Print Edition: July 4, 2012
Growing up everyone had their favourite hero: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. Even though they have unrealistic super powers and weird tights, chances were at some point you probably looked out over the horizon and hoped to see your hero flying off into the distance, soaring off to somewhere you’d never been and better than the place they were leaving.
Lately Hollywood has brought back some of our favourite superheroes, creating a huge summer smash up of big name movies like
The Avengers,
The Amazing Spider-Man and
The Dark Knight Rises. Directors are taking classic comic book heroes and giving them modern weaponry, social drama and even modernizing those silly tights. The fights are bigger and the trauma closer to real life. But why does Hollywood feel we need superheroes right now and why so many all at once?