Modern superhero movies consistently dominate our cinematic landscape, with major franchises often proving to be a formidable force at the box office. The notion of adapting popular superhero characters onto the big screen is not a new idea, as superhero movies actually date back almost as far as the introduction of the earliest and most iconic comic book characters. However, the movies of the MCU and other franchises have refined the genre for modern audiences, improving the experience and boiling the genre down to a winning formula that maximizes the impact of its stories. This has seen superhero cinema blossom from a relatively niche genre into one of the most considerable and successful in the movie industry.
Unfortunately, they aren’t all perfect, and the worst superhero movies are notorious among fans for their disappointing adaptation of the source material. However, there are also superhero movies that, for all their quality, subtly send out unfortunate messages to their respective audiences. Occasionally, when delivering the typical good-versus-evil story that embodies the superhero genre, movies actually unwittingly deliver subtext that could easily be misread as a more negative message than intended. In the following cases, the movies are still great, but there’s a potentially harmful message that can be read into their stories that is more than a little unfortunate.
In many ways, 1978’s Superman paved the way for the modern success of superhero movies. It was a film truly ahead of its time, with Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of the iconic Man of Steel going down in history as one of the defining moments in superhero movie history. As uplifting as its Superman story might be, there’s also a pretty poor piece of subtext to its ending that undermines its message. In the movie, Lex Luthor manages to trap Superman by issuing him an impossible choice: he must either save countless lives or the woman he loves, leaving the other to die.
As influential as the DC movie might be, Superman shirked giving any real answer to this hero’s dilemma. It simply lets Superman achieve both, saving everyone by using a power he never had before, and hasn’t had since: flying around the Earth so fast he travels back through time. The message this sends to the movie’s impressionable audience is that there’s always a loophole that will allow the good guy to avoid difficult decisions, subtly suggesting that being a hero means being able to avoid tragedy.
2004’s Spider-Man 2 is often considered not just the best live-action Spider-Man movie, but one of the best superhero movies ever made. It certainly earns that title, delivering perfect examples of some of the genre’s best tropes in its well-paced, thematically excellent film. However, its story, which deals with the hero’s difficulty in balancing his personal life with his responsibilities as Spider-Man, ultimately delivers a pretty disappointing piece of subtext. Spider-Man 2‘s story sees Peter Parker briefly abandon his role as New York’s guardian, only to realize that he can’t walk away from his heroic responsibilities, no matter how much he might want to.
The ending sees Peter continue to fight crime as Spider-Man, but managing to secure a relationship with his beloved Mary-Jane by letting her in on his secret. While it might seem wholesome on the surface, a deeper look reveals that Spider-Man’s responsibilities are still crushing, and that it’s only by sharing the responsibility (by sharing his secret) that he’s able to better his personal life. It subconsciously tells us that we can never escape what we must do, and that the only way to assuage any associated misery is to share it out amongst those we love.
2013 saw superhero movie fans introduced to a new live-action version of Superman, one that was destined to spawn an ultimately short-lived franchise in the DCEU. Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel told a slightly grittier origin story for the titular hero, with Kal-El facing off against General Zod, who sought to eradicate humanity and make a new Krypton here on Earth. The movie’s climactic battle saw the hero and villain essentially level the city of Metropolis, only ending when Superman opted to kill Zod to prevent further destruction.
The message Man of Steel sent out is that heroes don’t need to worry about collateral damage. Superman is painted as being right because his intentions were good, even though he easily could have done more to move the fight away from the heavily populated area of Metropolis. Ironically, the oft-maligned sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, actually grappled with that very issue, but ultimately the DCEU came down on the side of Superman, absolving him of any responsibility for the destruction of Metropolis and the death toll that undoubtedly went along with it.
Before Zack Snyder conceived the ill-fated DCEU, he adapted another DC comic book in the form of 2009’s Watchmen. Snyder’s take on the acclaimed comic followed the semi-retired vigilante Rorschach as he investigates the murder of a former hero colleague and slowly unravels a dangerous plot connected to some of his fellow super-beings. The comic book movie’s ending sees Rorschach learn that he’s too late; Ozymandias’ plan has already been executed, and the hero of the story is unceremoniously killed after failing in his mission.
The subtext of the story is pretty bleak, though that’s actually very much in line with Watchmen’s overall tone. The ending suggests that not only will the elite always find a way to win, but that ultimately, they probably know better than the average righteous crusader. Ozymandias’ plan was abhorrent, but is painted as probably being the right course of action in the end, and Rorschach’s death achieves very little. It’s a pretty sad and hopeless message, and one that puts a far less encouraging spin on traditional superhero stories.
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is undeniably one of the best superhero movies ever made, giving us some iconic comic book movie quotes and a number of unforgettable characters. It follows Batman as he works to prevent the Joker from tearing Gotham apart, all while heroic DA Harvey Dent is slowly corrupted against the city he made his name fighting for. The movie’s final act sees Batman employ some ethically questionable tech to invade the privacy of millions in an attempt to locate the Joker. He manages to do so, stops the villain, and then manages to preserve Harvey Dent’s legacy by taking the fall for his villainy.
The ending of The Dark Knight paints Batman as the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs. However, this sort of paints over the fact that he disregarded the entire city’s right to privacy just to find the Joker, subtly establishing that Batman’s ends justified his means. As a billionaire who uses his fortune to fight some of Gotham’s most desperate citizens, the hero was already on shaky ground morally speaking, but The Dark Knight‘s story adds a whole new layer to the character’s skewed moral stance that’s more than a little unfortunate, no matter how good a movie it may be.
