Infinite Narratives on Infinite Earths. The Evolution of Modern Superhero Films

Abstrakt

After almost 20 years of a  succesful run of superhero films it seems that we are now entering into the fully-developed format of this kind of cinema. Through films like “Avengers: Infinity War”, “Logan” or “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse” the general audience all over the world is becoming familiar with strictly comics-based forms and ideas like retcon, crossover or the multiverse paradigm (that serves as a model for ‘infinite’ superhero narratives and limitless iterations of characters). Despite the fact that popular cinema had already introduced some of these elements before – like the crossover aesthetic in Universal Studios’ horrors from the 1930s and 1940s – modern superhero cinematic universes can be seen as much more demanding productions for the viewers in terms of following strongly comic books-based modes of the ‘multiverse-centric’ perception. As a result we can right now observe an emerging process of turning even the non-superheroic popular cinematic features into very ‘comic booky’ narrative patterns. In this article I’m interested in analyzing the most recent cases of superhero cinema by looking at some specific titles as a way of introducing the narrative systems and tools from superhero comics into cinema.