When Superheroes Battle Evil, Why Does Washington Always Lose?

WASHINGTON — We all know the basic formula for a superhero movie.

After the necessary introductions and plot basics, there’s the climactic conflict: at least one extraordinary individual doing battle with something evil, ricocheting around skyscrapers and vanquishing foes in the center of a bustling city. There’s a snappy one-liner amid rubble and urban destruction. Then government officials swoop in with solemn gratitude or veiled warnings to obey the law.

Those officials are probably not from the federal government, because rarely do these blockbusters of superhuman heroism take place in the nation’s capital.

Glimpses of Washington have slipped through — Captain America, played by Chris Evans, effortlessly ran laps around the National Mall during his second Marvel movie; it’s where the federal government decides to create a team of dangerous criminals to save the world in “Suicide Squad.” But the city rarely matters in superhero movies.

“You see New York, and you see LA,” said Rick Prelinger, a film archivist and professor of film and digital media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Washington isn’t being pitched as the center of the world in the ways that it used to be.”

How is it that the heart of American democracy is often sidelined in the movies that dominate the box office? The reasons range from our perceptions of the city to the nature of comic books.

A representative for Marvel Entertainment said that no one was available to discuss the question for this article, and DC Comics did not return a request for comment. But some film experts see an identity crisis. Outside of the government and the monuments, it’s hard for Hollywood to imagine what Washington looks like. And worse (at least for D.C. enthusiasts): Whatever it looks like may not be exciting enough for these movies.

“Although it’s a distinct region — not every city has trucks selling half-smokes — I think that Washington isn’t part of what a lot of people’s sense of their country is about,” said Prelinger, who became familiar with the city’s iconic sausage dish after living in the district for nearly two decades. He has since moved to California. “D.C. is dull.”

Matt Fraction, a comic book writer recognized for his work on Marvel’s Iron Man, Hawkeye and other characters, said he found it was a location better served in news clips behind television anchors instead of as an accelerant to a spectacular fight scene.

“Washington is an idea as much as anything else,” he said in an interview. “Washington is about history and abstract notions.”

Kelly Sue DeConnick, who has written independent comics and developed storylines for Captain Marvel, points to the mid-20th-century roots of the modern comic book, when the medium’s writers and artists worked in New York. Though movies aren’t always faithful to their source material, the city loomed large in the initial stories. It was where the biggest comic publishers were based and where most of their writers were living.

“That was the center of both the Marvel and DC universe,” DeConnick said. “People were telling stories of their lives, of their families, and what was important to them.”

“Only Washington, D.C.,” she added, “thinks Washington, D.C., is the center of the universe.”

It’s also not an ideal place for dynamic visuals, said Corey Creekmur, a film professor and comics scholar at the University of Iowa.

“New York is famously vertical, and Washington isn’t,” he said, pointing to scenes of Superman flying over Metropolis, the fictional version of New York City, and the Avengers plummeting into Midtown. “It’s not the space associated with superheroes in that regard.”

There are also logistics to consider. “It’s hard to build tall buildings in the swamp, things for Spider-Man to swing off of,” Fraction said. Tom Holland, the current Spider-Man, had to bounce off a helicopter to swing into the Washington Monument for a dramatic rescue in last year’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” (Perhaps that’s why he returned to New York City for the film’s final confrontation.)

“There’s the power of looking up on Fifth Avenue and seeing something streak over your head,” he said, “being enclosed on all sides by urban reality, and seeing what we’re capable of streak by in the sky.”

While the district allows filming and is open to projects, its fees can mount quickly for large productions, and the city’s federal spaces come with heavy caveats. On the National Mall alone, there’s a delicate balance between stairs, permitted equipment and flags: You can film the Washington Monument outside the circle of flags around the base, but you cannot film the Lincoln Memorial above its white steps, and all of the Korean and Vietnam War memorials are open — except that only a hand-held camera is permitted.

“A lot of it has to do with the scope of special effects, pyrotechnics, big explosions — anything like that is going to be really sensitive to our federal core,” said Herbert Niles, who heads the film division of the district’s Office of Cable Television, Film, Music and Entertainment. He pointed to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” for which more filming took place in Ohio than in Washington.

“Ohio was able to give them a freeway and close it down for like three days,” he said, adding that the district is working to make logistics easier for filming. “That’s just not practical here.” The government, and by default Washington, has also increasingly played an antagonistic role in superhero movies, Creekmur said, as some writers contemplated how individuals with extraordinary abilities would be regulated in a country increasingly focused on maintaining borders and security. Like Batman clashing with the police in Gotham City, there is often an inherent conflict between the superheroes’ vision of justice and the government’s.

“Do we play along with the government, or do we work outside the government?” he said of the plotlines that drove the splintering factions in “Captain America: Civil War” (2016). “And I think of that as a post-9/11 narrative.”

With the relentless cycle of political news and clashes between Hollywood and the current administration, Washington probably won’t get the spotlight in superhero films anytime soon.

Besides, fictional realms based in reality like Black Panther’s Wakanda have become much more intriguing to moviegoers.

“Hollywood is picking up on a widespread alienation from Washington and a widespread disengagement,” Prelinger, the UC Santa Cruz professor, said. “In a canny way, it tries to present an opposing view.”

Besides, the city’s reputation for political intrigue and elaborate bureaucratic dealings is best saved for acclaimed television shows like “House of Cards” on Netflix and “Scandal” on ABC, Fraction said, where the dark hallways and complex dialogue are integral to the plot. Such political reality is not suited for superhero stories.

“What people respond to is story and character, and politics are for politics,” he said. “It feels like wearing football padding to a baseball game.”