ABSTRACT
In October of 2014 both Marvel and DC made major entertainment headlines by announcing, within a week of each other, the slate of upcoming superhero lms to be added to their respective universes through to 2020. The sheer volume of lms (over 40 in total) was impressive and gave viewers a lot to look forward to in the coming years. Critics and fans were also pleasantly surprised to see that the extensive list of upcoming features included two movies starring solo female superheroines, Wonder Woman for 2017 and Captain Marvel for 2018. As noted in Chapter 3, superheroines have been severely underrepresented and overly sexualized within the genre, and the public has been relatively vocal in their desire to see women in some lead superhero roles. Similarly, the announcement of two solo lms for black superheroes, Black Panther for 2018 and Cyborg for 2020, was applauded as nally bringing some long overdue diversity to live action superheroes. Given the dozens of superhero blockbuster lms that have dominated popular culture in the twenty-rst century, it is remarkable how absent women and characters of color have been from lead roles. To date, the cinematic superhero genre has been almost exclusively the domain of white heterosexual men: Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Ant-Man, Deadpool, etc., etc. The few non-white superheroes that have made appearances tend to be relegated to support roles on teams, like Storm (Halle Berry) in the original X-Men trilogy or Gamora (Zoe Saldana) in Guardians of the Galaxy, or as gloried sidekicks, such as Lt. Col. James Rhodey (Don Cheadle) as the War Machine in Iron Man 2 and the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The most prominent role thus far for an African American character in the Marvel or DC cinematic universes has been Samuel L. Jackson’s performance of Nick Fury in multiple Marvel lms. But, while Nick Fury is a badass super spy and the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he is not a superhero and he functions primarily as a supporting character for the likes of Captain America and the rest of the Avengers. In fact, since the unexpected success of Blade in 1998, starring Wesley Snipes, helped spark the modern superhero genre, the only other lead superhero of color has been Will Smith’s turn in Hancock (2008) as an anti-social superhero whose image desperately needs a public makeover.
