Why Superheroes are like Classic Monsters - Cinemassacre 

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These are by far my favorite kind of videos, informative and entertaining.

Always felt DC and Marvel are both really influenced by their origin time. DC came into their own late 30s into the 40s. So it's Pulp, Raypunk, detective noir and Classic Monsters. With Marvel they came into their own 60s, 70s so it's Sci-fi B-movies, Spy films, urban grindhouse and Blaxploitation. And the best movies about either characters are the ones that realised that.

Darkman, The Crow, and RoboCop are perfect examples of superhero films where the hero is more like a classic Universal monster in a lot of ways.

It's so weird seeing James talking about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde without cursing

Another example: Ghostrider. Johnny Blaze sells his soul, just like Faust. The difference is that Faust is driven by egotism and wants to know everything there is to know whereas Johnny wants to save his sick father.

Considering Marvel was mostly doing horror stories before the Fantastic Four and both The Hulk and Ant Man had been written as such, it's not surprising they have some overlap.

he's the friendly movie nerd, he's the friendliest nerd you've ever heard, he's the universal, clumbia, warner bros. nerd, he's the MGM, lionsgate, tri star, dreamworks, touchstone, miramax, paramount, DC, marvel, lucasfilm neeeerd! He's the friendly movie nerd!

When you remember that Frankenstein Punisher was an ACTUAL thing... His name is Franken-Castle, I’m not making this up

The Superhero genre may live forever, but the classic monsters will NEVER die! Thank you, James! :)

Danny Elfman also composed the music for the remake of The Wolfman

Now I'm curious if James heard of 'Immortal Hulk', because the series brought back the horror movie roots and threw in insane body horror into the mix

Originality has always been a myth, something I’ve come into realization a while ago. What matters in the end is the execution.

Because something new is actually thing that was long forgotten

I wish you'd talked more about Swamp Thing. He's a wonderful example. Scientist tries to make a bio-restorative formula, dies in a labratory explosion caused by a jealous colleague, comes back as a swamp monster, takes his revenge on the man who killed him and stole his girl, and returns to the swamp when his love doesn't recognise him. Later on, Alec Holland (Swamp Thing) finds out that he's body was in fact destroyed in the lab explosion, and his consciousness was transferred into the body of the Swamp Thing (which is living vegetable matter). Disclaimer: I wrote this in a rush.

I have the upmost respect for the classic monster movies. They couldn’t just rely on computers and graphics. They had to actually be creative and find ingenious ways to bring these monsters to life. It’s amazing what they created

Universal should hire James to oversee the next reboot of the Dark Universe.

Thanks for doing all this amazing research!

I've never seen the idea that superheroes are similar to classic monsters communicated so well so thanks James Rolfe for explaining it in the best way possible!

I could listen James talking about horror movies all day.

We need this show in cinnemassacre The angry V.H.S Nerd

I'm so glad we have people like James digging this obscure old stuff up and present it to us.

I love it when he merges the past with the present and shows all the connections.

I love when James put in some over time in the after hours. Been watching James for so many years and I'm so glad he's still going strong.

"Superhero movie seriea are just like classic monster movies!" >Universal studios cries for the failure of their attempt to make a classic movie monster series which they once called the "Dark Universe."

James connecting one of my favourite things to one of his favourite things. This is so cool and makes me think that James and I would have some fun conversations. (Not that me and James would meet anytime soon, but still fun to think about)

This is one of the most well thought out videos I've seen in a while, really never considered the connection between the two genres but I'm convinced now

James talking about films has become my favourite content on Cinemassacre

"Nothing new under the sun" Meaning if it's now, it's been done ages ago. Every great idea was inspired by an older idea.

Apart from AVGN and Board James, this series is my favourite, James on his own showing his expertise about old school horror movies

This is one of the great comparison videos I’ve seen in a long time. Thanks, James/Cinemassacre!!

You should review the Direct-to-Video film “Batman vs. Dracula”. It’s awesome.

And like superheroes, you can't just expect their movies to fly just because they're in a cinematic universe. The Dark Universe is infamous for stopping the story for exposition that we're not invested enough to care about. Marvel gets a bad rap for info dumps but they space it out and often leave it in the credits. You don't have to explain why HYDRA has Viking tech - they already explained it in THOR! This is also the main why Doctor Doom has still never been done right. In a Fantastic Four movie where they're the only superheroes, you have to explain how science and magic work in the same universe. Now that he can be in the MCU, they don't have to; we know the science because of Iron Man and Ant-Man, we know the magic because of Thor and Doctor Strange. All you need to explain how Dr. Doom knows science and magic is a cameo scene with Tilda Swinton and flashbacks of him studying with hopefully-John Krasinski-but-if-not-I-trust-the-casters.

Great video James! When I was little and would visit my dad, he used to put on the classic monster movies for me all the time. I loved them and really enjoyed discovering all the offshoots where the different monsters come together and cross each other's paths. I never realized all the intricacies to them you point out here--super interesting! Thank you for such a great nostalgic dive back into my favorite childhood monsters, sir. Keep being awesome.

13:23 well there is a 2005 animated movie called "The Batman vs Dracula"

A lot of body horror stories also could become superhero stories. Like Teeth is a superhero story, The Fly could also become a superhero story easily. Dr. Brundle makes a machine but it goes wrong and he becomes part fly and starts gaining abilities.

"Hero...monster....it doesn't matter what they call you. What matters is what you choose." -The Incredible Hulk

The recent mistake of Universal to do their cinematic universe was the bad plot of their "The Mummy" reboot with Tom Cruise.

If I take nothing away from this, it's that musical leitmotif in Wolfman/Batman! That's pure gold!

I like how he talks about lesser known monsters like The Woofman

Only James can come up with Videos like this and that's why I got so much respect for him!

I actually saw a documentary on the Hulk movie from 2003! Stan Lee have said that Frankenstein's Monster and Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were his inspiration for the Hulk! That fact got stuck to my head as a child since then!

The original Kamen Rider series from 1972 also fit very well into your analysis too - with the protagonist being kidnapped by a evil organization and turned into a "cyborg" to work for them - but eventually failing to be brainwashed and becoming a hero, and this trope was repeated in various ways in other series. Also, the series from 1972-1989 (and to a lesser extent, the modern series too) also worked like a cinematic universe of sorts, with characters from the other series appearing in other series and movies, which it was awesome too :D This also happened in other tokusatsu series like Godzilla and Ultraman as well.

"The Man Who Laughs" is an obvious inspiration for The Joker.

I actually look up to Godzilla since Godzilla in most incarnations isn’t necessarily pure evil but rather an angry force of destruction who has occasionally shown kindness such as raising a monster son or defending humanity against bigger threats.

That was really an interesting video! Puts a new perspective to the classic horror characters! Would be great if platforms like Netflix or others could present these to today's audience !

Time just flies by listening to James talk about movies I swear. Love his takes on stuff like this.

3:18 Don't forget that he was also based off of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Edit: Nevermind, you mentioned him at 4:01, but to confirm your suspicion, Stan Lee did indeed said that Hulk was also based off of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Thoughts on the Darkman series of movies? It's a Universal movie, kind of a mix between monster and hero. Also directed by Sam Raimi.

You could go even further and those characters from early monster movies could also be inspired from earlier stories and epics from different religions and cultures. Nothing is original but it is very cool to see modern retelling of different stories. Thanks for this video it was interesting

Thanks for educating me on superheroes getting inspiration from the Universal Monsters.

Well, hello all! Hope everybody is doing their best!

I’m so grateful your glory was blessed enough to shine on us mere mortal, James

Classic myths became classic folktale. Classic folktales became classic novels. Classic novels became classic movies. Classic movies became an inspiration. Inspiration becomes new stories. It’s beautiful in a lot of ways.

When it comes to horror and whatnot icons gathered in immense crossovers, I think of Van Helsing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, both guilty pleasures of mine.

This is such an interesting video, it's something I have actually never thought. I wonder, how much did James researched for this video? Because it does looks like did took a lot of time to compare all the similarities

Marvel just released a trailer for their Halloween special Werewolf By Night. The trailer had a very 1930s Wolf Man vibe going for it. They also had a trailer for Secret Invasion which, much like The Thing, is about shapeshifting aliens.

The Arkham Asylum already existed in Lovecraft's stories and the best part is that it was just as easy to escape then as it is in the Batman stories.

Nothing will beat the universal monsters there are the best films

I knew that a lot of super heroes that were based on old monsters, I didn't know it ran so deep. This is a great video!

6:17 That actually also reminds me of the Goldfinger them. When Shirley Bassey songs "the man with the Midas touch!"

it’s funny I always knew that Hulk looked like Frankenstein! ;)

I love that you mention Bill Finger

This is a great video I love Superheroes and I can appreciate classic monsters even more

These are the best videos of Cinemassacre. Not that really into video game stuff but his movie videos are so interesting. I feel James is more passionate for movies then games.

A really cool way to look at this topic. I've never seen those old monster movies but want to especially now after this video

I like when James talk about his views Keep em coming, James

This is one of the most informative videos on pop culture I've ever seen!

Hi James!

Thank you for the Hulk/Jekyll & Hyde comparison. Everyone look at me like I’m crazy when I point that out!

Five things: 1. Awesome video. 2. In Batman Returns, Christopher Walken's character is named Max Shreck, the same name as the actor who played Count Orlock in Nosferatu (1922) 3. Batman has fought Dracula before (Look up the animated movie Batman vs Dracula) 4. Supposedly, Marvel villain Dr. Doom's armor has pieces of cross in order to protect against Dracula (Yes, Dracula exists in the Marvel universe) 5. There is a vampire superhero: Blade.

Skip to 1:30

Hey James, if you want another neat example, you could check out Volume 7 (issues 31-36) of Mark Waid's Daredevil run, where he teams up with the Legion of Monsters, consisting of a zombie, a werewolf, a mummy, a female vampire and Frankenstein's monster.

Wow the parallels are pretty astounding. Great take.

The Universal monsters could've been terrifying, but that Hayes Code ruined everything.

The old "The Bat" movie looks awesome.

Aww it's nice to see James talk so calmly

As a kid my favorite superhero was the Incredible Hulk. I had really bad anger issues, and had trouble controlling my emotions, so as a kid I could really relate to the concept of a guy whose power was getting angry. At the same time, my favorite Universal Monster was the Wolf Man. He was a monster, but only because he couldn’t control his urges when the moon was full, which was something I could really relate and empathize to

I just watched frankenstein last night. Such a sad movie. I think when the monster threw the Dr out of the windmill he should have died it would have been much more tragic

Larry Talbot and General Talbot... I never noticed that connection before.🤯

Stellar commentary, a true delight to watch and learn a little something.

Binge-watching all Monster Madness and other discussion videos like this one, so happy to watch a new one. Keep up the great work, James!! These videos are so fun to watch/listen to while drawing

Wasn't Zoro also an inspiration for Batman?

You're so intelligent. Also this is an example of a take I had never thought, and I don't know why I didn't see it this way before, but now it seems very logical and possible to make a standing change. Amazing.

This is probably one of my more favorite videos of late. Very well researched and James' passion for these movies shows

On point. Elfman totally got inspiration from those old film classics. Say you should collaborate with Minty from 10 things you may not know.

This is really enlightening! I never thought of it like this!

I'm honestly getting really tired of superheroes. Bring back monster movies already. Also, check out Batman Vs Dracula.

Monster Madness has changed a lot for me, but seeing these video essays from James just makes it so much better

I loved that opening. I love the vintage feel of all these videos :))

😂😂 wait until he finds out about Devil Hulk.

When you mentioned Phantom of the Opera it made me think of the late 90's pc game I use to love playing.

Who else remembers when he made videos because he loved it...

Allways enjoy listening to James talk about movies.

I'm always comparing the Monster to the Hulk! It'd be so cool if they had a fight!

I never looked at those classic monsters the same way as superheroes. Great video.

Honestly i began some years ago to appreciated and be interested in Universal monster movies bc of James

When Stan Lee thought of most of the marvel heroes. He took inspiration from classic horror and science fiction films. Along with some books.

So this is why watching an MCU-movie is a horrific experience every time.

The Wolfman and Burton’s Batman are two of my favorite film scores of all time. Never even noticed the similarities until you played them back to back and my jaw hit the floor