One of the best movie monsters ever was Frankenstein’s creation from Van Helsing. All Van Helsing images © 2004 Universal Studios. All rights reserved. Photo credit: Industrial Light & Magic (left) and Frank Ockenfels (right)

The most extreme example of this is, of course, the world of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. With none of its scenes being shot on location, its settings, especially its New York of 1939, seemed realer than real. Clearly, love of the medium was lavished on all the scenes in this film, which were enacted, for the most part, by the film’s stars in front of green- screens, with all the backgrounds created digitally. A paper-thin script left the film a lesser experience than it could have been, but no one who’s seen it will forget imagery like the giant robots invading Manhattan. In most of these films, the superheroes rarely fight terrorists per se. Instead, they fight monsters and super-villains who stand in for what terrorism represents to us. After all, the deepest non-physical wound a terrorist can inflict is instilling the feeling that we are never safe no matter what we do to protect ourselves and our loved ones. And isn’t that feeling of dread what we feel when we encounter the monsters in Van Helsing and Hellboy, the giant robot marauders of Sky Captain or the nuclear power gone mad that created Spider-Man’s nemesis Doctor Octopus?

Villains like Doc Ock tap into our post-9/11 terrorist syndrome: We never feel safe no matter what precautions we take.

Perhaps having these metaphoric terrorists menace the worlds of their movies is more cathartic for us than having the heroes simply bop wild-eyed maniacs who may be plotting carnage. The latter are harder to find and to stop than bombastic costumed or mutated super-villains who love to have the spotlight shone on them and to explain in excruciating detail why they’re doing what they’re doing as they’re doing it. The fact that real-life terrorism is not so easily vanquished as Dr. Octopus would leave us with the opposite of relieving catharsis. It would perhaps make us feel the anxiety that we have gone to the theater to escape. Of course, the most successful of these films were the ones that realized that above and beyond big budgets and spectacular effects, great characters are what make any film — including superhero movies — come alive. An audience will forgive less-than-perfect vfx if the story and characters are people (or monsters) they care about. A bad vfx can make you laugh. A great character can make you cry.

So, how did this year’s crop of big-screen supermen and women fare against the forces of evil, and what does it mean to the bigger picture about ourselves and our society? Let’s take a look…

Spider-Man 2
In his cinema sequel, Spider-Man — already the best representation of a superhero to grace the screen — just got better. Alfred Molina’s performance as Doctor Octopus brought depth and nuance to the terrific script. At the same time, the CG effects and even the intense sound effects made the outlandish science fiction elements of the story fit seamlessly with the realistic elements. The fact that the New York of the movie — like that of Sky Captain — was a stylized version, cobbled together from pieces of New York, Chicago and the filmmakers’ imaginations — meant that it was a step removed from the reality of the real-world city that experienced the traumatic losses of 9/11. Tobey Maguire’s born-for-the-role Peter Parker/Spider-Man was also no small part of both Spidey films’ success, creatively and commercially.