Comic Book Guy: The Man Who Would Be Superman

Recently it was announced that the very English Henry Cavill of Tudors fame would don the blue tights, then slip the red underwear to become the Man of Steel in Zack Snyder’s upcoming reboot of Superman. Cue fanboy outrage across the Internet message boards as the accusations of bastardising an American institution begins. Superman represents all that is the American way, truth, justice and...the other one. Often portrayed as an icon draped in or in front of the red white and blue, he is nothing if not their poster boy. Except for the fact that he is from Krypton, so technically he is an Alien and I don’t remember him queuing in line for his green card application. Needless to say as iconic comic book characters are brought to life, there has been an outcry “the British are coming”, and the Australians as well.

Indeed there is an obvious influence of British thespians fine tuning their American drawl for their screen persona of hero or villain. Christian Bale (Welsh) led the zeitgeist as Batman way back in Batman Begins and since then the ball has been well and truly rolling. Andrew Garfield stepped up as the web slinging Spider-Man in Marc Webb’s reboot. Garfield, although born in the States, is considered an Englishman and Internet grumbles accompanied the casting announcement. Patrick Stewart owned Professor X in all three X-Men movies as an Englishman, and playing the same character in a prequel is the Scottish James McAvoy. Wolverine (actually Canadian) was played by an Australian in a career-making turn by Hugh Jackman. Thor, well, he is a Norse God so there is no argument there, but the list goes on.

The summary here is the obvious one, to point out that these people are actors; landing major roles like these means they at least carry a modicum of talent. Our American cousins have Captain America being played by home grown Chris Evans, thank god they didn’t go with Colin Firth! But on that notes it’s easy to forget that we too grumbled at some unusual casting. The very British Sherlock Holmes? American. Bridget Jones? American. Could be worse, could have had an American playing Robin Hood, twice.