dvandom

It's not the trappings, it's the core story that makes it escapist. You can have escapist hard SF. The escapism is in the "heroes can win sometimes" part, not the kick-splode. Although the kick-splode is nice too. If the heroes are always being emotionally kicked in the teeth for their victories, if the reader is more successful than the superhero...well, I suppose there's some schadenfreude in there, but escapism is about reading about characters who can succeed where you fail, not ones who fail where you succeed.