Where have all the happy superheroes gone?

It's tough being the most powerful being on the planet. At least, that's probably what we're meant to take away from the first full-length trailer for Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel."

Whatever ever happened to the happy comic book superhero of yesteryear? Why do modern superhero movies all have to be about tortured souls? The sad, self-doubting Superman glimpsed in the trailer is a far cry from the one audiences saw in the comparatively lighthearted 1980s "Superman" films. However, this brooding Clark Kent is completely in keeping with the recent slate of big screen heroes. Yes, it appears as though audiences will have yet another brooding superhero movie in store for them when Snyder's Superman flick hits theatres next June.

Much like his contemporaries, Superman will face off against his greatest foe in "Man of Steel." No, not General Zod -- we're talking about an existential crisis! It's the old "with great power comes great responsibility" shtick made famous by the "Spider-Man" movies, only with less web-slinging, more flying, and a whole lot more introspection.

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In the wake of the huge success of Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight," the movie studios seemed convinced that audiences would only empathize with superheroes if the crime fighters in question suffered from relatable and normal human problems. The studios also seemed to collectively decide that the heroes' emotional and mental issues would be more pronounced if set against a dark and gritty backdrop that favoured realism over fantasy. Regular people apparently have a harder time relating to near-invincible superbeings like Superman on an emotional level. Go figure!

"Superman Returns" — released in 2006, a year after "Batman Begins" — was the last big-screen outing for the big blue boy scout. The Bryan Singer-directed film only got the new superhero formula half right though, putting a contemplative "Batman Begins"-style Superman into the colourful Metropolis of the Richard Donner "Superman" films. It didn't work. Subsequent super-powered films like "Spider-Man 3" and "The Incredible Hulk" tried the dark approach, too, but none of these films could make the heavy emotional themes jibe with the comparatively cartoonish stories. Even Iron Man -- until now, the most reliably funny and charming of superhero franchises -- appears to be abandoning the fun in the upcoming "Iron Man 3" favour of bleak and depressing.

Where Singer, Sam Raimi, and other filmmakers failed, only Nolan had truly succeeded. Among other things, Nolan's "Dark Knight" films benefited from the fact that the hero was just a man in a suit with no real superpowers. Batman got beat up (by plain ol' thugs and regular-powered villains) from time to time, and on some level that simply made him more human for audiences. He's also a person trying to find his way in the world after suffering a terrible loss. Sure, Bruce Wayne is a billionaire playboy, but his problems seem a heck of a lot more realistic to the average moviegoer than an immortal alien who can shoot lasers out of his eyes.

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Which brings us to "Man of Steel," a film that Nolan produced and helped craft the story for. How do you humanize the aforementioned extraterrestrial with super strength and heat vision? You give him genuine pathos -- recognizable problems and moral dilemmas that everyone deals with at some point in their life.

The "Man of Steel" trailers have shown off a pale, bearded Clark Kent working on a fishing trawler as his Kryptonian father (played by Russell Crowe) and his adopted Earth father (played by Kevin Costner) spout on about what kind of man he should become. Superman "finding himself" is an interesting take on the character, and one that's never really been explored in a "Superman" film.

But is dark, gritty, and brooding the right way to sell a Superman movie to modern audiences? Perhaps. The real world is harsh and full of problems, and increasingly so, too, are the fantasy worlds of Batman, Superman, and other superheroes. Maybe unhappy superheroes are a reflection our own societal melancholy, or maybe audiences just really enjoy seeing their heroes put through the ringer before battling back.

To quote Michael Caine's faithful butler Alfred: "Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." Given that Superman has much further to fall than Bruce Wayne ever did, expect things to get pretty grim in "Man of Steel."