Plots

Batman

Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, an American millionaire playboy, industrialist, and philanthropist. Having witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on criminals and becomes a stickler for justice. Wayne trains himself both physically and intellectually and dons a bat-themed costume in order to fight crime. When he was young, he accidentally dropped into a well full of bats and was deeply traumatised by that incident. This was why he picked the bat costume in particular, because he wanted to get over his fear of bats since young and thought the only way to face his fear was to confront it.

In the plot of Batman Begins, the surprise element was the fact that the man responsible for Wayne's parent's death was none other than Wayne's martial arts mentor, Ra's al Ghul. In The Dark Knight, the surprise element was when Batman chose to save Dent, the district attorney, instead of his lover from the The Joker, once again for the greater good (because Batman believed Dent would be more useful in serving justice to Gotham City than his lover would).

Ra's al Ghul VS Batman

Batman Begins ended with Lieutanant Jim Gordon showing a card of The Joker to Batman to ask for the latter's help in catching the criminal. This led to the next movie, The Dark Knight, where Batman had to defeat The Joker. Hence, the Batman movies adopted a cliffhanger ending technique so as to give a rough idea of what the sequel would feature.

Batman VS The Joker

Spiderman

Spiderman came into existence when Peter was bitten by a genetically engineered spider, which allowed him to gain superpowers – the ability to behave like a spider (scale walls, have good vision, shoot web strings from his wrist etc.). The twist in the plot came about when the person Peter respected the most, his Uncle Ben, died. Peter blamed himself for the death because the culprit was a thief that Peter previously let off due to his self-centeredness. Hence, since then Peter adopted the identity of Spiderman to find the murderer and avenge the death of his uncle. However, as the plot developed, he encountered many other criminals and became a superhero who successfully strived to keep New York City safe from crimes.

Fighting scenes are an important part of spiderman as both sides (hero and villain) demonstrate their special abilities through their powers. Spiderman is able to swing through the city, scale skyscrapers and recover from many dangerous scenarios with the help of the web strings his wrists emit and his unusually fast reflexes. For example, at school, he saves Mary Jane from a split-second fall and easily overpowers her bullying boyfriend, in a fight.

Spiderman swinging through the city

Spiderman 2 has a happy ending because Spiderman manages to convince Dr Otto that the evil presence inside him is not him and that he should fight it, eventually leading to the death of the villain. A small twist in the plot further supports the happy ending when Mary Jane cancelled her wedding, choosing to be with Peter Parker instead.

Happy ending with Mary Jane.

Captain America
Steve Rogers is a frail, sickly young man but his selflessness and positive character made Dr. Erskine, the scientist who created the Super Soldier Serum, helped him enlist into the army. Over there, Rogers was taken to be an experiment for Erskine’s super-serum, which resulted in a taller, bigger and stronger Rogers. In this context, the “superpower” which Captain America has is deemed as scientifically-achievable in the movie. Of course, we know that even with current technologies, such super-serums are unattainable, thus we will view the amplified abilities which Rogers gained as superpowers.

Captain America before and after he was injected with the serum

Fighting scenes are prevalent in the movie, as Captain America does not have fantastic powers or weapons. He is instead bestowed with a muscular build, hence the fighting scenes involve much physical movement. In the last fighting scene, there is a twist when Captain America was already disarmed from his shield and at the mercy of Red Skull. However, he managed to retrieve his weapon and defeat the villain. His survival after 70 years under the ocean can be considered both a twist and an element of surprise, as everyone would have expected Captain America to be dead when the aircraft crashed into the Arctic.

Since the villain vanished and the superhero survived, Captain America has a somewhat happy ending – besides the heart-wrenching part when Rogers realised that he “missed” his date with his lover, Agent Carter.

The Incredibles

Here in the plot of The Incredibles, we can see a changing mindset of the Supers when Helen encouraged her children to use their superpowers, that were present at birth, after suppressing them for the past decade. In the climax, Syndrome captured the Parrs’ family and announced his plan to unleash his robot onto Metroville in which he would be the ‘hero’ of the city when he manages to subdue it using a control-band.

The Incredibles fighting the Omnidroid.

The plot is later resolved when the Incredibles succeeded in defeating the robot and the citizens of Metroville welcomed them back as heroes. However, a twist would happen in the narrative when Helen learned that Jack-Jack has been abducted by Syndrome in a last attempt at revenge. A surprise happens when Jack-Jack unleashes his superpowers for the first time and Syndrome got sucked into the plane engine and was killed.

Jack-Jack unleashing his power for the first time

Typical of most superheroes’ film, the narrative then ended itself with the appearance of a new villain, the Underminer, and the movie closes with a close-up of the Incredibles putting their masks on.

Powerpuff Girls

They are created accidentally in an experiment whereby Chemical X was added to the reacting mixture by Professor Utonium, creating the three Powerpuff Girls – Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup.

Powerpuff Girls were created through experiments

Each episode in the Powerpuff Girls series is only 30 mins hence the plot is not complicated but rather repetitive. It typically follows the 3 elements structure – rising action, climax, falling action – starting with a villain terrorizing the city and the girls going to the rescue (rising action). However, they will be obstructed by powerful monsters or some disagreements among the heroines (climax). Still, in the end, the Powerpuff Girls would discover a way to defeat the villain and the day is safe (falling action). The resolution of each plot may be somewhat predictable, though there may be some ‘surprise’ in the way villains are defeated as they use unusual methods like singing to defeat a mime villain or kissing to defeat the rowdy ruff boys are adopted.  Unfortunately, suspense is not a common plot element in show.

Surprise? Unexpected solutions used by the Powerpuff Girls to defeat the villains.
Using singing(above) and kissing(below)

To summarise, although superheroes films varies in narrative for each individual hero, one can still observe that most superheroes films are formulaic in nature. Most superheroes films either focuses on 1) the origin of the superhero in question, 2) the protagonist attempts to give it all up for a chance at a normal life but ultimately answers to the call of duty or 3) the hero turns rogue but it's still a happy ending. Superheroes film also rarely deviates from the expected plot; that is the villian always loses and the hero emerges for the better. The strict adherence to the above mentioned "formulas" seems to be deeply entrenched in the superhero genre.