It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

I'll admit I was skeptical at first about watching the Spider-Man movie back in 2002. I was under the impression that superheroes were for little kids, and I wasn't a little kid--I was 11 years old! Double digits! But my older brother wanted to see it for his birthday, and my parents weren't yet comfortable with leaving me at home alone for a period of time as long as three hours, so they took me with them. I was expecting it to be cheesier than a stuffed crust pizza and a nacho combined, and at that time in my life, I thought cheesy things were for “children” (except in the literal sense of the word “cheesy,” of course). I despised the word “child,” and never permitted anyone to apply it to me. From my point of view, it was a word to describe a single-digit kid who was fully dependent on his parents for everything. I wasn’t like that—I was independent! Well, except for the meals, home, and occasional transportation that my parents provided. But never mind those things.

 To my great surprise, the movie was well-made and able to be taken seriously. And, of course, as an 11-year-old boy, I loved all of the action scenes. Thus began my love for superhero movies. I’ve never read the comic books from which the heroes originated, but to I’ve always loved action movies, and superhero movies are a very special type of action movie, one that appeals to my nonconformist ideals—one man who’s different from everyone else becomes something greater and conquers evil. For a while, though, I felt that Spider-Man was unique among superheroes—all the other superheroes were still for little kids. I watched all three Spider-Man movies and liked them. I never watched any of the X-Men movies. I only watched Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer after it came out on DVD and someone gave it to our family for Christmas one year; I still haven’t seen the first Fantastic Four film because I was unimpressed by the former. I saw Hancock in theaters and thought it was okay, but not spectacular. I once saw the Hulk movie from 2003 on Cable TV, and that was a disappointing waste of my time. After the Spider-Man films, the next series of superhero movies I really loved were the string of interconnected Marvel movies beginning with Iron Man in 2008, including Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger last year, and ultimately leading up to The Avengers this year. What made The Avengers great was that it did a great job of balancing the multiple main characters, using humor, and having a good plot in addition to the awesome action scenes.

Of course, at this point, some superhero movie enthusiasts must be saying: “Hey, wait a minute, what about the recent Batman films? Those were awesome!” Well, I didn’t see Batman Begins or The Dark Knight until last year. I’d told a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen them, and as the most serious Batman fan I know, she was appalled. She held a party at her house just so that I could see them, and I’m glad she did. I was thoroughly impressed by everything from the plot and character development to the soundtrack and visuals. I liked it so much that I ended up going with my friend and several other people to the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. I generally like Marvel superheroes more than DC, but Batman is exceptionally cool.