It might sound silly, but after I became a born-again movies just don’t have the same appeal. In one way or another there is often something about it that is mildly toxic. Morality separate from God. Ambition without God’s direction. Etc.

Be prudent. On a sub-conscious level, cinema is shaping us much more than we realize.

We are not all so luck in our friends as you, for some these character are we have in the world to hold back the darkness that would swallow us whole.

I for one need another hero.

From Fantastic Four comic #1 in 1961 onwards, what made the Marvel heroes different than other publishers characters was exactly that they were flawed and human, not picture perfect black-and-white like all the others.

Bruce Banner – picked-on nerd who gets to have all the testosterone he wants to fight the bullies, but at a horrible cost.
Ant-Man – divorced dad by day, burglar at night. Gets caught by someone he’s stealing from, who gives him a second chance/shot at redemption.
Iron Man – selfish prick/genius who comes to see the havoc his inventions have caused and tries to make things right. Does do a lot of good, but sometimes his best intentions create more problems. Has alcohol and ego issues.
Thor/Loki – sibling rivalry, 2nd child syndrome, etc. What do you do when your brother goes off the rails/wasn’t on the rails to begin with? How do you help someone who will do you over at the slightest opportunity, who is your brother?
Hawkeye – ordinary human who trains really hard and gets to play with the others. He has a secret life – a family! – how does he keep his work life at work and ensure worklife stress doesn’t intrude on wife and kids?
Black Widow – Russian assassin who defects, regrets her past, is dealing with being abused as a child.
Captain America – 50s guy who wakes up after decades in suspended animation. Er, ok. The point of his story – was the classic 90lb weakling who got tough after a govt. experiment; his heroism isn’t because of his toughness, it’s his character – perseverance, doing the right thing, etc. The most ‘white hat cowboy’ of the bunch.
Star Lord – tongue-in cheek name for someone we’d call a larrikin, mischievous, not really on the right side of the law. Meets lots of people who want to fight him, makes alliances with some, loses alliances with others. Yes, there are many shades of grey.
X-Men – kids at a special school. They’re ‘different’, it outsiders, ‘gay’ subtext. Magneto – noble character, Jewish, abused at Nazi concentration camps as a child, unresolved anger puts him often at odds with the ‘white hats’.
Spider-Man – high school kid finds it’s cool to suddenly get all sorts of powers, but they don’t help him get his homework done or get the rent paid.
As I said above, many of the ‘good guys’ in these films are actually borderline bad guys looking for redemption, ex-bads, side-switchers, good guys with different ideologies than the other good guys so despite trying they can’t work together closely, and more.
Far from being unrelatable, unattainable, these characters are full of flaws like regular people, and are a combination of relatability and wish fulfilment.
The worst kind of storytelling is when the person who punches hardest wins. A good story needs odds to overcome, ingenuity and good character rather than brute force. Sure, there’s lots of punching, explosions and so on in these movies, but you’ll find that they are far more about human interaction at their core. If you were to watch them at all, that is.

Like when Hawkeye meets his enemy Scarlet Witch and they have a chat, realise they have common cause and decide to work together instead of fight? Or when Capt. America meets his Soviet counterpart and as an old friend tries to help him, despite the US party line saying no? Or when Loki is creating havoc, but he’s Thor’s brother, right, so how can we get him to behave without actually executing him for his crimes? Many of the good guys in these films are actually borderline bad guys looking for redemption, ex-bads, side-switchers, good guys with different ideologies than the other good guys so despite trying they can’t work together closely, and more.

It’s not the 70s any more. Today, superpowered people are a reality, and I think it’s important that our stories reflect this dramatic imbalance of power. What would Trump do about Woodward and Bernstein?