Superhero

In modern popular fiction, a superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero) is a type of heroic character possessing extraordinary talents, supernatural phenomena, or superhuman powers and is dedicated to a moral goal or protecting the public. A female superhero is sometimes called a superheroine (also rendered super-heroine or super heroine). Fiction centered on such characters, especially in American comic books since the 1930s, is known as superhero fiction.

By most definitions, characters do not require actual supernatural or superhuman powers or phenomena to be deemed superheroes. While the Dictionary.com definition of "superhero" is "A figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon, endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime," the longstanding Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the definition as "a fictional hero having extraordinary or superhuman powers; also : an exceptionally skillful or successful person". Terms such as masked crime fighters, costumed adventurers or masked vigilantes are sometimes used to refer to characters such as the Spirit, who may not be explicitly referred to as superheroes but nevertheless share similar traits.

Superhero Movie

Superhero Movie is a 2008 American comedy spoof film written and directed by Craig Mazin, produced by David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss, and starring Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, and Leslie Nielsen. It was originally titled Superhero! as a nod to one of David and Jerry Zucker's previous films Airplane!.

Superhero Movie is a spoof of the superhero film genre, mainly the first Spider-Man, as well as other modern-day Marvel Comics film adaptations. The film follows in the footsteps of the Scary Movie series of comedies, with which the film's poster shares a resemblance. It was also inspired by, and contains homages to, some of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's earlier spoof films such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

Production began on September 17, 2007, in New York. It was released on March 28, 2008 in the United States, and the UK release was June 6, 2008, and received $9,000,000 on its opening weekend and was #3 at the box office.

Plot

Rick Riker (Drake Bell) is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert (Leslie Nielsen) and Aunt Lucille (Marion Ross), and his best friend, Trey (Kevin Hart), is also his confident. Rick has a crush on Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton), but she is dating bully Lance Landers (Ryan Hansen). One day, Rick and his class go on a school field trip at an animal research lab that is run by terminally ill businessman Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald), who is Lance's uncle. During the trip, Rick accidentally saturates himself in animal-attraction liquid, which causes a group of animals to hump him. This also leads a chemically enhanced radioactive dragonfly to fly onto Rick's neck and bite him.

Superhero (Gary Barlow song)

"Superhero" is the second American single released from the American version of British singer-songwriter Gary Barlow's debut solo album, Open Road. It was released on February 17, 1998, six weeks after the release of the album in America.

Background

Whilst reworking Open Road for the American market, Barlow met with songwriters Kristian Lundin, Max Martin and Jolyon Skinner, and whilst recording alternate vocals for So Help Me Girl, wrote an entirely brand-new track, Superhero, exclusively for the American market. Barlow described the song as "Something designed to be suited to the kind of pop music in the American charts now, such as that of *NSYNC or the Backstreet Boys." The song was not as successful as his first American single, only peaking at #23 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart, and not even charting on the Billboard Hot 100.

Reworking

During recording sessions for his second British album, Twelve Months, Eleven Days, Barlow decided that he would re-work the song and release in the United Kingdom. He made three minor changes, which included changing two lines in the chorus, enhancing the beat from 68bpm to 72bpm, and renaming the song For All That You Want. It was subsequently included as the first track on Twelve Months, Eleven Days, and was released as the second British single from the album, becoming the last single Barlow released in the United Kingdom until the Robbie Williams-duet Shame in 2010.