The idea of post-9/11 filmmaking hasn’t led to many great works of art — that is until it collided with the grand notion of “the superhero film” like a cow wandering out in front of a freight train in some country backwater. It's a bit of an Ayn Randism (and not even a particularly original one), but superheroes are nothing if not manifestations of cultural ideals, their adventures nothing if not grand metaphors for the dominance of one ideology over another. In the comic books of the ’40s and ’50s, this conflict was more explicit — the first issue of Captain America had the iconic hero planting one of his granite fists on Adolf Hitler's jaw — but the social subtext has by no means abandoned contemporary heroes, least of all in a mass-media like film.

As George W. Bush's term waned and the responsibility of electing a new leader weighed down on the country, Americans reassessed their national and cultural values, and it’s possible to see some of this soul-searching reflected in the two major superhero films released this year. While both The Dark Knight and Iron Man are seasoned with liberal pretenses, they're both still deeply moralist and conservative at their core. Putting the beard-stroking aside for a moment, both are excellent films (for very, very different reasons), but the moral absolutism driving both are what make them the perfect microcosms of this year's cinematic zeitgeist.

Iron Man more or less fits the classic mould of superhero morality. Though there is a superficial message somewhere in the arms-dealer-cum-violent-altruist origin story, Iron Man is still ultimately a super-powered father figure, an ubermensch by the strictest Nietzschean definition. When he descends from the sky to stop an assault on a Middle Eastern village by insurgents (who, director John Favreau is careful to point out, were ultimately armed by the Americans), what we're seeing is the purest embodiment of the Bush-era perspective on foreign affairs. Strip away all of the relativism, icky politics and religious overtones, and what you have is one strong, powerful force doing its very best to stop some bad guys from hurting some good guys. It's the simplest kind of international conflict — which the current war in the Middle East most certainly isn't — and in a way, Iron Man represents everything Bush promised the American people he was, but obviously couldn't be.

The idea of escapist films representing politics isn't a new one, but just as the Second World War spawned a glut of escapist musicals, only the War on Terror — with all of its moral uncertainties — could produce a film like Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Probably due in part to the fact it was directed by a Brit and not an American, The Dark Knight represents a unique take on the responsibility of the exceptional to transcend the traditional boundaries of morality.

The conclusion of the film says it all. Batman makes the hard decision to forgo any deserved accolades for his heroics, sacrificing the public opinion in order to secure the safety of the people he protects. As Nolan has been open about Batman and the Joker's conflict representing a larger ideological struggle between order and chaos, law and crime, there is at least one far-reaching moral interpretation of Batman's last gambit. In order for the highest possible good to be served — a good far above ego, propriety and even the law — sometimes the agents of good must take on the appearance of evil. Though The Dark Knight isn't particularly strong on overt political subtext elsewhere, this interpretation of the ending could provide some reassurance in the face of the often dubious headlines that the War on Terror is notorious for producing.

While Iron Man and Batman are certainly the most prominent silver screen heroes of the year, 2008 has produced many more. The Edward Norton reboot of The Incredible Hulk, though entirely unremarkable as a film, does texture the argument with its stronger focus on the one-man-versus-a-corrupt-system theme. Daniel Craig's brutal, thuggish version of James Bond in Quantum of Solace continues to drive home the message that, contrary to any proverbs you may have heard, violence does solve some problems. Even Wanted, a film adapted from a comic book about a super villain who kills other super villains, presented us with a shadowy group of assassins who use nefarious means (like exploding rats) to protect society from itself. It's all just further evidence that, whenever we find ourselves in extreme times — whether it's 1942 or 2008 — we can always turn to the superheroes to save us.