Will Too Many Superheroes Spoil the Plot?

Ben Child over at The Guardian's film blog has an excellent piece on the glut of superheroes in superhero movies. In case you haven't seen it, it's worth sharing with you all:

Ever since Richard Donner found a way to make us take them seriously by casting Marlon Brando as Jor-El in 1978's Superman, the superhero movie has been a fixture on blockbuster lists. Once the Man of Steel ran out of steam (downed, not by kryptonite, but miserable screenplays for the Donner-less Supermans III and IV), Batman popped up in 1989 to take over the reigns, with Tim Burton ingeniously casting kooky Michael Keaton as the equally left-of-centre Dark Knight. And once Joel Schumacher had royally messed things up by adding Robin to the mix and sticking Val Kilmer in a set of black tights, Spider-Man arrived to carry things on.

Now, with the webslinger widely seen to have dropped the baton with Spider-Man 3, there is room for a new character to emerge as the star of the next big superhero franchise. But rather than put all its eggs in one spandex basket, Hollywood is hedging its bets somewhat. This summer, two films based on Marvel comics characters, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, will hit cinemas in the space of a few weeks, while over at DC they're busy trying to get Justice League off the ground. For those of you who didn't spend much of their teenage years with grubby nose buried in monochrome magazines full of unlikely superhuman shenanigans, that's the one which unites Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman (plus some other characters whose names only people who look like Bilbo from Spaced remember) in one comic.

What this new breed bring to the table is a concept which has been missing from previous superhero movies. In the past, were one watching a Superman film, one would have been really quite surprised if Batman suddenly popped his head round the corner and offered to help everyone's favourite cape-wearing extra-terrestrial with his little Lex Luthor problem. But Marvel has just announced that Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man will make an appearance in The Incredible Hulk, while Justice League will feature those previously mentioned DC big hitters in one film.

In the original comic books, this sort of cross-pollination took place all the time. Part of the fun of both Marvel and DC's tales was seeing how different superheroes interacted with each other. Learning that Batman felt Superman's powers were vastly over-rated, or that The Thing thought Iron Man was a bit of a preening peacock, ironically imbued the characters with the distinctly unsuper-human personally traits that made them interesting. And even better was when two major characters actually started beating the living hell out of each other (or better still, began a relationship).

This summer, as movie voice-over men are prone to saying in tones that sound like they have been living on a diet of sandpaper and cigarettes for the past 20 years, that could all change forever. Partly this is due to the increasing power of DC and Marvel. The latter now even has its own studio arm and has produced both The Hulk and Iron Man with no outside help, and as it owns the rights to all its characters, it can happily shoehorn any superhero it pleases into its movies. This is a break from the past, when the rights to particular characters' stories were sold off individually to studios. It's also down to the success of the X-Men films and the TV show Heroes, both of which feature multiple characters with super-human powers.

Will this new development be a good thing? I'm inclined to think that Tony Stark (Iron Man) turning up in The Incredible Hulk could be kinda fun, particularly with the potential for interaction between Downey Jr and Ed Norton, who's playing The Hulk's alter ego, Bruce Banner. But Justice League already looks a worrying proposition. If Superman incumbent Brandon Routh and Christian Bale's Batman were set to team up, I'd happily sell my first edition Detective Comics #27 (OK I don't actually own this) to be in the front row. But the producers are making clear they plan an all-new cast, and there are worrying suggestions that these could be younger, flimsier stars. Spider-Man 3 suffered because there were too many villains.

Could the next generation of superhero movies have similar issues if the producers throw too many characters into the plot, without giving each enough screen time for a decent back story? Your thoughts, please.