Gotham's own  Dark Guardian makes me almost want to be-
come an evil villain, so he'll chase me around NYC all night.

We may finally have turned a cultural corner.  With the arrival of Kick Ass in theaters this weekend this may be the summer superheroes finally eclipse ironic zombies as the youth counter-culture's standard bearers.

And it's about time, if you ask me. 

I think the zombie thing has pretty much run its course.  All those zombie flashmobs and zombie marches, and all those people dressed as zombies thinking they weren't really zombies.  I found it forever disheartening that while you couldn't get twenty people to show up for social justice, three thousand of them would appear out of nowhere for some literally mindless march.

Whether they know it or not, they're remnants of the Bush Era.  Both the sinister nihilism of the right and the impotence of outrage on the left find ironic expression in zombies.

If Kick Ass is a hit (and you know it will be) it may signal a refreshing shift in "theme" from corrosive ironic critique to a more earnest and worthwhile expression of the energies of youth in courage and hope for justice.  From acting out our collective impotence to acts of individual heroism. 

Play-acting says a lot about our sensibilities.  The rise of the zombies in recent years makes sense to us because it echoes our perceptions of reality.  Maybe the rise of the superheroes is the fulfillment, in play, of the idea that we are the change we want to see in the world.

Whatever the case, we're bound to see more superheroes on our streets. I, for one, prefer them to legions of zombies.  The fact that if they're anything like Chris Pollack (aka Dark Guardian) they'll look killer in tights is just icing on the cake.