Discuss this article by @Thande here!
In the 1950s the popularity of superheroes declined in favour of other genres – which represents another example of a flaw in the natural historiographic assumption that superheroes have always been ubiquitous. But the superhero genre came back into popularity in the early 1960s, a period now known as the Silver Age (with the 1930s and 40s as the Golden Age).
The 1970s also saw the release of the Christopher Reeve Superman film in 1978, one of the first archetypal blockbusters along with “Jaws” and “Star Wars”. The film’s tagline, ‘You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly!’ summed up its broader impact. For the first time in a while, people were actually taking superheroes seriously rather than as an inherently campy and self-parodying genre.
The second really big and influential superhero film was Tim Burton’s “Batman” in 1989. Despite being a smash hit, one that married a neo-noir interpretation of the setting of the original 1930s Gotham with the modern dark and gritty interpretation of the Batman setting, it seemed strangely unable to dent the public’s firm conviction that Batman was always Adam West-style shenanigans. (Of course, the mixed messages sent out by there being kids’ toys based on a film involving torture, poison gas and a crazed psychopath did not help). Despite its success and having sequels, this didn’t seem to open the floodgates for many more superhero adaptations – barring a questionable DC adaptation of the obscure “Steel” in 1997.
In 1998 the second Marvel film adaptation came out, adapting the vampire hunter “Blade”. The film was successful in its own right but was not tied to any comic property that would be recognisable to the average viewer, so it’s questionable whether it really counts. 2000 saw the release of “X-Men”, an unambiguous success of a comic adaptation to film.
I've a theory on this that I plan to commit to an article at some point in the future. Batman (1989) did open the floodgates, but for pulp hero adaptations rather than , with the likes of Dick Tracy (1990), The Phantom (1996), The Rocketeer (1991), and, coming full circle, The Shadow (1994). My notion is that the powers that be, who greenlit the films, were old enough that they connected Batman with the pulp heroes you mention preceding and inspiring him. If not the prose or comics then perhaps the cliffhanger serials you also mention.
Possibly a large part of this is Burton's gothic-camp-noir style for the film? It doesn't look like what Hollywood thought superheroes look like but does look like pulp fodder.
Thanks for the detailed commentary Ryan, in particular you make an excellent point about Burton's Batman more being seen as a reconstruction of pulp than of superheroes per se. Maybe that's why viewers not engaged with comics seem to mentally separate it so definitively from Adam West's Batman rather than seeing them as two adaptations of the same source material.A few thoughts on this article:
Would have liked mention of which genre in particular dethroned superhero comics until they were outlawed. Think it actually helps point out the flaws in the superhero ubiquity assumption because most people wouldn't guess that horror could dispalce it briefly. It's like if a portmanteau horror film outgrossed an A-tier MCU film in the next couple of years.
Every time I see that film I am in awe of how much of it is just pure cinema. It's a throwback to cinema of the 30s-50s as much as it is to superhero comics. Think you've pointed out in an earlier article that until this film Clark Kent was usually portrayed as a television newsman rather than a reporter during the 1970s.
I've a theory on this that I plan to commit to an article at some point in the future. Batman (1989) did open the floodgates, but for pulp hero adaptations rather than , with the likes of Dick Tracy (1990), The Phantom (1996), The Rocketeer (1991), and, coming full circle, The Shadow (1994). My notion is that the powers that be, who greenlit the films, were old enough that they connected Batman with the pulp heroes you mention preceding and inspiring him. If not the prose or comics then perhaps the cliffhanger serials you also mention.
Blade really deserves more credit/blame for proving that you could still do a sucessful comic book adaptation. Remember that it's only one year removed from Batman & Robin (1997), and to your earlier point of neither Donner's Superman nor Burton's Batman ushering in a wave of copycat superhero adaptations, that they took off in the years immediately following Schumacher's much-maligned second Batman film makes practically no sense without Blade coming along so quickly.
One film missing from the article that I think feeds into your overall theory is Mystery Men (1999), which in some ways prefigures what would come later with Heroes or Hancock. I only saw it myself earlier this year (thoughts here) and one thing that really jumped out at me was how it felt not only like a film that came too early (a partly-subversive parody of superhero fiction and films) but also one that came along too late, having a look seemingly inspired by the most successful superhero series at the time, the 1990s Batman films.