Superhero comics
and movies usually invite their readers and audience members to live
vicariously through their heroes. Yet they rarely act as the simple-minded
power fantasies that we see in movies like Taken
or The Equalizer.
Superman, for all
his invincibility and everything-bagel-power-set, remains a story about (among
other themes) a person forced to live a lie, to pretend to exist as someone
smaller than himself for fear of the public’s reaction to him.
Batman, filthy
rich and physically powerful, still lives in the shadows, a photo negative of
his merry, colorful villains.
Tony Starks,
a.k.a. Ironman, seems the happiest, most Michelangelo of the Avengers, yet we
often see that a troubled soul hides beneath all that flash.
(Good) Superhero
stories provide not power fantasies, but moral tales of power control.
Superman could
easily rule the world.
Batman and Ironman could use their billions to abuse “the system,” influence government, and tilt the rules
forever in their favor.
Harry Potter
chooses to destroy the God Wand rather than wield the ultimate weapon.
Superheroes prove
super not for the deeds they perform but because of the deeds they choose not to perform.
Self-control,
self-discipline in spite of the possession of absolute power, seems the
greatest, most difficult human
challenge.
Superhero stories
almost always hold some theme of parent-child, and I consider that well worth
investigation.
Peter, in Spiderman, tells his foster father,
Uncle Ben, “You’re not my father,” only to see him die shortly thereafter.
Superman’s father
in Man of Steel dies almost
immediately after Clark tells him the same thing.
The father in Kickass 2 dies shortly after our
protagonist tells him he represents a lousy father.
Rogue in X-Men must excommunicate herself from
her family before her heroic journey may begin.
Loki tells his foster mother that she's not his real mother, only to soon afterwards learn of her demise.
Loki tells his foster mother that she's not his real mother, only to soon afterwards learn of her demise.
Literary scholars
often argue that superpowers represent our transformation from child- to
adulthood.
The fact that many
heroes acquire their superpowers at the age of puberty supports this theory
(though many get their powers from toxic goo, space exploration, or Satan).
It seems that most
good superhero movies support this
theory, which means, at a minimum, that this pattern appeals to us on some
level.
While we grow
older, we collect incredible powers: the ability to operate a machine that can
travel at a hundred miles per hour, to consume alcohol, gamble, run for office,
and, above all, make our own decisions.
We gain incredible
powers while we age, and with them “great responsibility.”
We, at puberty,
gain the godlike power to create life.
We typically, when
we begin to receive these gifts, discover a deep, encoded need to separate ourselves from our parents, to not simply distance
ourselves from them physically, but to identify ourselves separately from them.
Perhaps this explains
why every story seems to ultimately ask, “Who am I?”
And perhaps that
explains why every good superhero story forces its heroes to answer that
question, to decide who they are and for what they stand, in the face of the
ultimate villain: unchecked power.
Many superheroes,
in a series of movies, spend the first installment digesting their new
powers. The second movie typically forces our heroes to decide who they shall
become.
Peter Parker, in Spiderman 2, starts to lose his powers.
He must decide if he even wants them back. Does he desire the responsibilities of a superhero?
In the second
Wolverine movie, The Wolverine, Logan
faces the same situation.
The Fantastic Four
face this question in both their first and second movie.
Our superheroes
must push their parents away and discover themselves without authority to tell
them what deeds to perform and what behaviors to mimic. They must begin their
journeys of self-discovery.
They can, only
under those circumstances, appreciate the power they now possess. Only after
they grasp their newfound capabilities may they decide who they must become.
Remember Luke
Skywalker?
This rarely works
out of order. Our hero’s father dies right off the bat in Green Lantern, before he gains any abilities. While Green Lantern proved flawed for half a
billion other reasons, this scrambled hero’s journey didn’t improve the story.
A superhero will
often decide between responsibilities and pleasure (safe sex versus unsafe, honesty
towards a potential partner versus deceit, serve the
citizens who voted you into office or take advantage of them).
Will Smith’s character in Handcock
cannot serve as both a superhero and a family man. He must distance himself
from the woman he loves in order to possess his powers.
Bruce, in Batman Forever, wants to turn in his cape
and marry the woman he loves—but at the cost of leaving Gotham unprotected.
Jon Snow, in Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire),
wants desperately to accept an offer to obtain land and start a family, but he
cannot accept the offer and protect
the Wall.
Spawn cannot
obtain the revenge he seeks if he wants redemption.
Peter Parker must
choose between the chores of Spiderman and a romantic life with Mary Jane.
The superhero
represents the hardest choices made most nobly. That seems a fair definition of
a hero.
Exceptions exist.
Young readers of comic books sometimes discovered themselves represented not by
the hero, but be the hero’s sidekick. This seems to happen in wartime, when
many kids discovered themselves without father figures.
My apologies for my lack of posts last week. I faced a busier than usual workload due to the release of my third novel, Destines of Darkwana and negotiating the artwork for the upcoming card game based on my novels.
An
inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com