What’s it with movie super-heroes sulking on building ledges?

Heh. I’ve noticed recurring imagery of super-heroes crouched on a building rooftop, on the ledge, usually in the rain, usually moping. It is also usually followed by the hero jumping off to do their thing.

So far I’ve seen it in:

• Daredevil – It’s raining. he does a great dive, parkoursing in Daredevil’s signature way (BTW, he’s my favourite super-hero*)
• Underworld – I only saw the trailers (shame). But Kate Beckingsale is on the movie poster for both movies, looking over a roof-top ledge. I think in Evolution, she does the Leap thing.
• Spiderman – Spidey usually hangs from buildings, but there’s at least one scene in the last one of him in his new (evil) suit, on a spire of a building.
• • 

  Batman – There is always a scene of the Dark Night looking over the city and then jumping off.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – These boys are the original traceurs.
• Dark Angel the TV series – Didn’t most episodes end up with her on the Seattle Space Needle? And if I recall she was on the Needle in the opening credits, too.

And some non-super-heroes that are almost super-heroes to me that jump off buildings:

• Bourne Ultimatum – Jason Bourne falls off a building and into a river, in a sort of phoenix progression.
• The Saint – Simon Templar (darker in the movie than I remember the TV series) has a sort of phoenix moment where he falls into a frozen river and is (lucky dude) revived by Dr Russell (a hot physicist, played by Elisabeth Shue).

I think part of this is the super-hero looking over the city, as an unwanted, un-thanked protector. The standing at the ledge is a symbol of fearlessness, a standing on the precipice, yet ready to confront what is at the bottom. And the Leap is a suicide, through which the hero comes out like a pheonix reborn, once again to do their Thing.

Have any of you seen this too? Any other movies or comics or books where this metaphor is used? Indeed, in some of my own stories, I have the hero jumping off the building, mostly due to the dramatic nature of plummeting from a building but surviving.

*Huh. Just realized that most of these super-heroes are unloved, tragic heroes. I also like heroes who really are not content with their marginalized existence, who get the krap beaten out of them all the time, and who despite it all still get up in the evening to do their derring-do  (in a Philip Dick sort of way). Anti-hero anyone?

Images from IMDB (Underworld), IMDB (Daredevil),  IMDB (Spiderman 3)