A. Yoshi Opinion Piece: Is the Superhero genre going to die in the near future?

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So Steven Spielberg says that the Superhero genre is going to go the way of the western sometime in the future. by that he means the superhero movie. This has caused a lot of debate, speculation, and sensationalist clickbait articles. But is there some merit to that statement? The answer may shock some of you...




So the superhero is goes back to tales of gods, superhumans, monsters, and demons told in places like Ancient Greece, but the modern superhero was popularized by characters like Superman, Batman, and others during World War II, but the point where people started taking it seriously as something that was more than just a character in a pulp novel or comic book was 1978's Superman (hey I got the year right this time, In the following years we got movies based off of Batman, rumors of a Spider-Man movie and X-Men movie started popping up especially after their respective cartoons were doing so good on Fox Kids on Saturday mornings along with Power Rangers, heck this was helped by the speculator Bubble and comics boom of the 90s, however a number of factors, including a 3 punch of movies in 1997 with Batman and Robin, Spawn, and Steel, along with the great comics crash caused the whole genre to die for over a year. Later We've got every single marvel & DC character get their own movie after Blade and X-Men got theirs in 1998 and 2000 respectively. With the ever-growing popularity of Youtube, Internet Boards, and social media, it feels like the superhero genre has gotten bigger as it ever has been.



But is it fair to compare Superheroes to westerns? Not really, Westerns died mainly due to the ever changing and ever growing nature and expectations of the Blockbuster scene. Movies have gotten bigger, flashier and the western genre doesn't fill that mold anymore. i can't think of a movie genre that fills that mold for an ever growing blockbuster scene than Caped Crimefighters. Superhero movies are built around speculation and franchising while cowboys and Indians are not. Heck outside of movies and TV shows, mainstream Superheroes have been in comics for almost a century, even after many ups and downs, superheroes have been with children all over the world for that amount of time. Even if traditional superheroes were to die, we've still got Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Ultraman, They've been with us for half a century. Want to know how immortal a movie franchise can be? Two words... STAR WARS!!!!!! A movie franchise that appeals to just about anyone. There's still think pieces on the original 38 year old movie trilogy to this day. Heck no one thought it was going to work at first, but it became a worldwide phenomenon.



So the big question is will the superhero genre go away as the phenomenon it is? In the form it is in right now, maybe, but adapting is the reason the Superhero is an american icon of our culture along with Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Mickey Mouse. So as long as we see superhero's evolves along with the audience that sees them, we won't have the unfortunate future of only seeing one or two of them every few years or so like we have the western, even through all the stinkers like Green Lantern or the Fantastic Four Movies...



Well that was my thoughts, what are yours, tell me and maybe we can have a good ol' discussion together, either way, good night my readers...