Prior to Iron Man, the only decent superhero movie was Superman II. Your mistake is in assuming that the "genre" is anything but a temporary flash in the pan, or that it lends itself to quality. The "problem that plagues these franchises" is they are universal marketing rhetoric designed to be overdubbed in a dozen languages and offend no major culture, while at the same time standing in for a writ-large caricature of American culture for foreign audiences. Subtlety is deliberately written out because elegant cultural references do not play in Bangalore. You know how you know what lucha libre looks like but you don't really consider yourself a fan? That's superhero movies to the rest of the world. They'll sit down and watch them for the spectacle but that's all they are - spectacle. Think, for just a moment, what "Captain America: Civil War" means to the average 19-year-old citizen of Shenzen.
That's definitely the biggest issue. What's happening to these movies is something that happens in a lot of different markets though right? Although I find some of the Marvel movies (especially the Captain America one's) seem to be pushing this American Exceptionalism narrative which has quickly made me uncomfortable (Not that the sprinkling of propaganda is something new to other forms of media). I also apologize for using the word genre to describe those films. I'm not 100% sure what the correct genre is actually? Science Fiction? Fantasy? Just plain Fiction?
Naaah, it's a full-blown genre now. People have been bitching about it for years. Alan Moore made the argument that superheroes are American exceptionalism made human and that they speak to a latent desire for fascism or some shit. I can certainly see where he's coming from. It's the same argument that the Japanese obsession with kaiju stems from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the transition from "ascendant power" to "vassal state" in the space of a week by instruments utterly beyond their comprehension.
I think it's interesting how American ideals have been portrayed in so many ways, from heroes like The Fantastic 4 and Iron Man embracing science and technology, to heroes like Superman and Captain America representing physical ideals, to guys like Batman and Punisher working outside the laws to achieve their goals while still sticking to their self imposed rules and ideals of justice.
But. Every superhero - every superhero - is extralegal. The Commissioner may call Batman with the Bat Signal, but Batman is utterly divorced from due process. He needs no warrants. He need not adhere to rules of engagement. And he is always called in when the police are helpless. You can extend that on down to James Bond - "license to kill" is a shitty fucking thing to grant someone. And there's always some supervillain that exceeds due process' ability to deal with the adversary. It's interesting that the same people that will rail against warrantless surveillance and drone strikes will chomp down on popcorn while watching the Dark Knight or James Bond or fuck - Mr. Incredible.
Alternately, it's a holdover from a culture of honor, where violence not sanctioned by institutions was encouraged because institutions were weak and the way you kept yourself, your family and your stuff safe was to have a reputation for violence. (The article I linked to isn't great, but there's some kind of unrelated Christian use of the term "culture of honor" that crowds the Google results and I couldn't find any survey papers.) That's regressive too in a modern context, but it's not the same as fascism. A fascist superhero would be backed by institutions, fascism being all about gaining power by surrendering to the collective, hence taking its name from the fasces.
That article links to a straight up bullshit study. Cortisol levels take weeks or months to crest. They take fuckin' 10 minutes just to test. Delaware?Participants were 83 University of Michigan white male undergraduates (42 northern, 41 southern) who were recruited by telephone and paid $5 for their time. Students who had lived in the South for a period of at least 6 years were considered southern. The South was defined as census divisions 5, 6, and 7. This includes the states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas.
Except there's a pretty direct line from Western vigilantes and detective novels to pulp heroes to superheros, and a lot of that predates fascism. They have more in common with gun nuts daydreaming of the day they get to stand their ground than fascists. Imagine something insightful about rugged individualism and how late much of the country got real police forces here; I'm too tired to formulate it.Alan Moore made the argument that superheroes are American exceptionalism made human and that they speak to a latent desire for fascism or some shit.
In chronological order . . . John Carter kind of serves as a prototype for super powered men. I mean, for modern fictional characters. Guys like Hercules and Beowulf obviously set a bit of a precedent here. Heroes like Zorro and The Shadow created the whole mysterious vigilante archetype. The Phantom is influential of the superhero aesthetic, from the tights to the mask. All of these characters pre-date Superman. That said though, the fascism angle does make a bit of sense as well. It was an argument that was brought up against comics many times, as I read in The Ten Cent Plague. I think maybe if enough people make that argument, there might be something there. Then again though, the people who were saying super heroes were embracing fascist ideals were trying to attack comics from any angle they could, so maybe their argument needs to be taken with a few grains of salt.
Woah, I'm inclined to agree with both arguments. Do you have any links that could lead me to those arguments that sounds really interesting. I always thought about how superheroes often act unilaterally and how everyone so willingly allows them to, was fulfilling the latent desire to be ruled. That theme is even funnier when you put it in context of every villain so far in the Marvel universe believing that human beings were unfit to rule themselves. I wonder why they have the conflicting narratives? Seriously though any reading on the Japanese obsession with kaiju I would really love to read on.
Godzilla as Hiroshima is such a well-worn trope at this point that there's apparently a documentary. I haven't seen it. It's been argued that anime characters tend to have big round eyes because of a subconscious obsession with the conquering culture of Westerners but most students of anime will point out that they're cartoons and that there's no more reason to assume they're Western than there is to assume they're Japanese. Here's a starting point on Superman, the fascist. To be fair, this is 20-odd years after Frank Miller basically made the argument that Superman was a fascist and Batman was a libertarian/anarchist. 
Wow, really really insightful read on Godzilla. I feel terrible for enjoying the most recent Godzilla remake. This reminds me of why a lot of the original "monsters" were created in the first place like the werewolf was created out of the fear of a serial killer, or something to that nature. The Superhero thing is definitely something I've seen a lot of. It actually ran rampant in the most recent Batman v Superman to the point that I could barely finish the movie at all.