The summer blockbuster season explodes into theaters beginning this weekend with “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
The film features a grab bag of superhero stars led by Robert Downey Jr. as Superman, a web-slinging, hammer-wielding protagonist with superhuman powers who must save Gotham City from the macabre machinations of his nemesis, Magneto.
No? That’s ... that’s not right? Not even remotely correct?
Oh, well, forgive me. There are just too many superhero franchises to keep track of these days. Call it fatigue, oversaturation, exhaustion or whatever you want, but I am burned out when it comes to superheroes.
For me, it began last fall when Fox’s “Gotham” premiered. I bailed after a few episodes when I realized it had more in common with the Adam West and Joel Schumacher's Caped Crusader. A Batman series that removes Batman from the equation is just a crime drama set in a fictitious city.
It’d be easy to write off one show, but there’s more superhero material now than I need. As “Gotham” barrels toward Monday's first-season finale, Netflix recently premiered “Daredevil” and ABC carries “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” These are different characters, but the basic concept of supernatural powers lies at the center of all of them.
The superhero-on-screen genre is running rampant behind the Marvel and D.C. universes. Trying to further extend the lives of these worlds with television shows seems like a chance to deepen and expand our understanding of these worlds, but, instead, thus far, it’s shown their limitations.
Keeping up with all of these shows, plus the movies, plus all of the other shows I want to watch anyway? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Just “The Avengers” universe is exhaustive, although devoting a few hours a year to watching a film or two doesn’t sound like a monumental task. Adding “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” to the mix does, however. Two more Avengers films are scheduled before the decade is out, which doesn’t even include all of the other characters on the roster.
We’re so deep in the Marvel lineup that Ant-Man is going to get a full-length feature film come July. Were people clamoring for a movie about Ant-Man? This is not a beloved character with mainstream appeal. I have never seen a child dress as Ant-Man for Halloween — and isn’t that the true gauge of a superhero’s popularity?
Appropriately, “The Dark Knight” and “Spider-Man 2” are as close as superheroes on screen have come to something that transcends genre into quality drama. Both trilogies had third films that didn’t satisfy, but they opened the door wide enough for this onslaught of superhero fare. The first "Iron Man" with Downey helped, too.
If the continued success of the “Fast & Furious” franchise tells me anything, it’s that escapism sells. After 9/11, there was something comforting about the fantasy of the Tobey Maguire-era “Spider-Man” or Christian Bale's Dark Knight as a true neutral fighting for the common good against an evil. Those franchises are being rebooted already, by the way, adding to my exhaustion.
Last fall, even Downey told U.K.’s The Telegraph that the superhero genre is getting “a little bit old.”
“Honestly, the whole thing is just showing the beginning signs of fraying around the edges,” he said. "Last summer there were five or seven different ones out. I feel that they are critiqued by a different metric to any other movie."
I’m not arguing against this genre entirely, but for a bit more variety from Hollywood studios in general. They’re decent stories, but the Marvel films in particular are becoming too familiar, all sort of following a similar formula to box-office success.
That seems to be the most meaningful metric to get films made in Hollywood circa May 2015 – the bottom line. Considering the first installment of “The Avengers” was one of the highest-grossing films in history, I’m sure “Ultron” will follow, making me a tiny minority, albeit vocal.
I’m not advocating turning the superhero tree into mulch, just pruning the unnecessary branches to make it more presentable.
The sentiment is a cousin of "absence makes the heart grow fonder" – if superhero films were less plentiful, their arrival would feel more meaningful.
Because although I have a case of superhero fatigue, I do still enjoy a comic book tale from time to time.
"The Avengers: Age of Ultron" hits theaters today. Check theaters for local listings.