META: Notes on a Genre I Love

[Andrew Perron]

On Sun, 8 Mar 2009 06:25:13 +0000 (UTC), Martin Phipps
<martinphipps2 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Mar 7, 10:04 pm, Andrew Perron <pwer... at gmail.com> wrote:

>> 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.
>
>Like the 1966-1968 Batman TV series?

You could argue that the real problem of that was having *no* serious
bits.  Of course, I like that show, so I'll just say "yes, exactly!"

>> The first Spider-Man movie was the best of the three (IMHO), and you
>> know why?  Because it had the most silliness.  
>
>And people complained that the Green Goblin looked like a Power
>Ranger.

First, those people were the ones who wanted him to look like he did
in the comics, which would, frankly, have been even sillier.  Second,
the complaints died down after people actually *saw* the movie.

>I disagree.  Comics book villains were always dialed back: they never
>killed anybody.

...

Have you actually been reading comics lately?  And by "lately" I mean
"since 1973"?

>Death isn't silly, it's realistic: real life
>villains actually would leave a trail of bodies.

In real life, all criminals aren't murderers.  And just because you
are a murderer doesn't mean you're not absurd.

>Heroes is a perfectly good example of characters having powers and yet
>refusing to don costumes and fight crime, the series title
>notwithstanding. 

Refusing to don costumes, yes.  Fighting crime, well, that's
different.  They don't go out on patrol or anything, but you can't
really say they don't fight supervillains.

> Even the original X-Men movie had that line about
>Wolverine not wanting to wear "yellow spandex".

Yes, mythology gags are fun.

>And the funniest
>scene in the Incredibles was the one in which E explained to Mr.
>Incredible why he didn't want to wear a cape: that was
>deconstructionism at its best.

And it was deeply silly all the same! ^-^

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, thusly!