Go ask fans of westerns from the 50s about what happened to their genre. Everything in entertainment is cyclical; things come and go, they wax and wane in popularity. We’re in the midst of a massive “movement” among people who are fatigued with so many comic book movies. It’s fair to feel that way, even if I don’t. There have been so many different comic book movies and TV shows released from a wide variety of sources. Marvel, DC, Image, and independent comics have all had shows, movies, and other media that come out on platforms that are even more varied. Two recent releases in Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps might be from completely different companies in completely different phases of their existence, but they happen to share two main ideas that could be the key to remedying that comic book movie fatigue.
To look at the cure for so-called comic book movie fatigue, we have to look at the cause first. The cause is easy, it’s companies seeing how much money they were making at the box office and going “well, I guess the people want more of that”. Both DC and Marvel expanded their film operations in the 2000s and 2010s into the juggernauts we know today. Before, we got the odd Batman movie or Marvel was putting out movies like Blade. Now, both studios have content plans that reach farther than we can think. If someone got a picture of the whiteboard in Kevin Feige’s office, they’d be very popular on the internet.
So that rapid expansion and the lowering “quality” combined with outside factors like streaming and the COVID-19 pandemic have all added up to comic book movie fatigue. Both major companies have had to retool and rework their various plans and in the case of DC, had to rework the entire film division. Enter DC Studios, James Gunn, and Peter Safran. Marvel has had to change plans with Disney+, major stars being lost, and other circumstances. Kevin Feige and his team have steered the ship back towards a more main-event film-feeling structure.
So that brings us to the two current-day projects for both Marvel and DC. They both are exceptionally important to future plans for their respective companies. If Superman was bad, DC Studios would have stumbled right out of the gate. If The Fantastic Four: First Steps was a misfire, the whole plan with Dr. Doom might go up in smoke. The two films have weapons in their favor when it comes to drawing audiences and making them feel for these characters. One huge ingredient with both films is hope. The other is a distinctly comic book look and feel. Both films are earnest, almost to a fault. They champion the idea that heroes exist and that everyday people can still be hopeful and not fall victim to jadedness.
So How Do These Connect Superman And The Fantastic Four: First Steps?
Both films kick off with our heroes already in the swing of things for their careers. Superman is Superman already, the Fantastic Four are already saving lives and are the only superheroes on their version of Earth. In both films, the heroes are struck down by a more powerful threat that makes them reconsider their own humanity but in the end, they become beacons of hope for the people of Earth. That’s pretty straightforward stuff for heroes these days. The reason why these superhero movies work so well is that they take people and characters that are superhuman and bring them to our level with human emotion and problems. Superman doesn’t know who he really is or what his purpose is, neither do I.
The Fantastic Four are the last hope for humanity against a gigantic planet-threatening being known as Galactus, but they still have to deal with emotions and things that we all go through in our lives. The Fantastic Four don’t go about saving humanity for selfish reasons; they’re not doing it because they want fame or notoriety, they’re doing it because they’re the only ones that can. When faced with an impossible decision, they make a pretty human choice in that decision as well. Superman wants to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to stopping the eradication of an entire country AND stopping Lex Luthor, but even he has to realize that he’s one man and can’t be everywhere at once.
Both of these films pack in messages of hope in the face of insurmountable darkness. One has the threat of an oligarch taking over and the other has a worldwide catastrophe. Sound familiar?
They LOOK LIKE COMIC BOOKS, WHAT A CONCEPT
They might not be set during the same time periods, or even the same Earth, but both Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps look like comic books come to life. That visual aesthetic that just pops off the screen is what separates these movies from others in the genre lately. The popping colors of Superman and bright, bombastic midcentury design of the Fantastic Four could be the recipe for getting people back for the genre. Recent comic book movies from Marvel and DC have felt a bit lackluster in the visuals. That’s not even talking about VFX, just the overall look of the films. I loved Thor: Love and Thunder, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and even enjoyed Black Adam, but all of those films look dull and muted compared to these two.
Getting people to see that these films can be vibrant, colorful, and almost whimsical is a weapon that both Marvel and DC have in their tool belt. The reason we all fell in love with Iron Man was because it was like seeing a comic come to life. Bottling that feeling and using it across their films along with the feeling of hope and humanizing these characters once again, is the key to getting that so-called “comic book movie fatigue” to go away.
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