Some Questions about Superheroes

Flight is possible, just currently not highly likely.
Photo by Jeff Sheldon, courtesy of unsplash.com

I started, but couldn't yet finish, a post about superheroes and storytelling, in anticipation of the summer movie season that is rapidly descending upon us.  

It turns out it's a more complicated issue than I expected; I started trying to write about what makes a good superhero story good and a bad superhero story bad, and wound up writing more words than necessary about why they're popular these days, which I'm pretty sure is a different issue.  (The first issue is hopefully about storytelling in general, the other is about the fashions and tastes of the market and what controls them, if anything.)

In lieu of getting that post (or posts, most likely) up here on time, I have a few of the questions I'd like to try and tackle pinned down, for further reflection in the meantime.

-What makes a superhero story a superhero story?  
What's the difference between a superhero movie and a spy movie, or an ordinary action/adventure movie, or science fiction/fantasy, etc.?  What's the difference, for instance, between Guardians of the Galaxy and Galaxy Quest?

-What kind of problem is a superhero problem?  Are there any that aren't?
Is it more a question of defining what makes a superhero solution?  (besides superheroes and water, that is.)

-Are superheroes just for kids, and for grown-ups who haven't grown up yet?
What do we make of superhero stories clearly intended for grown-up audiences?

-When did superhero stories really enter into the history of storytelling?  Will they ever leave?  Does that question have meaning beyond simply expanding or contracting what our definition of a superhero is?

-What good to superhero stories do?  Can they really do any harm?
How come we ask these questions about some genres of stories and not others??

-What use are characters that are larger-than-life?  What does larger-than-life even mean?  Does that term have a sliding scale? 

-Is there a meaningful difference between what makes a superhero heroic and ordinary civic duty?  Do we still know what civic duty really means?  Do we care?

And finally,

-Is there anything useful left to say about superhero stories that hasn't already been said?  Or is this a topic that has been analyzed to death these days, and yet keeps on walking?  And if it has been, does that mean anything?

I don't know if these add up to a successful post, but I'm curious about whether useful information can come out of trying to answer them, and they've eaten up a lot of the time I'd set aside for writing while I've tried to sort them out.  

I'm pretty sure if I just sat down and tried to answer them one at a time en bloc that it would make for pretty textbook-like reading, which is something (believe it or not) I'd like to get away from on here.

So I'll keep chipping at this, at least we've got a whole summer full of superhero movies to keep us company, and we'll see where these questions gets us.  Any thoughts about any of the above you think are worth sharing?  I'd love to read them.