Superhero Decadence: Liberalism in Comic Books
January 9, 2009
This is sort of a follow-up to yesterday’s Spidey post.
Bill Willingham (of Fables fame) posted this article over at the new blog, Big Hollywood. While his premise certainly is true (that, in an attempt to be grittier and less cheesy, the American superhero genre has generally degraded into a cesspool of decadence and liberalism), I disagree that this is anything new. Comics had a giant shift towards liberal ideals sometime between the 50s and the 60s. This shift happened for at least a couple of reasons. I’m sure there are others, but I don’t exactly have my comic book history books in front of me, so I’m going off of memory here. Here is what I got:
1) Comic books, like any other entertainment industry, naturally draws in liberals. Conservatives tend to want work that either produces something useful (entrepreneurs, craftsmen, et cetera), fixes something broken (plumbers, chainsaw repair, et cetera) or blowing something useless up (military, demolition, police, et cetera). Writing comics does not really fit any of those categories.
2) Post WWII, there were some very strict rules imposed on comics; when the industry finally crawled out from those rules, they over-compensated.
Either way, by the time Marvel’s ascended into prominence (ushering in the so-called Silver Age of Comics), comics were dedicated liberal cultural icons. While adding things like the mildly dysfunctional family dynamics of the Fantastic Four or the nerdiness and uncertainty of Spider-Man into the comic industry bag of tricks added a richness to comic writing, the effort of making superheroes more 2-dimensional human beings made the 1-dimensional good guy attitude passe.
Some older examples of liberalism in comics (Nota Bene: I am not purposely picking on Marvel comics; it is just that all I know of DC comics is from the 70’s cartoons):
1) Steve Rogers giving up the Captain America persona because a high-ranking governmental official who was supposed to represent President Nixon was a terrorist. He became The Nomad.
2) The Punisher suffering from PTSD due to his involvement in Vietnam.
3) Steve Rogers giving up the Cap mantle again when the government decides to draft him. His replacement is the mildly psychotic John Walker. Walker is a parody of conservatives’ patriotism.
4) The vast majority of superheros just “shack up”. If they do get married, it seems that the usual answer is an eventual divorce. In fact, in the current state of the Marvel universe, only Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Women have been married longer than 5 of our years.
5) Invisible Girl changing her name to Invisible Woman to appease the P.C. Patrol.
6) The vast majority of superheroes do not actively practice any kind of Christianity, even though most of them reside in a 95% Christian country. The only two overtly Christian heroes are Nightcrawler and Daredevil, and one can easily argue that Daredevil is lapsed. Crusader serves as a evangelical Christian parody; he, of course, is a supervillian that is defeated with low self-esteem.
Now that I thoroughly ragged on comic books, I have to admit, I still enjoy them. And it is important to “read against one’s type”, if for no other reason than to know your enemy so that you may smash him in a weak spot later.
Now go read a book! Captain America No 1 has Cap punching Hitler. Good times.
January 14, 2009 at 5:09 PM
[...] you might expect, this definitely got people talking. Lots of fans, a few industry pros… and also quite a lot of folks (clearly [...]
January 14, 2009 at 5:31 PM
Hello,
found your site just now via the link in the comments section of the Willingham article you site.
As is often the case two people can read the same thing and come away with different ideas on what was meant by the author. Bill does not make the case that Superhero decadence is new. In fact, he claims to have contributed to it’s early beginnings. Though, in actuality it predates him. His piece is a declaration of independence from what has become the norm… authority should always be questioned, morality is relative, and doing “what is right” is in the eyes of the beholder.
Neither does he condemn those things per se, rather he has publicly declared he will no longer contribute to that line of thinking. As a comic enthusiast going back to the mid 1960s myself, I say “more power to him, man”.
January 14, 2009 at 5:50 PM
Not even going to claim “first”, eh? Seriously, though, thank you for the comment.
I understood Willingham’s editorial to say that is was a relatively recent (say 80’s). I was arguing it really came during the beginning of the Silver Age (starting date: Fantastic Four #1). But, people’s perspectives affect how they understand a piece. My Junior English teacher would attest to that. What one person sees as a turning point (say Cap becoming Nomad) another would just see as an acceptable plot twist.
And I would equally encourage his desire to fight “the man”.
Now, read a book!