In the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, the titular protagonist sets out on a journey of self-discovery, trying to give new meaning to a life spent fighting errant gods, space elves, and other pseudo-mythological villains. After “saving planet Earth for the 500th time,” as the trailer for the film puts it, what is there left to do for Thor? The answer, the trailer suggests, will partly be more of the same. Love and Thunder will again have Thor face off with a nefarious antagonist, tussle with other gods, and punch out many monsters and henchmen in the process. At the same time, Love and Thunder also appears to claim new territory for future Marvel movies. It introduces a new female Thor portrayed by Natalie Portman and presents Chris Hemsworth’s version of the character going through a superheroic mid-life crisis and trying to stake out an existence beyond the established routine.

Thor’s attempts to reinvent himself (but not too much) mirror the challenges faced by the entire superhero blockbuster genre—as well as the reason why these films, much like Thor’s red cape, are not going anywhere. Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe is a 28-film franchise that has brought figures such as Iron Man, Black Panther, and Black Widow to the cinema. But it’s only a fraction of the roughly 100 superhero films to come to American theaters (and, more recently, streaming services) since the year 2000, including multiple big-screen incarnations of comic book favorites such as Batman, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man, as well as lesser-known characters such as Valiant Comics’ Bloodshot. All of them play variations on similar themes and motifs, pitting more-or-less virtuous, more-than-human heroes against evil counterparts that threaten the fragile status quo of a social order that is not necessarily ideal, but that will be defended nonetheless.

Superhero blockbusters generally try to provide a well-calibrated mix of familiar pleasures and innovative ideas. The formula puts known characters into situations that are similar to what came before, but, ideally, even more spectacular—a task that is becoming more and more difficult as new entries are added to the genre. Against this backdrop, Thor’s mid-life crisis can be understood as a self-reflexive joke about a looming exhaustion of creative options and the fear that there might not be all that much left that’s worth telling stories about (not coincidentally, the specter of “superhero fatigue” among audiences has haunted coverage of the genre for some time now).

This challenge is not unique to the superhero blockbuster. Other film genres have faced it before—such as Westerns or “creature feature” horror movies, for example, both of which enjoyed significant popularity but eventually returned to the fringes of Hollywood production. Filmmaking trends like these are examples of an “aesthetics of seriality” that, as the semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco suggested, is more generally at work in modern mass media. Seriality here has a double meaning: On the one hand, it refers to cultural creators producing new material on the basis of established success formulas, stock scenarios, and character types, which are then invested with new meaning, combined with new ideas and interesting twists, or rearranged in unexpected ways. (Think the American Western being appropriated by Italian filmmakers like Sergio Leone, or Steven Spielberg’s Jaws inspiring Joe Dante’s horror comedy Piranha.) Eco understood trends, appropriations, and reinventions of this kind as the norm in commercial popular culture. These products, he wrote, would invariably be characterized by “a dialectic between order and novelty, … between scheme and innovation.” In other words, there’s nothing truly new under the sun (or multiple suns, as on Star Wars’ Tatooine—a setting that combines the Western’s frontier vibes with the desert planet aesthetics of Frank Herbert’s Dune, and thus presents itself as another example of Hollywood’s tendency to reuse and remix well-established ideas).

But seriality also refers to a mode of storytelling in which narrative information is doled out piece-by-piece and across multiple installments to engage audiences over extended periods of time. Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe and other contemporary superhero franchises embody this model of serial narration par excellence: A film like Love and Thunder, for example, might still have a relatively self-contained story at its core, but is clearly not meant to be watched outside of the larger context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Recent entries of the genre are furthermore riddled with in-jokes, callbacks, and other nods to earlier superhero properties and comic books—references which require more than a passing familiarity with the material to be understood.

The result can be a peculiar sense of narrative fragmentation—instances in which superhero blockbusters cease to tell self-contained and classically coherent stories altogether. In such moments, films appear to be constructed around conspicuous narrative gaps, as motivations for characters’ actions are implied rather than spelled out. In this year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, for example, one character’s transformation from hero to villain only makes sense if one also has seen preceding Avengers films and the 2021 Disney+ streaming series WandaVision (and even then it remains pretty implausible). This type of serial storytelling makes good sense for Marvel and parent Disney, who can use it to point consumers from one arm of their multifaceted entertainment offerings to the next. In fact, the superhero blockbuster’s strong reliance on serial narration is arguably a key reason why the genre has not yet gone the way of the Western or the “creature feature.” At the same time, such interconnectedness can also make it difficult to follow along if one does not want to invest the time. But in our contemporary media environment—thanks to sites such as Wikipedia, chatter on social media, and the ceaseless coverage of the genre on entertainment news fan websites—the necessary background information is usually just a quick Google query away.

The existence of lively surrounding discourse is another important reason for superhero blockbuster cinema’s enduring success. After all, serial storytelling thrives on the temporal gaps between installments, which offer audiences (including fans and journalists on the popular culture beat) ample time and opportunity to celebrate or criticize recent releases, pitch hot takes about films’ broader significance, trace references to source materials, share news about the production of upcoming features, and speculate about future plot developments. Ultimately, it is this multifaceted and ongoing public discourse about superhero movies that creates much of the genre’s cultural visibility, and thereby lays the groundwork for the continued profitability of this type of film (after all, audiences need to know about a film before they can go see it).

Like our celestial universe, the superhero universe continues to find ways to expand—it has, by now, grown so large that some of its entries deliberately position themselves against the humor, playfulness, and fragmentation of recent Marvel fare. This year’s The Batman, for example, offered gritty violence, corrupt cops, and civil unrest along with a 176-minute runtime that left enough room to flesh out even minor aspects of the backstory in great detail. In this tradition, we can expect that superhero movies will, in the coming years, continue to play through all possible variations of the underlying hero-vs.-villain theme—and, in the process, continue to combine the well-worn cliché with the unexpected twist.

Will audiences eventually tire of this continued reinvention of the already known? So far, superhero movie fatigue has not yet left a significant dent in the genre’s overall commercial success; likewise, the public discourse about the genre shows little signs of souring. Like Thor, the superhero movie probably will overcome whatever obstacles stand in its way.

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Coming after this summer’s smash hit Wonder Woman, Batgirl is poised to make a powerful statement on the role of women in superhero media. Director Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman was a commercial and critical success for Warner Bros. in part because it abandoned the bleak tone of its moody, male-led predecessors in the DC cinematic superhero universe, presenting a compassionate, powerful heroine who has inspired fans all over the world.

With Batgirl now in the works and tentatively scheduled to hit theaters in 2019, it would seem natural for writer and director Joss Whedon to follow Wonder Woman‘s lead in both tone and characterization, but Batgirl’s backstory makes this a complicated proposition. Much like Wonder Woman’s, Batgirl’s comic book past includes many genuine, inspiring examples of female empowerment. However, it also contains episodes that highlight a fundamental contradiction in how the superhero industry presents powerful female characters. While these women are depicted as strong and proactive, their stories often include plot elements in which they are brutalized—sexually and otherwise—and victimized. They inevitably overcome these horrors and fight on, but these scenes border on exploitation. With the superhero genre in particular, such plotlines appeal to the prurient fantasies of elements of the predominantly male fan base, objectifying female characters and undercutting their powerful attributes.

Batgirl was a strong role model at the start. Created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino in 1967, her alter ego, Barbara Gordon, was a brilliant librarian who took off her glasses and let down her hair to become a superhero. Batman initially told her that he and Robin “can’t worry ourselves about a girl,” but she proved more than capable of handling things by herself. In her first caper, Barbara crafted her own costume and accessories and pursued the villainous Killer Moth, despite Batman ordering her to stay away. When Batgirl ended up saving the Dynamic Duo and capturing her foe, even the Caped Crusader was impressed: “From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t have to take a back seat to anybody!” Five years before Wonder Woman appeared on the cover of the debut issue of Ms. Magazine and was reinvented as a modern feminist icon, Batgirl was embodying female strength and self-reliance.

Yvonne Craig as Batgirl in the campy 1960s television show, Batman. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Batgirl beat Wonder Woman to the small screen as well, with Yvonne Craig starring in the third season of the Batman television show in 1967. The program was known for its elaborate death traps, and Batgirl ended up saving Batman and Robin just as often as they saved her. Batgirl also had her own hideout, built her own Bat-cycle, and made her own weaponry. No matter how many times Batman told her, “You better leave the crimefighting to the men,” she always stayed on the case.

Her brand of feminism soon moved beyond battling crooks. After the show ended, Batgirl carried on in the comics and decided that vigilante justice wasn’t enough. So Barbara ran for Congress in 1972 to fight crime through legislation. Her campaign to “boot the rascals out” and tackle gun control, drug trafficking, and prison reform earned her the nickname Babs the Boot, and she was elected on a wave of support from the youth vote. In her new role, she fought bad guys as both a congresswoman and a superhero. While many female superheroes embraced feminism in the 1970s, including Ms. Marvel, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman, Batgirl was the only one to take her fight for justice into political office as well.

But things quickly turned darker for her. Barbara lost her re-election bid in 1980, her regular solo feature ended soon after, and guest spots were few. In the 1980s, superhero comic readership was on the decline as dwindling newsstand distribution was replaced by the rise of specialty comic book shops, and female fans had largely abandoned the genre after decades of male-centric tales. So the industry targeted its existing fan base with edgier content aimed at a more mature, predominantly male audience. “Edgier” meant different things for male and female characters. The latter were regularly sidelined via assault, rape, and death—crimes that stoked the anger of males leads and furthered their stories as they violently avenged these now discarded women.

Case in point: Barbara’s 1988 assault in Batman: The Killing Joke. Creators Alan Moore and Brian Bolland proposed a gruesome scene in which the Joker shoots Barbara and leaves her paralyzed. This brutal attack, they decided, would enrage Batman and add drama to his battle with the Joker. Editor Len Wein was on board and, according to Moore, told them, “Cripple the bitch.” In the resulting passage, the Joker arrived at Barbara’s apartment dressed like a tourist with a Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and a camera. He shot her, taunted her as she lay helpless, and then sexually assaulted her while taking photos. The horror proved popular. Batman: The Killing Joke has been a bestseller for decades, and Barbara’s harrowing experience still remains canonical in the comics, despite multiple reboots of DC’s line.

Some writers have tried to move past the trauma. Kim Yale and John Ostrander reinvented Batgirl as Oracle, a computer hacker whose true identity was revealed in the pages of Suicide Squad in 1990. Barbara could no longer chase after criminals as Batgirl, so she used her vast intelligence and computer skills to track them down from her wheelchair. Before long, Oracle was a key source of intelligence for every DC superhero and was starring in Birds of Prey, a series with lengthy runs by writers Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone in which Barbara oversaw covert missions carried out by Black Canary and the Huntress.

Having a person with a disability in such a prominent role was a huge step for representation in the superhero genre, and Oracle quickly became a fan favorite. While Alicia Silverstone’s portrayal of a new, slightly different version of Batgirl in 1997’s Batman & Robin was widely panned—much like the movie itself—Dina Meyer was well regarded as Barbara/Oracle in the Birds of Prey television series in 2002. The rest of the show failed to capture the spirit of the comic, however, and it was cancelled midway through the first season.

Birds of Prey also exhibited a preoccupation with Batman: The Killing Joke. Each episode opened with a preamble that showed the Joker shooting Barbara in the spine, repeating the traumatic event over and over. Comics did the same, regularly flashing back to the gruesome attack in a parade of Hawaiian-shirted horror. While Oracle’s larger story was an inspirational tale of overcoming tragedy, the constant replaying of the assault fetishized the violence.

The attack remained a major focus in the comics when Barbara returned as Batgirl in 2011 after experimental surgery gave her the ability to walk again. While the story dealt with Barbara’s PTSD and her path to overcoming her fears, the book was dark and the trauma still haunted her. In one particularly brutal arc, the Joker returned to kidnap and torture Barbara’s mother, resulting in scores of flashbacks and further distress for Batgirl.

But things were changing. Because of the superhero film boom and a diversification of genre, style, and tone in comic books throughout the 2000s, women had become a major part of superhero fandom again, and this led to a new direction for Batgirl. In 2014, Brendan Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr revamped the character. Barbara moved to Burnside, Gotham’s version of Brooklyn, and got a hip, young supporting cast that helped her in her battles against evil app developers and other topical foes. The Joker’s attack remained canonical, but it was substantially de-emphasized after Batgirl reached a level of closure on the matter.

This new take on Batgirl was a hit with female readers even before the book was officially published. Her look included sturdy yellow boots, and women’s yellow Doc Martens sold out all over the internet on the day the new design was released. While Batman: The Killing Joke was DC’s top selling graphic novel in bookstores last year, second place went to DC Super Hero Girls: Finals Crisis, a book about the high school adventures of DC’s heroines that was part of a new initiative aimed directly at young girls. Batgirl is a co-star in this line, sporting the same yellow boots she does in her regular series.

Will this lighter angle continue into the Batgirl movie? Part of what’s made Wonder Woman so successful is its tone. Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad were bleak, violent outings full of brooding characters in a dark, desaturated color palette. Wonder Woman is brighter, literally and figuratively. With its powerful heroine front and center throughout, it avoids the objectification and gendered violence tropes that have been common in the superhero genre over the past few decades.

Batgirl could follow Wonder Woman’s example. Barbara’s encounter with the Joker has defined her for decades, and the trauma therein would mesh well with the grimness of the studio’s earlier films, which draw from the same gritty sensibilities of 1980s comics. But her history includes plenty of brighter and more empowering episodes, from the pluck of her earliest years to the determination of Oracle to the fun of her Burnside incarnation. As Wonder Woman and Batgirl’s current comics show, a new generation of fans wants female characters to take charge and have fun, not be mistreated plot contrivances. With Batgirl, Warner Bros. has the opportunity to leave the bleak past behind and embrace a brighter future for its superheroines. It’s time to put away the Hawaiian shirt for good, and focus solely on the yellow boots.

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I found my love for the performing arts during my junior year at Theodore Roosevelt High School. I joined the drama class, got the lead in a play, and was hooked. After high school, I earned my theater degree at Cal State Northridge and worked part-time at CASA 0101, a performing arts nonprofit in my home neighborhood of Boyle Heights. There, I produced (and performed in) a string of stand-up and improv shows. In the summer of 2006, CASA 0101 commissioned me to co-write the script of Little Red, a musical adaptation of the Red Riding Hood classic with a modern twist. This was the production that led me to create my own superhero show.

In the musical, a teenage Little Red Riding Hood is torn between going to a rock concert and delivering a basket to her grandma’s house, which is a time-honored tradition in her family. I approached the piece like I do every script: I tried to write a play that would really make me laugh. Looking back, Little Red was the first play I wrote that dealt with themes—the dueling pull of tradition and of the new—to which I related. Most of the Latino theater I had been exposed to previously told of the hardships that immigrants had to endure to make it to this country. But I was born here, and those were hardships I fortunately never experienced.

After Little Red, I wanted to create a hero with whom I could identify. Fortunately, that same year, I was asked by CASA 0101 to contribute to Documenting the Undocumented, a festival of original works about immigration and the protests against restrictive federal legislation. I decided to write a superhero piece as my contribution to the festival.

So I created El Verde. The piece takes the form of a classic episodic TV show like the 1966 Batman series or the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons of the 1940s. An announcer opens the show, introduces our hero, Arturo, and narrates the adventure that awaits him. Like Superman, my superhero is an immigrant—only he was born in a world that is not so far away, Mexico, and was raised in the United States. Arturo marries his American high school sweetheart and receives his green card—hence his superhero name, El Verde.

Unlike Batman or Iron Man, who are the billionaire playboys of the comic book world, El Verde is a blue-collar hero who spends his days working at an elote (corn) factory. He is a shucker, so it is his job to remove the husks from every piece of elote. When we meet Arturo, he has worked in the factory for several years and is yearning for something new. After an accident at the factory, Arturo tells his wife that he suddenly has superpowers, although he is not sure which powers he has exactly. So he ditches his factory uniform for his best and only suit and becomes El Verde.

The factory worker concept was inspired by my grandparents, who found work at a tortilla factory in Boyle Heights when they first came to this country in the 1960s. I also thought about the TV show The Honeymooners, which found humor in the lives of blue-collar characters. And like me, Arturo loves comic books. The heroes he has read about give him the ideal for greatness. He is tired of being known only as a factory worker and knows he can offer more to his city. So, he overlooks his limitations and strives to become a hero.

The humor of El Verde has been compared to that of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show—it appeals to a younger crowd but there are plenty of jokes and references that adults enjoy. Arturo is naturally awkward and a bit of a dork, but he tries to play that off as El Verde, doing his best to be cool and collected. He is still fairly new to the hero game, so the audience enjoys watching him stumble and make mistakes as he tries to save the day. When it came time to cast the show, I assigned myself the role of Arturo/El Verde. If you are going to develop a show this fun, you might as well make yourself the lead. Besides, how often do you get the chance to be a superhero?

The one-act play debuted at the festival in 2006. In 2007, I expanded El Verde into a full-length production at CASA 0101; that version was comprised of quick episodes where our hero faced an array of different villains like the Kukaracha King, La Llorona Lisa, and Frita Kahlo. The production continued for a few years at CASA 0101 with El Verde experiencing new adventures and confronting new villains.

In 2011, East LA Rep offered me and Alejandra Cisneros, the show’s director, a residency to develop a script about El Verde’s origins, and his first confrontation with the evil La Quinceañera and her henchmen, Los Chambelanes. Earlier this year, East LA Rep partnered with Center Theatre Group for readings of this latest El Verde script in four libraries in Boyle Heights. During the last week of January, we read El Verde at the Benjamin Franklin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Estrada Courts Satellite, and Malabar libraries in Boyle Heights.

The live El Verde shows usually have a cast of about 10 to 12 actors and include a few designers, numerous costumes, and lighting. When we do readings at libraries, we scale it down to six readers. We stand behind music stands dressed in our everyday clothing—and we still have so much fun reading the play. I always get a kick out of hearing the laughs from the kids in the audience, and I hope they get a thrill not only from hearing a live superhero show, but from seeing a hero with whom they can identify.

It is great when kids from Boyle Heights come to see the show. But I am more interested in having kids experience live theater. Being involved in the performing arts has done a lot for me, but I was not really exposed to the arts until late in high school. I would like for kids to see at a young age that it is possible to write, perform, or design for the stage.

So, what is next for El Verde? First we are planning to continue reading the play at other events. My old junior high, Stevenson Middle School, has invited me to read it for students in May. The graphic designer of El Verde, Luke Lizalde, and I are planning to turn these adventures into a comic book.

And we will perform a new episode of El Verde in July at the Rosenthal Theater, which is located inside Inner City Arts in Los Angeles, where I took acting classes as a high school student and where I have been working this year as a lighting designer.

So, like our announcer says at the top of every show, “Get ready boys and girls for another thrilling episode of El Verde!”

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