This Spiderman movie is blasphemy to me. I will hunt you down in my spidey suit
There was definitely a progression in superhero movies over the years. But this is why the Dark Knight stood out:
"The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn't quite see it that way however. While
The Dark Knight received a total of eight Oscar nominations — the most ever for a comics-based movie — they were almost all technical nominations with the exception of Ledger's nod for Best Supporting Actor.
Nolan was overlooked for Best Director and the movie itself did not make the cut for Best Picture, with the fifth slot going to the inferior Kate Winslet-starring
The Reader.
With
The Dark Knight clearly pleasing both critics and audiences, i
t was suggested that the Academy was snubbing the movie purely because it was based on comic books. The outcry arguably led to the Academy later expanding the Best Picture category to include up to 10 films, instead of the usual five, which directly led to nominations in later years for movies like Avatar, District 9, Mad Max: Fury Road and others.
Ledger posthumously won the Best Supporting Actor award — after winning many others, including a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild prize, a BAFTA award and many others — with
his family emotionally accepting the trophy at the Oscars ceremony.
Ledger remains the only actor to date to win an Oscar for a role in a superhero movie."
"The Dark Knight proved several things:
that comic book movies, while already successful, could be box office behemoths beyond anyone's prediction; that they could tackle serious subjects and themes with the same gravitas as any other major motion picture; and that they could interpret their material in such a way that they would appeal to more than just nerds picking up their pull lists every Wednesday at their local comics shop."
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-definitive-timeline-of-how-the-dark-knight-changed-everything#:~:text=The Dark Knight was an,that the form could transcend
That being said, it doesn't mean that previous super hero movies and series weren't great. Just that people realised the possible greatness super hero movies could achieve.
Another great series was Batman, the Animated Series. It introduced us to Harley Quinn and created a lot of the backstories for certain characters, such as Two Face, which influenced Two Face in the Dark Knight.
It also won loads of Emmies, seems to be the building block which Batman movies are based on, and made Mark Hamill the official timeless voice of the Joker and possibly the most iconic Joker.
They also experimented a new way of animating, in which they drew the scenes on black paper, which is why the show has such a dark feel.
Watching the series now though, it is definitely not for children, but is indeed brilliant.
I am incredibly biased towards good Batman movies...
