Captain America versus The Hulk and Superman: Why Does One Succeed Where the Others Fail?

From the title, you may presume I have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Happily, the Young Man and I wandered into the cinema, leading to his family witnessing me squealing with joy over a film. I believe they are now aware of just how geeky I am. Fortunately, they don't seem to mind it.

Watching The Winter Soldier has led me to question how it is that Captain America has successfully carried off two solo films while the Hulk, Superman, and other superheroes, fail so miserably. I'm going to try to avoid any big spoilers, but just in case, here's a cut for the rest of this article.

 

The Winter Soldier has all the trademarks of Marvel's recent film run: it is funny, clever, sufficiently intertextual to make comic book fans squeal in joy, but not incomprehensible to anyone else. Like Iron Man 2, it is a solid sequel, although while I think the latter is on par with its first film, The Winter Soldier far exceeds The First Avenger. I think one of the reasons it works so well is because it is not, in fact, a superhero film. Winter Soldier is a spy film, which happens to include superheroes.

But still, these traits don't explain why it's such a good film, especially when it stars Captain America, who is, on paper, a very boring character. He suffers from the same fatal flaw as Superman; both men are too good. They are boy scouts, never failing in being decent and doing the right thing. When it comes to the real world, maybe we could use more boy scouts, but in our fiction, we need conflict, especially within our heroes. Knowing this, I looked at the other elements of recent Marvel films, and realised The Winter Soldier may have Captain America's name headlining it, but it is actually an ensemble film, with Black Widow and Nick Fury making up the rest of the ensemble (and there's someone else, but I did say I was going to try to avoid spoilers).

This could explain why The Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Superman Returns, and Man of Steel are not good films*, but it is only part of the puzzle. It also gives hope for Batman Vs Superman; if Captain America can be made interesting by bulking up the cast, surely the same could work for Superman and the Hulk?

The one thing these two characters do not need are more origin stories. Both have been done to death, and while the scenes from Krypton in Man of Steel were pretty decent, there wasn't enough new material to make an origin story really worth it - indeed, the scenes from Krypton could have been shown in flashbacks during an entirely different adventure. There are, however, two much  more serious problems.

The first is their limited motivations. Bruce Banner only ever wants to get rid of the Hulk and date Betty Ross. The Hulk just wants to smash things and date Betty Ross. Superman just wants to save people and date Lois Lane. Clark just wants no one to realise he's Superman and to date Lois Lane. Compare this to Captain America: he wants to fight the villains, but he also wants to learn more about the time he's living in, and his first act in The Winter Soldier is to make a friend. He makes actual efforts to build a life which is not all about him being Captain America, and while he's nostalgic for his past, he does not let himself get bogged down by it. There is actual characterisation going on there, something the Hulk and Superman lack. There's a good reason for this, and it is the second reason why the Hulk and Superman don't have good films: only one main character gets any decent screen time.

Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor are all exempt from this problem, because, despite four of them having two names, they are all a single character, seen in The Winter Soldier when the names 'Captain America' and 'Captain Rogers' are used interchangeably. However, Bruce Banner is significantly different from the Hulk, and Superman is nothing like Clark Kent. Yet in movies with Hulk in the title, he has relatively little screen time. In Man of Steel, Superman doesn't seem to be aware of how a secret identity works, while in Superman Returns, Clark Kent is barely present and immediately recognisable as his alter ego. A film which virtually ignores half of its primary cast is doomed to failure.

So how then do these problems get fixed? For Superman, I'd recommend going back to Christopher Reeves' example; he played Superman and Clark as separate entities, going so far as to present two completely different physical stances. Let me show you:

(This nice side by side comes from here: http://www.buzzsugar.com/photo-gallery/15331294/Christopher-Reeve-Clark-KentSuperman)

 

He looks about two inches shorter as Clark, solely from how he stands. How he holds his mouth is different, his head is angled differently; all subtle things which add up to presenting two different characters. Henry Cavill's Clark Kent (as he is generally understood), appears only briefly at the end of Man of Steel; hopefully, we will see more of this different physicality, but both men need more characterisation. They have to want more things.

But how to solve the Hulk's problems when Banner constantly wants to get rid of him? Here's how: change what Banner wants. Give him a reason to want to work with the Hulk. This might be starting already: pay attention in The Avengers and you'll notice the Hulk beats up anyone who is unpleasant to Banner. Anyone who is nice to Banner gets a pass from the Hulk. This is not just Banner's anger. It is rather the Hulk taking an interest in Banner's welfare. A successful Hulk film would have Banner working with the Hulk, negotiating when each could have screen time. I'm particularly enamoured of the potential of a scene where Banner and the Hulk go through multiple transformations in order to deal with multiple threats (I theorise Banner only passes out because he is fighting the Hulk, and could remain conscious if they worked together).

The only question remains, could Marvel do this? Well, they made a character which should have been dull as watching paint dry into one of the most exciting Avengers in the group. If they can make Captain America work, surely it is time to make the Hulk work?

 

*'Good' is, of course, highly subjective. There are elements of all these films I enjoy, but overall, I think they are weak films in terms of plotting, innovation and characterisation. There's a definite distinction between 'not good' and 'bad'. It's possible to enjoy a bad film by making copious fun of it. The four films I mentioned are just boring.