>Tragic figure with supernatural powers, yeah, but I think
>it's a stretch to lump him into a standard "superhero"
>category. That's why I brought up Road to Perdition and Am.
>Splendor; I would group those three movies under a "comics"
>banner, rather than fitting ANY of them into a superhero
>mold.

It would *seem* to me that the supernatural abilities and action of The Crow might nudge it a bit closer towards the realm of superhero (closer than American Splendor is, at least), but I've never actually seen it. So there's not a lot I can comment on in that regard.

>If you're looking at Neo, you might as well throw Luke
>Skywalker in there as well, and it really becomes a slippery
>slope. By that rationale, what action movie revolving around
>a central character ISN'T a superhero flick? You'd be hard
>pressed to say that, say, Total Recall is a superhero movie,
>but really, why not? Lack of superpowers? Didn't stop Batman
>or the Punisher. Not helping others? Neither did the
>Crow....


This is an incredibly slippery slope. Where does hero end and superhero begin? Is it the cape? I tend to lump them all into a "Hero" category, with subdivisions like "Classical Hero" (Hercules), "Folk Hero" (Paul Bunyan), "Action Hero" (Rambo), "Superhero" (Superman) etc. etc.

There's a whole lot of overlapping taking place, so sometimes it's difficult to fit one squarely into a single subcategory.They're all heroes though, and that's enough for me. I don't lose too much sleep over it. Although I do find the subject to be quite interesting.

Luke Skywalker, to me, is more of a throwback hero. He might be the last in a long line of classical heroes to be catapulted into Mythspace.

Neo is kinda tricky...and I'm not necessarily saying he *is* a superhero. Just that there's probably an argument in there somewhere.