Escapist Friction: How Much Better Will 2010’s Super Hero Movies Be Than 2009’s?

As 2009 draws to a close, we've been busy filling you in on our picks for this year's (and this decade's) best and worst comics, but what of the past 12 months' cinematic adaptations? Wired's Underwire blog had a few things to say about the past year, very few of them wholly encouraging.

Underwire points out that the fairly not-awesome "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" made a lot of money while the fundamentally decent-to-good flicks like "Watchmen," "Coraline" and "Surrogates" did a little less well at the box office - a lot less well compared to previous years with arguably stronger lineups, actually.

And of course, then there's "Astro Boy," which everyone would really rather avoid discussing.

2010, by contrast seems like a year full of potential sun shine, lollipops and planet-splitting rainbows.

Between the almost complete and utter sure-thingedness of "Iron Man 2," the hyper-violent promise of "Kick-Ass" and the I've-been-waiting-for-this-movie-since-page-one-of-volume-one factor of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," 2010 will almost assuredly please the comics crowd and beyond.

So yeah, 2009 wasn't as stellar as it could have been, but barring nightmarish reality-altering interference from trickster gods or something, the coming year seems poised to intensify comics' place in big-budget mainstream entertainment. So Underwire's assertion that 2009 may have seen comics falter at the movies, while true, shouldn't be seen as some kind of new normal in my eyes.

What's your take on 2009 vs. 2010 at the movies? Does your optimism overshadow the past year's failures? Did you think 2009 was just fine? Let's hear it.