What's the most basic description of the plot of a comicbook superhero movie? Villain has evil scheme, hero must stop it. Right? Well it turns out that so many of us assume this going in that we don't really pay attention to what's really going on. I mean, as long as the hero wins and evil is vanquished, right? Turns out screenwriters have a really hard time coming up with good schemes for the hero to foil, but hope that as long as there's a lot of fighting, you won't notice.
SUPERMAN (1978)
Hero: Superman
Villain: Lex Luthor
The Plan: Lex Luthor has bought up all the desert land on the eastern side of the San Andreas Fault, and will sink everything on the western side into the sea by detonating two nuclear missiles, thus turning his worthless land into priceless beachfront property (and killing millions).
What's Wrong?: This is a pretty clever plan -- if you're a real estate mogul. In fact, minus the missiles and the killing millions part, I'm sure most of the desert land in California has been bought up in anticipation of the eventual earthquake that will sink LA and San Fran into the ocean. But this is LEX LUTHOR we're talking about here! Archvillain of Superman, a hero who is invulnerable, can fly, breathe in space, shoot lasers out of his eyes, see through anything, etc etc etc. In the comics, Luthor has had plans like teaming up with intelligent alien robots to conquer the world, assume absolute control of Metropolis by controlling hi-tech military weapons, unleashing an unstoppable alien supersoldier to kill Superman and replace him with a controllable clone, convince Superman to give up the battle purely through conversation, kill Superman by overloading his body with solar energy, and saving the world from the ultimate god of evil in the universe. So, y'know, the real estate scheme kinda pales in comparison.
How does the hero stop it?: Deal with one missile, go back in time, deal with the other one.
SUPERMAN II (1980)
Hero: Superman
Villain: General Zod
What's the Plan?: Take over the world.
What's Wrong?: There's no reason for Zod to want to take over the world. This is a character who was imprisoned and exiled from his homeworld for essentially being Hitler -- a military fascist who wanted to control everything in the interest of security. He ends up on Earth with superpowers, and takes over the world for the power, but he has no investment in Earth, a world of weaklings who have nothing to do with him. It's like making a movie about a guy who wants to own the Ferrari corporation and ends up running a Kia dealership.
How does the hero stop it?: He doesn't. Superman has sex with Lois Lane and Zod takes over the world. Then in the last minute he lures all the villains into a trap at his place and returns control of the world to the President of United States (that's how that works? Right?)
SUPERMAN III (1983)
Hero: Superman
Villain: Ross Webster
What's the Plan?: Make a lot of money, by developing a computer that will enable him to corner key economic markets (coffee, oil).
What's Wrong?: Webster isn't even a villain from the comics for one thing, and for another, he's just a corporate CEO. So again we have the problem of "why is this Superman's problem?" The only reason Superman even gets involved is because a side effect of the R&D process for the supercomputer creates an evil duplicate Superman that fucks up the real Superman's life. Superman fights Evil Superman and then decides to wreck Webster's day and his supercomputer. But Webster is in fact doing nothing wrong, unless capitalism is illegal in America.
How does the hero stop it?: Smashes Webster's supercomputer. Which, y'know, doesn't really prevent him from building another one.
BATMAN (1989)
Hero: Batman
Villain: The Joker
What's the Plan?: Take over the mob. Poison everyone with cosmetics. Then hold a parade. Then murder everyone who comes. Then seduce Kim Basinger.
What's Wrong?: Do any of the above things have anything to do with each other? Essentially no motivation is ever given to the character. He kills the mob boss who screwed him over and takes over the mob, but everything else is just random. I suppose the writers were trying to show that the Joker is a creature of impulse, but in the best Joker stories his schemes always made a twisted kind of sense, at least to him.
How does the hero stop it?: He doesn't. Well, at least until the last 10 minutes of the movie. He sits in the Batcave and lets Joker get away with everything until he realizes he's the same guy who killed his parents. Batman does eventually destroy the factory pumping out the poisoned cosmetics, but only after its been in stores and sold for months and many have already died. Batman does eventually get rid of the poison gas balloons at the parade, but only after the gas has already been released and killed nearly everyone at the parade. The only phase of the plan he actually stops is he saves Kim Basinger, mainly because he already had dibs on that.
BATMAN RETURNS (1992)
Hero: Batman
Villains: The Penguin and Catwoman
What's the Plan?: The Penguin is going to reform his image with Max Shreck's help, so he runs for Mayor. Then he decides to kill the first born child of everyone in Gotham. Then he decides to kill everyone in Gotham. Meanwhile, Catwoman just wants to fuck up Max Shreck's day, maybe kill him.
What's Wrong?: Once again, Tim Burton applies the shotgun approach to villain planning, with a series of events that don't really relate to each other.
How does the hero stop it?: In the Penguin's case, its the opposite of the first movie. Proactive Batman sabotages Penguin's campaign, rescues the kids, and sabotages the killer missile penguins (yes) at the end of the movie. But while he's doing this, he forgets entirely about Catwoman, who blows up Shreck's department store, murders Shreck, and gets away scot free.
BATMAN FOREVER (1995)
Heroes: Batman and Robin
Villains: Two-Face and the Riddler
What's the Plan?: Develop a 3D tv that sucks people's brain waves and transmit it into the Riddler's brain. Get rich and become supersmart. Two-Face is involved under the promise of figuring out Batman's secret identity through mind-reading.
What's Wrong?: There's really nothing illegal in this plan, other than not telling people about the brainwave suckage. It's like making Mark Zuckerberg the villain of a movie for the crime of inventing Facebook. Oh wait.
How does the hero stop it?: He doesn't. Batman doesn't actually get involved until Riddler decides to steal Bruce Wayne's girlfriend cause she's Nicole Kidman back when that meant something. So Batman shows up and wrecks his day. Oh and kills, sorry "fails to save" Two-Face for the crime of murdering Robin's parents.
BATMAN & ROBIN (1997)
Heroes: Batman, Robin, and Batgirl.
Villains: Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy
What's the Plan?: Mr Freeze is going to build a giant freeze ray gun and threaten to freeze the city unless they give him the money he needs to cure his wife's rare fatal disease.
What's Wrong?: He completely forgets the ransom part. Just straight up starts freezing the city without offering any demands.
How do the heroes stop them?: Smashing everything and stealing the cure to the disease so they can save their butler.
BLADE (1998)
Hero: Blade
Villain: Deacon Frost
What's the Plan?: Summon a vampire god who will turn the entire world into vampires.
What's Wrong?: If everyone's a vampire, what do they eat? The movie shows them storing humans in freezers, but just because I got some beef in the fridge doesn't mean I can stop slaughtering cattle.
How does the hero stop it?: Some mystical mumbo-jumbo about how he's The One or something? Then a swordfight.
X-MEN (2000)
Heroes: The X-Men
Villain: Magneto
What's the Plan?: Make a machine that turns all the world leaders into mutants, thus making them stop persecuting mutants. When informed machine will actually kill them, turn it on anyone. After all, dead world leaders can't persecute mutants either, right?
What's Wrong?: Y'know what really got the US to leave the Middle East alone? 9/11.
How do the heroes stop it?: Stabbing a little girl.
SPIDER-MAN (2002)
Hero: Spider-Man
Villain: Green Goblin
What's the Plan?: Erm...fuck up Spider-Man's day, apparently?
What's Wrong?: Initially Norman Osborn becomes the Green Goblin to get revenge on the Board of his company, who have locked him out. He does this by murdering all of them. Then he finds out Peter Parker has stolen his son's girlfriend, and that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and kidnaps the girlfriend and threatens her life. So basically he would've gotten away scot free if he hadn't kidnapped MJ.
How does the hero stop it?: He doesn't, really. He jumps out of the way and lets Norman kill himself. And rescues MJ.
HULK (2003)
Hero: The Hulk
Villain: The US Army
What's the Plan?: Capture the Hulk, thereby preventing an unpredictable monster from inadvertantly causing massive property damage and killing thousands of innocent people.
What's Wrong?: Waitasecond... so why is the army the villain?
How does the hero stop it?: Smashing stuff and running away.
SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)
Hero: Spider-Man
Villain: Dr. Octopus
What's the Plan?: Prove his fusion reactor works by building another one after the prototype failed
What's Wrong?: Ock would've gotten away scot free if -- yep, he hadn't kidnapped MJ, which he only does because Spider-Man interferes (interferes, mind you, not stops) with him stealing some money he needed to buy some parts for his machine, after which he discovers Spidey's secret identity and kidnaps his girlfriend to... teach him a lesson, I guess?
How does the hero stop it?: He doesn't, really. He jumps out of the way and let's Ock kill himself. And rescues MJ.
BATMAN BEGINS (2005)
Hero: Batman.
Villains: Ra's al Ghul and The Scarecrow
What's the Plan?: Flood Gotham City with fear gas, and watch it destroy itself.
What's Wrong?: Ra's wants to destroy Gotham because he feels this is the only way to end the cesspool of corruption the city has become. Why not steal a nuke and bomb it? Why the elaborate fear scheme? This only suits Scarecrow, whose only plan ever in any story involving him is essentially "spray fear gas, watch results". Even if Ra's had succeeded, the city would just gone nuts, prolly the state would've declared martial law, cleaned things up and eventually the city would still be there, all corrupt like before. Like New Orleans after Katrina.
How does the hero stop it?: Blowing up a train.
FANTASTIC FOUR (2005)
Heroes: The Fantastic Four
Villain: Dr. Doom
What's the Plan?: Absolutely nothing.
What's Wrong: THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING DR. DOOM WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE! Even if you have no clue who he is, it's there in the FUCKING name! DR. DOOM! And all he does in the movie is eventually, very very slowly, gain some super powers, and decide that the best course of action is to dress up in a ridiculous costume and start testing them out by wrecking downtown. This is the greatest villain in the Marvel universe, supposedly one of the smartest people on the planet.
How does the hero stop it?: Standard hero fisticuffs.
SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006)
Hero: Superman
Villain: Lex Luthor
What's the Plan?: Grow a new continent, which Lex will own land rights to, killing billions when the mass of the continent displaces the ones already there.
What's Wrong?: LEX LUTHOR. Smartest man on Earth. Criminal Genius. And the plan is toss a crystal in the ocean and create a continent that is just big ugly rock formations? This is not using our potential, guys.
How does the hero stop it?: Picking the continent up and throwing it into space. Seriously guys, he's Superman. Can we get a challenge, please?
SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007)
Hero: Spider-Man
Villains: New Green Goblin, Sandman, Venom
What's the Plan?: New Green Goblin wants to kill Spider-Man, Sandman wants to rob banks to get money to pay his daughter's hospital bills, Venom wants to kill Spider-Man.
What's Wrong?: Guess which two villains team up to kill Spider-Man? That's right, Sandman and Venom. Wait, what? In fact, Sandman has no reason to go with Venom's plan except that Spider-Man once stopped him from stealing money. He would've never been stopped if Venom's plan hadn't involved... kidnapping MJ.
How does the hero stop it?: He doesn't, really. For one, New Goblin straight up changes his mind and abandons supervillainry before doing anything. Then Spidey apologizes to Sandman who flies away. Then he jumps out of the way and Venom basically kills himself. And he rescues MJ. (Sandman's daughter presumably dies of whatever her disease was, it's never resolved).
THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)
Hero: The Hulk
Villain: The US Army (and the Abomination, who works for the US Army)
What's the Plan?: Capture the Hulk, thereby preventing an unpredictable monster from inadvertantly causing massive property damage and killing thousands of innocent people.
What's Wrong?: Waitasecond... so why is the army the villain?
How does the hero stop it?: Smashing stuff and running away.
IRON MAN 2 (2010)
Heroes: Iron Man and War Machine
Villains: Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko.
What's the Plan?: Compete with Tony Stark's company in the weaponized mech industry. Oh, and kill him for being the son of a guy who exploited and then ousted a communist.
What's Wrong?: Well, Hammer's not really doing anything wrong. He's kind've of dick, but basically all he does is hire a guy to build him some robots to sell to the US Army. Oh, and help arm War Machine to take out Iron Man when it becomes clear that Tony is a crazy loose cannon and a danger to national security. As for Vanko, his whole plan only makes sense if you buy that the son must bear the sins of the father. Which is kind've weak.
How do the heroes stop it?: Leaving thousands of people to die at a killer robots expo, while saving their own asses.
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