Aristotle and I Scientifically Rank Superhero Movies

As many people know, I love superheroes, so the last decade or so has been something of a golden age with an almost constant stream of adaptations of superheroes on the silver screen. The most recent, of course, is Wonder Woman, which opened this past weekend to largely positive reviews and impressive ticket sales. I haven't seen the film yet, but hope to soon. In honor of Wonder Woman's arrival in theaters, I'm going to spend this post ranking the superhero films I have seen, and to do so I've called in a little help: none other than Aristotle, the person regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of all time. (Cue the obligatory marble bust photo.)

Now, you might ask, "what did Aristotle ever write about superheroes?" Well, Aristotle wrote about almost everything, including rhetoric, ethics, physics, zoology, theater, poetry, etc. His concept of arete ("excellence") most definitely applies to the role superheroes play in our society, as they are often mirrors for the values and morals we admire or wish to uphold. Since I am considering superhero films in this post, though, the most appropriate work by Aristotle is the Poetics, which deals technically with the genre of tragedy, but can be applied to other works of art. In that work, he gave six elements by which to judge the piece in question: plot, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle. Here's how I am adapting/combining those elements to rank the movies.

Plot - Three qualities are important to me for a plot: strength and originality of story, whether it is coherent (without holes), and whether things have changed from the beginning to the end (arc).

Character - In terms of character, Aristotle meant whether the people in the drama behaved consistently and whether there was a moral message (i.e., people of character). If we take it more literally, this category has three elements for me: am I attached to the hero(es), is the villain(s) charismatic, and is there a moral message?

Thought/Diction - I am combining these into the larger category of quality writing and whether the film can balance between evoking poetic thoughts of gravitas and lighter wit.

Song/Spectacle - I'm also combining these elements. Does the film have a score that sweeps you away? Are the action scenes inventive and engaging, even full of surprises?

With five points for each sub-element within each category, I sat down and scored all the superhero movies I've seen since 2005. Here's how it broke down, with my top five as the example.

	Plot	Character	Writing	Spectacle	Total (out of 50)
	Story  Coherence  Arc	Hero    Villain   Moral	Gravity             Wit	Music     Action
Avengers (2012)	5               4             5	5              5            5	5                   5	5                5	49
The Dark Knight (2008	5               3             5	5              5            5	5                   5	5                4	47
Captain America (2011)	5               4             5	5             5             5	4                   4	5               4	46
Captain America 2 (2014)	5               4             5	5             5             5	4                   4	4               4	45
X-Men: First Class (2011)	5              4             5	5             5             5	4                  5	4              3	45

As you can see, with its great screenplay, fun story, and engaging action, Avengers stands out from the rest. The Dark Knight is also a favorite (the portrayal of the Batman/Joker dynamic alone is golden), though some of the plot twists are a little hard to grasp. The next three were a genuine surprise! I knew I liked those films, but I didn't expect them to score so well on this rubric. Chris Evans' portrayal of Cap has always inspired me, and both films have good messages, while X-Men: First Class has Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. (I can honestly say Magneto's revenge against Sebastian Shaw surprised me with its cathartic brutality.)

For the record, here is the full ranking:
1.) Avengers - 49
2.) The Dark Knight - 47
3.) Captain America - 46
4.) Captain America 2 - 45
5.) X-Men: First Class - 45
6.) Batman Begins - 44
7.) Avengers 2 - 43
8.) Thor - 42
9.) Iron Man - 40
10.) Captain America 3 - 39
11.) The Dark Knight Rises - 39
12.) Guardians of the Galaxy- 37
13.) Iron Man 3 - 31
14.) Ant Man - 28
15.) Man of Steel - 27
16.) Batman vs. Superman - 26
17.) Incredible Hulk - 25
18.) Iron Man 2 - 22
19.) Thor 2 - 15
20.) Doctor Strange - 9
21.) Suicide Squad - 2

Is this ranking scientifically accurate? Does it provide a definitive way to assess future movies for now and forever? The answer to both questions, and I feel I can safely speak for both myself and Aristotle, is yes.

Joking aside, this was a fascinating exercise for me as it brought into words the unspoken qualities I've always looked for not just in superhero movies, but films altogether. Plus, we get to see in a representative scale just how atrocious Suicide Squad really was.

Mixing numbers with art is always a fraught, perilous, and contentious exercise - how can you quantitatively measure a film's worth? It's that very interdisciplinary blending that I find so fun, though. As a Humanities person academically, I've still been known to play around with quantitative reasoning as a way of thinking about the arts. So, now that I've generated these numbers, what can we do with them? How about charting the quality of Marvel and DC films, respectively? Have they gone up or down in quality over time?

From this, we can see that Marvel movies are a roller-coaster of quality, with some streaks of excellence, but also valleys, which we seem to be in right now. What about DC?

Here the picture is different: After the Nolan Batman trilogy, it is a steady decline into the abyss. (Perhaps Wonder Woman has changed that.) What if we compare the two?

The comparison shows us that DC got a good head start with the Nolan Batman movies, but around 2011, Marvel caught them and, despite a few fluctuations in quality, has consistently maintained the edge ever since.

So there you have it: fun with superheroes, charts, and, of course, Aristotle. Next time, I delve into another ranking of sorts when I discuss the favorite children's literature I've read with my sons. Until then, take care.