I know not every superhero story is the same, but I feel like recent superhero media has moved away from showing heroes actually saving people. Even vigilantes like Batman and Daredevil rescue civilians—they’re not just crime fighters. Superheroes may not be realistic, but they’ve always prioritized saving lives.
That’s one reason I like The Flash on the CW—it balanced both saving people and crime fighting, even if the crime-fighting usually came first. Superman & Lois does this even better. Almost every episode shows Superman stopping disasters or accidents, not just punching villains.
Superheroes aren’t just super-powered cops, soldiers, or secret agents. They should also be part-time super-firefighters. Shows like 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire make me wish we had more of those rescue scenes—but with superheroes. Not every episode has to be about saving the whole city.
I’ve always felt that superhero stories reduce problems to something that can be solved through violence and, for that reason, dont really like them. After a while, the plots all seem the same, too.
Jessica Jones season 1 was good in this regard. A problem and a villain that can’t easily be handled by just throwing punches.
The Watchmen is another good one that has less focus on just punching bad guys.
Completely agree that it is problematic that when your basic story is about super strong individuals, then the only story you will write is about problems that can be solved with violence. No one wants to watch a movie of the Hulk doing shifts to rotate a turbine to generate clean electricity.
I did enjoy Jessica, so yeah, there are a few bright spots in the genre. The last but one Joker movie was worth watching too, but… so many Batman movies that seem kind of the same.
There is a reason that I have fallen asleep during the extended 3rd act fight scene in every single god damn marvel movie since Mark Ruffalo became the Hulk.
They all turn into the same movie, with the same fight. And these super long fights all seem to be surprisingly light on showing any of the actual real world impacts of such violence. Nobody ever gets seriously hurt unless the plot needs more sacrifice. But even when they do, the injuries mostly happen off camera and the blood never flows or spurts, it just instantly appears as makeup. It’s really giving people a deep rooted and totally unfounded sense that violence both solves every problem (it doesn’t) and does so bloodlessly (it doesn’t). At least Batman knows he’s not a hero.
But really, the DC universe isn’t much better. Think about how shocking a little bit of blood at the beginning of the new Superman movie was, before they basically destroy metropolis (which was rather expected and mundane). And then they only show the tiny fraction of people personally saved by Superman, not the countless mangled corpses buried under rubble. This may be why the public has trouble confronting the realities of war and violence.
I think that’s why I really like Invincible. I know it’s not live action superheroes, but I think it does a good job of showing how much destruction and devastation these superhero fights cause. I’m not big on Marvel or DC, but I do have a soft spot for Batman.
Don’t even get me started on ridiculous ones; like Spider man becoming a literally a spider, then felt an instinct to come up to the Spider Queen offering himself to be eaten, then the Spider Queen’s stomach burst open only for a new and shiny Peter Parker/Spiderman come out alive as if he had never become a spider. Then, there is Batman becoming addicted to drugs and telling Alfred to lock him up in the Batcave for weeks to detox.
This is why I generally only read critically acclaimed plot lines and stories than having a general comic interests.