The Key to Understanding Modern Superhero Movies and TV Shows

With the recent arrival of Avatar: The Way of Water at the box office, it is inevitably going to be compared to the blockbuster superhero films from DC and Marvel. Avatar, Marvel and DC movies have plenty in common: they all focus on action/adventure, have hefty amounts of special effects, and usually make tons of money. This post will give you a better understanding of how modern superhero films and TV shows work, and why they don't operate the same way as other kinds of films and TV shows. In a nutshell, it comes from realizing that superhero movies are actually adaptations of superhero comic books and the business model used to facilitate their publication.

To begin, let's consider the other kind of adaptation that films are known for: novel adaptations. Usually, the adaptation of a novel will result in a single film. Sometimes, a novel may be adapted into two or three movies (Dune, Stephen King's It, The Hobbit, etc.), but usually it is a one-to-one relation between a novel and its movie adaptation. On the other hand, popular superheroes are characters that have appeared in hundreds (if not thousands) of comic book stories over the course of many years. With so many stories to choose from across several decades of publishing, what would qualify as a "faithful" movie adaptation of a superhero character?

Earlier superhero movies focused on the character's origin story and a subsequent battle with the character's most popular villain. Since those two details are considered the most recognizable ways of defining a superhero, they meet the qualifications of what it means to adapt a comic book superhero into a cinematic narrative. However, with Disney acquiring Marvel and using it a major piece of its media empire for both movie and TV content--as well as Warner Brothers stepping up its DC catalog to compete with Disney--superhero adaptations have expanded to imitate certain aspects of the comic book publishing industry, particularly as it is reflected by DC and Marvel.

For a long time, DC and Marvel have dominated the superhero genre in the comic book industry. As such, they have a publication model that requires them to publish a certain number of monthly superhero titles per year in order to remain profitable. Without knowing the specifics, I'm sure the yearly business plans for DC and Marvel include contingencies for superhero titles that do not sell well and have to be cancelled and lists of possible superhero titles that can be launched after other titles are cancelled. This is not a perfect model--in fact, Marvel filed for bankruptcy back in the '90s--but it is the model that DC and Marvel have been following for a long time. 

While this is a vast oversimplification of how the comic book publishing industry works, it should be emphasized that DC and Marvel publish a LOT of titles and issues per year as part of their business. For example: Back in 2011, DC relaunched its entire line of superhero comic books under the title "The New 52". The number 52 represents the number of new series that were published as part of this effort. I know there are many comic book fans out there who identify as either DC fans or Marvel fans, but I think it is very rare for any fan to collect every single issue of every single title that is published by DC or Marvel. As such, DC and Marvel have to appeal to a large number of superhero fans in order to keep selling content, which means satisfying fans of both poplar and semi-popular characters and building readerships for new and revamped characters.

What's old is new again: DC's New 52 launch.

Because DC and Marvel rely on their superheroes for profits, the superheroes are written to go on as long as possible regardless of what happens to them in their stories. This is another reason why origin stories are obvious stories to adapt because they are the most clearly definable point of a DC or Marvel superhero's history. They are the obvious, immutable beginnings of superheroes' stories; ever other story of a superhero can be considered part of the "middle" of his or her story. A definitive ending to the story only comes when a superhero is no longer published in comic books, at which point that character won't even be considered for a movie due to lack of popularity. Sure, both DC and Marvel have teased the "endings" of popular characters many times, but that's just to boost sales numbers. 

This brings us to two other aspects of DC and Marvel superheroes: shared universes and multiverses. 

Shared universes exist to help DC and Marvel to encourage readers to subscribe to more titles. The concept of a shared universe developed during the Golden Age of superhero comics, which was between 1938 to 1956. When it started publishing in 1961, Marvel built its superhero lineup from the ground up as a shared universe to maximize sales. The logic is obvious: if readers subscribe to The Fantastic Four series and like an issue that "guest stars" the Hulk, then some of them might subscribe to the Hulk series as well. This is also the point behind team titles (e.g., Justice League, Avengers, etc.) and crossover "event" series that involve many or all superhero titles (e.g., Crisis on Infinite Earths, Secret Wars, etc.): to expose readers to as many different characters as possible to increase issue sales and series subscriptions. The crossovers don't even have to involve the appearance of characters between titles; sometimes, a character in one series might reference an event that took place in a different series with different characters. In such cases, there may even be an asterisk put next to the reference and a footnote indicating to readers which title(s) and issue(s) they need to pick up to learn more about the identified reference.

Take it from Marvel: guest stars boost comic book sales.

Multiverses began as a way for DC and Marvel to address continuity errors within their superhero stories, or to launch a new version of their pre-existing superhero characters (such as the aforementioned New 52). As DC and Marvel have expanded more into movies and TV, they have been using the multiverse plot device as a way to incorporate pervious movie and TV versions of superheroes into new movie and TV versions of superheroes. Just like the shared universe concept, multiverses are used to encourage fans to purchase more content while smoothing over shortcomings and inconsistencies within their own stories. 

"Flash of Two Worlds", then and now: the original 1961 comic book (above) 

and the latest Flash TV series (below).

By looking at how DC and Marvel have shaped their superhero stories to fit a particular publication model, I think it's obvious that we've moved past media companies just making a few superhero movies and TV shows. This goes way beyond the cinematic adaptations of novels; both Disney and Warner Brothers have adjusted their movie and TV adaptations of Marvel and DC superheroes to match the storytelling styles that these publishers adopted to fit their publication business model. Whether companies should make movies and TV shows in a way that imitates the storytelling style that was developed for a print medium remains to be seen. Nevertheless, this is what is happening and here is what fans should probably expect in the years to come:

* Expect more and more crossovers and cameo appearances between superhero movies and TV shows. The cameos don't even have to be from the same "universe" and the current iterations of the superheroes. In fact, I think it's inevitable that some of the actors and characters from Zack Snyder's previous DC movies will appear in James Gunn's future DC movies.

One movie, three Spider-Men: a Spider-Man: Now Way Home poster.

* Don't feel compelled to watch every single movie or TV show that is produced for DC and Marvel characters. They will find a way to keep you informed anyway of what is going on within the larger "universe" so you'll keep watching. 

* Post credit scenes will not go away. Story continuation teasers on the final page of an issue have been used all the time in superhero comic books to entice readers into buying the next issue, so superhero movies and TV shows will keep doing the movie and TV equivalent of the same thing.

* If you find yourself liking some superhero characters but not feeling the slightest interest in others, don't worry. The publishing model of DC and Marvel was built to deal with this, and their current media conglomerate owners will inevitably follow suit.

* If you feel like the superhero stories that are being told are formulaic, meandering and pointless, that's part of the experience. Many superhero comic books are indeed formulaic, meandering and pointless, largely because meeting a monthly publication schedule doesn't always yield storytelling excellence. The new movies and TV shows don't have the same production schedule as the comic books; however, as long as Disney and Warner Brothers expect to regularly profit from their superhero properties on a particular schedule, superhero movie and TV series that are formulaic, meandering and pointless will inevitably happen too.