Why Superhero Movies Aren’t Trash

The link between classical theatre and superhero stories is deeper than you think.

I think I’m a bad party guest. I don’t make light conversation well.

Last night I attended my first post-vaccination dinner party. It was the birthday of one of my wife’s high school friends, so mostly people I’d never met. Mingling, like you do, conversation seeks common ground, and at one point we start talking Marvel movies and shows.

One guy, clearly not buying it, says to me with sarcastic enthusiasm, “Are you watching Loki?”

“Of course,” I reply. “Croki is my new favorite thing.”

He regards me with disappointment. “You don’t really enjoy those things, do you?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I do.”

And then Jan and I proceed to blow his mind.

“You see,” I say, “we’re just coming full circle on our storytelling. After a century of ‘everyman’ stories and existentialism, followed by revenge stories and apocalyptic tales, we’ve cycled back to stories of the Greek gods and heroes. That’s all superhero movies are — the petty squabbles of godlike beings. We’ve returned to our earliest tales.”

Jan chimes in. “Thanos sacrificing Gamora is Iphiginia in Aulis, with Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter to appease the gods and summon a wind so his fleet can sail to Troy. You can see in Steve Rogers and Bucky the bond between Achilles and Patrocles, only they’re not lovers, except in…