It’s National Superhero Day

I was never a big superhero fan. The Superman and Batman movies of my youth were flashy and colorful but forgettable. The dialogue was trite, the plots simplistic. But you know how it is when your family of four is arguing over what movie to watch.

One night, we landed on Thor: Ragnarok as the one flick we could all tolerate. And to my pleasant surprise, it wasn’t half bad. Taika Waititi directed it, so the dialogue was clever and witty, and a couple of the fight scenes, set to Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song, were undeniably bad-ass.

We then embarked upon seeing every single Marvel movie in the most current anthology. Most of them were entertaining. A couple of them, (ahem, The Incredible Hulk) were pretty bad. But, when I saw Bree Larson in Captain Marvel in the theater…now there’s a movie my inner little girl and my inner latent feminist both fell in love with.

In honor of National Superhero Day, I wrote a serious, in-depth, analytical think piece about the influence graphic-novel-based movies have on modern culture and gender constructs.

Or I used this “National Day of…,” trumped up by Marvel in 1995 as self-promotional material, as an excuse to indulge in one of my favorite hobbies, talking about movies.

Probably more the latter. To be absolutely clear, both of the links above will take you to the same National Superhero Day article and all of its serious silliness.

Thanks again, to The Syndrome Mag, for publishing this article and to Editor Leigh Anne Jasheway for always making my writing better.