The film that did the most damage to superheroes was ________!

[Jim Kelly]

It surprises me that no one has mentioned the 1966 BATMAN movie, which seems the most obvious. You could say that it's just the same as the BATMAN TV show, but it was a theatrical release--coming out on my birthday in 1966. And it had features peculiar to it (like the ganging up of the villains) that set it apart from the TV show. Also it seems like people more often quote that movie than individual TV episodes. And with the rights disputes over the TV show, you were more likely to find an official copy of the movie for sale in video stores. It never went away.

Even though the camp TV show might have had some effect on what kinds of TV shows followed, we still got a steady stream of super-hero TV shows in the 1970s. Whereas, the camp image of Batman was a big problem in getting any movies made. The 1978 SUPERMAN movie had to struggle with the shadow of camp. It took decades to get a new Batman movie made precisely because the camp Batman was still so prevalent for most people.

[Powerboy]

For me, it's hard to say what film did the most damage to superheroes. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin did superhero movies no favors, but there was also the Batman: The Animated Series, which was very popular, so you had a template that you could use to make a good Batman movie, and we saw that in Batman Begins. In a vacuum, I could say that Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice did a lot of damage to superhero movies since it was so divisive; but then again, there's the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is churning out hit after hit, especially with Captain America: Civil War coming out later that year and being a huge hit, so I think that Batman V Superman only hurt the DCEU. In the end, I would say that Batman and Robin did the most damage, aside from maybe Superman IV, though I never saw Superman IV so I can't say much about it and can only go by what other people have said.

I think that's a key factor in why Batman and Robin did the most damage to superhero movies, because lots of people saw it while it's common for people to hear that Superman IV was horrible but they never saw it. I don't know if it had limited distribution or what.

I personally liked B&R far more than S IV. It was campy but it reminded me of the Adam West show and everybody I knew at the time that hated B&R was some dysfunctional Goth loser who worshiped Tim Burton and Nicholson's Joker.

[Powerboy]

It surprises me that no one has mentioned the 1966 BATMAN movie, which seems the most obvious. You could say that it's just the same as the BATMAN TV show, but it was a theatrical release--coming out on my birthday in 1966. And it had features peculiar to it (like the ganging up of the villains) that set it apart from the TV show. Also it seems like people more often quote that movie than individual TV episodes. And with the rights disputes over the TV show, you were more likely to find an official copy of the movie for sale in video stores. It never went away.

Even though the camp TV show might have had some effect on what kinds of TV shows followed, we still got a steady stream of super-hero TV shows in the 1970s. Whereas, the camp image of Batman was a big problem in getting any movies made. The 1978 SUPERMAN movie had to struggle with the shadow of camp. It took decades to get a new Batman movie made precisely because the camp Batman was still so prevalent for most people.

The ganging up of villains was different only in that the top four were all there as opposed to team ups of two villains that often happened in the show.

I suppose it did make it impossible to do anything serious for a decade and, as you said, it was a fight to turn the Superman script into anything even semi-serious rather than camp. I've heard that executives wanted the Burton movies to be comedy and campy and he had to fight to do them otherwise (though they seem campy today) and, after he left, what happened, especially with B&R, was that some exec felt that Batman was supposed to be campy fun and that attitude was a holdover from the television show.

Kind of a Catch-22. Batman was fading at the time and the show revived interest and possibly kept him going, causing everyone to know who Batman was and creating "Bat-mania" yet making it impossible to do anything serious for at least a decade.

[Carabas]

That's a really interesting idea. In some ways, we're still seeing the effect. I can see how much of the MCU has more in common with the sensibilities of Indiana Jones or Underworld than it does with Rami's Spider-Man or Burton's Batman, which seemed more faithful adaptions of their source material than the current MCU.

There is very little of Burton's Batman that is faithful to the characters.

[TheInvisibleMan]

being faithful to the source material doesn't always translate well

sometimes it works great, like Hellboy

sometimes its Mortal Kombat Annihilation

[AndrewCrossett]

It surprises me that no one has mentioned the 1966 BATMAN movie, which seems the most obvious. You could say that it's just the same as the BATMAN TV show, but it was a theatrical release--coming out on my birthday in 1966. And it had features peculiar to it (like the ganging up of the villains) that set it apart from the TV show. Also it seems like people more often quote that movie than individual TV episodes. And with the rights disputes over the TV show, you were more likely to find an official copy of the movie for sale in video stores. It never went away.

Even though the camp TV show might have had some effect on what kinds of TV shows followed, we still got a steady stream of super-hero TV shows in the 1970s. Whereas, the camp image of Batman was a big problem in getting any movies made. The 1978 SUPERMAN movie had to struggle with the shadow of camp. It took decades to get a new Batman movie made precisely because the camp Batman was still so prevalent for most people.

But superhero comics up to around that time generally were campy. They were still read mainly by kids. Adam West Batman was among the first attempts to bridge the gap between superheroes as Saturday morning cartoon material, and as something adults could enjoy thanks to the celebrity cameos and the wink-wink parody aspect. This was right at the time when the first generation of superhero comics readers were having families of their own, wanting to entertain their kids while also engaging in a bit of nostalgia that acknowledged the straight-up campy nature of the Golden Age comics they remembered from the 40's. In that sense the series probably helped keep alive superheroes as viable entertainment, though not yet as serious entertainment.

Superman '78 got the ball rolling for superheroes as something adults could enjoy as serious storytelling (while still maintaining some measure of camp). It was only at this time that SFX technology had advanced to the point that you could do a serious superhero story without it looking silly.

The only movies or TV shows that did real damage to the superhero genre were those that failed to entertain... like the early attempts that took themselves too seriously without having the technology to back it up, or just plain bad storytelling like the Schumacher Batmans, Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra, etc.