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Superheroes and the Musical genre have always made for somewhat strange bedfellows. They’re both styles that emerged in popularity in the ‘60s, both depend heavily on colorful exaggerations of real life, and both are the domain of spectacle-driven popular culture more than the high art of theater or literature. Despite those similarities and the way the verbosity and simplicity of the superhero would seem a natural fit for the world of the musical the two haven’t intersected as often as you might think.
There’ve been some notable exceptions over the years, but the two just don’t combine nearly as often as they really ought to, given everything they have in common. The two are set to combine once more in the upcoming Flash/Supergirl musical crossover episode, which will be the first major superhero musical in the past 5 years. What previous musicals have there been? What are the origins of this strange tradition? Has it ever been done legitimately well? All these questions and more will be answered in the history of superhero musicals.
