Whether flowing, static, colorful, or dark, capes on the backs of various superheroes are a surefire sign of a blockbuster movie, or, failing actual box office performance, an aspiring blockbuster. No matter how you slice it, once a character puts on a cape, one of two things happens: You’re looking at a fictional person who is fancy as hell, or someone who likely has a secret identity, superpowers, a tragic origin story, or all of the above.
Of course, not all superheroes wear capes, and not all cape-wearing folks in genre movies and TV are superheroes. If we look at the most famous blockbuster of all time, the 1977 Star Wars, the only person wearing a true cape is Darth Vader, villain of that particular film. And yet, just a year later, in 1978, Christopher Reeve’s Superman donned one of the most famous capes of all time and made us believe a man could fly — and that doing so with a cape was preferable. Reeve once claimed that in order to make the flying convincing, it was all connected to his facial expression and his eyes. But a cape fluttering in the breeze certainly helps.
