META: Notes on a Genre I Love

[Andrew Perron]

On Sat, 7 Mar 2009 05:13:28 +0000 (UTC), Martin Phipps
<martinphipps2 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>Personally, I see the ridiculousness of superheroes as something that
>needs to be fixed: when superheroes are presented in other media
>(movies and TV) they are never exactly what we see in the regular
>comics because that would be too silly.

I don't think that's a problem with superheroes; I think it's a
problem with the people who adapt the material having contempt, on
some level, for it.  The best superhero adaptations are those which
embrace the silliness, which can swirl it into the more serious bits.

The first Spider-Man movie was the best of the three (IMHO), and you
know why?  Because it had the most silliness.  And as for the Dark
Knight... part of what made Heath Ledger's performance so brilliant
was the way it showed that, yes, the Joker is completely absurd... and
is completely willing to kill you and all you stand for anyway.

Even non-comic-based superheroes are best when they have that touch of
the ridiculous.  In Heroes, Hiro's jowl-shaking power activations made
the series better, not worse.  The Incredibles embraced the weird, and
is possibly the best of all Pixar movies.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, SINB.