The 2010s was undoubtedly the decade of the superhero movie. This genre went from producing a few popular films to dominating the box office for the last ten years. Some people lament the total focus on these movies, but glancing at the upcoming slate of films, the trend won’t be ending anytime soon.
While superhero movies can sometimes be unfairly dismissed, there are certain tired tropes of the genre that need to be retired. These aspects might have worked the first few times but now feel expected and uninspired. Here are some things we wish superhero movies would stop doing in the 2020s.
Following The MCU Formula
Despite being a relatively smaller studio and not having the rights to their A-list heroes, Marvel Studios managed to take over the superhero genre with a risky concept. They created the Marvel Cinematic Universe which would tell interconnected stories throughout all of their franchises, telling one massive story.
This not only made the MCU king of the genre, but it also launched the trend of cinematic universes. After several embarrassing failures, it’s time to admit that Marvel seems to be the only one who understands how to do this properly and the others should not try to follow in their footsteps. The DCEU seems to finally be understanding this.
Fake-Out Deaths
With these massive billion-dollar franchises, it makes sense that studios are hesitant to kill off some of their big characters. But if they are unwilling to kill off their heroes, they need to stop acting like they are.
At a certain point, you could almost guarantee each comic book film would feature a character who presumably dies only to return later on. What was meant to feel like an emotionally powerful moment ended up feeling like a cheap and lazy gimmick. Future superhero movies need to have real stakes that they follow through on.
Overpowered Heroes
It’s exciting to see heroes that are capable of doing incredible things, but audiences also want to see flawed heroes. It’s not fun when the good guy can easily defeat any enemy they come up against. These superhero movies need to be aware of how powerful they are making their heroes.
This has always been a problem with Superman and that’s likely one of the reasons the Henry Cavill version is not clicking with audiences. He is unrelatable and needs to be sidelined in order to give the other heroes a challenge. Likewise, Marvel runs a similar risk with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel.
Faceless Armies
We are now in the era of the team-up movies. After the success of the first Avengers film, studios have been looking for ways to stick as many heroes as possible on the same screen and go into battle together.
These sequences can certainly be exciting, but there comes a problem with the kinds of enemies the heroic teams can battle against. Instead of facing off against one villain who is too powerful for any one hero, they must battle a horde of faceless enemies. It provides a good opportunity for the heroes to kick some ass, but it’s hard to get invested.
Environmental Villains
The idea of the villain who is willing to kill countless people in order to save humanity as a whole is an interesting concept. Or at least it was the first time we saw it. Now the kind of environmentally conscious villain has become a boring cliché.
The depletion of resources and effects of climate change are extremely important real-world issues, but warping those issues into a narrative for a madman is silly. Thanos wanted to save the universe by killing half of it and he succeeded – let’s just admit no one is going to top that and retire the trope.
Fridging
The term “fridging”, which refers to the trend randomly killing off a hero’s love interest to give the hero an emotional arc, finds its roots in comic books. The sexist and lazy trope has sadly made its way into films and become featured in recent comic book films.
The most blatant recent use of the trope was in Deadpool 2. A movie meant to subvert the genre clichés fully embraced one of its worst ones. Sacrificing a female character for the sake of the hero’s journey and transforming her into a pawn rather than a character is pretty ugly.
Careless Destruction
One of the major criticisms of the big superhero movies is the amount of destruction witnessed on screen. The so-called heroes seem to wreak havoc whenever they are attempting to save the world, with buildings coming down and who knows how many casualties.
Movies like Captain America: Civil War and Batman V Superman have attempted to address this issue with mixed results. The genre seems to have gotten the message as we see these images less and less now, so hopefully, they will continue to understand that these are not disaster movies.
Hero Vs Hero
Part of the joy of seeing all the iconic heroes sharing the screen in The Avengers was the clashing of egos. Though these are world-saving heroes, they do not always get along. This planted the seeds for what became an overused gimmick of heroes fighting other heroes.
Captain America: Civil War and Batman V Superman each leaned heavily into this kind of story. Then it was used again and again. The stakes of the fights got less compelling and the reasons for the fighting got weaker. While fun for a bit, it’s time all our heroes just got along.
Mirrored Villains
Villains have always been an issue for the superhero movies. The MCU struggled for a long time to figure out how to craft a compelling baddie besides Loki, while the DCEU has arguably yet to deliver a solid villain. One of the reasons for this is the trope of the mirrored villain.
This trope really started in the MCU where villains would just be bad versions of the good guys. The intention was to focus on the hero’s story but part of that story is having a good antagonist. While the MCU has largely improved its villain issue, it can still be a bit of an issue in the genre as a whole.
Origin Story
Superheroes are no longer a niche interest, they are mainstream. Characters who were once only known to die-hard fans, like Ant-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy, are now household names. As such, the origin story has become somewhat unnecessary.
While audiences once needed an entire film to explain where a hero came from, the genre is so popular now, only a shorthand is necessary. No matter how different the heroes might be, origin stories tend to feel very similar and feel like something we need to get out of the way before the more interesting stories can be told.
