The Gantry Launchpad

But then it doesn't help that most of DC's superheroes are dull-as-dishwater creations like Aquaman, Wonder Woman, blah, blah, blah...

Let's face it: Stan Lee pumped a huge jolt into modern comic-book creation with his (then) radical approach to superheroes: not anti-heroes but disfunctional heroes. Oh, it's all very commonplace today, but back then the idea of four heroes who do nothing but fight, bitch, cavil, and argue with each other (Fantastic Four) was pretty radical, not to mention the "loser teenager" Spiderman, who was neurotically obsessed with crime-fighting to compensate for his self-percieved guilt over Uncle Ben's death.

Then there's the Incredible Hulk: the Monster as Hero.

That was the big difference between DC and Marvel, and the big boost for the latter. DC heroes were such damn squeaky-clean Boy Scouts that they were boring as anything. The cool thing about Marvel heroes was that they were vulnerable, but (generally) didn't fall for the generic "Super Hero Achilles Heel" trap that DC did.

Superman was, well, super, except for Kryptonite. So inevitably the hack writers spent the next 30 years finding new kinds of kryptonite to keep the plot interesting. I could go on, but basically the problem is that DC heroes were pretty much untouchable, hence unchallengable.

Actually this problem pops up in many stories/legends. The original Star Trek encountered this with the Transporter. This doohicky was originally concieved as a convenient dramatic device to get the characters into the story every week without wasting time peforming re-entries. It also saved a lot on special effects, since all the original effect was flipping a camera upside down (so the final visual was of upward movement) and pointing it at a high-intensity floodlight. Aluminum dust was then sprinkled down while filming the resulting glitter.

Problem is that the Transporter was too powerful, like most old-style DC heroes. All Kirk had to do was holler "Scotty, save my ass!" into his communicator, and (well) "Beam me up, Scotty," and there goes that story... Sigh.

So the writers fell back on the hackneyed "Kryptonite vulnerability," gimmick, instead of writing good stories. In this case it was the dylithium crystals, or a gravimetric storm, or the Enterprise was under attack, or... Blech!

Here's the thing: Marvel heroes weren't like that. Oh yes, they had vulnerabilities, but (usually) not some nitwit "super hero Achilles Heel." Note that even acclaimed writer/director M. Night Shyamalan fell into the same trap in Unbreakable, with Bruce Willis' character: David Dunn's only vulnerabilty was that he could drown. Otherwise you couldn't kill him.

The Marvel heroes were vulnerable precisely because they were human. The Fantastic Four really were a bickering family, Peter Parker was always trying to deal with his sense of being a failure (to his aunt and uncle, his friends, school, and so on. Hell, the poor schmuck didn't even get credit for his good works, thanks to J. Jonah Jameson!), Daredevil was blind, the X-Men were "mutie" rejects and outcasts, Iron Man was an alchoholic, Doctor Strange was a crippled ex-surgeon; the list can go on for quite a while.

All of these people had "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men," but the critical point was that they were mortal, and falliable.

Of course, it's possible to make a good Superman, or Batman movie, but in terms of drama and human interest the Marvel characters have a tremendous advantage. In fact, I am going to say the common wisdom that "Tim Burton 'did' the best Batman" is incorrect. Burton, in fact, started a trend that would eventually result in a feature-length version of the 1960's TV farce. I cite as evidence Batman and Robin. You can trace the influence directly back to Burtons' deliberately surrealistic Gotham City. It isn't real, in the sense of the X-Men's or Spiderman's New York, and I'm not talking about the literal "real" existance of New York v. Gotham. After all, it's an open secret that Gotham is really New York, but fictionalized.

Point being that you can see yourself walking down a street in the "Marvel" New York and maybe, if you're lucky, seeing Spidey swing by or Cyclops in action.

Alas, about the only time you can expect to see yourself in Gotham is if you've been cutting the narcotics with rat poison again...

But in either universe you won't come up with a good movie without the classic elements I cited above; story, production, direction, acting; the same elements of any good movie.