When ordinary people jump or fall off something, they usually end up either on two feet or in a groaning, seething heap like Peter Griffin when he trips over an unseen obstacle outside his house on Spooner Street.

Yet as has you may have noticed, superheroes, aliens, Transformers and Justin Timberlake are different. No matter what their secret power or special ability – if any – a leap or tumble from a great height always ends the same way: in a perfect three-point landing…