Superheroes: Ruining the Day

They're all selfish millionaire womanizers

(NEWSER) - Superheroes aren't what they used to be, and that's bad news for the boys who look up to them, psychologists warn. While old-school heroes like Superman and Green Lantern worked hard at their ordinary day jobs and fought for social justice, too many of today's superheroes are self-serving millionaire playboys, according to the authors of a new study that surveyed boys ages 4 to 18 about the TV and movies they watched. More»

'Twilight' vampire tops Forbes list; cartoon superheroes fare well

(NEWSER) - Upheaval in the financial sector has widespread implications—it even affects the annual Forbes rankings of the wealthiest fictional characters. Entering the list at No. 1 is Carlisle Cullen, the Twilight vampire patriarch, who has a serious advantage in that he's undead and has had 370 years to accumulate his $34.1 billion fortune. The full list is here ; the rest of the top five are: More»

(NEWSER) - Comics fans are just a little miffed by Marvel’s $4 billion acquisition by Disney: “SOOOO NOT HAPPY! Spider-man should not be co-mingling with Goofy,” reads one blog post. The problem, Linda Holmes writes for NPR, is “one of perception: Put simply, Marvel has a cool factor and Disney doesn't.” Marvel devotees don’t “see themselves as close cousins of people who love Donald Duck just because there's drawing involved.” More»

(NEWSER) - The Oscars are coming up, but that orgy of self-congratulation doesn’t celebrate what really matters in Hollywood: money. Forbes crunched the numbers for 2008 and selected the winners of a different award: the Rainmaker.

• Best Actor: Robert Downey Jr. returned $52.60 to Paramount for every dollar it spent to put him in Iron Man. The sky-high profit was enabled by Downey's then-low asking price, an aftereffect of his years of trouble with drugs and the law.

Studio rolls the dice with Downey, Favreau

(NEWSER) - Iron Man isn’t really an A-list superhero. “You could really go down the list till you get to Iron Man,” says director John Favreau. But Marvel Studios is banking its future on Iron Man, and its titular hero isn’t even the riskiest part. There’s also baggage-laden star Robert Downey Jr., and Favreau, a comedy director who hates CGI. More»