If you look at genre-charakters, superheroes are the most childish of them all! Would you go and fight crime after having fallen into some atomic soup? I certainly wouldn't. I'd try to get on TV and make lots of money of course. And I wouldn't wear a cape for sure. Since superheroes are such a ridiculous bunch, they're perfect for animation which is considered an art-form for children anyway. Animation for adults never really worked besides a handful of obvious exceptions, but why would you wanna watch "anime porn" if you can watch the real thing instead. Must have something to do with being able to show stuff you can't do in a "real film". That's why animated adult entertainment is mostly based on giving the perverts what they want and animation works best if it relies on a solid fantasy-story because there is no reason to animate talking heads with lots of dialogue.

Animation is about physical humour and heavily relies on slapstick-routines with a punchline. Well written superheroes are all about that. But superheroes only worked within their original medium: comic-books. The underwear and the capes look stupid in the real world.
"Superman" was an all-right movie because it wasn't taking itself so seriously. Especially Part III starring Richard Pryor has some groove. And the sixties-camp-version of "Batman" was great of course, but it wasn't what the comics were about.
With the methods of CGI, which are more than a giant step for special-effects, everything is possible and directors have more time to concentrate on stories and characters instead of controlling a giant crane which is supposed to make an actor look like he is flying for real.
With "Blade", "Spider-Man", "X-Men", "Hulk" and "Daredevil", superheroes became the dominating genre for blockbuster-merchandising-vehicles in the last few years. There are more movies lined up. Another "Superman" is in the making, "Batman begins" has started shooting, "The Punisher" is on his way, the promotion for "Spider-Man 2" is heating up and Doc Ock sure look great in the trailer., but I'm afraid that Hollywood is trying to get lots of long-running properties with lots of sequels instead of just following a trend here. Superheroes dominate 90% of the american comic-market. It would be too bad if 90% of all movie-budgets would be wasted on making the "Hulk" look "more realistic". You can get ten movies for whatever "Ghost Rider" or "Hellboy 2" will cost and even make more money.

So, it's a good time for "The Incredibles" to break new grounds and make superheroes look ridiculous again. Check out the trailer. This looks like the best movie Pixar has done so far and even if you don't like their "hey, we're the new Disney"-approach, it's about time to make fun of crime-fighters and good-doers running around in capes. Come on, a fat old superman, that's funny!

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