Superhero flicks are most definitely a polarising genre - you either love them for their mix of the dark and cheesy (when they’re good) or you dismiss then just minutes in as preposterous, overblown, fantastical nonsense (when they’re bad).

We all identify with a particular superhero at heart though, and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't fantasised about what super powers they’d like to possess at one stage, or entertained the idea of owning a dress up box for the moments when you have a crisis and  need some super human strength or when that perilously flat-lining relationship needs spicing up.

Superhero flicks are most definitely a polarising genre - you either love them for their mix of the dark and cheesy (when they’re good) or you dismiss then just minutes in as preposterous, overblown, fantastical nonsense (when they’re bad).

We all identify with a particular superhero at heart though, and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't fantasised about what super powers they’d like to possess at one stage, or entertained the idea of owning a dress up box for the moments when you have a crisis and  need some super human strength or when that perilously flat-lining relationship needs spicing up.

The genre pretty much kicked off back in 1945, when super detective Dick Tracy - an early take on the superhero in my humble opinion - first hit the big screens in the movie of the same name. This was followed by the likes of ‘Dick Tracy vs. Cueball’ and ‘Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome’, and scared the bejesus out of teens who were entranced by the hero vs. villain scenario well into the 1950’s and beyond, when things started to get a little more fantastical and freaky all round.

1978’s ‘Superman’ was my own personal introduction to the superhero flick, and represented a real shift in the public’s interest in men in tights on the big screen. TV’s ‘Batman’ was definitely amongst the pioneers in the area, but ‘Superman’ took things to a whole new level. And although the movie was a little slow to kick off, once Clark (played by the legendary Christopher Reeve) put on his tights for the first time, that’s when the movie kicked in for me. The movie handled the comic book hero very well with a good mix of action and humour, from him taking a moment to consider the concept of changing in a phone booth, to checking Lois Lane’s lungs for cancer when she’s happily lighting up a cigarette. And the effects, while dated, were still pretty damn impressive for the time.

1979 saw the arrival of the almost psychedelic ‘Buck Rogers in the 25th Century’, then in 1980 the hero of the day was named Flash Gordon, in the movie of the same name. I remember it vividly: the villain was named Ming the Merciless, Queen did the theme song and it was pretty awesome… horribly, horribly awesome in hindsight. There is so much wrong with this movie I discovered after re-watching it as an adult but damn, it’s fun.

In 1989’s ‘Batman’ Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham blew many moviegoer’s minds, and I believe that it is one of the first movies to bring a darker side to superhero movies and bring them into the mainstream. It helped turn Batman once again into a household name, and Jack Nicholson’s performance as the Joker is one of his most iconic, as well as one of the best performances in a ‘Batman’ movie hands down. From this movie on Batman was never the most interesting character in his stories, instead the villains were and the films were all the more interesting because of it.

I’ve said this before and I’ll probably say it again, but something that all superhero movies have in common is the absolute conviction of all the actors. Even when the plots are convoluted, silly or over the top, everyone just throws their hearts into it and I love that. More often than not villains are played with mega enthusiasm while all the expensive yet quickly outdated special effects go off around them, speaking lines that no one in their right mind would ever utter. That’s movie magic right there.