3. A Relatable Hero
Spider-Man in my opinion is the most sympathetic and relatable superhero in any comic. He is the everyman, and he pretty much represents the biggest demographic of people that tend to read Marvel comics in the first place. Plus, you kind of get the feeling that Spider-Man is innocent in all of this. He doesn't really want to be a superhero... he'd much rather spend the rest of his life with Mary Jane, but he feels forced to protect the world because he can't just stand by and watch people die. With great power comes great responsibility after all. This is shown perfectly in Spider-Man 2 when he gives up his powers and his responsibility in order to spend the rest of his life with the women he loves, but as Peter Parker is truly a hero in every-sense of the word, he gives up everything he has ever wanted to risk his life to save others. Plus, he doesn't really have all that much money, and he is a struggling student who has to balance many low paying jobs in order to support himself. He doesn't get any money for saving peoples lives after all. Batman almost couldn't be less relatable, and apart from the fact that his parents died and he wants to help save Gotham city, he doesn't deserve anywhere near the amount of sympathy Spidey does for example (Spider-man's parents and his uncle also died remember). First of all he is stinking rich and lives in a glorious mansion all to himself, so when Spider-Man risks his life to save hundreds of people he has to come home to a terrible apartment and is unable to pay the rent... but when Batman does the same thing, he comes home to his palace and roles around in bathtubs full of money. OK, so by the end of Rises he has kind of given a lot of this up, but even then, he seems to be living a pretty well off existence with Catwoman (who I thought was all about helping the poor and hating the rich... clearly not). Let's also not forget that Batman chose this life of glory fighting crime, whereas Spider-man was just a teenager when he was cursed with having to protect a city that hates him. The Avengers isn't any better than Batman either. Iron-Man is virtually Marvel's Batman... CEO of a multi-billion pound company, lives in a luxurious home, can buy anything he wants and have any supermodel he wants and also gets to fly around most of the day in a super cool iron suit. Not sympathetic in the slightest. Thor is a spoilt brat prince from a kingdom which pretty much looks like heaven, and is virtually invincible- Next! The only truly sympathetic and relatable characters from this universe are the Hulk and Captain America... though having so many characters populating this movie, there was very little time to really feel sorry for any character. This film was really all ACTION, ACTION, ACTION... and for a lot of the time the action kind of sucked. Iron Man spent about half an hour repairing the Helicarrier... Yay? OK, OK... so you could argue this isn't exactly either films fault but the source material. That said however, both The Dark Knight and The Avengers could have spent a lot more time developing it's characters and making the audience feel something for them. Honestly, when for a second I thought Batman had died, I couldn't have cared less... in fact I wish he had so I wouldn't have to have seen that terrible ending Nolan made for us. Also, when it looked like Iron Man died (though we all knew he hadn't) I also barely even reacted. I wish one of the Avengers had died in that final battle to make it actually seem even slightly threatening... those aliens were obviously as ineffective at shooting as Star Wars' Stormtroopers. However, had Spider-Man died, I probably would have wept- just saying. And when he struggled to survive in the final showdown at the end of Spidey 2, I felt much more emotion than both The Dark Knight and The Avengers put together.