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Comment by simonbarker87 | Hacker News Reader

Could it be because the kids who these stories were initially aimed at, grew up and became adults, DC/Marvel realised they could “adultify” the plots and appeal to the same audience now 20-30 years older to expand their demographic leveraging nostalgia and thus make more money?

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I'd argue that the vast majority of superhero movies are engineered through focus-group testing to be as palatable to as many people as possible that they become bland.

Logan was the only genre movie in recent memory that eschewed this formula and confronted the messy topic of the senescence of the age of the superhero.

Which is an interesting counter-point to Alan Moore: just because a (sizable) portion of superhero movies aren't thrusting culture forward, doesn't mean that they have to be.

Having familiar characters in a known environment can certainly help pick the audience up to get them to a point where more complex topics become palatable. The fact that these characters are "superheroes" is incidental, and not terribly important to the overall plot of the movie.

That's a fair analysis. They are blockbusters first, and superhero movies second. I do hope that the genre will evolve towards more interesting topics beyond Good vs. Evil. The Dark Knight showed a nuanced view of how one cannot exist without the other, even within one hero's mythos itself. Unfortunately movies like The Dark Knight and Logan that are willing and capable of tackling nuance and complexity in a feature film aren't common for the genre.

Yep. It is quite apparent in the latest Batman vs Superman movie.

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