Why Do Superheroes on TV Suck Ass?

February 2nd, 2011

I grew up in the 1970s and we had Spider-Man and Captain America live action shows so bad that they were laughable.  Captain America’s “shield” was the windshield of his motorcycle.  Gah!  And let’s not talk Doctor Strange…  At least Wonder Woman had Lynda Carter to look at, even if it too was dumb.

The movies of the time tended not to be great, but the first couple of Superman movies were above average.  Mostly though, superhero movies were hit or miss until the last decade when they finally figured out how to do them well.  The recent Chris Nolan Batman movies, the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, X-2, Iron Man, Watchmen…pretty good movies all around.  Still some duds, but the bad ones mostly don’t suck and are worth at least a single watch. OK, maybe Fantastic Four.

On TV, we’re still not so lucky.  There are two prime time superhero shows on now: No Ordinary Family and The Cape.

There are some good actors in these, but to be frank, they’re just not very good shows. It feels like they’re being written for 12 year old boys instead of being written well and having appeal to 12 year old boys, and there is a difference. These shows feel forced, stupid. I’m not the only one who feels this, am I?

Smallville has often been dumb.

Heroes had its moments early on, but eschewed costumes and much of the superhero mythos. And it went dumb in a hurry (hint to writers: avoid time travel unless you really know what you’re doing).

I’ve been watching a lot of Fringe recently (and I’ll post one this in the near future). Fringe has some dumb science from time to time, but there’s a seriousness, a style, a self-consistency, that makes this show work really well. It’s the X-Files with a mad scientist, and it works.

My pick for overlooked superhero comedy was the too briefly alive live-action series The Tick:

Anyone with a clue why we have this problem? Is it special effects? Is it just bad concepts and misconceptions on the part of the studios?

I have this idea of trying to write a serious superhero novel someday, without magic or mad science, so I’d appreciate the insights.

Update: io9 has 14 reasons.

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5 Responses to “Why Do Superheroes on TV Suck Ass?”

  1. David K. Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 10:37 am

    Zena and Buffy were awesome 90s super-heroes!

  2. Montgomery Lopez Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 10:53 am

    You had left out the Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby. Yes, it was campy at times like the Hulk running in Times Square but it is one of the better series that treated the source material with some dignity.

  3. steve Says:
    February 4th, 2011 at 11:37 am

    I’ll be brief. Superheroes are cartoons by nature. I don’t mean storylines, plot, etc…I mean their personas. They are larger than life! How can you honestly put a real human being in flashy tights, give him ridiculous, obnoxious dialogue, incredibly absurd powers and expect him to pull that off without looking and sounding completely foolish? It really only works in its graphic format, our imaginations accept it there. No amount of special effects will ever cure this. But that’s just my opinion.

  4. Will Says:
    February 5th, 2011 at 4:02 am

    David K has a point. So why did Buffy work so well when the other series failed? (although I disagree about Heroes) BTVS had a parallel world for Buffy to live in rather than putting it’s superhero in a realistic world.
    A superhero without magic or super-science would be a contradiction in terms in the real world. So you’ll have to either give him some means of beating the odds or put him in a parallel world, ideally both.

  5. David Ellis Says:
    February 5th, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    I think it’s nothing more than that we’ve had a bad run lately. As already pointed out with the Hulk, Zena and Buffy examples, superheroes can be done well on TV.

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