Way too complicated an explanation. I don’t think it has to do with technology at all.

I think the reason superheroes are all the rage is that they present usually simple, uncontroversial content that appeals to the broadest collection of cultures, ages, and educational/socioeconomic backgrounds - so they maximize their audience and thus the money they make. It’s simplistic and you don’t have to think too deeply about it. It doesn’t challenge your notions of society or speak truth to power. It’s just about good guys fighting bad guys

Weren't superhero stories tilted toward male audience quite a lot? And I also think that they became "all aged" only insofar current adults who grew with then still like them. People who did not grew with them and don't have that nostalgia like them less.

The author didn't satisfactorily answer his own question after a lot of words. I agree with you. Hollywood superhero movies work well in the U.S. and equally well in India and China. I'm not sure about Europe.

and to go a step further, it provides something to believe in (different from just a religion replacement) with simple morals and clear, elevated pro-/an-tagonists, something that's rare in the real world.

it's the modern version of aesop's fables--a way to share morals across a society through stories.

american westerns and chinese wuxia/xianxia are similar, simple morality tales wrapped up in different situations with heroes who rise out of the ordinary to do the extraordinary.

it's the simplest cultural glue.

Disagree. I think it's important to think carefully about how "the way things were in the past" influence how we perceive "the way things are now". Tracing how opinions evolve over time is a good way to help understand why people behave the way they do.

Personally, my armchair theory on superhero media (and other fandom-oriented media) is that it's sort of becoming a nascent religion for people that aren't otherwise religious.

Also on the film front superheroes represent big budget special effects and creative sets, which tend to pull large audiences, especially in markets like China.

Agreed. The article is overthinking a popularity driven by movies that are just pro wrestling tropes with budgets.

But ~why~ does it appeal to people? That's the far more interesting question. You don't have to think that hard about Daniel Tiger or an hour of shifting colors and train noises, either. It's not a neutral unit of content, its themes mean something, they appeal for a reason.

Well they're basically fantastical adventure stories which have always been popular to greater or lesser degrees. It's just that special effects got good enough and their producers had 30+ years of comic books to mine for decent storylines which allowed them to produce a lot of movies in a relatively short amount of time without tiring people out.

Superheroes are fascist in nature: the idea of "punching your way to justice" with all rules set aside is fundamental to the concept.

Classic, archetypical superheroes don't often just punch their way to justice "with all rules set aside." It's typically their strict personal moral codes and dedication to law and order that sets them apart from from supervillains. Superman as a character, for example, is anything but fascist.

Personal moral codes and dedication to law and order are two different things. There are very few modern movie superheroes who have a dedication to law and order as far as I can tell; they're generally vigilantes that do extrajudicial killings unless part of secret government programs.

edit: Wasn't Iron Man the bad guy in the Winter Soldier film precisely because he chose to be law-abiding?

I don't think this is true. Moral ambiguity, anti-government, anti-wealthy people themes have been pretty prevalent in the movies of late. They're not especially deep or insightful, but the term comic-book evil seems unsuited to modern superhero movie villains. They're undoubtedly "better" than what I grew up with at least.

Large portions of fiction have generally always focused on people who were superior to others, at least in terms of cleverness, but often physical ability as well. Odysseus comes to mind. Extraordinary people are simply more interesting than ordinary ones, especially if your primary goal is to entertain.

I think the reason comic book superheroes in particular are popular is simply that they're easy to make and market than something that is less well known and less established; and from a business perspective, there's synergy in making lots of movies from the same universe because people like it when movies come from the same universe.

Two of the most popular superheroes of today are Iron Man and Batman. They are literally just rich dudes in rich dude toys. They are the heroes of the story.

Professor Xavier is wealthy af. And he doesn't go around helping just anyone. His altruism is hecka parochial.

About the only common element is that the government generally sucks at doing anything. The only thing the government doesn't suck at is having at least one plucky SEAL/Ranger/Marine team out there that's fighting against the odds.

Iron Man and Batman are some of the most intelligent humans in their universes. Iron Man per the latest marvel films, invented self-regenerating nanobot armor and time travel. Batman kinda varies in how superhuman his intelligence is depicted and I haven't bothered to see the last few so can't comment.

Writing this now I see your point was not that they aren't extraordinary, but rather the opposite of anti-wealth. I don't disagree, but I'm not claiming that every movie covers the same ideas either. However, the villains of Spiderman 2, for instance, are a bunch of Iron Man's lower level former employees who specifically call out how they got the short end of the capitalist stick, and how unfair it is that he got the spoils of everything, and how easy it was for him to dispose of them. The villains of Spiderman 1 are just some construction guys who got shafted by the collateral damage of the heroes and are trying to make a living wage. Yes; I do recognize the irony in that both of these working class groups are villains, but they're not meant to be portrayed as "Evil" for the most part. Again, not especially deep, but not "I'M GOING TO DESTROY THE SUN BECAUSE THATS WHAT VILLAINS DO!".

The captain america movies, seem particularly keen on the idea that the american government / law does not define the american ethos.

Maybe they're just returning to the roots of the word villain from Old French for a villager/peasant.

Mixed bag. The medium and the story depth are really independent. Lex Luthor, for example, is a lot deeper and more relatable in the comics than in the movies.

In the movies he seeks power for the sake of power at best, at worst does evil for the sake of evil.

In the comics his thought process is actually fairly reasonable when you consider he cannot read Superman's thought balloons nor see the cut-scenes where Superman flies to the farm and moans to his mom about not being able to do more. It goes something like this: "There's an alien among us. He has enormous power. He's doing good deeds for now - which happens to get him public support, which is even more power. There's no way to know his true intentions. He could be the prelude to an invasion. Even by himself, he could take advantage of a crisis - or manufacture one - and take over the world. And we're adulating him, defenseless against him... someone must fight him."

While Odysseus is extraordinary strong, I don't think he qualifies as superhero. More like character from Westworld today.

And having read the odyssey, I think it is completely different then typical superhero story. It is much less good vs bad kind of story, much less focused on action and much less about showing off supernatural skills.

Odysseus himself needs help all the time. Most of the time is spent feasting and talking. Or crying. The action parts are relatively short.

I mean, it is completely different.

Superhero stories were always compelling, then CGI got good enough to make them into movies. I don’t think it’s chance that they got popular shortly after you got really good visuals of someone getting punched through an office building. I find that explanation a lot more simple and convincing than the one in the article.

As a longtime comics fan who was overjoyed when CGI finally got good enough to show these stories (around Sam Raimi's Spiderman), I agree. But I think the article may be defining the "craze" as the entire time period from Action Comics #1 to now.

Superhero stories were put on the screen long before CGI.

The Batman series from 60s come to mind or the Superman movies from the 70s (and there Superman III is IMHO the most enjoyable with a Richard Pryor that pulls of a really cool hack).

I should have said CGI got good enough to make them into really popular movies. Or more specifically, that they were able to recreate the same images that you have in comic books in live action movies. The superhero movies of the 60s and 70s didn't pull that off.

They were harder to do well, and less visually compelling on the whole though. It seems like technology should have at least some of the answer.

Another possibility is that superhero movies are expensive and complicated to make. Tools for making video entertainment have empowered a much larger number of people with the ability to create content. While many fan films and amateur productions are still poor in quality, others now match or exceed what Hollywood put out just decades ago for a fraction of the cost. Instead of trying to compete with these low cost productions, moving into mega blockbusters where the small guys can't follow keeps Hollywood's product unique.

Joseph Campbell's work The Hero with a Thousand Faces dives deep into the mythology of heros across many groups:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces

We've been doing this for thousands of years. Movie fiction is just one facet of how humans are compelled to hero worship at all scales of communities whether political, fictional, sports, or careers.

I was going to mention the hypocrisy of media and how conflicting narratives on hero worship are compounding mental health problems for younger generations, but you summed it up pretty well.

With the glut of false/fabricated idols, the entertainment industry seems to be playing catch-up on niche hero's to suit every demographic.

Superheros weren't invented in the 20th century. We just used to call them differently. They used to be gods or their offspring.

If anything, I wonder how it speaks to the need of having common heroes. It can be difficult to find living, or even quasi-legendary heroes we can all share. We are growing very diverse and fragmented, but underneath it is the commercial common culture. In ages past they had stories of the gods, their children, heroes, saints, knights, kings. These stories were part of a shared united culture in those times and places

Yeah, they say something, but I suspect it's more about human nature than these times.

Do you pray for Wonder Woman?

Did the Greek pray to Herakles?

Yes. Some did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles#Cult

Although if instead of the verb "pray" you use the verb "worship", the distinction between ancient heroes/half gods and modern day super heros becomes much smaller.

>Although if instead of the verb "pray" you use the verb "worship", the distinction between ancient heroes/half gods and modern day super heros becomes much smaller.

It doesn't. No one is actually worshipping modern superheroes. No one believes superheroes actually exist, or ever existed, and can intercede on their behalf they way they might angels or other deities.

> It doesn't. No one is actually worshipping modern superheroes. No one believes superheroes actually exist, or ever existed, and can intercede on their behalf they way they might angels or other deities.

I'm not sure the latter was something that the ancient people thought possible. If somebody you worship actually exists or existed, is of little importance to the impact they have on the lives of humans.

Fans build shrines for their favorite characters, take them as rolemodels, draw strength from their stories, discuss them as if they were real persons.

Fictional characters often influence people much more than real people.

Those had quite different narrative structure.

There's probably a less lofty, more mundane pop cultural answer for this: the generation that grew up on Saturday Morning superhero cartoons are now tastemakers, and the mainstreaming of nerd culture and fandom has incentivized studios towards making big budget live action versions of what used to be consigned only to cartoons on TV.

Also, while superhero movies are as old as Christopher Reeve's Superman films, or perhaps Republic serials, the mainstreaming of nerd culture and fandom has also created a public that's more open to elaborate world-building and lore in their summer blockbusters. So while superhero movies used to be more self-contained, now we have these sprawling multi-film sagas giving the studios an excuse to churn out multiple pictures a year.

>Looking at it this way, the popularity of superhero culture among aficionados of new technological entrepreneurship seems obvious. It’s a culture that celebrates individual agency at the expense of the collective.

Ah there you have it, superheroes are popular because they are anti-collective.

>But the superheroes also demonstrate what a peculiar kind of divinity this is – shorn of the spirituality that is supposed to define our relationship to the divine. The divine power that the technological future offers devotees is purely material. And the doors of that technological heaven will be opened only for the elect who have the material means to enter.

And we learn that superheroes are anti-spiritual, materialistic and only work for the elite 1%.

Superheros are just angels or demi-gods with a more exciting story behind them. Miracle workers, they look like us to some extent but have superpowers. It's the same old story in a new dress.

I feel like the popularity of superhero narratives isn't because people particularly love those stories; it's because they're easy to make them decent. The public just wants good, enjoyable stories. The creators figured out that superhero stories are pretty reproducibly effective, so they keep making them.

> Übermenschen – machine-men, aerialists and space-bound conquistadors – tantalised philosophers and beguiled fascists

Articles like this seem to take advantage of the misunderstanding of Nietzsche without directly endorsing it. The actual concept of "ubermensch" would have no place in this article.

The term was coined by Nietzsche and referred to a futuristic human who was raised without the influence of religion or superstition and without having interacted with anyone who has such influences. In his view these people would be liberated from what he saw as the oppression of Christianity (and other Abrahamic religions), which he felt encouraged people to accept meekness, suffering and poverty in exchange for a pleasant afterlife. He called Christians "preachers of death" and encouraged people to abandon complacency for a "will to power". It is an appeal to a superior type of person but it is intended to encourage rational cultural development. The term itself has nothing to do with technology or ethnicity.

By now everyone knows that his work was bastardized by the Nazis but many seem to prefer the controversy of the Nazis' version over what he actually wrote. He spoke out in defense of the Jewish people and even stopped doing business with and publicly rebuked a publisher who was an anti-Semite. We have gotten really good at remembering the hateful and forgetting the rational.

Couldn't have described it better. I felt myself vomit a little bit at how deeply the author misunderstands the philosopher he bases his entire pieces title on.

The piece is nothing more than a banal juxtaposition of modern issues (fascism! technology!) to an uncontroversial call to some "spirituality" of an arbitrary sort known only to the author. Oh yeah, and superheros.

I don't think Nietzsche quite fits this context. "Will to power" without meekness, suffering, or poverty seems to fit a supervillain more than a superhero.

It wouldn't be it was/is a fad? In the 2000s there was literally a zombie movie coming out every week it seemed. In the UK there was load of movies about the UK "underworld" e.g. Football Hooligans, Drug Dealers, Gangstars and Illegal fights (Layer Cake, Snatch, Rock and Rolla, Green Street, Football factory, The Business and my favourite Sexy Beast).

There is generally a new film genre that does really well and people copy it chasing the money as people tend to want more initially until it is played out.

The title refers to it as a "craze." I don't think using the synonym "fad" adds anything. The question is "why this fad, now, rather than a different fad, now?"

What did zombie movies say about the 2000s? Nothing really.

Christopher Nolan’s dark night trilogy proved that these films can make money and be critically acclaimed.

Also is it really a craze? Christopher Reeves Superman was pretty popular so was Spider-Man and the Hulk when I was a kid. There were loads of movies and tv shows in the 80s and 90s with super heroes. I actually can't remember a time when they weren't popular.

The only difference now is Marvel is raking in at the box office. Is anyone else actually making money? DC aren't.

Individually we are small, powerless people (one in billions) being faced with insurmountable existential challenges (global warming, etc).

Not just large challenges. We are faced with a society so big that we feel that nothing we do can make any difference. We feel powerless. Hence the appeal of individuals powerful enough that they can, individually, make a difference.