Hacker Cinema
Wonder Woman
2017 · Film · 141 min
Part of Wonder Woman Collection
Directed by Patty Jenkins
An Amazon princess comes to the world of Man in the grips of the First World War to confront the forces of evil and bring an end to human conflict.
5 positive2 negative2 mixed13 neutralfrom 22 commenters
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26 comments on Hacker News
You mean, aside from five out of five of those characters being women, feminist icons, and members of entire nations of exclusively female warriors?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Woman#Feminist_icon
If your stable of film stars consists of many fighting women, how do you stage fist-fights between a man and a woman in ways that will not trigger victims of domestic abuse and violence? I suppose it is OK for Grand Theft Auto, but action films need to appeal to wide audiences and the general public.
I think it's more about the stakes, obstacles, "psychic wounds" etc, than the actual superpowers. Being born with superpowers isn't that big a deal, if you're in a film where every other significant character also has superpowers.
Spider-man lets his uncle die because he's busy showing off. Batman in The Dark Knight "has no cartilage in his knees, scar tissue on his kidneys, concussive damage to his brain, and a host of other issues". Bruce Banner is subject to fits of uncontrollable rage. Logan is dying and in constant pain. Doctor Strange's hands are mutilated due to a car crash caused by his own arrogance.
IIRC Wonder Woman has a naivity due to growing up on a remote island populated by women, but she's basically confident and hypercompetent throughout. Captain Marvel's big issue is she's forgotten she has galactically important superpowers. Black Widow's character has a bit more going on, and I liked the film better than the other two. But, I think there is a difference between the amount of freedom big budget movie screenwriters have with male and female characters.
At lower budgetary levels, you're more likely to see women with less straightforwardly heroic characters, facing more interesting or engaging stakes.
Before Captain Marvel Brie Larson was doing great indie flicks like Room and Free Fire. She's said she was quite conflicted about taking the role, and I can't blame her for taking the money but I think I understand her hesitation.
>Yeah, but that was on HBO max. That had, at the time, less than 1/5 the users of netflix. Wonder Woman was clearly a marquee title designed to get signups, but that strategy is always risky and not super effective as a one-off - registration funnels are very hard. So, it's not as much a 1:1 comparison as you thought it was.
>14.9 wonder woman streams * 5 increased audience = 74 mil. That puts it well within the realm of netflix' numbers. I mean obv that's not perfect because not everyone wants to watch it.
WW84 was the biggest HBO Max exclusive to date. People did signup to watch that movie and therefore their subscribers were a self selected group who are not a representative sample that we can just multiple by 5. Also we already factored in the theatrical release which provided the opportunity for non-HBO subscribers to see it. And to be clear, I wasn't directly comparing WW84 viewer numbers to Red Notice. I was comparing WW to WW84 numbers so the difference in size between Netflix and HBO Max is less of a factor.
>Also, using wonder woman as an example isn't great, because the general buzz on its release was that frankly, it wasn't a good movie. Critical and audience reviews suggest it's a markedly "less popular" movie than red notice.
But it was also a sequel to a beloved movie and an iconic character. Plus the original had a lot of word of mouth success that caused people to predict that WW84 would open bigger. It was one of the most anticipated movies of the year.
Also you are just flat wrong when you say Red Notice received better critical reviews. Both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes have WW84 with mediocre scores and Red Notice with awful scores.
>The numbers are well within the realm of possibility. Although, I wouldn't be surprised to find out netflix is being very favorable to themselves - in fact, I'd expect it.
So it sounds like we agree that Netflix is probably bending the truth with these numbers in the same mold of how Facebook was lying about the number of people who watched their videos.[1]
[1] - https://fortune.com/2019/10/07/facebook-lawsuit-settlement-inflated-video-data-advertisers/
> both in theaters and streaming
Yeah, but that was on HBO max. That had, at the time, less than 1/5 the users of netflix. Wonder Woman was clearly a marquee title designed to get signups, but that strategy is always risky and not super effective as a one-off - registration funnels are very hard. So, it's not as much a 1:1 comparison as you thought it was.
14.9 wonder woman streams * 5 increased audience = 74 mil. That puts it well within the realm of netflix' numbers. I mean obv that's not perfect because not everyone wants to watch it.
Also, using wonder woman as an example isn't great, because the general buzz on its release was that frankly, it wasn't a good movie. Critical and audience reviews suggest it's a markedly "less popular" movie than red notice.
The numbers are well within the realm of possibility. Although, I wouldn't be surprised to find out netflix is being very favorable to themselves - in fact, I'd expect it.
Ok, for a more apples to apples comparison, let's look at the Wonder Women movies.
The first one opens to $103m[1] which equates to 11.5m viewers. The new one was released simultaneously both in theaters and streaming. It had an opening of $17m or 1.8m viewers plus 38m hours streaming and roughly 14.9m viewings. Let's subtract the sequel's theatrical run from both totals and we have 9.7m theatrical vs 14.9m streaming which equates to a theatrical performance being 65% of the streaming performance (assuming they should both have similar openings which is another arbitrary assumption done to simplify everything and because there are multiple factors pushing in opposite directions).
Let's dock the previous Red Notice numbers of that 35% inflation and that gives us 50m streams. That would knock it out of the number 2 spot, but it would likely still be top 10. Once again, this is an original movie and no non-franchise movie is in the top 50 biggest openings. I still don't buy these numbers.
[1] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl578455041/
[2] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7126948/
[3] - https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/wonder-woman-1984-hbo-max-nielsen-top-10-1234895616/
Of course role models don't have to be the same gender or race or culture. Plenty of white people find Bruce Lee's life story inspirational, and likewise there are plenty of black kids that are Batman fans. This is normal and healthy.
It's still reasonable to wonder why the vast majority of role models are white men, and think about redressing that a bit. The problem is we sometimes get dreck like the Batwoman TV show or Captain Marvel where diversity became a creative shackle; but then we also can get the Wonder Woman* and Black Panther movies where diversity was realised as a creative opportunity. The important thing is to maintain artistic integrity.
* And yes I'm aware of the irony given the origins of the character.
With the caveats that I'm not trans and I haven't looked into the game much beyond reading takes like this, I'll give my interpretation. I think there are a few issues at play, some more nuanced than others.
The first (and most black-and-white) is that CDPR's social media presence has been very… trolly. For example, "did you just assume my gender" is not something I've ever heard a queer person say; it's an anti-woke joke at their expense aimed at people who disdain the notion of gender fluidity. These, I think, color the rest of CDPR's conduct; there are other things that might be considered benign if not for their consistent trolling here.
> The criticism of the character creation surprised me: sure it could be better, but is it not also the most embracing version created yet in any AAA videogame that we known of.
The cynical take is that CDPR is exploiting the issue; they know that this is a popular topic right now and they're appropriating it in order to sell a video game. But even if you assume good faith on the part of CDPR, I think this is a case of intentions not mattering. Ultimately this game is going to be played by a lot of people, and help shape how many of those people see trans issues, and trans people are unhappy with the impression the game will leave.
I also observe that people often use "at least they/we are trying" as a way to evade criticism — even constructive criticism — which makes it hard to move forward. Like, are you only supposed to engage with people that are already hostile?
> Same with the poster: is it not cool to have a buff trans protagonist - they are objectified, but that is the point of posters (see captain america or black widow posters).
Objectification isn't binary; there are plenty of ways to highlight conventionally attractive features, which is why you see films like Wonder Woman lauded for their representation while characters like Black Widow are criticized for superficially similar portrayals. And of course criticism refers only to a consensus; there will always be people who are offended at benign representation and others who are fine with flagrant stereotyping.
Ultimately, I think the author knows that AAA titles are made by teams of hundreds of people, many of whom are trying to make a progressive game. But whatever the creators' intentions, when all is said and done the game and marketing thereof will look how they look, and people will feel how they feel about it.
Time Warner has the Harry Potter license, Nolan's Batman movies and Joker, The Hobbit, Lego Movie, Wonder Woman, and all of Turner Communications, including CNN & Adult Swim / Cartoon Network.
Ken Loach said this of superhero films: "They're made as commodities like hamburgers, and it's not about communicating, and it's not about sharing our imagination."
Superhero films are just a genre, like any other. It's a constraint that lets you better express other themes or ideas.
Think about the best superhero films vs the worst ones. The good ones were all about something, not just people running around in costumes. And all the bad ones were just people running around in costumes.
Nolan Batman: does power make right? (all) who has the right the enforce justice? (bb and dkr) does peace by force breed a worse evil? (dk) how far can you push people before they embrace their darker haves? (dk and dkr)
Captain America: what is patriotism? (all) can you trust authority? (WS) the risks of concentrating power (WS) is rehabilitation viable (WS and CW) is safety more important than liberty? (CW)
Wonder Woman: is it better to be a part of society or apart from it? is the world worth saving? do woman have the power to shape the world?
Captain Marvel: can a woman succeed in a hero role without a male romantic/sexual interest to feminize her? also, the power of propaganda to literally shape how we view others (and especially, "The Other")
Black Panther: can black culture be identified with modernity and success? what is the role of tradition and culture in modern society? does our true power come from external sources or from within?
Spiderman (HC, FFH, IS): how much would the events of the Avengers films actually affect daily life? (HC, FFH) what are the consequences of casual implementation of government policy? (HC) what does it mean to be a superhero? (IS) what is identity (IS) how much of life is driven by deception (FFH)?
X-Men: what does it mean to be an outsider/The Other? (1, 2) can The Other become part of society (2, FC, DOFP)? Contrast with the universally derided 3, Apocalypse, and DP, which don't appear to have any driving themes.
Aquaman: can man and nature exist together in a non-destructive state? can mankind save itself?
Joker: what is sanity? how thin is the line between thought and action? does inequality justify class-based warfare? does abuse justify retribution?
Contrast with the DC Justice League ensemble films, which don't have any themes. They just have people in costumes stand around a fight CGI villains. Snyder's Superman films have a concept (what if Superman killed?) but no themes (since they backed away from actually exploring any of the religious themes likening Superman to Jesus).
For those of you who haven't had to suffer through Ken Loach's works: they're all pretentious, insufferable dramas that claim to be about something. But they're trying so hard that they have to hit you over the head over and over and over again so that you know that they're supposed to be about something. Because if his works didn't explicitly tell you they were about something you wouldn't know from the play/show/movie that it was anything deeper than the poorly directed, poorly acted crap in front of you.
First of all, the statistic you used is outdated.
https://www.billboard.com/files/media/01-GMR-graph-billboard-embed.jpg
You may not be aware, but on digital, they charge less for an album than LP and compact disc. So given the decline in sales of physical media, and the rise in streaming, (which they get paid next-to-nothing for, I might add,) along with the overall increase of non-streamed digital sales, they've absolutely gotten millions of new consumers. It's just cheaper now, because physical media has huge markups.
> People treat piracy as a victimless crime because the marginal cost of each item is zero. Imagine extending similar logic to a handbag. If you steal an LV purse you can’t afford, how do you measure damages? The $1,000 marginal cost to physically replicate the purse, or the $10,000 retail price? That basic logic doesn’t change as the marginal cost goes to zero.
It absolutely does; they aren't taking it from the publisher of the music, or an outlet for music, they're having it shared with them from the second-hand market. This allows no loss on the part of the publisher (and more importantly artist), no inefficiency in having to restock an item, and doesn't involve the publisher in any way.
It's not stealing, it's copying. If you steal something on physical media, you'll be making them lose something, and they'll have to replace it. If you copy something on digital media, they don't have to spend man-hours replacing something.
> The moral rationalizations don't really hold water. It's not like the music industry is out there lobbying to prevent competing content. Their whole business model is creating content that's so desirable that they are non-fungible--people won't settle for a slightly different clone. Advances in digital technology have made it so the cost to create content is lower than ever. But people don't want just any superhero movie, want to see Wonder Woman or the Avengers: Infinity War.
There aren't live shows in the case of movies, and at those live shows the actors wouldn't be receiving the largest amount of currency for acting in them.
In the case of music?
The venue is far more generous with the split than the label is.
With music piracy, it has a very strong chance of increasing an artist's revenue from live sales, which is better for them than purchases of albums, anyway.
Also, it's worth noting that the EU ran a study on the effects of digital piracy just a few years ago; and their results were...
https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537
...that in the case of games, piracy improved sales, in the case of movies, piracy decreased sales, and in the case of everything else, piracy had no effect on sales at all.
*
And I'm saying this as a person who buys LP and digital all the time.
SyncOnSet Technologies | Full-stack Web Developer | $80k - $120k + equity + benefits | Boston, MA | On-site or Remote
Our customers: TV shows such as Game Of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Westworld, feature films such as Wonder Woman and Justice League, and pretty much every major studio including Netflix, HBO, Fox and Warner Bros. What do we do? SyncOnSet Technologies has revolutionized TV and Film production management. No, seriously, we have a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award to prove it. Our product, SyncOnSet, is an industry leading platform for creative professionals to manage script breakdowns, fitting notes, continuity photos, inventory, and much more. If you are interested in the entertainment industry and building great products, please get in touch!
Prefer developers for our Boston office, but would be open to candidates in other locations with a history of working with a remote team.
Tech stack: Node.js / Angular / React / TypeScript / Postgres / MySQL / PHP
Website: https://www.synconset.com/ More about this job and others: https://angel.co/wymsee/jobs
Contact: rob@synconset.com
SyncOnSet Technologies | Full-stack Web Developer | $80k - $120k + equity + benefits | Boston, MA | On-site Our customers: TV shows such as Game Of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Westworld, feature films such as Wonder Woman and Justice League, and pretty much every major studio including Netflix, HBO, Fox and Warner Bros. What do we do? SyncOnSet Technologies has revolutionized TV and Film production management. No, seriously, we have a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award to prove it. Our product, SyncOnSet, is an industry leading platform for creative professionals to manage script breakdowns, fitting notes, continuity photos, inventory, and much more. If you are interested in the entertainment industry and building great products, please get in touch!
Tech stack: Node.js / Angular / React / TypeScript / Postgres / MySQL / PHP
Website: https://www.synconset.com/ More about this job and others: https://angel.co/wymsee/jobs
Contact: rob@synconset.com
SyncOnSet Technologies | Full-stack Web Developer | $80k - $120k + equity + benefits | Boston, MA | On-site
Our customers: TV shows such as Game Of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Westworld, feature films such as Wonder Woman and Justice League, and pretty much every major studio including Netflix, HBO, Fox and Warner Bros. What do we do? SyncOnSet Technologies has revolutionized TV and Film production management. No, seriously, we have a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award to prove it. Our product, SyncOnSet, is an industry leading platform for creative professionals to manage script breakdowns, fitting notes, continuity photos, inventory, and much more. If you are interested in the entertainment industry and building great products, please get in touch!
Tech stack: Node.js / Angular / React / TypeScript / Postgres / MySQL / PHP
Website: https://www.synconset.com/ More about this job and others: https://angel.co/wymsee/jobs
Contact: rob@synconset.com
Black Panther earned its success, as did Wonder Woman. Alt-righters who complain about them are truly lone voices. But there were two major movies in recent memory -- Ghostbusters (2016) and Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi -- that had unusually high RT scores that they may not have gotten if they hadn't been so on message. Doubtless the critics involved were trying to reassure everyone that they weren't one of those people. Had they spoken the truth and said, for example, that Ghostbusters (2016) was ill-paced, obnoxious, and mostly unfunny, the likes of Jezebel would have raked them over the coals and you know it. That's what they did to James Rolfe, for simply saying he would not see the movie.
"Except some get paid exponentially more than others for their supposed commodity"
They don't get paid for their 'acting'. The acting part is a commodity.
They get paid for their 'appearance' in the same way celebs an get paid a fortune for sponsoring a product, or making an appearance.
For every single role that's played by an A-lister - there are a considerable number of other - great - actors that could have played that role, but the business economics are better with a 'familiar brand'. That's what fills the seats.
'Tom Cruise' fills seats. He gets paid a fortune.
A great actor, equivalent in talent to Tom Cruise - but who is unknown, is paid a normal salary.
I'm surprised so many here haven't seemed to grasp this.
Again: Gol Gadot was paid $200K for Wonder Woman. Considerably less than the secondary male role 'Chris Pine' - who is famous.
Next instalment - she'll be paid millions, and more than Chris Pine (if he were to be in it, but won't obviously, but imagine he could).
By the 'actors are paid for their talent' logic - Gal would have had to increase her 'acting ability' by quite a lot. 'Magically Gal Gadot becomes a better actor than Chris Pine and gets paid more than him'.
Obviously this is not the case.
Gal Gadot is now inexorably tied to the Wonder Woman brand.
She knows she can force the studios to pay her millions, because people want to see her as Wonder Woman (as they already have) - not an unknown quantity. It's it's therefore rational for the studios to pay her millions, and not have to make a huge bet on an unknown. (And FYI - he WW launch was a pretty big gamble - new actress, new brand etc.)
There are quite a number of actresses that they could have chosen to play Wonder Woman. Surely, some a better fit than others, but it's not rocket science, it's a comic book role. It's just a job. Only 'one' can be chosen. That person, if they do their job halfway well (and the other parts of the movie work out) will be paid millions in the future in the case of Hollywood comic-book serial.
Gal is 'the face of Wonder Woman' for at least a while.
Gal Godot - a decent actress - was paid $200K for her role as 'Wonder Woman'. Huge film. But she was paid just like any other of the 'talent' on the crew.
But in subsequent versions of 'Wonder Woman' - she will be paid millions.
Has her 'acting ability' magically improved?
No. But 'her face and personae' are now existentially linked to the character 'Wonder Woman'. Audiences want to see that.
So she'll be paid millions.
Are there actors 'better' than Gal Gadot who could play WW? Of course there are. Probably many. So why not pay them $200K instead of paying Gal 'millions'? Because it's not 'talent' that's the issue in the equation.
The #1 deciding factor in the investment of films over $10M is not the script, not the director, not anything else - it's the actors that are involved.
You need to have 'highly recognizable' actors on board (or the budget to do so) otherwise it's not investable - because audiences want to see familiar faces.
Do you honestly think that 'George Clooney' is such an amazing actor, that there aren't 1000 other people 'as good as him' that could have played his roles well?
Of course there are. There are tons of great actors out there. But they're not household names.
So the question is: given that there are tons of actors better than Brad Pitt out there - how does Brad Pitt even get a single role? Because he's the 'living brand' of 'Brad Pitt'. The living brand of 'Brad Pitt' is what audiences want, which was created by putting the actor in previous roles.
Most athletes are paid very commensurately relative to their actual skill, of course, it's easier to be objective in measuring that.
What matters in film is 'the recognizability of the face/personae'.
I thought Wonder Woman was alright. Something about it felt a little "off" to me. It is hard to put my finger on it. Maybe they tried to compress too much plot into the time. I don't know. It was definitely more fun to watch than many of the recent superhero goo moves. Perhaps it was th caricature Germans. On the plus side they did WWI which is as overdone in modern cinema.
Netflix's Marvel shows are interesting too, especially Like Cage. But those aren't movies :)
> If you ask people why they don't go to the movies more they will often cite the idea that there is nothing new they haven't seen before
I've started skipping a lot of the super-hero movies because they started being all the same to me ("Wonder Woman" was a little different and more interesting, fortunately). The same goes for most of the action moves being filmed today, which pains me to say it because I'm a huge fan of guys like John McTiernan and the way action movies were made in the '80s - early '90s. Maybe it's because I'm getting older? (I'm in my mid-30s now).
I actually like the experience of going to the cinema, with all that it implies, is almost like a ritual. Some people wait for Sunday to come so that they could go to church the same way as I wait for the weekend to come so that I can go to the movies. It would be nice though if tickets were a little less expensive, with that I totally agree.
What I said is technically true. You are simply talking about conspiracy theories and politics.
TV/Movie producers have a legitimate reason to want to protect their media. The lower the bar is for viewing the content they spend lots of money and work producing for free the more people do it. If there were no barriers to viewing movies then there are zero ways in our current economy to get a positive return. You can't fund Wonder Woman on money from advertisements. There needs to be a system where people pay for content.
EME is a means to an end. It's not inherently evil. If someone takes it and uses it for an evil purpose then we might have something to discuss, but today there is no way for our modern media to exist in a fully open source world. If EME didn't exist then we would still be using plugins to view Netflix. There is no situation where Netflix can operate in a fully open source system. And that's not a bad thing.
> I can't believe Wonder Woman got 92%. It was one of the worst superhero movies I have ever seen.
Not even having seen Wonder Woman, I can easily believe the 92% score—plenty of people I know who saw it, really loved it. If I saw it and didn't like it, maybe I would be surprised that so many of my friends liked it, but I still wouldn't be surprised that it got a high rating, because they did.
I probably go the cinema once a year, and don't really watch much at home either, but I have some movie buff friends so I get tangential exposure to which movies are good: I just Googled what's out and the ones I've heard were very good include Dunkirk, the new Planet of the Apes, Baby Driver and The Big Sick, and Beach Rats. On top of that are the movies that I probably wouldn't enjoy seeing but that someone who likes movies would likely enjoy: Guardians of the Galaxy, Logan lucky, maybe even Wonder Woman (I just know that one's popular, but not much about how good it is).
This is just stuff that I (who doesn't even enjoy going to the movies) happen to Know about, and wouldn't mind being dragged to if a friend wanted to socialize at the cinema. I find it kind of hard to believe that "Hollywood is putting out garbage" could be true to the degree that that's the reason there's nothing you want to see.
Note that I've left out indie movies since those tend to be less accessible and more polarizing and also left out popular things like the Transformers movie.
I think part of the problem is I'm old now. All the plots are reruns of older plots. They were great when I was young and the plots were new to me.
I've read where television is overtaking movies as the place where you get good stories and character development. Breaking Bad, The Wire and Game of Thrones are better than any movie I've probably ever seen.
I saw Wonder Woman the other day and the only thing I liked about it was the WWI setting, and they managed to botch that too. I mean it was an OK movie, but just like every other super hero movie. Get of my lawn I guess.
You have to take 15-20% off for issue movies. Wonder Woman ended up being a stealth one.
John Wick is respected as a "craft" movie because of its stuntwork and fight choreography. Same as Dunkirk and The Revenant, but those were appreciated on cinematography, etc.
So, yes, movies loved for their craftsmanship do tend to outperform the quality of their storytelling.
I can't believe Wonder Woman got 92%. It was one of the worst superhero movies I have ever seen. The dumbest story and the plot, the dumbest dialogue, subpar action and CGI, very mediocre acting. There are a few okay jokes in it, I admit, but that's about it.
Same with John Wick: Chapter 2. 90%, dumb as a bag of bricks.
>I don’t like those 48 hour coding hackathons without sleep or shower. They are useless and detrimental to health.
These are almost exclusively for kids in school or just out of school. Like camping - those that hate them, really hate them, and for others it's a lot fun. If you hate them, don't do them, they aren't necessary. You can be a perfectly good engineer without them.
>I don’t like the representation of female engineers on TV, always nerdy, unattractive, and without much of a social life.
Female engineers? Oh man. She must have missed the generic Scientist-guy and Engineer-guy of the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Rick Moranis made a career playing those guys. The engineer bro-culture and a certain social status that is assigned to software or computer engineers and geekdom in general is a new phenomena. It was not cool to want to be a computer engineer or a geek for the vast majority of the last half century. It sort of reminds me of the praise the Wonder Woman movie got for being a breakthrough moment for women. I couldn't help but think, where were all these people in the 80s when nerds and geeks were made fun of for reading Wonder Woman and other comic books. My sister and her friends made fun of me and my friends for that! Nobody hid or put up walls to these comics from anybody.
>I’ve read Megan McArdle’s essay and relate with her feeling of isolation as I’m often the only woman in an environment dominated by men.
That wasn't quite the point of the essay though it is an interesting interpretation.
>What we need to do is to make it easier for women to stay in tech...I don’t know how we can make it more fun to women in tech.
That's kind of the crux of the problem. Nobody knows how to fix the undetectable, secret societal pressures that steer women away from STEM and into Humanities.
Also, it's a job. It won't be fun for the vast majority of people. Why do jobs have to be fun? My father worked on the line at a factory all his life - it wasn't fun.
> But superheros are touched by the gods: they are blessed or cursed with magical powers, and then we read about their adventures. That's what makes them super. Their stories are human stories filtered through literally superhuman powers, in almost exactly the way that the myths of the old gods were. Some superheroes are the old gods!
There's a gross difference between Gilgamesh (2/3rds god, 1/3rd man from his mother) and Superman.
Gilgamesh was a god-king who set of on adventure. He took what was his (aka: everything) and came back as a king.
In contrast, Superman was born into an adopted farm family and lived ~15 years without any superpowers. He's never seeked political power (and often when he does, its to his detriment. Like the time he got rid of all the nukes through the UN and then Doomsday attacked)
Even Bruce Wayne had to go through the period as a "normal joe" through the recent 'Dark Knight' movies. He gives up on his wealth and becomes a ninja... essentially. When he comes back to wealth-and-power, he's in better control over his own emotions and his fortune.
Green Lanterns are literally just normal dudes. Hal Jordan and John Stewart get rings from space aliens... but their connection to Earth and "normal people" is what make them exceptional Green Lanterns.
All of the popular American Superheroes are basically competing with each other to be more of the "average joe" than each other. Capt. America, Spiderman. Even Thor loses his powers and is forced to wander the Earth until he learns humility (aka: from being a normal person)
The only popular character I can think of as "Greek-god classic" is basically Wonder Woman. Everyone else is relatively unpopular (Aquaman, Nemor, Martian Manslayer) or even an underclass! (Mutants may have superpowers, but they are treated as a "lesser class" of people in virtually every X-men storyline).
Only in America would superheroes would the "underclass" get blessed with superpowers. Just saying.
Iron Man and Wonder Woman are the only exceptions I can think of. Iron Man is basically a counterbalance to the rest of the market however... being the rich asshole.