Superman/Spiderman

[InzeladunMaster]

I know when I was younger, I was always surprised at how similar the Superman and Spiderman comics were to each other (disregarding some obvious ones, such as one being a reporter for a paper, the other a photographer for a paper, both having secret identities, etc) - if Superman lost his powers, in a few months, so did Spiderman. If Superman married, so did Spiderman. If the Superman writers got tired of the marriage, they eliminated it from continuity. So did Spiderman's writers.

So too it seems with the movies.

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Superman - Origin story. Parents dead. Elderly couple adopts. Adoptive Father dies. Gets job at newspaper. Bad guy has financial motive and screws the military (steals nuclear missiles). Well-known actor plays bad guy (Gene Hackman).

Spiderman - Origin story. Parents dead. Elderly couple adopts. Adoptive Father dies. Gets job at newspaper. Bad guy has financial motive and screws the military (steals glider). Well-known actor plays bad guy (Willem DeFoe)

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Superman II - Superman loses his powers. Mysteriously regains them to fight bad guy. Is revealed to his love. Lesser known actor (who played in a George Lucas film*) plays bad guy.

Spiderman II - Spiderman loses his powers. Mysteriously regains them to fight bad guy. Is revealed to his love. Lesser known actor (who played in a George Lucas film**) plays bad guy.

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Superman III - Superman turns evil. Suit turns dark while evil. Comedian plays bad guy. Kind of a new romantic partner (Lana Lang). One of the bad guys turns helpful.

Spiderman III - Spiderman turns evil. Suit turns black while evil. Comedy sitcom actors (Wings/That 70's Show) play bad guys. Kind of a new romantic partner (Gwen Stacy). One of the bad guys turns helpful.

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It even goes to the names of the movies. Many sequels don't number themselves. The Indiana Jones movies, for example. The various James Bond movies. The Star Wars movies (before the prequels started the process of numbering them). The Silence of the Lambs sequels. But Superman and Spiderman both number their movies as part of the official title.

Has anyone else ever noticed this pattern between Superman and Spiderman?

* The actor playing General Zod appears in The Phantom Menace.
** The actor playing Doctor Octopus appears in the opening adventure of The Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

[Fyrestryke]

Can't say I've scrutinized those comics or movies (or anything else for that matter) that closely to notice such things.

It's pretty cool. =)

 

[Grimhelm]

I have noticed the orphan theme. I have also noticed the theme of the father death/son rebirth. These are ancient themes, I think. The other plot devices are likely the result of one group of writers aping another group, but you never know. The loss of power theme is pretty common too, I think...

 

[InzeladunMaster]

Yes, some of those themes are inevitable. The Batman movies share the ones you mentioned (counting the destruction of the Batcave in Batman Forever and the destruction of the Wayne Mansion in Batman Begins as "loss of power") but they manage not to fit the patterns as completely as Superman and Spiderman do.

The Batman movies even lack the numbering structure for its sequels that Superman and Spiderman use for their sequels.

 

[Grimhelm]

And they've all jumped sharks!

 

[InzeladunMaster]

Yes, they have!

 

[Grimhelm]

I never really had access to comic books as a kid, so never really got into them. I always wanted to, though.

Reading for me was a pleasure I had to stumble on nearly accidentally. After reading Tom Sawyer in the 3rd grade, I went on a vast hiatus, not knowing what was actually out there, without exposure, until I was in high school.

 

[thormagni]

Interestingly, Spider-man got married to MJ in 1987, while Superman and Lois didn't tie the knot until 1996. So, Spidey was 9 years ahead of Supes. Or, since Superman came out in 1938 and Spider-man in 1962, you could say that Supes was 58 when first married, while Spidey was a relatively spry 25 when he tied the knot.

Of course, Reed Richards and Sue Storm tied the knot back in 1965, when they were only 4 years old, so maybe Supes and Spidey were really just copying THEM!

I think Mark touched on it, comics writing is a fairly incestuous little group as far as new ideas go. One of the comic companies used to have a working theory that every three or five years their readership would completely turn over. So you could repeat, almost verbatim, the exact same story and it would be completely new to your current audience.

Plus, there are inherent limits to human storytelling. Your character has a girlfriend, what storylines are possible with that relationship? I would bet the after so many years, almost everything has been tried to wring some interest out of that relationship. They marry, they separate, they have hard times, they have good times, she gets killed, she gets kidnapped, she turns on the hero, she turns into a hero, she turns into a villain, etc.

And it is probably the same with all the other tropes of the genre. You have a guy with superpowers, what can we do with him? More power, less power, loses his powers, gains new powers, loves his powers, hates his powers, etc.

 

[InzeladunMaster]

All true, but the X-Men films, the Batman films, et. al. didn't follow the near-exact patterns established by the Superman-Spiderman films. It just seems to be those two superheroes.

For example, the X-Men didn't really play along with loss of powers theme until the third movie, and the Batman movies started putting comedians in the villain roles with the second film (Danny Devito).

My comment is really more on the precise pattern of the two franchises, a pattern the other films really don't follow, even if the same themes are touched.