I know not every superhero story is the same, but I feel like recent superhero media has moved away from showing heroes actually saving people. Even vigilantes like Batman and Daredevil rescue civilians—they’re not just crime fighters. Superheroes may not be realistic, but they’ve always prioritized saving lives.
That’s one reason I like The Flash on the CW—it balanced both saving people and crime fighting, even if the crime-fighting usually came first. Superman & Lois does this even better. Almost every episode shows Superman stopping disasters or accidents, not just punching villains.
Superheroes aren’t just super-powered cops, soldiers, or secret agents. They should also be part-time super-firefighters. Shows like 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire make me wish we had more of those rescue scenes—but with superheroes. Not every episode has to be about saving the whole city.
I’ve always felt that superhero stories reduce problems to something that can be solved through violence and, for that reason, dont really like them. After a while, the plots all seem the same, too.
It’s not just superheroes. There are so many movies that boil down to whoever punches harder wins and it’s always the good guy. I find myself asking, *is this a punching movie" quite a lot. They all try and spin it to be about family or overcoming the odds or even try to blur the line between good and evil. Unfortunately in the end the protagonist punches harder and the story ends, “zzzzz”.
Jessica Jones season 1 was good in this regard. A problem and a villain that can’t easily be handled by just throwing punches.
The Watchmen is another good one that has less focus on just punching bad guys.
Completely agree that it is problematic that when your basic story is about super strong individuals, then the only story you will write is about problems that can be solved with violence. No one wants to watch a movie of the Hulk doing shifts to rotate a turbine to generate clean electricity.
I did enjoy Jessica, so yeah, there are a few bright spots in the genre. The last but one Joker movie was worth watching too, but… so many Batman movies that seem kind of the same.
Don’t even get me started on ridiculous ones; like Spider man becoming a literally a spider, then felt an instinct to come up to the Spider Queen offering himself to be eaten, then the Spider Queen’s stomach burst open only for a new and shiny Peter Parker/Spiderman come out alive as if he had never become a spider. Then, there is Batman becoming addicted to drugs and telling Alfred to lock him up in the Batcave for weeks to detox.
This is why I generally only read critically acclaimed plot lines and stories than having a general comic interests.