In 2000, three years after it looked like Batman and Robin had killed the superhero epic, X-Men revived and revolutionized the genre. Since then, caped crusaders and avengers and vigilantes have been box office staples. At least one has been among the top 10 grossing movies every year since except for 2001, and last year there were two.

Headlines in the trades read like fanboy websites: The OC's Adam Brody cast as Flash in Justice League of America! Jeffrey Dean Morgan (some guy from Grey's Anatomy) to be the Comedian in Watchmen! Robert Downey Jr. (Robert Downey Jr.?) IS Iron Man! All this raises a question: are they putting every single person with a SAG card in one of these things? The answer seems to be, pretty much, yeah. People used to complain about suiting up to make a living, but now you're hardly considered an actor without a spin as an underwear pervert.

The current blueprint is to throw a massive cast on screen and see who catches on with the kids, then churn out sequels and spin-offs until the stars move on or the money dries up. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, due in 2009, is a case in point; apparently Halle Berry won't be doing a Storm movie any time soon, but XO: Magneto is already in the works. Box office permitting, of course, can X-Men Origins: The Toad be far behind? Daredevil begat Elektra, and if either of them were any good -- or, rather, made as much money as they were supposed to -- we'd be YouTubing trailers for Daredevil 2 (Elektra Boogaloo? Sorry.).

Recently Marvel has had the best of the superhero business, but DC's Justice League of America is set to come to the screen in 2010. All the biggies have been in the JLA over the years -- Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, the Green Lantern -- and Warner Brothers is counting on a huge blockbuster. Superman and Batman have their own series well underway, and the Flash and Green Lantern spin-offs already have directors. The JLA's had something north of 50 members since 1960, so these things could go forever. (How long 'til they rescue Aquaman from the purgatory of an Entourage punchline and rush it into preproduction, with Daniel Craig in the lead and Taye Diggs as Black Manta?)

Then throw in the Avengers, the Teen Titans, the New Mutants, the Doom Patrol, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, Alpha Flight, and the Legion of Superpets. ... The problem is, while Marvel, DC, and the independents have decades of material and thousands of characters, the rosters aren't always particularly deep. For every Wolverine there's a Whizzer, a Comet the Super-Horse, and a Booster Gold; for every Wonder Woman, an Infectious Lass, a She-Thing, and a Dazzler (or, as she was known in her Studio 54 days, "Disco Dazzler" -- regrettably, that's not a joke).

By the time we're into the B-list, will movie audiences be so used to coughing up for fetishy catsuits and shiny capes that they'll just keep on going? Will anyone actually pay to see Batman 10: Egghead's Revenge?

Then again, when you run out of good characters, you can always start over.

As the man keeps telling us, 'nuff said.

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