I was a teenager when The Incredibles came out. And I loved it. It was everything a life-long comic fan could want. Nearly fifteen years later, I returned to the franchise with the long awaited The Incredibles 2. And while I deeply enjoyed it, watching it as an adult felt different. It made me ponder a glaring problem in superhero fiction. Often the first solution to solving crime is to punch someone in the face. And that’s a problem.

Believe me when I say that I know The Incredibles is not the first. Superhero fiction often features fisticuffs as a hero’s go-to first response for stopping crime. But over the last decade and a half, The Incredibles seemed to exist outside of typical superhero fiction confines in the hearts of fans.

But empathy is one trope that isn’t subverted. The message hasn’t changed. Criminals are criminals and there’s nothing more to them. And that message, while subtle and underdeveloped, is dangerous.

So this brings me to wonder: How can we evolve the genre?

 

Superhero Fiction and Empathy

The best example of this in The Incredibles 2 is with Jack-Jack.

First, Jack-Jack sees a raccoon taking food from the trash. The raccoon looks like the robbers on TV with its bandit-like eye marks. Immediately Jack-Jack–raised around vigilante culture–tries to fight the raccoon. As the audience, we laugh. We turn our brains off as he tortures this raccoon with all of his powers. Viewers are supposed to marvel at Jack-Jack’s comical might. But we ignore the victim, which is the raccoon.

I rewatched Studio Ghibli’s Pom Poko in theaters recently. Because of that, I’m reminded of the plight of the tanuki (Japanese shapeshifting raccoon dog) protagonists. And perhaps I’m more empathetic because of that movie. It made me think as I watched Jack-Jack’s scene in theaters.

Like the tanuki, this raccoon’s ancestors probably lived in that neighborhood long before humans urbanized it. Its natural habitat is mostly destroyed. It can’t rummage for food from its environment like nature intended. If it tries to live by nature, it won’t survive. There’s not enough food and too much competition. It’s adapt or die. It now has to become a scavenger in a human world.

Which means stealing. But the raccoon isn’t stealing food. It’s taking already discarded food from trash cans. Food, like a giant chicken leg, that was barely touched and never going to be eaten anyway.

So why can’t the raccoon get something to eat? Where is the empathy?

Worse, if it was another kind of pet, maybe Jack-Jack would be empathetic. But because it looks like what Jack-Jack perceives as criminal, it loses the opportunity of charity. Instead, the first solution to stop this “injustice” is to chase, punch, burn and terrify it into submission.

This one simple scene says so, so much.

 

Superhero Fiction and Justice

The Flash: “Grammy Flash used to say that the trouble with ‘an eye for an eye’ is that everyone ends up blind.”

(Justice League Unlimited: Flashpoint, written by the late great Dwayne McDuffie)

In society we are taught to live with a black and white point of view. Criminals who breaks laws are bad. In turn, they deserve punishment. Hammurabi said an eye for an eye. If a thief is caught stealing, cut off the hand that made the offense. But it doesn’t solve the problem. You still have a broken society where the only option for the underprivileged or dispossessed is to steal or die starving. A society that has enough resources to solve these issues.

But in simple superhero fiction, we’re never meant to ponder this. Who cares about the plight of the anonymous crooks that Batman finds on his patrols. We never wonder why Bruce Wayne doesn’t use all of his money to more aggressively solve Gotham’s substantial poverty and presumed mental health issues. But we still see all of the accumulated wealth in other ways.

Comic book writers establish that Gotham’s economical system is politically and criminally corrupt. Writers establish that organized crime like the Falcone and Maroni crime syndicates take advantage of most of Gotham’s lower and middle classes. Society is objectively unfair and stacked against the impoverished. Yet Bruce Wayne still thinks he should solve crime with fear. That isn’t progress. That’s literal terrorism.

 

Superhero Fiction and Reform

Fans know that Arkham is hugely problematic. Its revolving door of supervillains and horrible security seems to be the only place in the entire city for psychiatric rehabilitation. Often, like prison in the real world, going to Arkham will make you more likely to descend into madness.

Additionally, we don’t often see Wayne putting his resources towards reform. When most writers show Wayne at a charity ball the main function is to maintain Wayne’s cover as a rich playboy. With the exception of more nuanced depictions of Bruce Wayne like Batman: The Animated Series this means that even his philanthropy isn’t purely altruistic. Instead, his main course of action is to relentlessly patrol the city and terrify the “superstitious and cowardly lot” of criminals he finds. In addition, we’re meant to ignore that Bruce Wayne is training other emotionally disturbed youths to follow in his stead.

Every solution is solved with violence. This sounds more like a cultish vigilante militia than local heroism and community building.

Even worse is the CW’s The Flash series. After The Flash team catches a criminal metahuman, that person is locked up right away. No due process, in a private, secret prison of solitary cells.

During the series Central City’s Police Department incorporates the Star Labs team (especially Cisco Ramone) into their fold. Cisco creates episode-specific tech, usually non-lethal, to protect or stop a criminal. Why not make the collaboration legally official and give metahumans a more humane process? While some criminals were dangerous, someone like Peekaboo was simply misguided (in both the show and the comics). Isn’t there a better way?

 

Superhero Fiction: Is There A Better Way?

What if Dick Grayson used his charm to dissuade borderline criminals? Could Jason Todd be saved if he used his street smarts to reform criminals? Could Tim Drake create systems and protocols to deal with poverty? Could Stephanie Brown’s lateral thinking do more in a more social context? What could Damian do if he combined his father’s resources and his grandfather’s (Ra’s al Ghul’s) ideas? What could Barbara Gordon do if she used her Oracle resources to subtly create a new and more just society?

I know, I know. Batman is an eighty year old comic character whose medium doesn’t allow for such drastic changes. Like a summer action blockbuster, Batman must stay within certain confines. Mainstream stories can grapple with larger ideas, for a while. But by the end of a period, the status quo must be reset. He can’t evolve too much without losing what he is as a comic book character. He is an archetype.

But this shows a bigger problem: certain comics can’t grow up permanently. We can’t avoid certain tropes. In turn, we perpetuate certain ideas. And one such idea is that criminals deserve what they get. It’s a morally objective black and white issue. We need to examine a better way.

 

Superhero Fiction and Satire

Grant Morrison briefly addresses the issue of violence solving societal problems in his mini-series The Multiversity. In this series, Morrison explores the different permutations of the superhero formula by visiting DC’s renewed multiverse.

In the one-shot Pax Americana, drawn by artist Frank Quitely, Earth 4’s heroes are closely based on Alan Moore and Dan Gibbons’ seminal Watchmen series, which was in turn vaguely based on the original Earth 4 characters like Blue Beetle, The Question and Captain Atom, as well as the more obscure Nightshade and Peacemaker. Each character matches a Watchmen character: The Question mimics Rorschach who is himself an extreme satire of the original Question character. Captain Atom is a direct analogue of Watchmen’s Dr. Manhattan, who is himself a twisted and more powerful version of the original Charlton Comics Captain Atom. Makes your head spin, doesn’t it?

In the Watchmen-influenced Pax Americana world, the heroes are ultra-violent vigilantes trying to tackle the woes of the world. The Question and Blue Beetle unpack the problem of violence solving problems in one particularly powerful and succinct scene.

Takeaways

At first this scene resembles many other comic book moments. Two heroes find a low level criminal, beat him up for information and leave him on a pole for the cops. The Question prepares a calling card–the likes of which we’ve seen left by major heroes like Spider-Man and Batman.

What’s disturbing is that neither hero acts heroic. Comparatively they both are problematic:

• The Question questions whether Blue Beetle’s financial choices could be better served erasing poverty than flying around in a floating ship.
• Blue Beetle is disturbed by The Question’s disregard for life. The Question doles out poetic justice: he makes the dealer overdose on his own goods like many of the dealer’s clients probably did.

While The Question’s methods are harder to stomach, both heroes are heavily flawed. Blue Beetle’s misuse of his resources allows someone like The Question to resolve problems with a more primitive form of population control: fear. In this way Morrison forces us to accept that both heroes–and what they represent–need to reassess what it means to effect change.

 

Superhero Fiction That Evolves

James Robinson’s Starman series tackles this idea somewhat.

In Starman #3, reluctant legacy hero Jack Knight and his father Ted Knight have a conflict. Ted Knight wants Jack to succeed him, especially after the terrible family tragedy that kicks off the series. Jack embraces the black sheep he has always been, not the prodigal son his father wants. After the first arc, Jack agrees to take over his father’s Starman identity under a few conditions.

One of them is that he’ll do the usual patrolling the streets and fighting “bad guys.” But only supervillains that threaten the city. In no way does Jack want to replace the police officers. He knows having super technology does replace the training and knowledge that the police have.

While Jack does that, his father has to use all of his knowledge to make the world a better place. Jack’s reasoning puts accountability on his father. Ted Knight could make a “cosmic rod” in the 1940s that allowed him to fly and shoot light beams. What else could he have been doing over the decades? How could he have changed the world?

Robert Kirkman’s Invincible handles the nuances of solving world problems in multiple ways. Throughout the 144 issues of the series, the main character Mark Grayson grapples with the best way to tackle crime. The different methods and means to eradicate the need for crime and violence lead the heroes to conflict. But through this exploration, Grayson has to explore some very gray definitions of what it means to be “a hero.”

We need more nuanced storytelling like this in comics.

Superhero Fiction Needs Better Villains

Dr. Doom and Motivation

We need heroes confronted with the idea of what being a superhero means. Nuanced supervillains who don’t just want to destroy the world with a giant purple laser moon cannon if they don’t get one billion dollars.

We need a villain like Dr. Doom. Jonathan Maberry and Scot Eaton’s Doomwar #3 shows us why. Doom reveals that he has used his Time Platform time machine to see the future. In each of these futures, at some point or another, Earth is conquered because humanity wasn’t united. The only future where humanity had a single chance? The one where Doom brought unity…through domination. It allowed them to fight off alien invasions, disasters and more.

Doom has great motivation. He sees Marvel’s heroes as people who maintain the status quo. People who keep the world weak. Dependent. While figures like Doom subvert the status quo and force the world to change (whether it wants to or not).

 

Clashing Ideologies

It’s better to avoid thinking of “the bad guys” as foes and more of “antagonists.” Less mustache twirling, more opposing the protagonist’s plans. Often the best villains represent very different ideals. Ideals that clash create conflicts that engage readers.

Lex Luthor, when written well, is the inverse of Superman. Superman is an illegal immigrant. However, a loving, moral family raises him in the American heartland. He represents the epitome of power but chooses to selflessly help as many people as he can. He believes he can inspire humanity to be the best person they can be by his example.

Lex Luthor, conversely, is more of an Objectivist. He is an American citizen raised by a horrible family. But he is also a self-made capitalist and genius. He survives hardship by force of will alone. Lex believes humanity can only reach its potential by relying on itself. He believes that relying on superheroes like Superman will only make people lazy and complacent. He believes in his own self-interests but also believes that his self-interests and greatness will trickle down to others.

Which figure is more correct? It’s not easy to say. A reader could easily take Superman’s side because he is the protagonist. But Luthor’s points force both Superman and the reader to question their stance on society.

 

Evolving Superhero Fiction

Superhero fiction needs more of this.

We need more antagonists who can talk their way out of a problem. More antagonists who can make superheros question their goals. There needs to be more antagonists who make readers question the way life works. That is what science fiction does. And superhero fiction is a byproduct of science fiction. The best science fiction forces us to wonder “What if.” What would change if x? Would life be better if y? How will society change if z?

Superhero fiction has come a long way since the days of The Phantom and Action Comics#1. But it’s stuck in very archaic tropes and it can’t evolve. Contrarily, some will say that fiction like The Incredibles doesn’t need to be weighed down with lofty ideals. But many children first confront ideas about the world through stories, whether they’re movies, cartoons, comic books, or all of the above.

As a young black male, I first had a safe place to explore deep themes with X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men comics. In the series, I saw a main character die in its first arc. I saw the X-Men harrassed by The Friends of Humanity in a way that mimicked the KKK. I saw characters confront the Legacy Virus during a time when HIV was ravaging the world. I saw characters like Beast and Nightcrawler unable to hide their mutancy–and in turn, hide from discrimination–just like I couldn’t as a person of color.

Superhero fiction can be transformative. If only we let it grow up.