17730--What're you looking at?

It’s still a little early yet, so I won’t say the lines have been clearly drawn.  I do feel it’s safe to say they’re being drawn, though.  Anyone who’s spent a bit of time reading from this site might expect that I have an opinion of my own.

 

Now, don’t think Batman and I don’t get along.  We do.  I also think it’s crazy to go looking for a fight with Superman.  Friends don't let friends...do things that colossally stupid.  That’s a choice best left to bad guys...who have no friends (which might have something to do with why they're bad guys).  I feel this way because when I ask “What would Superman do?” (WWSD), the answer is easy: the right thing.  When the harshest thing that comes out of name-calling the big farm boy is “boy scout”, it’s hard to argue this.

 

Lots of people like to credit Batman’s extreme preparedness tendencies for a large part of his successes.  Sure, that’s got to go a long way, especially when combined with his resources, intellect, and relentless drive.  Certainly, if he were going to even dream of fighting Superman (the place he’d have the best odds of victory, btw), Batman would need to make the most of all he has.  Even Superman doesn’t do that anymore.  Those of you too new to the characters probably don’t realize how much the comic book creatives have taken away from Superman over the years, attempting to play up more of the man and less of the super.  I think they’d developed not only a fear of their own inability to challenge the hero effectively, but also that audiences were having trouble relating to him as a superhuman.  Diminishing his physical abilities wasn’t enough, though.  Superman’s intellect and scientific prowess were also greatly reduced, while Batman’s were increased.  Tipping those scales is significant to how the characters are portrayed, but I’d still advise Batman to stay on Superman’s good side.  Honestly, met with even minimal resistance, how hard would it be to disable someone with even a fraction of Superman's powers or using only a few of them.  Imagine having powers available that you have to always be careful not to use at anywhere near their full potential because of all the incidental damage they could cause.  This is why Godzilla can't go to the mall and the Powerpuff Girls can't play tag in Townsville.

 

Superman’s not a character usually shown as being arrogant.  If anything, his levels of lawfulness and self-discipline often have him labelled as boring.  Even so, which seems to be what’s played upon in the upcoming confrontation that has the internet abuzz, many people fear him.  In a recent interview, when a pro-Superman Jon Stewart asked Neil deGrasse Tyson about his take on the coming clash, Tyson’s opinion was that Superman is feared because he is accountable to no authority and “does what he wants”.  Sadly, that attitude, far from unique to Mr. Tyson, is one that discounts the fact that what Superman wants to do is apparently help people.  Again, WWSD?  You know.

 

When I don’t trust the NSA or the CIA, you can probably put together a list as to why.  If you boil it down to a summation that says their capabilities give their people the power to “do what they want”, it’s not hard to imagine a number of dark results that go with that.  If I were to say that I don’t trust Santa because his power and position let him “do what he wants”, at some point you have to acknowledge that that seems to result in handing out toys to children and encouraging socially acceptable behavior.  When Lex Luthor “does what he wants”, people die.  When Superman “does what he wants”, the world is a better place: lives get saved, wrongs get righted, bad guys soil themselves.  Sometimes, he even hands out toys to children and encourages socially acceptable behavior (without the questionable bits about exploiting animals, spying on you while you sleep, sneaking into your home, or using a racially homogenous minority workforce).  Unless you’re a bad guy, fear of Superman is misguided at best.

 

The Dark Knight’s own darkness is merely something he has embraced to fight the darkness around him.  Never forget that the Wayne Foundation does a lot of good works.  Batman (and by extension, his cover ID of Bruce Wayne) really does want a better world where children don’t grow up as orphans of murdered parents; where Batman is unneeded.  As for Superman, though he was raised here, he’s alien and that does make him different.  Some people want to hang their fears on him rather than their hopes.  Just as Batman dwells in the dark and looks for the darkness in others, Superman is of the light.  He draws power from the light.  He seeks the good in others.  Those who would fear him need to ask themselves, are they truly afraid of Superman or of what he might find?  The truth many people have to deal with is that the real problem they have with those they would denigrate as being “too good” isn’t the goodness, but the fear of being measured as “bad” in comparison to it.

16689--From the Heart of Darkness Comes the Neverending Battle

Long ago, in the midst of rampant crime and economic depression, July of 1930 heard the eerie voice of The Shadow brought to life in radio broadcasts as the announcer of Street and Smith's Detective Story Hour.  That was only the beginning, though.  Once The Shadow started chilling spines, he moved from merely announcing stories to starring in his own adventures.  Inspired by his example, scores of other heroes followed on his heels to be presented to a public hungry for uplifting tales of heroic salvation.  Most of those following in the dark vigilante's wake were pale copies, lacking the appeal that would give a few the staying power that would maintain their popularity for decades to come.

But why?  Why did some persist and others fail?  Why was anyone writing stories of heroic fiction at all?  I mean, besides "for the money."

The time of ancient myths and legends was long since gone.  Humans had grown beyond the point where they tried to explain the wonders of the universe through the supernatural workings of divine beings.  For good or ill, the people of the world were fending for themselves, firmly entrenched in a grim reality of their own making.  Under the crushing weight of the Great Depression, crime, unemployment and fascism were all flourishing.  People felt unsafe in their homes or lost their homes entirely, some moving to other countries entirely to escape the impending threat of global war they felt powerless to stop.

The need had arisen not only to escape the dark truths of life but to foster hope for better times.  A void had been carved in the hearts of the common men by increasing feelings of ineffectualness in their own world and they were desperate for a way to fill it.  These needs called forth the creation of the pulp heroes with an impetus never before seen in the modern world.  Pulp heroes would grow into super-heroes, like the legends of ancient myth, all working beyond the hindrance of confining laws to banish the fears of ordinary men.  Nietzsche warned us to "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster," but we crafted our heroes specifically to become the composite avengers of society's collective soul.  Heroes overcame whatever fears were embodied by their opposition, fighting ceaselessly for truth, justice and freedom that readers felt themselves denied in their daily lives.  Defying Nietzsche, here were champions serving as inspirations to all--no matter how poor, downtrodden or oppressed--as they dared gaze into the abyss of all the world's dark places.

Whether they fought darkness while draped in the color of night in the manner of The Shadow and Batman or sought to dispel it with the guiding light of hope for the future like Doc Savage and Superman, we have never truly lost our need for iconic heroes.  In recent years, with increasing amounts of cynicism afoot, we've seen the rise of anti-heroes and the darkening of heroic figures, perhaps finally succumbing to the weight of fighting so much evil for so long.  They say that tarnishing these icons humanizes them, making them seem more real and relatable to audiences.  In its own way, this trend toward favoring a flawed hero may be part of a collective self-awareness as to just how close to home the hero's true foe dwells.


A common lament in heroic fiction is the hero's claim that he works to create a world in which he will no longer be needed.  No matter how far we travel, how much we strive or learn, until we overcome our own darkness--the fears that lurk in the hearts of man--we'll never run short of evils to fight or the need for champions to face them.  In truth, even though our heroes seem to be caught in nothing less than neverending battles, what they truly represent is our collective desire to better ourselves and our world.  Should we as a people reach a point where we cynically banish our heroes it would mean that we have chosen to do away with our role models, ceased projecting the better and more hopeful parts of our natures and, sadly, stopped imagining a brighter world in which to live.