Viewers want immediately maximalist superheroes...why doesn't Hollywood deliver beyond nostalgia-fueled cameos?

Deadpool & Wolverine’s biggest crowdpleaser moments reference comic book movies of yore…and even some unmade entries in the subgenre. This is encapsulated in a sequence where the two titular mutants awaken in a hideaway in The Void belonging to longtime survivors of this domain. Who are those survivors? Well, audiences won’t be able to miss them since they walk out one at a time in slow-motion. The quartet consists of Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Blade (Wesley Snipes), Gambit (Channing Tatum), and Laura/X-23 (Dafne Keen).

It’s a sequence encapsulating a recent trend in superhero movies leaning on previously existing characters for big cheer-worthy moments. The now legendary audience responses to Avengers: Endgame’s “portals” sequence set a high bar for 2020s superhero movies. Spider-Man: No Way Home’s big sequences for Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire indicated this phenomenon could return. Since then, superhero films have been crammed with cameos from superheroes you haven't seen in a while. Just look at Black Adam (Henry Cavill's Superman is back!), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Patrick Stewart is Xavier once more!), The Flash (CG versions of dead celebrities are here!), and others.

This practice is so common that even DC Studios head James Gunn recently stated that the influx of superfluous cameos was one of the worst parts of modern superhero films. He’s not wrong, especially since Deadpool & Wolverine use cameos to flex the staggering scale of its corporate financier. Staring at Tatum’s Gambit and Garner’s Elektra means remembering Disney did buy 20th Century Fox and smother one of the oldest movie studios in the world. This piece is not a defense of this practice, to be clear. That CG Christopher Reeve in The Flash is garbage and an insult to life itself.

What does interest me, though, is why audiences may like these cameos beyond just nostalgia. Do moviegoers like the sudden introduction of superheroes, all decked out in fancy costumes and unencumbered by prolonged on-screen backstory, because it’s such a contrast to typical superhero films? For most of the 21st century, unending origin stories have been the norm. Superhero films normally dabble in subdued outfits and tease more fantastical material that will come in ultimately unrealized sequels. In contrast, these cameos instantly offer people heightened costumes and superheroes who are ready to fight crime. Do folks go gaga for these cameos simply because they dispense with all the build-up? Is their relationship to old superhero movie standards what makes them so popular?

Superhero films haven't always started with the lengthy origin stories that defined Green Lantern, Snake Eyes, Bloodshot, and countless other movies. The 1989 Batman feature, for instance, begins with the titular vigilante already a mythical figure spoken about in whispers by criminals. The Crow has its titular crime-fighter fully adorned in his signature outfit and makeup 16 minutes into the runtime. 1998's utterly delightful The Mask of Zorro kicks off with an incarnation of Zorro fighting crime in a spirited prologue.

However, in the 21st century, two elements forever changed the superhero movie genre. For one, in 2002 Spider-Man became the biggest entry in the genre of all time. Naturally, Hollywood took only the worst surface-level lessons from that movie. Sam Raimi’s inaugural Spidey movie focused on Peter Parker getting his superpowers and learning how “with great power comes great responsibility”. This meant every superhero movie had to function as a prolonged origin yarn. This was true if they didn’t have as compelling of a backstory as that web-crawler. Meanwhile, Batman Begins established that gritty realism was the new norm for this domain. All those origin stories could also provide “realistic” explanations and “grounded” trappings for superheroes to inhabit.

Suddenly, characters like Ghost Rider, Wolverine, The Green Hornet, and even the entire G.I. Joe organization (in that audiences followed Duke joining this team in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) were all obsessed with origin stories that couldn’t sustain a feature-length runtime. The 2012 reboot The Amazing Spider-Man even went down that famous Spidey origin story once more. This dedication to backstory continued even after the smash hit The Avengers. In the wake of its release, a fascinating anecdote I kept hearing from people was “I never saw the other Marvel movies and I understood The Avengers just fine.”

On the contrary, people seemed to relish this movie where Thor first showed up on-screen discernibly as Thor, Captain America’s first scene showed him demonstrating enough super-strength to destroy a punching bag, and Tony Stark using his super-suit to fix a pipe. Other superhero films felt so self-conscious about being “superhero” titles that they pushed all their maximalist costumes or delightfully goofy superpowers off to the very end of the third act if they even appeared at all. Some titles only promised those elements in a sequel! The Avengers, meanwhile, indicated you can just plop people into a world of superheroes and they’ll manage fine. That's a much more entertaining prospect for many since you to get to “the good stuff” right away.

Perhaps that’s why all four Avengers films are so popular worldwide. There’s no lengthy wait for the Guardians of the Galaxy to BECOME the Guardians of the Galaxy in Avengers: Infinity War. Not does Captain Marvel have to justify her whole backstory in Avengers: Endgame. Immediately, they waltz on-screen as delightfully heightened figures. They're not cameos like Deadpool & Wolverine's quartet of surprise Fox/Marvel characters, granted. However, like Gambit and company, these Avengers figures do stroll into their respective movies fully formed and ready to go.

This isn’t to say that superhero features about people growing into their powers or team members learning to trust each other are bad. That's just not the only mold these stories should inhabit. It’s one thing if you’re executing that kind of story with a crackerjack script like in 2002’s Spider-Man, 2019’s Shazam!, or 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s another if you’re the 2007 Ghost Rider movie. That title wasted people’s time with endless backstory when should've focused on Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider hunting down evildoers.

By far the best example of superheroes walking on-screen as fully-formed entities, though, has to be both Spider-Verse movies. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Verse: Across the Spider-Verse are among the best American movies period of the last decade. Something especially impressive in these titles is how exceedingly confident the introductory sequences are for each of its main characters. Neither Spider-Verse installment wastes two hours justifying why Spider-Punk, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker/Sp//dr, and others are who they are. Instead, they make grand entrances fully decked out in their respective colorful costumes on motorcycles, with twirling yo-yos or clutching electric guitars.

There’s theatricality in their entrances, no apologies for being “silly” or “unrealistic”. While Fant4stic felt ashamed to be a Fantastic Four movie, the Spider-Verse relished in visual absurdity and grandiose distinctiveness. No wonder audiences across the world now love previously obscure superheroes like Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India. They exude endless flair in Spider-Verse’s default maximalist visual aesthetic. These two masterpieces becoming crowd pleasers crystallizes why superhero movies shouldn’t be ashamed of the preposterous. Audiences aren’t “confused” or “lost” if superheroes emerge in storylines acting and looking like superheroes. Just let these characters wall on-screen with their crime-fighting attire and heightened personalities intact. Don’t just save that for mid-credit teases for sequels that will never come!

Alas, our modern blockbuster landscape, infatuated with the idea that every movie will spawn a lengthy cinematic universe, shamefully continues this trend. Snake Eyes didn’t give its titular superhero his costume until the very last scene! Eternals painfully dragged out didactic dialogue teasing that Kit Harington's Dane Whitman may just be the superhero Black Knight. Why this obscure unloved Marvel Comics character was getting more pre-crime-fighting set-up than Captain Marvel or Spider-Man in the MCU was a mystery. Bloodshot was a feature-length prologue for a "proper" movie starring that Valiant Comics character. Madame Web, meanwhile, ended with a tease that possibly someday its lead characters would don superhero outfits. Maybe. Who knows. So much inert build-up for sequels and spin-offs that will never come.

Perhaps, then, that’s why audiences gravitate towards the ubiquity of superhero movie cameos. Gambit doesn’t strut through a whole movie being a normal human being before donning a costume he’ll only really use in a sequel. He shows up throwing flaming cards around looking like he was ripped right out of the comics. Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Men first appear in No Way Home fully decked out in their respective costumes. After decades of “grounded realism”, just embracing the stylized world of super heroics must seem like a balm to moviegoers.

That’s all well and good…but that doesn’t erase the darker problem beneath these cameos. Namely, they mostly exist right now as an exercise in corporate control. Brief appearances from familiar actors can amount to Disney or WarnerMedia creepily reminding the world how much stuff they own. These cameos also let these entities exploit actors like Christopher Reeve long after they’ve passed on. Plus, these appearances can be used as a substitute for satisfying standalone storytelling. At least Spider-Man: No Way Home used pre-existing Spidey characters for an empathy-heavy storyline that was so distinctly Peter Parker. By contrast, CG Nicolas Cage's Superman in The Flash was an egregiously embarrassing creation. Instead of creating emotionally compelling material for this incarnation of Barry Allan/The Flash, The Flash merely reminded people of a comic book movie that never even existed.

The Spider-Verse movies, meanwhile, while still rooted in characters owned by Disney (the films themselves are Sony creations), deliver characters that are new to audiences. Peter Parkedcar is not a figure whose entire existence is rooted in corporate mergers or nostalgia. They’re just a fun punny creation! These motion pictures masterfully deliver to audiences immediately visually engaging superheroes unafraid of silliness without just reveling in nostalgic fan service. The superhero parody film The People’s Joker is a similarly great example of how to improve on past superhero movie visual norms without lapsing into applauding corporate monopolies. This saga about messy trans-self-acceptance is a middle finger to big studio tidiness in so many exciting ways. That material is executed with high colors and campy costumes that would simultaneously make Madame Web and Snake Eyes recoil in terror and leave Joel Schumacher weeping tears of joy.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice featured a Robin costume too dimly colored for anyone to realize it was a Robin costume. Meanwhile, vibrant hues and striking outfits dominate The People’s Joker. It all looks as radiant as any classic comic book, with figures like Mr. J (Kane Distler), The Penguin (Nathan Faustyn), and other Gotham Citizen residents appearing on-screen in outfits harkening back to their comic appearances. Fidelity to the source material, though, doesn’t mean drowning in fan service and homages to the past. The People’s Joker uses these visual elements to create immediately compelling characters and images that are discernibly new. You’ve never seen the world of Batman parodied or interpreted like this. Just like how Spider-Verse brings to life various dimensions that look like the backdrops of no other animated movie.

Audiences applauding for the sudden appearances of comics-accurate versions of Gambit and Black Bolt suggests moviegoers are far more open to comic book “weirdness” than studios expect. Alas, major corporations tend to use that openness just for quick nostalgia pops. These same entities outright ignore that facet of reality in crafting the visually drab landscapes of Madame Web, Snake Eyes, Morbius, and countless other features. If audiences can roll with Spider-Ham, they can roll with anything! People want entertainment right now. They don't just want teases that someday iconic characters will wear costumes or exhibit personality traits that made them iconic in the first place.

The Spider-Verse movies and The People’s Joker are prime examples of all the exciting possibilities in creating immediately visually interesting comic book adaptations unafraid of bombast. These movies are invested in creating stunning imagery and interesting drama right this minute for viewers. They have no time to tease eventual costumes or superhero identities that will only appear in sequels! Let’s build on the legacy of those features, and the excitement audiences have for seeing superheroes who don’t need lots of backstory! That impulse could create further exciting new productions…and not have movies tip their hats to corporate mergers and 2000s Fox/Marvel titles.