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Umberto Eco maintained in his classic study that the superhero is by definition an ambiguous figure. On one side – and there he placed the most powerful of all: Superman – he represents the best of us. He is, and probably since long before his popularization in modern comics, a model of behavior, an exemplary figure who embodies virtues such as bravery, cunning, loyalty, generosity or justice. And that's probably true since ancient Greece. But on the other hand, superheroes, all of them, are there to remind us that we are mortal, that each of their strengths corresponds to each of our most intimate weaknesses. Its perfection gives us away and, if necessary, humiliates us. And, the Italian semiologist added, "in that ambiguity, we find a source of fascination and a constant reminder of our own humanity."

Let's say that the universe of superheroes is now living its particular and most ambiguous moment. They, so to speak, are, suddenly, us. As if they had been infected by our insignificance, the last genre to dominate the box office, the industry and even the most recent Oscars (Is everything everywhere different in anything from a superhero movie?), and that has done so since the end of the first decade of the millennium when in 2008 Iron Man was released ; That cinema of people who fly, we said, begins to show, to the delight of its critics and weariness of a good part of the fans, some symptoms of decay very little heroic. Muscle tension fails. If we look at that as vulgar as the figures, the picture seems, in fact, extremely crude. The last two releases with muscular types at the front have resulted in two failures. Neither Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Peyton Reed) nor Shazam! The fury of the gods (David F. Sandberg) has measured up. Although the first made a good figure the first weekend (106 million in the US) then sank beyond reason with negative records below other debacles such as Black Widow or Thor: Love and Thunder. All recent. The case of the guy with the lightning in the chest and DC, not Marvel, was worse at the beginning (30 million) and output.

But since bad news never comes alone, Disney, the owner of Marvel Studios, has been putting on its own somewhat obscene show for months. The replacement of Bob Chapek by Bob Iger at the head of the mouse company has been accompanied by a real earthquake in the offices. From the outset, the company is still on a war footing (cultural) with Ron De Santis, the very conservative and somewhat homophobic Governor of Florida (the one of Don't Say Gay), where the most famous of the theme parks is located. Let's say that this would be the background music of the earthquake in progress. First was the beheading and subsequent dismantling of the Marvel Entertainment division at the head of which was the conflictive (as well as close to Donald Trump) Ike Perlmutter, a character without whom it is impossible to understand both the resurgence of the comics themselves in the 90s and the foundation of the very Studios that concern us. From hero to villain in a handful of decades.

Shareholders want results now because Disney's profits are now half of what they were before the lockdown.

And then, the much more notorious and bloody dismissal of Victoria Alonso, a wound that still festers. Depending on whether one or the other is heard (her or the others), the reason for the dismissal could be: a) the breach of contract when committing what became the third in the line of power of the house with the production of Argentina 1985, which premiered on Amazon but not on Disney; b) the mismanagement of the overcrowded special effects department with her at the helm that came to light with the publication of several messages on social networks of workers lamenting improvisation and crazed rhythms of work and, much more in sight, with the terrible visual quality of the last film, Quantumania, and c) the revenge of the company before an openly LGTBI directive, fiery defender of the family in any of its forms not necessarily normative and contumacious polemicist against any attempt by Disney to look good with the hated (or almost) De Santis.

It seems boring and, indeed, it is.

It is perhaps time to take a leap back to gain angle of vision. Although it seems that all this is more material from those sad reports in the salmon newspapers, it is actually more serious. Or deep even. "Their legs are shaking," says Julián M. Clemente as not only editor of Marvel in Spain. "We are at a critical moment," he adds because of the suspense. In his opinion – a vision shared by most analysts – the oversaturation of superheroic content on the Disney+ platform after the pandemic has made the concept of universe that gave so much game, now look more like a crowd of people with the only shared power of being a tostón. "There is no longer that anxiety of before to see the new. In part it is logical after the explosion of Endgame. It would be reasonable to think that waiting for the new Fantastic Four or the return of The Avengers in what will be phase six or even with the X-Men should spend a moment of transition. And that's where we're at. Recently Kevin Feige [the still factotum as maximum producer] asked for patience. But it is clear that companies only work in the short and medium term, not in the long term. They want results now because Disney's profits are now half of what they were before the lockdown even though Marvel is half of those profits," he reflects. He adds: "Right now Disney is playing with Guardians of the Galaxy 3. They want to recover the sensations of the beginning."

[Inciso: The truth (come on, good news) is that the film is very good. The best of Marvel in a long time. Tender, exciting as ever, hooligan as always, with a sense of spectacle and with a Rocket (the raccoon) transformed, finally, into myth ... But that's another topic.]

To continue with the thread, and to jump further back, there are those who do not hesitate to point out that the crisis is not circumstantial but systemic. According to these prophets of the apocalypse, the time of the superheroes that Spielberg, Iñárritu or Scorsese do not like has passed for the same reason that long ago happened that of the western or the neo-noir of the 70s or that of musicals. Beyond the end of a cycle, what would happen is that the society that saw in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight in 2008 the vivid representation of the fears of a time beset by the faceless horror of global terrorism and the megacrisis of 2008 no longer exists. We are elsewhere and with other concerns closer to fake news, the rise of far-right discourses that, suddenly, are fashionable and the social hordes, rancid and neorrancies unleashed. The villains are no longer huge and unnuanced evils who must be fought with the entire Olympus, but much more ordinary people capable of obsessing over the first conspiracy that jumps from their favorite wasup group to the front page of the formerly serious newspapers. That increasingly pronounced tendency of superheroes to the meta world, that is, to talk about themselves, to joke about their things, would be the last link before their disappearance. Did you hear of the twilight western? Well, the same, but in lycra meshes.

If there's one thing superheroes have, it's their ability to adapt. Not so much a genre as a genre of genres

"." The one who speaks now is David Galán Galindo, a filmmaker from Ávila who could well be from Manhattan with films to his credit such as Secret Origins, the most original and brilliant rereading of the world of superheroes that Spanish cinema has been capable of. He knows what he's talking about because he has a whole life hooked on comics first and everything else later. "If there's one thing superheroes have, it's their ability to adapt to all changes. It's really not so much a genre as a genre of genres. Before they arrived there were times of romantic comics, horror, the West... Well, they wiped them all out. In Reagan's time they adapted to conservatism; with Obama, diversity broke out; Stan Lee created Super Woman, Miss Marvel and Hulka because he saw clearly that feminism was a market. And if what he took were martial arts, then Shang-Chi, "says Galán by that a superhero if it is something is eternal.

In its favor, it must be said that the prevalence of superhero cinema has not only filled the box office with money (Of the 11 heroic releases between 2016 and 2019, six exceeded the barrier of 1,000 million dollars. Infinity War and Endgame reached 2 billion and 000.2 billion respectively) but has infected everything like a virus. Or even a fungus. The idea of the Avengers universe (Joss Whedon, 800) has passed to the saga of Tolkien's rings, to the series The Fast and the Furious and to the endless succession of horror films that exchange demons and moving. And one more, as Galán likes to remind to the derision of Iñárritu, the Marvel ideology has even infected even the highly acclaimed Birdman. Isn't Michael Keaton in the Mexican film a man who flies like the Batman himself he once was? Well, that's it.

And now the question: how do you end up with a fungus? If we have seen The Last of Us the answer is discouraging. Carlos García Gual says that the hero "is not a superhuman or divine being, but a man who has faced adversity, who has defied death and has demonstrated his courage and intelligence." He speaks of Greece as the Hellenist that he is. But it's worth the same. Survive? And if not, will we (let's say the cinema) survive his death?

And on top of Kang the conqueror falls k.o.

LUIS MARTINEZ

Jonathan Majors was in the role of Kang the Conqueror of the little good, let's face it, which could be seen in Quantumania. His imposing presence in the latest Marvel release pointed him out as the inevitable figure of a new saga of villains. We speak in the past tense because that is no longer the case. After his arrest on March 25 accused of assaulting his partner and after being immediately denounced by other women from previous relationships for the same, everything seems to have vanished. And it all includes the stellar return of The Avengers. Indeed, for May 2025 Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was scheduled where, just look at the title, he was the star. Let's say that, true to the Manchego principle that a skinny dog everything is fleas, Marvel not only has problems with its heroes but even its villains are willing to follow the boycott.

We saw Majors recently in Creed III and, in truth, he was much more convincing than his highest paid opponent in the ring. And before, at the Sundance Festival, he had proven to be a major actor in the very murky Magazine dreams where he gives life to a man obsessed with his muscles beyond exhaustion. With a little will, Elijah Bynum's magnificent film can be read as a hypnotic replica of the superhero genre in all its extension and in each of its phases.

You could say that Kang's world has fallen on him. The suspension of advertising contracts (many since he was the man of fashion), has been followed by layoffs. It is left out of the adaptation of Walter Mosley's novel, The Man in My Basement, from Otis Redding's biopic entitled Otis and Zelma. And let's see what happens with the 2nd season of Loki already shot. Anyway.

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