Superhero Day has arrived, and as Thor, the God of Thunder himself, everyone is worthy! This once-obscure holiday was created by employees at Marvel comics to, quite simply, give people a day that they can celebrate their favorite superhero. That day, April 28, has arrived, and 2022 is quite the year to celebrate it.
It’s safe to say that superheroes are more popular now than ever! No other genre at the cinema is more popular than superheroes, and aside from the rare outlier like Avatar, nothing can compete with these films in terms of the worldwide box office. These movies consistently continue to haul in massive amounts of money. The first big superhero films began in the 70s and 80s with Superman and Batman. Still, it wasn’t until around the late 2000s that the genre came into its own when the hunger for new stories matched Hollywood’s ability to bring heroes with any powerset to life. When a superhero flies or lifts massive objects, it all feels convincing in ways audiences of those early films could never imagine. The advancements in computer-generated technology imagery to make such incredible feats seem possible on the big screen and the ability to run connected storylines, just as the comic books have, have finally caught up to cinematic reality.
One of the most extraordinary cinematic experiments was tested ten years ago. Could multiple superheroes, who have headlined different films, all come together and team up in a single movie in a purpose-driven narrative and be better than those before? Could such an ambitious idea work? The answer came in 2012 with Marvel’s The Avengers, an exciting and hilarious feature where superheroes such as Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and others joined forces to defend the world. Audiences left theaters delighted and eager to see if such a film could ever be topped.
This year, Thor will be back on the big screen again with Thor: Love and Thunder. Doctor Strange will also take its place in cinemas with Doctor Strange and The Multiverse of Madness, a movie that promises to surprise audiences with twists and turns and fantastic visual treats. It’s a perfect time to celebrate everything you love about your favorite hero. In 2012’s The Avengers, Did you notice that Steve Rogers (Captain America) faces Tony Stark (Iron Man) and asserts that he’s not the guy to make the sacrifice play? Tony retorts that everything special about Rogers “came out of a bottle” because he was given the super-soldier serum that provides his abilities. Interestingly, both of these accusations, while partially true at the time, were cleverly subverted by Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Stark did make the ultimate sacrifice, and Rogers proved that he was “worthy” indeed by being able to wield Thor’s mighty hammer, Mjolnir.
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