Switching Sides

I've mentioned before that I don't read comics, but that hasn't stopped me from choosing a side in the eternal clash of the titans that is Marvel vs. DC. I've always been a Marvel girl. Ever since I was little, exposed mostly to the cartoons, I always liked Marvel best. The X-Men, with their fascinating spectrum of powers and endlessly tragic romances (Rogue/Gambit and Wolverine/Jean Grey/Cyclops) were always fun to watch, while the Justice League lagged behind. It wasn't so much the particular storylines as the characters themselves that failed to impress me. Even as a kid I had a hard time believing that putting on a pair of glasses was really an effective disguise for Superman. Not having the backstory, I couldn't quite figure out what the Green Lantern's deal was, or why he kept making giant umbrellas and hammers come out of his magic ring. And Wonder Woman's invisble plane? You've got to be kidding me.

But my favorite superheroes (coincidentally, one from each company) were always Spider-Man and Batman. (Remember The New Adventures of Batman and Superman? I used to watch it on Batman days but change it immediately if it turned out to be a Superman episode.) I loved Spider-Man for his sarcastic take on pretty much everything. Nothing ever went right for Peter Parker, but he never lost his sense of humor. He could make quips and throw punches at the same time, and sometimes the bad guys seemed to be defeated more by their confusion than by the violence. And he was still trying to live a normal life - with classes, a job, and sometimes a girlfirend, which made it all the more tragic when he saved the world only to miss the final/graduation/party that he desperately wanted to attend.

Batman was different. He certainly wasn't trying to live a normal life; he had no family and his friends were all to a greater or lesser degree his accomplices. But he was also the only purely human superhero out there: he had no superpowers or mutant abilities or magic spells. He was just a guy with a lot of gadgets and a lot of money and a lot of anger. Although I'm not sure I quite got all the anger when I was little. But he was always intriguing, because he alone of all the heroes had made it all up himself.

I watched Spider-Man and Batman through several iterations of cartoon series (I particularly liked the MTV Spider-Man series and the WB's Batman Beyond), every now and then revisiting the X-Men or the Justice League. And then they made the movies.

I'm not talking about the first four Batman movies. I was too young to see the first two in theaters (my parents are very liberal, but Michelle Pfeiffer's S&M Catwoman outfit was a little much for an eleven-year-old), and I didn't bother to catch the second two, as I was a Band Geek, not a Geek Girl, in high school. I've seen them now, of course, and the first two are minor camp masterpieces, anchored by Michael Keaton's vaguely sarcastic gravitas. The latter two feature leads who only grasped one side of the character (Kilmer - Batman; Clooney - Bruce Wayne) and are mostly memorable for the stunt casting of the villains.

No, I'm talking about the new movies: Spider-Man 1,2, & 3 and Batman Begins/The Dark Knight. When they announced they were making Spider-Man I was deeply excited. I had finals the week it came out, but I was determined to see it as soon as I could manage it. I stayed up until three in the morning the night before my last final, but as soon as it was over I drove to the movie theater (alone) and saw it. And I hated it.

Where was the snarky, sarcastic Peter Parker I'd fallen in love with? Instead we got Tobey Maguire, looking approximately as sexy as someone's bratty little brother and playing Spider-Man as Harry Potter learning to be Superman (apologies to J.K. Rowling). His Spider-Man was angsty and pious and annoyed the crap out of me. Not to mention the endless repetition of the earnest, boring aphorism: "with great power comes great responsibility." No s***, Sam Raimi. You write that or find it in your fortune cookie? Plus the strangely orchestral score and the effects so pretty I felt like I was playing Final Fantasy. I know, I know - millions of people loved it. I just don't know why.

(I liked the second one better, although not a lot better. I wasn't allowed to see the third one in the theater with my boyfriend because he was afraid that the negativity exuding from my pores would lessen his enjoyment of it. He was probably right.)

And then there was Batman Begins. They did a number of things right from the beginning, starting with casting Christian Bale, the thinking woman's action hero (see also: Iron Man). They added a tight, clever script; a dark, slick, and slightly gritty aesthetic; and a willingness to engage with the moral questions inherent in the idea of superheroes. While not perfect - among other things, they chose the ever-popular origin story framework, which tends to drag in places as they provide the necessary exposition - it was nevertheless smart and layered and fun to watch.

So of course last night we went out to see The Dark Knight at 12:01am. We got to the theater two hours early; there were at least eighty people ahead of us in line. It wasn't all geeks, either - memorably, there was the group of twenty-something guys six rows behind us who whiled away the time hooting at any girl wearing something skimpier than jeans and then shouting "penis" over and over again. Those weren't geeks - they were a**h****s. There were actually fewer hardcore fans than I expected. I saw a lot of Batman t-shirts, and even some cool vintage ones, but only one guy in costume. (It was a great costume, though - a dark purple suit and ascot, with the full smeary-insane makeup. Very Heath Ledger, and very well done.) The crowd was up-to-date on their comic book adaptations, though - the Watchmen preview got immediate recognition.

The movie itself, though, was amazing. I won't include spoilers here (although if you're really worried about it, stop reading now... and go out and see the movie already!), but it surprised me more than once and had several moments that took my breath away. It also made me cry (although I'm pretty easy on that score) and, more important, made me think. I spent this morning thinking about the cost of vigilantism and the definition of terrorism. And even during the movie, at one point, when Batman rides off on the Bat-pod, his cape flying behind him, I thought about how apt it is that he's nicknamed "the Caped Crusader". Because the crusaders weren't all good either. They scoured the Middle East in the name of Faith - but only their definition of Faith counted. Batman patrols Gotham dispensing Justice, but his definition of Justice isn't governed by law. And they both do it because it's Right.

Which is not to say I'm not on Batman's side. In fact, in this case, I'm switching sides. I read on imdb.com this morning that The Dark Knight's opening weekend is expected to make more than Iron Man's opeing weekend ($102.1 million) but less than the record-holding Spider-Man 3 ($151.1 million). Well, here's hoping that for once DC kicks some Marvel butt.

See ya, Spidey!