There is only one thing that I’m excited for this holiday season, and it’s the DVD release of last summer’s smash hit, The Dark Knight. I’m also the type of dork that Googled “The Dark Knight” and “Batman 2″ since July of 2007. However, the sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins became a bigger sensation than anyone could have imagined. A big part of that was the tragic death of one of the film’s stars, Heath Ledger, and the buzz around his performance – a work of art. Another tool of TDK’s success is the often overlooked fact that the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, and screenwriter – Chris’ brother Jonathan, are very, very good. Oscar-nominated good. Three of their five films are on IMDB’s top 100 films of all time.

I think there’s something more. I think the social climate is rife for superheroes. The world needs saving.

Through looking at the evolution of superhero films, it’s clear that they reflect the time in which they were made.

The first Batman movie (Batman: The Movie) was made in 1966, and it was a goofy romp, similar to the POW! and WAM! of the TV series. This is not to say that that the world was A-OK in 1966 and that everyone was a goofball; rather, I don’t think that people realized the power of the superhero mythos. It still reflects the sort of pro-establishment era of the Fifties. Batman works with the mayor and police, and in the series there’s even a televised political debate between Batman and one of his rivals, the Penguin. This was before the Vietnam war protests, before Watergate, before Americans learned to mistrust the government.

The 1980s saw an escalation in the Cold War, economic and industrial collapse, hostage crises and arms deals in Iran, and conflicts in Panama and Grenada. There was no shortage of problems in the world, and Superman was there to say the day. The plot of Superman: The Movie revolves around a mogul, Lex Luthor, a true money-grubbing Reaganite threatening the U.S. with two nuclear weapons. These were real fears of the 1980s, and Superman allowed us to let our guards down and believe that he would save the day.

The films of the ’90s were a direct reaction to the realism of the 1980s. The rate of growth of the economy and technology was astronomical in the 1990s, and it left many behind. The 1990s saw villains and heroes created by the city. With films like Batman, Batman Returns and The Crow, the tone was decidedly darker, and hyper-unreal. The country was going through a good stretch and so we had to imagine these villains rather than be able to see them on our streets.

This brings us to today. The government would have us believe that terrorism is everywhere, 80 percent of Americans disapprove of the president, and America’s standing in the world is a shell of what it used to be. The world needs saving again, so films like X-men, Batman Begins, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight are grounded in the real world. They highlight the social and international problems of today and at the same time allow us to detach from them. Pretty clever.

This brings us back to why The Dark Knight is so damn good. It shows us how crappy our world is. The city is ruled by the Joker — a madman doing whatever he wants. He poisons the minds of the people around him, or he kills them. Our legitimate hope, a straight-laced politician falls hardest turning into an autonomous villain himself. The real hero is himself a criminal vigilante, working against the government and infringing on our civil liberties. The movie ends with Batman as the scapegoat. He takes the fall for everything, and the world ends up, at the same time, better and worse. The world sucks, and in TDK we lap it up.

So this holiday season, I’m going to do my part as a dutiful American and help the economy and purchase The Dark Knight on DVD (and maybe a Blu-ray player on which to watch it). Maybe if the DVD is half as successful as the film was in theaters, Batman can save the real world as well as Gotham City.