Riddle Me This! What’s the Best Superhero Movie of 2012?
Who’d win in a fight between Superman and Spawn? How the f*ck old is Cable? And what in the holy hell is a Megatron? When the tough questions arise, Panels on Pages will gather the facts, but it’s up to the PoP!ulation to draw its own conclusions. So come on… Riddle Me This!
2012 has been a benchmark year in comic book movies. The beginning of the summer movie season started with a huge bang thanks to Marvel Studios’ The Avengers. It was the culmination of years of planning and was a huge accomplishment, both creatively and commercially. The combination of rave reviews and over $1.5 billion in revenue likely means that superhero movies aren’t going away any time soon. There are nearly a dozen Marvel films in active development right now, either from the home team at Marvel Studios or licensed to FOX and Sony. We’re going to see more of these characters. That’s a good thing, too, because The Avengers was pretty much exactly what everyone wanted from and Avengers movie.
Closing out the big movie season was DC and Warner Brothers’ The Dark Knight Rises, which has been met with surprisingly mixed reviews. Even the PoP! staff can’t see eye to eye on this one (and not just because our beloved Tito Cruz is a foot shorter than the rest of us). So far, it’s not the runaway hit of its predecessor. It would be easy to attribute some of that to the tragic shooting on opening night in Colorado, but it’s hard to say what the numbers would be if not for that real-world nightmare. Still, with just over two weeks in theaters, it’s pulled in over half a billion dollars worldwide. The dark and uncompromising end to Chris Nolan’s trilogy (deemed “emotionally exhausting” by PoP!’s Dan Mahoney) will haunt fandom (good or bad) for a long time.
A little lost in the middle is Sony and Marvel’s The Amazing Spider-Man. It came out barely a month ago and it seems like a lot of people have already forgotten it in lieu of Batman. That’s a shame, too, because it’s a really solid movie. The performances are perfect and there’s not really anything that’s easily identifiable as inferior to Raimi’s version. Box office return has been really good, so it’s certainly a hit. That’s a good thing, since Sony has already committed to a trilogy and announced the release date for the sequel before their movie even premiered.
Your actual mileage will vary, but for my money, there’s not a bad movie in this entire crop. They were all great in their own way and for their own reasons. It’s difficult to objectively compare them because the overall tones and styles were so radically different, but everyone has a favorite. So Riddle Me This, dear reader, which of 2012’s superhero movies was your favorite?
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Filed Under: Columns • Riddle Me This
I liked all three, but The Avengers was the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in a long time.
I loved all three as well but Avengers was like a comic come to life and I had 0 issues at all int he movie.
The Avengers Movie Marathon puts Avengers just inches above the rest for me. Sure, there was the Dark Knight marathon, and it was really great seeing all 3 Nolan movies in succession, but the crowd for the Avengers movie marathon was much more of a community.
2012 is the year we’ll look back on as either the beginning of the new comic movie renaissance, or the apex of the current trend. I almost wish there was a Green Lantern we could dog on this year.
I LOVED both The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. I could not have loved either more but for very different reasons. Avengers is fun and action packed while TDKR is dark and extremely emotional. It’s hard for me to pick one over the other. Gun to my head I’d have to give Avengers the slight win because it was just a ton of fun and the first movie of its kind. Though The Dark Knight Trilogy as a whole is easily my favorite trilogy of all time (with The Dark Knight being my favorite movie ever). Also, the ending to TDKR is my favorite ending of any movie ever. I’ve seen it 3 times and I still get misty eyed and choked up.
While I have a hard time determining if I like Avengers or TDKR more, I can easily say that The Amazing Spider-Man is my least favorite. Overall I really didn’t like the movie. There were some elements I loved, but for me, the bad really outweighed the good. It bums me out too because I wanted to love the movie.
I’d say Dark Knight and Amazing Spiderman are equal but I had more fun at Avengers and Spiderman overall
Avengers and TDKR are the top two for me, but so very different that they’re not easy to compare. Avengers was action packed and funny, but with little plot and no drama. TDKR was a roller coaster of emotions with the fates of the characters actually being a mystery, thus adding to the suspense, but the lack of time actually BEING Batman leaves you a bit wanting.