So do Jason Bourne, Dumbledore, Spock, and Edward Cullen. There’s more to being a superhero than just being metahuman.
it would be cool if she turns out to be a super villain wouldn’t it? while the two comic book giants hum and haw over the application of their IP, someone else goes ahead and makes a successful comic book movie with the female lead as a a villain.
Hm. Spock, at least, seems to fit most of the criteria: he’s superior to humans, wears a costume, saves the world, has a convoluted origin story (human mother, alien father, yadda-yadda), etc. Heck, in the latest reboot movie he does as much wire-fu as Batman, and has a super-human nemesis.
He doesn’t have a “hero name”, but then, neither does Thor.
Spock wears a uniform, not a costume.
Then again, so does Green Lantern. So it’s complicated.
There’s that whole “dedicated to protecting the public” bit missing. Like I said, much more in the SF action genre (I’ll admit they blur into each other, but this is clearly on the non-hero side)
I think the question is, is he unusual in that universe? Well, the parentage is, but he’s not superior to other Vulcans, is he?
I mean, Chewbacca is physically stronger than humans, does that make him a superhero?
I agree with you on these. My point was that neither of them has set themselves up as a proxy law-enforcement agent (as with Superman, Batman, Captain America, etc.).
I’m positing that what the mass audience dislikes or doesn’t care to patronize, is stories with a female superhero setting herself up as a crime-fighter. The mass audience will accept females putting themselves in harm’s way, then fighting their way out (as with the Lara Craft franchise and the later Alien-franchise movies)…but dislikes seeing a woman don the spandex and hang out her metaphorical shingle as the Layer Down of the Law.
anyone from Krypton can have the same powers as Superman’s right?
IIRC, comic-book writer Mark Waid famously remarked that, despite the costumes and the super-powers, the Fantastic Four don’t actually go out looking for trouble; they’ll kick trouble’s ass if it gets all up in their faces, but they’re not crimefighters on patrol so much as they’re a happy family of celebrities who (a) would rather be exploring, or starring in another movie, or performing scientific research, or just playing with the kids; but (b) keep getting roped into self-defense situations.
One question is, are there any strong stories that have been released with a female lead? I googled for “best TPBs”, but only the new Batwoman came up in anyone’s list. Everything else was all men, teams, or not a superhero story.
I think you are making a very fine distinction here. What is your basis for believing movie audiences would make such a distinction?
Maybe she cleans her act up in the end. We don’t know. The trailer wasn’t THAT spoilericious.
No she doesn’t. She’s smart. Apparantly if you’re smart you can reverse time, insta-kill people with your brain thoughts and read wifi signals on a cars windshield and expand the signal to read it like a language like you’re using a touchscreen. Lame.
And, like Peter Parker, devotes her life to helping multilingual Asian cabbies because she callously capped one in the head starting out? Is that the vibe you got?
I see a more action-oriented version of Limitless, not a superhero origin. We’ll see.
Being smart enough to do all of that is clearly a superpower. She just doesn’t have any of the other trappings of a superhero.
…and if they* fought for the public good* they’d be a superhero (e.g. Supergirl, Powergirl [sometimes] etc.)
Since it is a Luc Besson movie, I think you are correct.
Yeah, humans only use 10% of their brain and she was using 28%! Imagine if she used 110%!
That’s the one thing that’s giving me pause about that movie. Scarlett Johannson running around as an action hero? Great! And of course, Morgan Freeman is always worth watching. But they’re trotting out that long-debunked old canard about 10% of our brain? Ugh.
Box office statistics on movies of both types, to date. No movie with a female-lead superhero of the proxy-law-enforcement type has cracked the top of the list, whereas many male-lead proxy-law enforcement superhero movies have done well. Female-lead movies of the ‘deals with what life throws at her, but isn’t set up as a Lay Down The Law type’ movies have done okay business. (This is all concerning English-language movies. I have no idea what might be the case in, say, the Chinese market.)