Postby Thad » Thu Jan 26, 2017 10:01 am
In the 2000 film X-Men, there is a scene where Wolverine comments on the characters' outfits. Cyclops responds, "What would you prefer, yellow spandex?"
It's funny because in the comics that the film is based on, the character of Wolverine wears yellow spandex.
It's a decent enough gag; it calls attention to how visual designs that work in comics don't always translate well on-screen. It also acknowledges the inherent silliness of the superhero genre and distances itself from it, which was necessary in drawing a distinction to 1997's Batman and Robin, a film which leaned hard into the silly stuff and did so poorly at the box office that it temporarily killed the franchise.
It is now 2017. Superhero movies and TV shows are everywhere, and they are extremely popular. Multiple superhero films have grossed over a billion dollars, with a "b".
And yet, their writers still feel the need to keep making that same fucking yellow spandex joke.
In Tuesday night's episode of Legends of Tomorrow (which was overall pretty good, and had George Lucas in it), Citizen Steel started referring to the bad guys as the Legion of Doom ("it's from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from when I was a kid"). Everybody makes fun of him for it. Sara Lance, in particular, rolls her eyes and says "I'm not calling them that."
Yes, because you wouldn't want to refer to Malcolm Merlyn, Eobard Thawne, and Damien Darhk as the Legion of Doom. Because that name is silly.
There's nothing wrong with making fun of superhero tropes on a superhero show. (In fact, this week Arrow did a pretty good job of poking fun at superhero resurrection.) But if you're going to do it, give us something a little more insightful than "haha, stuff in superhero comics sure is embarrassing!"