The teaser trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder dropped on April 18, quickly becoming the fourth most-viewed trailer within 24 hours of release (this is apparently something that news outlets care about and report on). It’s unclear exactly what Thor is going to do with a full-length feature now that his friends Iron Man, Captain America, Gamora, Black Widow, Phil Coulson, Odin, and even Karl Urban’s Skurge are gone, but it looks like it’s going to involve 80s music and a fat paycheck. As the opening notes of Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine ring out over the trailer, it’s difficult to stifle the thought: Are they really returning to this well again? The answer, fourteen years after Iron Man kickstarted the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe with AC/DC’s Back In Black, is yes, they are still trying to dredge the last drops of fun and joy from the 80s.

Meanwhile, March’s release of The Batman dragged us through four angst-drenched minutes of Nirvana’s Something In The Way, proving that there are in fact worse wells to draw from.

I’m not just here to trash-talk superhero licensed music choices, although it is tempting. I’m here to discuss where the past fourteen years of interconnected Marvel and DC movies have landed us, and if the world is ready to move on from our superhero phase, a possibility that was already being discussed just two years after Iron Man’s release. But first, a disclaimer: I am neither a DC Leaguer nor a Marvel True Believer. I didn’t read the comics growing up. I entered the Marvel and DC Cinematic Universes with no attachments to these characters, other than some minor familiarity with the X-Men and Ninja Turtles cartoons, and of course the pre-“cinematic universe” movies from back when superhero flicks were just superhero flicks. I unfortunately can’t provide any detail on how Cloak & Dagger deviates from its source material. What I can do is talk about DC’s The Batman and Peacemaker, and Marvel’s Morbius and Moon Knight, all released within the first four months of 2022, and all fascinating case studies into where we’re at with superhero media.

The reigning champion controls the board, so let’s start with the cash farm that is Marvel. We have to talk about Morbius. I know nobody wants to. Yes, it’s a Sony film, but the appearance of Michael Keaton’s Vulture and the fact that we saw Tom Hardy’s Venom in the film Spider-Man: No Way Home means that this film is at least tangentially related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before this movie even came out, from the trailer alone, fans had already decided this was the worst Marvel film. Granted, the release of the film didn’t help that reception too much, but it’s hard to sway people’s opinions when they’ve already made up their minds. But this movie has more depth than either of the Venom movies and showcased more sincere fun than MCU movies like Captain Marvel or Thor: The Dark World. Jared Leto can be a tough pill to swallow, but his character is downright tolerable, and alongside Doctor Who’s Matt Smith, the pair do a decent job of selling the movie’s lackluster script. The star of the show in my mind, though, is Al Madrigal, a newcomer to the superhero world that plays a sardonic detective role chasing down the vigilante. Sadly, I don’t think he’ll have a chance to reprise this role, because the world unilaterally decided that they didn’t need another hip modern vampire movie, not even one that could tie in to the MCU.

In a bizarre form of Morbius damage control, Marvel threw us an Oscar Isaac-led series Moon Knight on Disney+. Described as “a different kind of superhero show” by people who I assume are too young to have watched Legion and too sexist to have watched WandaVision, Moon Knight follows a bumbling Englishman named Steven Grant as he begins to realize that he has a split personality, and that his alter-ego Marc Spector uses superpowers that were granted by the Egyptian god Khonshu. This show has the cerebral puzzle piece narrative of Legion, the old-world mythology of Thor, the CGI monsters of Hellboy, the inept reluctant hero comedy of Ant-Man, and a central conflict stolen straight from the script of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but what it doesn’t have is anything original or new. Egyptian mythology offers a nice new playground to draw inspiration from, but it doesn’t feel like it’s being used in any interesting way. That said, Ethan Hawke plays a fairly convincing cult leader, F. Murray Abraham voices an English-speaking Egyptian god about as well as one can, and I think the show is a fun enough diversion for people who enjoy its sources of “inspiration.”

Let’s move to DC’s corner. Surely I don’t have a problem with The Batman, other than that Nirvana song, right? Everyone loved it! Before I say anything about the movie, I should say that I’m glad people loved it. There’s a very endearing quality about DC Universe fandom in how they want the brand to win and can’t wait to proclaim that “DC is back” after almost every announcement and movie release. Unfortunately, I’m not fully convinced that The Batman was really a departure from DC’s streak of grey mopey movies that are more concerned with being dark and edgy than being entertaining. The non-licensed portion of the movie’s soundtrack is mostly a two-note main theme and the public domain opera classic Ave Maria, played over dissonant background music at every available opportunity. Visually, the movie probably looks good, although it’s hard to tell because we spend most of it watching Robert Pattinson glower at a computer screen or into a rainy street. The all-star cast feels incredibly underutilized in a story that basically seems to be a re-skinned Zodiac. I love Batman, and I can’t wait for DC to be back, but I don’t think I can call this movie the big comeback. That said, I am excited to see Barry Keoghan take a crack at The Joker in the next one. Maybe the second time’s a charm.

Now that I’ve written my bummer reviews of three media productions that huge teams of people undoubtedly poured countless hours of their lives into, let’s talk about Peacemaker, a show I had no intention of watching until it was recommended. This show takes on the double-heavy lift of humanizing the character Peacemaker, who we last saw murdering a beloved protagonist in the movie The Suicide Squad, and making audiences like John Cena in a leading role. This being a The Suicide Squad spin-off, James Gunn takes the helm again, and so we get the additional hurdle of seeing if we can handle a very James Gunn-y all-80s-hair-metal soundtrack on top of everything. Surprisingly, it all kind of works. The show’s alien invasion plot could be accurately described as stupid, but James Gunn again proves why both Marvel and DC have signed him on by focusing on characters and their relationships. Some soundtrack choices are annoying, and many jokes fall flat, but ultimately the show hits where it counts, making us care about the characters involved and feel invested in the stakes for them. I particularly enjoyed the performance from Freddie Stroma, who you may remember as quidditch douchebag Cormac McLaggen from Harry Potter. Contrary to Oscar Issac’s heavily-derided British accent in Moon Knight, Stroma’s dorky American frenemy voice holds a lot of charm, and manages to gracefully hold the screen as the show begins to imply that his character is on the spectrum. Ultimately, I left the first season of Peacemaker ready to watch a second.

So, what are the conclusions? Is DC finally ahead in the cinematic race against Marvel? Maybe for the time being, but with League of Super-Pets, Black Adam, The Flash, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom on the docket for 2022, it looks like there’s a lot of opportunities for new flubs. Meanwhile, Marvel has a new Doctor Strange, Thor, and Black Panther coming our way, as well as Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk rounding out the dual gaps of gender and non-sequels. The bigger question: does the world need any of these TV shows and movies? Are we over-tilling well-tread ground at this point? We’ve hybrid-ized superheroes with just about every genre of film at this point, from horror to mystery and even self-lampooning titles like Deadpool and The Boys. It seems like Marvel and DC are still counting on there being more new ground to unearth, though, and I’m hoping they’re right. Have we seen an Ocean’s 11-style superhero heist yet? Just throwing my hat in the ring for ideas. Marvel, DC, you know how to reach me. Sorry for all that negative stuff I said earlier. Can’t wait to see what comes next.

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