We live in the age of superheroes. Films involving superheroes – mainly adaptations of stories from another medium, such as comic books – are highly successful on the global market, and can be considered an important trend of contemporary mainstream cinema. Before the 2000s only one comic-book adaptation reached the status of the top-grossing film of the year on the American domestic market. After 2000 this happened eight times, and all eight of those films were superhero movies. The tendency is also visible on the international market: since 2000 five comic-book adaptations (all of them superhero movies) have gained the position of the highest-grossing film of a given year.

Without exception, these films were produced by major Hollywood studios on a high budget, and they are distributed globally on as many markets as possible. This also means that they have the potential to influence popular cinema outside of the United States. This chapter focuses not on American superhero movies, but the ones produced outside of the US, by smaller national film industries which can be considered peripheral from the point of view of American audiences and distribution. By adapting American superhero stories, however, the national film industries open a ‘third space’ through hybridity, mixing elements of both cultures, thus attempting to destroy the oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ (Wang and Yueh-yu Yeh 2005).

I aim to examine how the superhero genre and characters are interpreted, adapted and changed in the context of the Hungarian and the Russian fi lm industry. How do the writers and directors create an American-type superhero in their own national environment and local culture? Are there any stylistic elements kept in the respective films from comic books, the original medium of the most famous superheroes? Do the resulting films function as superhero parodies or ‘serious’ superhero movies (meaning superhero stories played for a dramatic effect instead of comedy)? And last but not least, do these national superheroes function as tools for criticising and opposing the West?

WHO ARE THE SUPERHEROES AND WHAT DO THEY DO IN EASTERN EUROPE?

All nations, ethnicities and cultures create their own superheroes. In fact, certain mythic figures and characters of national folklore can be considered superheroes, from Gilgamesh and Hercules of the ancient Akkadian and Hellenic myths, to the hero of British folklore, Robin Hood, the latter being an early example of costumed vigilantes.