical and mystical entities across multiple head-spinning dimensions. Meanwhile, the DC expanded universe seems to have hit peak crazy with far-out villains such as Suicide Squad’s Enchantress, a gyrating ancient sorceress bent on taking over the world, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s Doomsday, a monstrous zombie alien creature formed from the dead body of General Zod lovingly infused with Lex Luthor’s DNA.
Is it all, perhaps, getting just a little bit out of control? Legendary Batman comic book writer (and sometime film-maker) Frank Miller hinted at his feelings on the current comic book movie zeitgeist this weekend when he told Variety he would make the dark knight “smaller” if he were ever handed the keys to the franchise.
“My dream would be to … lose the toys and to focus more on the mission, and to use the city a great deal more,” said Miller, who wrote the seminal Batman graphic novels The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. “Because he’s got a loving relationship with the city he’s protecting. And unlike Superman his connection to crime is intimate; it has been ever since his parents were murdered. And he defeats criminals with his hands. So it would be a different take. But it will never be in my hands, because it would not be a good place to make toys from. There wouldn’t be a line of toys.”
Miller’s strategy for reinventing the caped crusader sounds a lot closer to Christopher Nolan’s relatively minimalist Dark Knight trilogy than Dawn of Justice, which threw itself into an epic, outsized storyline and found itself faltering in the details – with a dark knight who seemed strangely disconnected from his traditional moral centre.
With luck, we might get to see a Batman closer to his pulpy detective-story roots in Ben Affleck’s upcoming solo outing, The Batman. But if the demands of the DC universe make a minimalistic caped crusader an unlikely prospect any time soon, Affleck’s brother Casey might have just the tonic. Variety reports that the younger sibling is pitching a new thriller titled Villain, which will focus on a Batman-style vigilante who gains superpowers after being shot in the head during a brutal burglary. Intriguingly, this new “real-world” superhero sounds a lot like Affleck’s raging, murderous dark knight in Dawn of Justice. Is the younger Affleck satirising his own brother’s work? To quote the trade bible:
The movie is set in a city overrun with crime. Affleck’s character loses everything of meaning in his life when a brutal home invasion leaves his family dead and two bullets lodged in his head. He develops a unique power in the wake of his trauma — an ability to see into people’s pasts, presents, and futures — and goes on a mission of revenge to find the men who killed his family, and in the process clean up his city long overdue for justice.
But as his vigilante acts become more frequent and violent in nature, his arrival as the city’s hero may instead be the announcement of its most prolific villain.
As the superhero genre continues to gain in popularity, it was perhaps inevitable that we would see comic book tropes beginning to seep into other genres. What are the heroes and villains of Josh Trank’s Chronicle, Neil Burger’s Limitless or Luc Besson’s Lucy experiencing, after all, if not a form of superpower? In fact, as Miller suggests, the only reason studios need to keep their heroes wearing recognisable costumes is to make sure they sell plenty of toys.
Comic-book films remain in their relative infancy – the oft-compared western genre took more than three decades to hit its peak – and it seems unlikely that audiences will tire of superheroes with silly names, outlandish outfits and extravagant powers any time soon. But there is surely room for more introspective and cerebral material that plays on our fascination with superhuman abilities – especially with the meta-fuelled Kick-Ass saga having most likely given us our last big screen instalment.
Which Affleck superhero flick would you rather see? Ben’s epic tale of gun-toting Batman’s battle with Deathstroke on the streets of Gotham? Or Casey’s intriguing examination of the corrupting nature of superpowers? I’m a huge Batman fan, but I’m going with the younger Affleck on this one.
