When superheroes go good

Hold on to your tights; the superhero flick has taken flight. Long relegated to the realm of adolescent boys and their adult geek equivalent, the genre’s at the top of the Hollywood zeitgeist with sure-thing blockbuster “Spider-Man 2” hitting theaters this week, followed shortly thereafter by Halle Berry’s titillating, if much more iffy, version of “Catwoman.”

That’s not all. We’re looking at more comic book adaptations than you can point a ray gun at: Christian Bale is filming “Batman Begins”; Jennifer Garner’s working on “Elektra”; J-Lo’s rumored to be interested in “Wonder Woman”; Chris Columbus is developing “The Fantastic Four”; Wesley Snipes reprises his role as a vampire hunter in “Blade: Trinity”; Keanu Reeves stars in “Constantine,” the adaptation of DC Comics’ “Hellblazer”; Nicolas Cage is set to do “Ghost Rider” after bailing on the long-delayed “Superman” reinterpretation; and Tom Cruise has been circling around “Iron Man” for years.

So how did superheroes go from inconsequential juvenile pulp to eagerly awaited, studio-salivating, franchise-friendly juvenile pulp? The origin lies in “Superman,” the 1978 film starring Christopher Reeve, directed by Richard Donner and written by Mario Puzo. 

Truth, justice and the American way
After the fun but condescending “POW! BOFF! CRAACK!” stylings of the 1960s “Batman” television series and the strongman posing of Lou Ferrigno’s “Incredible Hulk” a decade later, the genre appeared dead, remaining essentially unchanged since the 1940s, when comic book heroes were a steady source for low-budget B-movie serials. Donner’s “Superman,” however, put the superhero on the cinematic map, blending big-money special effects with a regard for its subject never before seen.

Donner took the Man of Steel for what he is, a wholly American myth. Conceived by two sons of immigrants in the early years of the Depression, Superman embodies the American ideal — lantern-jawed, unconflicted and nearly unbeatable. Plus, as a super-powered, ostensibly illegal alien dumbing himself down to live under the guise of a mild-mannered reporter, he’s the ultimate assimilator. Although Puzo might have seemed an odd choice to adapt a comic book, similar themes ran through his “Godfather” scripts, and he treated them with the same epic scope. As a reflection of its time, “Superman” may well have been a response to the exhausted ’70s and a first look ahead to Ronald Reagan’s optimism.

That’s not to say it’s perfect — we are dealing with a hero who wears his underwear on the outside, after all. Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty, strong actors both, provide caricature in place of villainy. And “Can You Read My Mind?” Lois Lane’s spoken-word poem, remains a howling show-stopper. Unfortunately, after the well-regarded “Superman II,” which was actually written along with the first film as part of a single script, the series spiraled into a childish hybrid of camp and political righteousness.

Dance with the devil
Understanding the business of comic books rather than comic books themselves, Hollywood saw the potential and began making movies like “Conan the Barbarian,” which was good for Arnold Schwarzenegger but not for us, and “Howard the Duck,” which was good for nobody. It took visionary director Tim Burton, inspired by Frank Miller’s revolutionary case study of Batman in the graphic novel “The Dark Knight Returns,” to reclaim and reshape a myth.

If “Superman” looked optimistically toward the ’80s, Burton’s Batman was sick of the era. In reconsidering the vigilantism of the superhero, Burton envisioned Gotham City’s main street as an avenue between good and evil and forced us to play in it. In so doing, he demolished Adam West’s ’60s Batman and lifted the pall of derision off the comic book movie. Batman didn’t shimmy to the Batusi anymore, he danced with the devil. Burton also realized that the best villains mirror the superhero. The Joker is Batman uncoiled and sprung loose, without the defenses and good looks — they even argue over who created whom first.

Chase the dollar, however, and pay the price. When Joel Schumacher took over for Burton on “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin,” he was more concerned about piling on the villainous star turns. Ignoring the dark motivations that Burton understood so well, Schumacher instead focused on the size of Batman’s armored nipples. It was such nonsense that the series went into hibernation and nearly killed George Clooney’s movie career before it began.

Join the evolution

20th Century Fox Hugh Jackman starred in 2000's "X-Men."

“X-Men” finally put the comic book movie over the top. After “Spawn” and “Steel,” “Judge Dredd” and “Tank Girl,” and countless other duds, Hollywood finally saw that a comic book isn’t just a storyboard with established characters and conflicts waiting to be granted life through special effects. Decades of plot lines can’t be wrenched into a two-hour movie that satisfies rabid fans and brings in a mainstream audience.

So what made “X-Men” a critical and commercial success? Writer-director Bryan Singer appealed to both the diehards and the uninitiated by steadfastly refusing to label “X-Men” a comic book movie. He told his cast not to read the comics as a reference. He likened two of his main characters, Dr. Xavier and his nemesis Magneto, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X — men using different means to accomplish a similar end. To Singer, “X-Men” is less about super-beings than about the many forms of intolerance within our own society. We bought it.

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Director Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” capitalized on the momentum of “X-Men” by respecting Peter Parker, the man behind the mask. Like Burton, Raimi focused on tragedy rather than action, remaining true to the groundbreaking source while administering a 21st-century update to the hero’s neuroses. Spidey is, and always has been, guilt-ridden and burdened by self-doubt, torn between altruism and selfishness. Never before did such a comic book icon — and he’s third on the list, behind only Superman and Batman — have to make the existential choice between heroism and happiness.

With “Spider-Man 2,” Raimi enlisted Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon and Oscar winner Alvin Sargent to take care of the original’s major weakness and to craft a villain worthy of Spidey’s moral dilemmas. In Doc Ock, Spider-Man has a villain whom he actually likes personally — the man is a genius who mentored Parker before an accident fused him to four, uh, tentacles, and drove him to a life of crime. Ock is to Spidey as the Joker is to Batman.

There is no spoon
With masked heroes escaping the comic book ghetto faster than a speeding bullet, the genre's influence is spreading. “The Matrix” (or at least the first one) showed the strength and reach of the superhero trope and how closely it's held by a new generation of filmmakers. The Wachowski brothers, among others, took that sensibility, that exhilarating mixture of real and unreal, treated it seriously and created their own pop mythology.

And the audience is critical to that mythology. Times change, and so do heroes, but there has to be something there to stir the audience, something fundamental that's enduring and open to reinterpretation every few years. For the postmodern superhero, it's darkness, complexity and vulnerability. You can trace it from Julie Newmar's Catwoman to Michelle Pfeiffer's and even Halle Berry's. Who knows what the next version will offer? Excelsior, true believers!

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