Holy Megabucks Batman! The Astounding Popularity of Superhero Movies

Abstract

Scientists assume that facts, such as stars in the heavens, already exist and scientists achieve breakthroughs when they assemble a sufficient number of "fact bricks" to construct a new tower of knowledge, e.g., Copernican astronomy, Newtonian mechanics, Einsteinian relativity, etc.

However, the process of problematic reasoning works differently. Instead of starting with facts, a problematic begins with a dream or a sci-fi fantasy and then backtracks by inventing the facts that are required to make the dream a reality. For example, Wilbur and Orville Wright dreamed of flying like birds and then invented new facts, such as the Wright Flyer, and thereby transformed humans from groundlings into aviators. John F. Kennedy experienced a similar process in the space race: JFK dreamed of landing on the moon and then tasked NASA with the challenge of creating the necessary facts to make his space fantasy a reality.

Keywords: problematic, science, technology, fantasy, superheroes, Batman, Superman, Captain America, reality

JEL Classification: O30, O31, O33, Z00