Amph Superhero Overload?

Oh. My bad.

 

Well, the kids who grew up on the cartoon series and the video games knew. Most adults around the age of thirty, did not unless they bought stuff for their kids.

 

Being around for forty years and being pop culturally relevant are two different things. The X-Men comics, like most of Marvel, were confirmed to the print and some cartoons. Spider-Man, the Hulk and Captain America were the most well known and established of Marvel's catalog of intellectual properties, prior to 2000. They had been on television, both as live action and animation, as well as having the most merchandising available. The Fantastic Four were next in line. Most people hadn't heard of the X-Men, Daredevil and Iron Man prior to their films. Those who did were comic book geeks who read the comics and watched the cartoons. Same with DC. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern were the most well known due to the films and television ventures, as well as the merchandising products. They were well known. But characters like Green Arrow, Booster Gold and Firestorm were known to the geeks. Most people had never heard of "Watchmen" until the first trailer debuted. It had already gained relevance outside of the normal comic book fandom, with those who had heard word of mouth that it was one of the greatest works of the 20th century. Hell, Deadpool was unknown to anyone who wasn't in the know.

There's a larger world that is only now becoming aware of DC and Marvel's other properties because of the film and television ventures. Iron Man is now part of pop culture.

 

Imagine going back ten years and saying, "hey comic geeks, in the next decade you're going to get a really good Iron Man film, Captain America film, Deadpool film, and GotG film! Oh, and also Batman and Superman in a live action film together for the first time ever."

 

I am unaware we ever had a good Iron Man film.

 

Forget ten, go back twenty years.

 

Yeah, imagine being told in 1998-2000 that we are going to get at least dump of 30 to 40 comic book movies over the next 15 to 20 years and that virtually all of them are going to be absolutely amazing. You'd say please excuse me while I nerd out for the next 20 years.

 

Fixed.

Though, yes, I would try to excuse myself form having to ever experience it.

 

Do you have proof of that? That they were indeed pop culturally relevant? I'm not just talking about the attempt at making a movie in the mid 80's and the cartoon series. I'm talking about stuff like people on the street knowing them. Family members who never read comics and watched the cartoon series.

 

I'm not talking about the comics themselves. I'm talking about word of mouth about the X-Men characters from non comic book fans. By 2000, the film had come out and anyone who hadn't watched the cartoon series, found out that they existed.

 

heck after ROTS and LOTR, Spider-Man and X-Men, i thought hollywood was running out of properties to use all this new cgi for. i didn't see all these marvel movies coming. kids today are living in a golden age of these type of movies.

 

I've never read any superhero comics. As a kid (I'm 41 now), my knowledge of the characters all came from their TV shows, movies, and merchandise like t-shirts, lunchboxes, etc. As far as I can recall, I knew Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, the Hulk, Captain America, and Thor. I'm not positive, but I think that's it... I don't recall knowing about the others (including X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Iron Man) until their much more recent movies.

 

They were among the final ones to be sold, rather. All the other properties had previous screen adaptations, including the Fantastic 4 (but it was never released). Spider-Man had B-movies in the 70s, and Lou Ferrigno famously played the Hulk on TV.

I would also suggest that Captain America was more known than the X-Men. As an anecdote, my dad, who grew up in Iran, knew Captain America from the cartoon series he used to watch as a kid. He did not know who the X-Men were when we saw the movie. I agree that the Fantastic 4 were not commonly known, though.

As an aside, Captain America was also pop culturally relevant enough for Will Smith's character to make a joking reference to him in Men in Black when he's making fun of another character. Although, to be fair, the phrase 'captain America' itself has double meaning in that joke.

 

Cap had a movie serial and two TV movies from the 70's, as well as the cartoon from late 60's time period. The FF had that same cartoon series and a later series. But in terms of beyond that, Marvel had more merchandise with them than they did with the X-Men. There were more shirts, hats, sweaters and other stuff with Spider-Man, Hulk and Cap than there were with Wolverine or the X-Men as a team. This did change in the late 80's and the start of the 90's, but their media presence only really had a huge uptick after the bankruptcy ended. By then, Marvel was trying to market everyone and everything.

I can even remember going to see the first "X-Men" film and hearing people talking who didn't know much about them, but were interested in seeing it. There was even a minister, or pastor or whatever, who had seen an earlier showing who felt that the film should have had less fighting and more trying to talk about peaceful solutions.

 

No self-respecting adult should buy comics or watch superhero movies

"Another month, another superhero movie staggers to the silver screen, lurching under the weight of its own self-importance, groaning with the expectations of fans, and burdened with a nine-figure marketing budget. I am, of course, talking about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, to give it its full, clunkingly portentous title.

Can we all please grow up? Can we acknowledge that Marvel and DC have scraped right though the bottom of the barrel? Can we call time on superhero films? Films which are too dark for kids the comics were originally written for, yet too dumb for any thinking adult."

 

This stuff used to be contained to North America, but superheroes are an invasive species that has gone global and taken over the food chain of movie markets everywhere.

 

I consider this to be the first modern superhero movie:


1989 Tim Burton's Batman. It seemed to become one of those cultural events of a film.

As for the genre itself, it's not as anchored to a time and place like Westerns were, so I don't see them going away any time soon.

 

See? I told you this thread could still be useful.

 

I fully acknowledge this, but I'll still watch them if I'm bored, same as the Fast & Furious movies. What, do you think I watch a Vin Diesel movie and come out thinking that I've watched a commentary on the modern human condition? It's light entertainment. Easy to follow and provides visual spectacle. I've gradually lost my appetite for it though, I will say. Maybe it's age.