Why the Green Hornet Beats the Green Lantern, in My Book (and what they both have on today's Batman)

I'm just watching the five million previews before the beginning of the movie Salt, and I wondered, dear blog reader - who is your favorite superhero lately? I wondered this because they had a preview for The Green Hornet, reminding me why I like him so much, especially compared to The Dark Knight's Batman, or any number of Superman retreads. Here's why:

1. The Green Hornet is a guy. More than that, a believable guy. He's not a person-shaped alien who can fly through space, his skin doesn't turn green or silver at will, and he doesn't spend his time trying to track down weird baddies with skulls for heads, or eight mechanical arms. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I think a touch of reality makes any display of superheroism more super. Like the tv show Heroes, when it first started.

2. Awesome gadgets. Especially the car. In fact - human origins and cool gadgets remind me of another standout superhero of late - Iron Man. And that reminds me of a third thing that the Green Hornet and Iron Man (as played by Robert Downey Jr.) have in common.

3. They're funny. Not like brooding Batman, who nowadays has Heath Ledger's psycopathic Joker to keep him company, rather than Jack Nicholson's, who treated the role like a kid with a flair for showmanship. Heath Ledger's Joker wasn't having any fun when he made that last Batman. And neither was I, watching it.

4. This leads me to the only flaw I see in the glut of superhero movies these days. They take themselves so seriously. I'm not sure I'm watching for The Origin Story to End All Origin Stories. Or superhero as social commentary. Scratch that - I'm all for social commentary. But I'd rather watch The Daily Show than read an academic treatise on the inner workings of Congress. Similarly - if I'm going to have a seemingly escapist work of art present some new truths about life, I'd rather discover that for myself rather than have said artwork metaphorically jump up and down in front of me saying, "Look! Look! Now do I deserve an Oscar?"

Superheroes still come from comic books. And I know that comic books are Graphic Novels now, and adults read them, and they buy them in bound volumes, and they keep them carefully arranged in their plastic sleeves, and they never, ever, ever let anyone touch them with dirty hands, or dog ear the pages, because they are important (and besides that, they are books, and we are adults, and we don't do that to books!) But before all of that, they were supposed to be fun. Escapist even. And just because we are adults doesn't mean we stopped having fun. So, while I may take care with my friends' comics when I read them, when I go to the movies I still want to have fun.