#5 — Top 10 Semantics of the Superhero genre
This Medium post was originally going to be about the semantics AND syntax of the superhero film, but as I typed the notes for semantics of the genre, I decided I would rather make a list (I love Top 10’s and I love superheroes). Without further ado, here are the Top 10 Semantics of the Superhero Film:
10. Hero initially cannot beat Villain
This really only happens to advance or even kickstart the plot. For the villain to prove that they matter for this film, they have to originally be dangerous enough to take on the hero as a show of strength.
9. Hero eventually defeats Villain, because justice and morals
This is usually the conclusion of the climactic battle between our Hero and Villain. Because the Hero represents good and the Villain represents evil, the former has to triumph purely to make the viewer feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. This is how Superman can beat Zod, even though he trained on a farm in Kansas and never saw combat until a day ago and Zod was bred specifically to be the perfect soldier — a fact Zod pointed out in Man of Steel (This does not excuse your mistake, Zack Snyder!). This is how Batman can beat Bane in a fistfight despite having had his back literally broken. Batman underwent emotional growth, so the filmmakers said that that was equivalent to becoming a better combatant. I’m not a big fan of the prison doctor’s back-punch-ex-machina, either.
8. Basically indestructible Hero requires little-league pep talk
This is when the Hero faces a crisis of faith within themselves after someone dies or they otherwise fail to stop the Villain from committing an act of villainy. They worry if they can be good enough to really be a Hero, despite how some of them are actually bulletproof. Credit for this one actually goes to the YouTube channel CinemaSins, who made note of it after Nick Fury’s baseball card trick to get the Avengers motivated for battle.
7. One weakness
While not always the fault of the filmmakers so much as it is the writers of comic books, this is a trick used to sort of humanize the Hero. They have to be really really impeccably moral and strong and smart so that we (the viewer) look up to them as a heroic figure, but they need one key weakness that also garners our sympathy, another connection to them. Green Lantern’s ring fails when he’s scared. Wolverine’s skeleton is covered in a very magnetic metal. Hawkeye… actually, Hawkeye is really the one weakness of the entire Avengers team. He’s quite useless, despite what Age of Ultron would have you think. Hands down, the WORST case that you will ever see for this semantic, one that I swear if it is used as any sort of plot device in Dawn of Justice I will revoke Zack Snyder’s movie privileges, is Superman’s one weakness: kryptonite.
6. Police see Hero as a threat
Vigilantism is illegal. Though many films acknowledge this, it only ever serves as a minor inconvenience to the Hero. It merits at most a scene or two of the protagonist escaping the police. Only in Kick-Ass and Watchmen have their been major problems because of the police arresting heroes. In Man of Steel, Superman ALLOWS himself to get arrested just to assuage fears that he is a threat.
5. Police see Hero as a hero and allow him/her to continue heroics
Eventually, because the Hero is a hero, the police decide that the law doesn’t really matter anymore and that the Hero can continue being heroic. Apparently vigilantism is legal if you’re good at it.
4. Impractical supersuits
This applies to every single super-suit ever. They all have some fatal flaw. I don’t even know if this qualifies as a “characteristic” enough to be a semantic of the genre, but I don’t care. Either they’re bright and colorful spandex (The Incredibles, Frozone, Spider-Man), they don’t cover your head or really protect you at all (Captain America, Hawkeye), they’re terrible leather outfits that aren’t stealthy at all and probably smell awful on patrol (Daredevil, pre-reboot X-Men), or worst of all, they have a damn cape (Superman, Thor). Batman is the exception for his normal suit in the movies, but it’s a sin if that mechsuit has a bat-cape in Dawn of Justice.
3. Villain is really a good guy at heart
This semantic is geared towards telling the audience that there is good in everybody. The Villain is shown to have a secret motivation for doing their villainy, and it is revealed that that motivation is a dying daughter (Sandman in Spider-Man 3), a true love of science (Doc Ock, Spider-Man 2), things of that nature. In 2013, DC Comics launched a storyline called “Forever Evil” and it is beautiful. The main antagonists are the Crime Syndicate, a parallel Earth’s doppelgangers of the main Justice League heroes — the twist is that these doppelgangers are completely and totally evil conquerors, with no compassion or redeeming qualities. Rather than give truly evil villains who we can love to hate, like how Green Goblin is meant to be, the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man tried to make us care about Norman Osborn.
2. Monologuing
Catching the Villain monologuing is a staple of the superhero genre. Oftentimes, it’s even how the Hero gets the upper hand. For some reason, villains have to gloat and reveal their evil master plan.
- Dead parent/mentor figure
Again not so much the fault of the filmmakers as it is the source material, nearly every superhero has dead parents or a dead mentor or a dead planet (Sorry, Superman) that motivates them to become the Hero. Very rarely does anyone choose out of their own good nature to become the Hero, which honestly says a lot about their character. To emphasize this point, here is a list of some of the more prominent movie superheroes who have been driven to hero-dom by their parental figure’s death.
Batman (Mom, Dad)
Batman again (Mom, Dad)
Robin/Nightwing (Mom, Dad, Brother)
Spider-Man (Uncle Ben)
Daredevil (Dad)
Batman AGAIN (Mom, Dad)
Green Lantern (Dad)
Amazing Spider-Man (Uncle Ben again)
Superman (Entire planet)
