Is it Sauron, Tolkien’s Dark Lord?
No, for Sauron, evil though he may be, teaches the young reader a lesson, in his capacity as a fictional villain. Sauron is a cautionary figure, a miserable ghost locked into his own construct, foisting rings of power on those weaker than he, so that they too may become corrupted by the seduction of power. Tolkien has possibly wrought our most important work of fiction, focused as it is on the axiom that power corrupts.
There are other S-men from history and myth I could invoke as second best: Set, Satan, Saurumon among them. In my mind Satan is not as bad as Sauron because he at least completes God as his lesser opposite in a dualistic cosmos. Indeed, one might make the case that the threat of Satan has provided Christian evangelists with as many converts as the hope of Jesus.
Why am I writing this?
I work and train with numerous young men who are incredibly enamored of superheroes. At work I take lunch with clerks who argue the merits if their various comic book superheroes and the actor choices concerning the resulting movies.
This attraction to the superhero intrigues me, as I have never experienced it. Even women are flocking to superhero movies in droves. What gives?
Recently a friend who is over sixty, and his lady of ill-repute, were arguing over who was the best superhero. He stated that knowing who a person’s favorite superhero was told you a lot about them, as a measure of character, he initiated the psychological show-and-tell by stating, “Superman is my favorite superhero.”
I forget what the lady’s favorite was. I do recall that they both insisted on knowing what my favorite superhero was. I responded at first that I find the idea of superheroes to be repulsive in a literary sense, but interesting in the sense that they seem to so clearly reflect the ancient human need for a belief in a pantheon of super-beings watching over them. They found this to be evasive, and pressed, making the case that I clearly had to have a favorite.
I said, “Okay, I absolutely hated Superman my entire life and was so frustrated that he was invincible and perfect. It just gave me the creeps. I did like the Incredible Hulk, because he made sense, as the mild mannered man and the raging beast. The Incredible Hulk.”
They were horrified.
This made me reflect on a game I had played with my son when he was a teenager, called Heroclix. I don’t like the heroes, but I thought the click-stand system was great. The other players were more experienced than I, and one of them usually used most of his points buying a version of Superman: a flying tiger tank that does not run out of gas. I went with ‘the killer chick option’. There are a large selection of low-rent indie comic babes with blades and guns. I would buy an army of these girls and killed Superman, Captain America, and Batman with such frequency with my Soviet-style squad tactics that I became a heroclicker to reckon with.
Recently my coworkers were discussing superheroes and asked me if I had seen the latest Thor offering. I admitted that I had, and had enjoyed it, even though I don’t like superheroes. I went on to state that I saw the trailer to a superhero movie featuring the Wolverine character, and I thought it would be lame and would not go see it.
The most opinionated young man then said, “Those are mutants, they aren’t superheroes.”
Having become marginally conversant with this pastime I reposted, “Zach, you know what the difference is between superheroes and mutants?”
The youngster fell for it and responded, “No, what?”
“Mutants are born gay. Superheroes are homosexual by choice.”
These guys, for whom the standard insult of their generation is to call someone ‘Gay’, were looking somewhat hurt. Since then I have been wondering why I have such hostility toward superheroes, particularly Superman. I am not homophobic in the least. I realize that many childhood readers of this material, when I was coming up, were the types of kids who got picked on. I was one of those picked on kids, but I fought back instead of fantasizing about some creepy man in tights saving me. I suppose that resentment for weaker like-minded peers is in part responsible for this hostility of mine toward superheroes.
But upon consideration, I think I know what really galls me about these heroes in ballet tights and clown masks. My two most loathed heroes are Superman and Captain America. So I suppose my rabid resentment of brainwashing attempts by the greater society is the larger part of this sentiment, particularly since my resentment of the popularity of these characters has increased since I have become more critical of the powers that own me.
Honestly, I think Captain America is just stupid, and suppose any nation of superhero comic geeks should be entitled to their national fantasy hero. I know that I should revere a hero that was obviously the product of WWII angst, as that war was fought by our greatest generation. Excuse me for perceiving WWII vets as mortal, for I have interviewed a few. I will never forget the WWII vet I did not interview. He was teasing a Korean vet for having PTSD [before it was called that]. He declared that what was wrong with Korean and Vietnam vets was that they were weak later-day generations of American fighting men, who had forgotten how conquerors were supposed to act. He then went on to regal the room full of men with a righteous recounting of the gang rape of a French woman by him and the men of his unit. And there I was, at age 15, thinking that the French had been our allies. I went on to read an investigative article about the 10,000 American GIs that stayed on in France as mobsters after WWII. Captain America just doesn’t go down well after that.
However, Superman, clearly a metaphor for America’s industrial might and moral right bound into a single naively perfect and uncorruptible soul, leaves me, as a reader bored, and as a thinker troubled. I don’t know a thing about comic history, or even when Superman began his rise into the American psyche. I will hazard a guess—based on his nature—that it was in the 1930s. I wonder then, if Tolkien—or any other Brit for that matter—ever read Superman, and what he might have thought of an indestructible hero who can wield world-breaking power, without being, even in the slightest, corrupted by the possession of nearly absolute power?
Understanding that some of my readers are comic buffs, if you have any information on the origins of the genre, and how conservative 1950s America ever thought masked men in tights flying through the air ‘bazoinking’ laughably inept criminals, was ever cool, I would be thrilled to hear from you.
Do other nations have comic book heroes similar to Superman and Captain America?
Do any nations other than Japan and the U.S. even produce comics?
If so, how are the comics of other nations different than ours?
Expiring minds want to know.
Once again I think of Joseph Campbell. Without delving too deeply and in the process writing a dissertation, I see the affinity to superheroes filling the mythological void that comes with a decline in established religion (traditional mythology). I see this as well in the embrace of Star Wars and Star Trek mythologies. IMO, this need is hardwired. It gives the most fundamental purpose to life. Believing that there's something greater than yourself. That life is not the existential cliche of being meaningless: birth, school, work, death.
Comic books superheroes are the cultural medium through which these needs are expressed and through which the social ethos is promoted, reenforced and perpetuated. Before then (in the US) it was the cowboy. And let us not forget, that the superhero was born from the crime fighter. Two different beast that served the same fundamental purpose in the pulp space, save for one being mortal while the other immortal.
Interestingly enough, it's the Marvel model which has succeed. A model which, IMO, is very Greek in that these gods have very human flaws and those flaws become part of the narrative which makes them even more appealing to mere mortals in the citizenry.
As a kid I liked spidey, as an adult I'm more a Bats guy. Batman being the modern manifestation of the cowboy and frontier justice. The honorable warrior who fights with his wits, fists and intelligence, shunning the gun and murder. I can buy into those values.
Thanks man. The pagan god parallel, with the 'leagues' of superheroes, really supports what you are saying in my mind. Since you are an artist, could you further expand on what the significance of tights are. The masks I get, as it is a borrowed identity—bespeaking a circumscribed role and allowing the character to have a pedestrian off-duty life that makes them more human. But still, tights? As an artist what do you make of that, particularly in light of the time period these characters were created in?
Tights? Tights are the best means to display the god like and perfect physique of the hero/heroine. The power wielded beneath, The body of no imperfections. Are the pagan gods rendered as physically flawed? Would you be inspired to greatness by Laurel and Hardy? Many, but not all, illustrators are infatuated with the works of the old masters and their expression of the perfect human figure. Lacking the skills and teaching of the old masters (along with an awe and fear of god), they instead draw the modern cultural counterparts: superheroes. The over exaggerated physiques? Those are usually done by artist who have learned their skills by copying and aping their betters, who in turn (as I noted), lack the skills of those they ape. Think of the photocopy that's photocopied and then that new photocopy is photocopied, continually repeat this process. A derivative of a derivative of a derivative.
Go look up the works of Barry Windsor Smith. Half his art is influenced by the Baroque period in art, the other half is modern comic book work. That said, Barry is one of the few that works, and was taught, in the classical tradition. It shows in his romantic non-comic work. His Conan is considered second to Frazetta's. But he likes the younger, lean and unscarred Conan, unlike Frank whose Conan represented his own set of angels and demons.
Barry Windsor Smith
Is the comic book artist that did this:
3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZxYU-bvj6h4/T8GSdty3v0I/AAAAAAAAGds/lOtl5FHgbB4/s1600/bwsAvengers.jpg
The illustrator who did this:
barrywindsor-smith.com/galleria/ramprint.jpg
The Baroque artist who did this:
munchkinpress.com/cpg149/albums/uploads/Pistella%20Collection/BWS_fatepencil_sca2n.jpg