You won’t see Glen Powell wearing spandex and diving into the multiverse anytime soon. But it’s not done any harm to the careers of Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr or Chris Evans. And now Ford is about to follow suit

Did Marvel really kill off the old-fashioned the movie star? And should anyone with hopes of becoming the new James Dean avoid starring as Captain America like a night out with Proxima Midnight?

This ongoing debate first entered the cultural ether around the time that Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola were proclaiming loudly that all superhero movies were basically spawn of the corporate whore of Hollywood Babylon in 2019. The supposed problem was then crystallised intellectually by one Quentin Tarantino in 2022, who pointed out that most Marvel stars would be virtually unknown if they hadn’t got the superhero gig.