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One day deep in the future, after Sasha Obama is sworn in to her second term and the AMPTP and SAG finally work out a new labor agreement, people will look back at this era of superhero movies and think of them the way we think of the Hollywood Western a half century ago. They’ll say, what was going on in the industry — no, what was going on in the world — that made studios crank these out by the dozen. History will show some standouts, but many of them could bleed together.

At least that’s our big fear. Right now there are a lot of high-concept pitches involving men with unconscious powers. No idea is too farfetched, no hook too obscure, to escape the come-hither look of  development execs. The last week alone has brought a hand more full of the things than Zod’s hand is full of Kryptoinite.

First there was <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i78def930c52edb059e4816c907fb2d65
“>wordof the Bryan Singer-produced “Capeshooters,” about slackers who go on the run after coming upon a superhero who turns out to have a nasty streak.

Over the weekend Disney showed the Con masses some footage of a superhero dog named “Bolt,” saving the world from goons one animated panel at a time.

Today comes news that Spider Man studio Sony is trying to extend its Marvel mojo by renewing development vigor on “Venom,” arguably the first spinoff in movie history centered on villainous goo.

And then there’s the “Spider Man” director himself, Sam Raimi, who as Borys Kit reports now has a comedic superhero picture in “The Transplants” that Disney — yes, that Disney — is doing.

(This, incidentally, comes on top of other big-concept fan-driven projects like the one tapped as the first Shaye-Lynne co-prod, Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation,” an adaptation of the sci-fi political epic that involves the prophet and savior Hari Seldon, a kind of intellectual superhero.)

But how similar will all these films be? Let’s hope not very. In this, the summer of “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” (Iron Knight?), there’s already not just success but diversity. Despite their comic-book origins, the two films — a cautionary tale about/ednorsement of technology and a civic crime drama — are as different in subject matter as two movies in the same genre can be. And that doesn’t even include the third leg in the summer’s superhero tripod, Hancock, a character piece about redemption that with its p.r. hook and arthouse finish strays further from the parameters of the genre than perhaps any modern superhero film.

But the real determinant in these movies’ legacy/longevity will be how far these movies can keep pushing. A little postmodernism is one thing. But is what’s underneath that cape strong enough to really make movies that feel different? Can all these projects turn the superhero movie  from something that endlessly varies the same theme into more of a category, like comedy, than a genre, capable of containing the multitudes of a Disney family film, a biohazard thriller and a slacker comedy.

Or will we just get more Westerns?

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