When discourse about superhero media circulates online, a common term is inevitably used: Superhero Fatigue. There have been many definitions of Superhero Fatigue , but the common consensus is that there are too many superhero projects and all superhero projects are becoming similar in scripts and using expensive CGI battles to cover up the fact that there is no plot. Essentially, superhero projects are only hype moments and aura instead of genuine heart and soul.

You can dislike a movie or show because it doesn’t suit your taste, but to call something soulless is a very strong claim, a claim that I intend to disprove by taking a look at five recent superhero projects that are soulful instead of soulless.

1. DC Studios Supergirl is a strong step forward for the DC Universe

On June 26, 2026, the latest DC movie, Supergirl, released in theaters. Directed by Craig Gillespie, whose other projects include 2017’s I,Tonya and 2007’s Lars and the Real Girl, Supergirl follows Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) in her journey to save her dog Krypto from bandits. She is joined alongside  Ruthye Marye Knoll (played by Eve Ridley in her feature film debut) who wants to take revenge on the bandits for murdering her family and Lobo (Jason Mamoa), a bounty hunter with a motorcycle and a sense of humor. Ryuthe and Kara bond over this journey and eventually learn to start healing from their trauma.

While I personally enjoyed the movie, it has been met with mixed responses. Some were underwhelmed by the movie while others couldn’t connect with Supergirl’s journey. And as I read through the discourse, I inevitably saw the phrase Superhero Fatigue, used to refer to the safe and predictable nature of the plot, how “Supergirl” wasn’t in the movie at all (meaning how Kara didn’t act like her comic book counterpart until the very end when she decides to stay on Earth) and how there was a lack of Krypto in the movie as a whole. One review by Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman goes as far as to say that Supergirl “doesn’t have a story at all”.

Supergirl’s story is something we’ve heard before, but it’s still well told, and the lack of Krypto is a part of that story. Krypto isn’t just Kara’s dog, it is the last connection Kara has to her home planet of Krypton. Krypto dying for Kara hurts just as much, if not more so, than watching her planet die, so she has to be separated from him in order to have the emotional impact be as strong as it is.

And as for “Supergirl not being in the movie at all,” that’s the point. Kara’s entire story and character arc in the movie is becoming a true hero instead of a wandering drunk. That’s why in the beginning of the movie, she is intentionally going to planets with red suns that sap her powers. Kara is avoiding her powers and her past because she feels distant and alone from everyone except Krypto. That’s why the story ending on Earth with Superman is so important, its her starting to care about another world after losing her old one.

Its a similar arc used in Guardians of the Galaxy, where Star-Lord and the others were also wanderers and misfits with their own traumas until they found each other and saved Xandar from Ronan and it worked then. So, what’s the difference now?

All of the things audiences and critics see as “flaws” are intentional story decisions and they show a lot of care and effort went into this portrayal of Supergirl, a heroes journey that stands alongside Superman as a positive step in the right direction.

2. Marvel Studios Wonder Man Breathes Life into a Classic Character

Marvel Entertainment has been the main superhero company that has been referenced when talking about superhero fatigue, mainly because they have been trying to build up to Avengers: Doomsday in two years instead of the ten years of buildup Avengers: Endgame received. As a result, their movies have become more about fight scenes and setting up that conflict rather than actually focusing on the thing that made the MCU so successful: making the audience care about their characters. Wonder Man, released in January of this year, does that successfully.

The story follows Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a Hollywood actor with superpowers that he has to hide in order to stay in the business and Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), the actor who played the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, who is still being haunted by that mistake. The two meet as they try to get roles in director Von Kovaks (Zlatko Buric) remake of Wonder Man, a superhero movie that inspired Williams to start acting in the first place.

The show was highly praised when its eight episodes were released and for good reason. Simon Williams is just an average person trying to achieve his goals while his superpowers, which puts him on the same level as The Avengers, actively hurt his life. He would get rid of his abilities in an instant if it meant that he couldn’t act anymore, and it’s a side of having superpowers that hasn’t been explored much in the MCU. While Williams wants to be Wonder Man the actor, he doesn’t even consider being Wonder Man the hero until the end of the show and even then its still left up in the air whether Williams will join the wider MCU. And whether he does or not will still tie into Williams arc of accepting himself, superpowers and all.

That’s also not discounting Slattery’s role in the story. We learn a lot more about his past other than his time pretending to be the Mandarin and he serves as a mentor figure, both in acting and in self-acceptance. And by the end, to make up for all of his mistakes, Slattery sacrifices himself by pretending to be the Mandarin again in order to protect Williams powers from being discovered. It is a full circle moment for Slattery as he uses his greatest mistake to do his greatest act of good. In the end, Wonder Man is tale of two friends accepting the human parts of themselves and becoming superhumans because of it.

3. Prime Studios Invincible Lives Up to Its Namesake and More

Outside of the main DC and Marvel projects, Invincible stands as another fantastic project in the superhero genre. Written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Corey Walker and Ryan Ottley, its first issue was published by Image Comics on January 22, 2004 and finished its story on February 14 2018 with 144 issues. Invincible stars Mark Grayson, a human-alien hybrid who awakens to his powers at seventeen years old, powers he inherited by his father, Omni-Man, the world’s equivalent of Superman. He takes on the superhero name of Invincible and goes out fight crime, eventually discovering the harsh realities of being a hero and the true legacy that his alien heritage turned out to be.

Invincible was turned into an animated Prime Original, with its first season released on March 25, 2021. The show concluded its fourth season on April 22, 2026, and Amazon approved two more seasons. The main cast includes Steven Yeun (Mark Grayson), Sandra Oh (Debbie Grayson), and J.K. Simmons (Omni-Man/Nolan Grayson), with Walton Goggins as Cecil, the director of the Global Defense Agency, Gillian Jacobs as fellow teen hero Atom Eve, and Jason Mantzoukas as another teen hero Rexplode, along with many, many others. The shows four seasons have adapted 78 out of the 144 issues and Kirkman has been a key part of the shows direction, even writing some episodes.

Invincible has been held in high regard since season one for a good reason. The show displays the terrifying reality of being a superhero. Mark gets knocked, down, beaten within an inch of his life, and suffers deep trauma, some from the actions of his own father. And how combining that reality with the human reality of school, love, and friendships also tears Mark apart at times. However, at the end of the day, with the help of his mother, his little brother Oliver introduced in later seasons, and his friends, Mark gets back up and does the right thing.

Because he is Invincible through and through. Nothing is going to change that.

4. HBO Max’s The Penguin Shows Gotham in a Dark Light

On September 19, 2024, two years after the success of Matt Reeves film The Batman in 2022, HBO Max released their limited drama series about the Batman villain the Penguin. The project had already been in development since 2021 and serves as a sequel to the events of the movie.

After the Riddler floods Gotham and puts the city in a worse position than it already was, Oswald Cobb (Colin Farrell, reprising his role from The Batman) begins his rise to power in the criminal underworld. Along the way, he recruits Victor “Vic”‘ Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), a homeless kid who lost his family in the flood and later becomes his driver and personal enforcer. Oz fights against Sofia Gigante/Falcone (Cristin Milioti) and Salvatore “‘Sal’” Maroni (Clancy Brown) to get to the top of the world, all while using his dying mother Francis (Deirdre O’Connell) as an excuse for his heinous actions.

The Penguin was a resounding success, being praised for the production, writing, and especially the performances, with Farrell receiving a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Limited Series for his role as Oswald and Milioti winning a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role as Sofia. This was no surprise, as they were the main highlight of the show.

Milioti plays the role of a vengeful woman trying to get revenge for being falsely locked in Arkham Asylum, something that not only Oz had a hand in, but her own father Carmine Falcone. Meanwhile, Farrell plays a man who is so good at talking his way out of problems that even the audience is on his side to a degree, only to be quickly reminded of his villainy when he does something heinous to secure his position of power. Everyone, even his own mother Francis, is nothing more than a tool, a fact that Farrell and Oz disguise right until the final moment.

The Penguin is a gripping crime thriller with captivating drama, action, and soul. Oz wins at the very end, only to remind you at the very end of the last episode that his reign isn’t going to last long when the Batsignal lights up the sky. It’s not only a way to remind people that this is still the DC Universe despite how much it stands on its own, but it also tells us that heroes will always stand up and defeat evil.

And that’s the purpose of all superhero media at the end of the day.

5. DC Studios Clayface Is Shaping Up to Be a New Standard

If you had told me that Batman villain Clayface would be receiving his own movie, I would have been surprised but not shocked. After all, Clayface was well known due to Batman: The Animated Series, so him having a solo movie would make sense.

If you had told me Clayface would be recieving his own movie before Batman in the new rebooted DC Universe, I would have been shocked. The recent Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson has been confirmed to not be in James Gunn’s DC Universe. so a new Batman had to be high on the priority list of movies. The Clayface movie coming after a new Batman movie had been released would be something that I expected, but Clayface coming first was not.

But then if you had told me that the Clayface movie would be a body horror film, I would actually think that you were crazy. And I would also be extremely, overwhelmingly excited to see what this movie would look like.

On July 22, 2026, the first full trailer for Clayface was released. And it was exactly as horrifying and amazing as you can imagine.

Releasing on October 23, 2026, Clayface tells the story of Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), an actor who was disfigured following an attack on his life. To regain his beauty again. Hagen undergoes experimental plastic surgery led by Dr. Caitlin Bates (Naomi Ackie). This ends up transforming him into a monster from the inside out.

There are a lot of things to be said about this trailer, first with the name of Harries character, Matt Hagen. Fans who have heard of Clayface from the comics know his identity to be Basil Karlo, an actor who went mad after learning that a remake of one of his famous horror movies wasn’t starring him in it. Thus, he took on the name Clayface, the name of another villain he had played before, and went after the cast of that film. He later gained shapeshifting powers down the line. Matt Hagen, however, was a treasure hunter who fell into a pool in a cave and gained his powers from that substance.

However, in Batman The Animated Series, their version of Clayface was Matt Hagen. He had the exact same backstory as Basil Karlo just a different name. This is likely where director James Watkins got the inspiration from. That alone shows the director has read and cared about the source material.

This trailer is the antithesis of superhero fatigue. Hagen slowly descends into madness as his body becomes more and more monstrous. The CGI to make his clay body work is so disgustingly realistic that you don’t even think that it is CGI. If DC Studios wasn’t on the thumbnail, most people wouldn’t even know this was a superhero project. It’s such a refreshing terrifying take on the character and I hope for the success of this movie not just to see more Clayface, but to be a template to allow more insanity and creativity to become part of the superhero world.

Conclusion

If the most common accepted definition of superhero fatigue is that there is too much similarity in writing and that CGI battles and set pieces are being used as a replacement for a solid story, these five projects are very much against that definition. These were made with love, care, and respect to the comics that these heroes and villains came from. And this article is only talking about superhero movies and tv shows. The success of Insomiac’s Spider Man games, the excitement around the same studios Wolverine game, the consistent updates and love given to Marvel Rivals, and the upcoming Marvel fighting game Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls developed by Arc System Works show that there is still interest and love in the superhero genre. Superhero Fatigue as it is commonly defined does not exist.

So, the recent decline in the popularity of superhero movies and shows is not because of Superhero Fatigue.

It’s laziness fatigue. It’s the idea that some studios have that they can put a picture of a superhero on the door and expect others to walk through it, knowing that there’s nothing on the other side. It’s a short term gain mindset that not just superhero movies have, a lot of media in some ways has been growing into the idea of getting eyes to glance at them but not making them stay.

To fight against this mindset, stay for the projects and artists that care.

And give no attention to those that don’t.

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Chandler Flowers is a writer for Boss Rush Network. Her favorite video games are Honkai:Star Rail, Metaphor: Refantazio, and Persona 5 Royal. You can find her on Reddit to talk all things RPG, superheroes, and creative writing.

Featured Image: Slate

Source: Warner Bros.Pictures