TOP TEN: Superhero Action Moments

The New York Court of Appeals defines the word “superhero” as someone “of unprecedented physical prowess dedicated to acts of derring-do in the public interest”. We’ve always been fascinated by superheroes because the good ones are usually representations of people we want to be. Jesus might be considered one of the world’s first superheroes found in print (he kills Batman in terms of circulation numbers). Satan was one of our first Jokers. And as Peter Coogan points out in his book Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre, Beowulf fits all the proper criteria of a superhero, and what is Grendel if not an arch villain? Superheroes and super villains and have been around long before comics, which we mostly associate with the superhero today. The bad guys are usually the product of social outcasting (Grendel, anyone?) or poor parenting. The good ones stand for truth, justice … (and all the rest of it) and it probably says something that many of them, like Superman, come from another planet.

Anyway, I point all this out because not all of the superhero moments in this list began in the world of comics, though they were all undeniably influenced by them. Yes, many great moments were left out (it broke my heart to leave out that Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike fight in X2, trust me) but I tried not to base everything simply on the action, but how defining a moment they were for both the character and movies in general. And away we go.