It seems the world has a little fetish with Super Heroes, especially ones from comic books. Starting in the late 1978 rendering of Superman and ending in 1997 with Batman and Robin, the super hero craze has come full circle. All these two men could do and who they encountered had been tried. It was in May 2000, that the movie X-Men was released in theaters. With a cast of popular actors, it was a hit and is what revived our desire for these fighters of evil movies.
It wasn’t until after the events of 9/11 that the next super hero movie came out, Spider-Man. The movie was in production before 9/11 and originally had Spider-Man swinging between the Twin Towers in the trailer. The world and its people needed a protector and that is what they got from Peter Parker- savior for an ailing New York City.
In 2003, we saw the return of the X-Men in X2: X-Men United and were introduced to Daredevil, a super hero flop starring Ben Affleck and his now wife, Jennifer Garner. It continued like this in 2004 with Spider-Man 2 and another flop, Catwoman. Halle Berry crossed over from her X-Men character Storm to play this role amidst great controversy about the Marvel comics and DC comics line casting the same actress for one of there movies.
In 2005, three, yes three superhero movies came out. Elektra, a spin off of Jennifer Garner’s role in Daredevil was released, as well as The Fantastic Four and Batman Begins. The return of Batman to the big screen made many people happy and excited. This prequel to the previous movies humanized the super hero and showed how he became the bat.
This year brought back one hero and closed out a saga of great mutant wars. X-Men: The Last Stand, was the final chapter in the X-Men story line, as many of the now famous cast members did not wish to return for a fourth movie. This movie introduced a cure for mutants and advertised for the fact that different does not equal bad and had the X-Men standing up for what they believed to be their true selves, not simply something that needed to be cured. Superman Returns has Superman returning from a five year hiatus at his home planet, Krypton- or rather, upon hearing that its location had been found he goes in search of it to find it destroyed. We find out that although many people thought we didn’t need Superman anymore, we clearly do.
The upcoming year includes the return of two favorites in Spider-Man 3 and The Fantastic Four 2, as well as the introduction of Iron Man.
The world is still looking for a super hero. These movies keep getting made and keep making so much money because the world needs hope, albeit fictional. We need to think there is someone out there protecting us from the “bad guys”. It is clear that since 9/11, this need has only grown and it will not go away until we the people feel safe in our shoes, on our streets and in our cities- a tall order for the most super of heroes.
