Why the British don’t do superheroes

I don’t know about you but I’m a rather a fan of Batman or The Batman, if you prefer to give him the definite article as the new film does. It’s also rather heartening to see so many fine British actors earning a pretty penny portraying him – Robert Pattinson dons the cowl in the new film, hot on the heels of Christian Bale. And it’s not just Gotham’s bone crushing vigilante that our acting schools are clearly adept at preparing actors for: Brits Tom Holland Andrew Garfield have both slung webs as Spider-man and of course Henry Cavill has done the blue leotard proud playing Superman four times.

As well as the actors, our directors like Christopher Nolan have elevated the Batman story a new level and indeed our writers (namely Alan Grant) have also had a hand in this process: so why is it that Britain has never developed a homegrown Batman-style fictional vigilante of its own, or indeed any serious cultural contender to the steroidal mass musculature offered by the DC or Marvel worlds?

If you look back at the heyday of British comics and their survivors then we have the likes of Roy of the Rover – a footballer – or Dan Dare, an urbane pipe-smoking space pilot whose only dark side is on a distant moon.