I believe that Michelle Yeoh had some reasonably big hits. She was never as big as Jackie Chan, but she was one of the top performers in Hong Kong.
well then - Spock has done his fair share fighting for the public good.
I use 90 percent of my brain … for porn …
…and if Spock was unusual in his milieu, he’d be a superhero. But he isn’t. He’s just a military functionary.
I don’t know why you feel the need to draw these kind of bright lines. Superheroes are superheroes because of their total basket of characteristics, including the overall settings of their stories. This is why, say, Spock, a powerful alien, isn’t a superhero but Superman, a powerful alien, is.
Are Jedi superheroes?
Meh! for me. If I can get over FTL, I can get over this.
i think there will be some who will disagree with you, Spock is surely one of a kind.
But i’m just yanking your chain. in my defence, this serves to illustrate the kind of lines that i believe the majority of viewers just aren’t very much interested about or be even aware of. for my movie dollars, Black Widow and Lucy are the same genre - science fiction where awesome ensues.
If Green Lanterns are superheroes, I see no justification for Jedi not being superheroes, too.
Pretty much confirmed in today’s article in Business Week.
Y’know, there’s probably someone somewhere who’d say Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu and the rest weren’t superheroes back when Obi-Wan and Yoda were hanging out with a bunch of 'em, but that Luke Skywalker qualifies once he’s the Last Jedi Standing.
It would simplify things if we’d just agree that the crucial factor is “spandex.”
Loose clothing: not a superhero. Tight clothing: yes, superhero!
What superhero wears spandex in movies nowadays? X-Men were in leather, Iron Man in power armor, Batman and Captain America in bodyarmor, Thor in Kirby armor, new Superman in a Kryptonian jumpsuit, Green Lantern in CGI… the new Star Trek uniforms are just as spandexy as those (I miss the ST II uniforms).
And if the criterion is tightness of fit, then Selene from Underworld is the superest superheroine of them all!
This is actually an interesting question, though: should Guardians of the Galaxy be considered a superhero movie or just a sci-fi movie? (Really, I agree that these are all distinctions that both the studios and most of the audiences don’t actually make.)
“Superhero” has a number of traits identified with it, but is tricky in that a particular character does not have to have all of the traits to fit the definition. I think having two of the following three qualities is probably enough to qualify one as a superhero:
A superhero is someone who:
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Is a vigilante.
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Wears an unusual costume, by the standards of his setting.
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Has some sort of unusual power, by the standards of his setting.
Is Spider-Man a superhero? Yes, he hits all three criteria. Is Batman? Also yes - he misses on the third, but the first two are enough. Is Spock? No. His outfit is not unusual by the standards of the setting, and neither are his powers - he has the same abilities as any other Vulcan. Likewise,
Note that “standards of the setting” is fairly malleable. Superman doesn’t have any unusual powers for a Kryptonian, but his stories are not (for the most part) set on Krypton. They’re set on Earth, where there’s never more than four or five living Kryptonians, depending on continuity. The same holds true for Green Lantern, when he’s on Earth. When he’s out on Oa, or other alien worlds, he’s in a setting where he’s wearing a recognizable uniform and exercising duly granted legal authority - and technically would not be a superhero in those comics.
I would probably be a bit more specific with the outfit. Specifically, superheroes wear outfits that are descended from the designs of early 20th century carnival wrestlers. (Superheroes and WWE share the same lineage.)
This image speaks so much about DC’s prioritization of it’s “big three.”
Cathy Lee Crosby should be to Lynda Carter’s right, but no matter.
Spider-Man’s costume in The Amazing Spider-Man was a neoprene diving suit. Is that close enough?
Miller, what about Black Widow, then? She’s not a vigilante (she’s acting under the authority of a recognized governmental body), and she has no particular superhuman powers. I guess her outfit is unusual, but that’s still only one out of three.
First, Black Widow is a member of the Avengers - a team of superheros. Yeah, she and Hawkeye are also SHIELD agents but as the team is a SHIELD project you could say everyone is to some extent allied with them.
In the Marvel-verse, she dated Daredevil/Matt Murdock and partnered with him as the Black Widow, acting in that capacity as a superhero.
In the Marvel-verse, after Captain America went missing near the end of WWII, the authorities tapped a non-serum-enhanced patriot to wear the star-spangled costume while carrying out President Truman’s orders. (So, y’know, like the Comedian, only without being a dick.)
Zorro is in, then. Riddick, from Pitch Black, is a vigilante with an unusual power by the standards of his setting. Neo, from the Matrix, probably fits all three. If we accept knowledge and training as an “unusual power” – which is how Batman gets in, after all – then Indiana Jones and Lara Croft are in, too. And as you noted, your criteria don’t work for Green Lantern, despite your hand-waiving the discrepancy away.
“Superhero” vs. “action hero” is a know-it-when-I-see-it kind of distinction, which makes it useless for comparison when trying to evaluate what kind of movie will or will not work.