So what kind of person wants to be a superhero?
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| Sorry Kamala, you don't count, I'll get to why in a bit. |
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| Words. Picture. Number ending in three zeroes. Something about value. |
And their deeds are commendable, if not admirable, but half the people on the list are more colorful community activists than anything else. Only a few of them actually attempt to 'fight crime' in a vein their comic book counterparts do (I won't count wandering up and scaring people as FIGHTING crime, though it's still attempting to stop crime and that deserves credit) and you won't see them trying to throw down with criminal gangs. So, the question of applied realism is, what kind of a real life person would want to try and be a superhero in the vein of how superheroes and vigilantes are presented in comics?
This is why Kamala Khan, nee Ms. Marvel II, doesn't count. Beyond being fictional, she's an aspiring superhero in a superhero-based universe. She has legions of real life (for her) data to call on when considering such a thing (not to mention, you know, actual superpowers). Someone who lives in such a world is not going to be faced with the same developmental mindset. Watchmen asked the question of 'What kind of a person would think, want to, and be successful in such a profession in a real world scenario?'
You probably already know the answer, but let's break it down.
First of all, to seek such a position, one would have to have no faith in society's actual mechanisms to prevent crime and injustice. Fair enough, plenty of people have that. You then have to have the willpower to teach yourself how to 'overcome such things' where society itself failed (and if you lack physical talent or resources, you have to compensate with willpower EVEN MORE), as well as overcome basic fear instincts, and you have to do it under amateur trainers or, more likely, by yourself. You then have to dedicate yourself to constantly facing dangerous people, fighting through injuries, fatigue, and mental weardown, the fact that both the police and the criminals will be opposed to you if not outright after your head, and that odds are all it will take is one bit of luck from one random punk to get yourself killed (after which you'll likely be condemned and dismissed, and anyone connected to you subjected to misery and harassment, if not worse). And if you're actually successful, you have to have done all this with physical and mental gifts, explicitly the mental ones, to realize that there was probably a better way to make fuller, long-term changes, and have instead dedicated all that talent and effort to going out and fighting the scum of society in the name of making the world 'better'.
The answer, of course, is that a person who would want to be an actual comic book superhero would have to be insane, whose talents are overridden by a series of logical fallacies and emotional issues. Cut away from a world where extraordinary events are far more ordinary than our world, a superhero is pretty much a lunatic, working through their own issues rather than helping society with any great cause. If Lee's characters were human, Moore's Watchmen concept had characters who were super human, with all of humanity's traits magnified to excess. Considering how human brains can be wired, it's not surprising the negative is presented first and foremost.
But if Watchmen was solely about 'normal' people on costumes, it would be a very different story. The crux that Watchmen turns on is the other half of the superhero coin. Specifically, having superpowers, and how reality would work if applied to them. Hence, Dr. Manhattan.
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| Dah ba di, dah ba die. |
Dr. Manhattan is the lone person with actual superpowers in the Watchmen world, and in some ways he's actually very admirable, in terms of human strength and willpower. He does not end up corrupted by his powers (and they're immense), and then there's the fact he exists at all, showing a human will so strong that he was able to survive being disintegrated (under very specific circumstances) and rebuild himself a whole new body. Moore, however, chooses to apply realism another way; Manhattan may have survived (and never become evil) because of the best of human traits, but Manhattan is no longer human. His senses have been expanded in ways incomprehensible to us; plot points suggest that Manhattan no longer experiences time in a linear fashion and is experiencing all of the events of his life at once, and even if that's not wholly accurate, his viewpoint had completely changed from interpreting light waves to being able to perceive everything in between, and at a scale no human can match. A theory about the dangers of artificial intelligence is that a lot of people think that an evolving AI evolving past humanity means 'a very smart person building a fancier gun' if the AI turns hostile towards us. What is more likely based on our own evolution and the advantage it gives us over animals, goes the theory, is that to us, the AI would be using MAGIC, as we would as incapable of understanding what it was doing as the average animal is of understanding a gun. Manhattan is a god trapped within the framework of reference of a normal man, and unlike Superman, his senses are even more potent, and worse; he can't turn them off. While a lot of inhuman god types immediately swing towards misunderstood Nietzschean concepts, Manhattan perhaps manifests as a more realistic result; incapable of caring about anything. It eventually gets to the point where Manhattan, outside of public appearances, doesn't even wear clothes, walking around naked. He simply does not see any point in doing otherwise. To him, everything is the same. Equal. There is no more adventure in life. No discovery. Everything that is and will be is all for hin, all the time.
A tragedy...and at this point, human nature will make it worse.
This fact is what the third part of the triangle of Watchmen's plot revolves around; what would happen to the world if a superman (hell, a GOD) appeared...in the middle of the Cold War, his ascension having left him with no real desire to do much of anything himself because by the nature of his perception, he's already doing everything he will ever do all at the same time? While this is a sort of a plot device, one only has to try and apply realism to that degree of superhuman power (and the effects it would likely have on the mind) to realize that such a path is the most likely one such a world would take. If Watchmen had other superhumans with lesser powers, it would be a very different story. As it stands, it is an examination of what would drive people to be 'superheroes', what it would be like to really be powerful enough to make a difference, and how the world would respond.
Watchmen is not a world in a good state. While Manhattan's presence has had positive aspects (battery-run cars due to him being able to play philosopher's stone and synthesize rare elements easily, which means less pollution), the insane advantage he has given the United States in the Cold War has left the Soviet Union feeling cornered and angry. Considering studies show that each side of said Cold War (released after it ended) fully expected the other to wipe them out and that said other side would strike first, and with a literal godly being hanging over the Russians' head who could theoretically blunt if not completely neutralize their offensive efforts and aid the return fire to completely annihilate them, the Soviet Union is rapidly approaching the point of nothing left to lose, where pride twists into the insanity of M.A.D. The old saying went 'Better dead than red'; in Watchmen, it is more accurately 'better dead than impotent red' (It will not be the only point in the story that allegories about impotence will be made; heck, one of the most famous black comedies about the Cold War revolved around impotence). As a result, the Watchmen world (set in the mid 80's) is a world of passive fatalism, as most of society has concluded on some subconscious level that Manhattan's disruptive presence is eventually going to overturn the boat and cause everyone to drown. Its 'heroes' are either neutered and broken dolls, or black and white absolutists, with no agency to save anyone, let alone themselves. Its 'villain' might very well be its greatest hero, and the events that play out suggest that the world should just be grateful the costs were so low and that the villain was completely right. And that maybe it was all for nothing. Watchmen, as per one definition, is about failure.
And yet...
It's very easy to dismiss Watchmen as a purely cynical 'The world is fucking doomed because we're all fucking broken stupid apes' type of story; the elements that support that type of view are very strong. But what a lot of people tend to forget is that to see humanity at its best is not to always look at the Mother Teresas or the Oskar Schindlers of this world (as it is very easy to scratch the surface and discover their unfortunate traits, which has a weird effect on human brains where it will make them go 'They're not a saint, ergo they're nothing'), but to look at humanity at its absolute worst, and see where it still shines (The Christmas Truce is a good example). To dismiss Watchmen as wholly cynical nihilism is to ignore that the story is also about two damaged people finding each other, or a lunatic seeing what cast him in his form and holding back his more-than-justified urge to scratch the rage and hatred itch, even if just one time. It's to ignore a man looking into humanity at its most warped and lost, and despite being floored and metaphorically bloodied, refuse to let it change him for the worse, or a man finally realizing just how wrong his path has become and accepting the consequences of it. It's a man who's not a man who briefly remembers aspects of being a man. It's a man who in many ways has cut away everything for the sake of greater things realizing this does not mean he is no longer human (for better or for worse). Like Stan Lee's work, it is a story about human beings, at their very brightest and at their very worst, and all the myriad ways this intersects. Hell, the most prominent aspect of the story of about how complicated human beings are straddles the line between 'amazing' and 'horrible' so thoroughly that it might be impossible to tell which one it really is, beyond personal assessment. Watchmen is a dark work, it has many nasty elements, and it pulls out a few aspects of the enjoyment of comic book superheroes and shows up the things behind them we many not want to admit are there, but in the end, it's still the story of the sacrifices to try and save the world.
Hell, it even has some of the silliness, like the background minor plot point of the main character's issues with a robotic exo-suit he built (which ends in a joke so subtle most people probably need it pointed out to them), or the scene in a jail where one of the main characters is visited by The Big Figure, a crime boss in prison...and a midget. It wouldn't be out of place in any average comic about superheroes. Watchmen has its issues, but I would not consider it a wholly cynical work. It is deeply layered. It speaks of all aspects of the human condition. It is the human part of a 'super human' story (I may talk about a 'super' type later). It is, in my own opinion, be it ever so unimportant, Art.
A side note on art, while I'm here...
You cannot create art.
This opinion is about as valid as what I would consider a Jackson Pollock painting to be (as in, wholly arbitrary and personal), but this is my blog, so I'm going to write about it. I do not think Art can be created, at least not intentionally. Art just happens. Art just IS. All you can do is try and create a good work, maybe even a memorable work, and while I would normally suggest hoping for the best, in this case I think such things would be counterproductive. You cannot go into creating a work trying to make art, on any level. In my opinion, it will cause whatever artistic merit the work might have to ring false. And god knows there are enough 'artists' running around, radiating smugness and myopic arrogance about their brilliance, surrounded by sycophants and clueless hangers-on who might as well be calling a random messy room 'art', as they probably don't understand or trust themselves to try and figure out what art REALLY is. A person who does their best to craft a great work might create art. A narcissist in love with their talent can only produce works with no soul.
And hand in hand with the idea of trying to make 'art' is the idea of trying to create a work with a message. I believe such a thing falls under the same purview at art; it cannot be intentionally done without rendering the message less effective. Here, I turn to an old latin phrase I like: res ipsa loquitur, ie 'the thing itself speaks' (or 'the thing speaks for itself'); while technically a law term, I believe it also applies to virtually any argument or creative work. One should simply create a story and let any message come through organically; while it is true that there are cases where one cannot be subtle, I honestly believe they do more harm than good, especially to the message.
I took a jab at comic writer Judd Winick earlier, mainly because he's a prime example of someone being so enamored with his message he undercuts it. Winick's defining life moment of his early life was being a contestant on MTV's The Real World, where he became close friends with his roommate Pedro Zamora, a gay man afflicted with HIV which later developed to AIDS. Zamora would die less than six months after the show wrapped (and one day after the final episode of the filmed season aired). Winick would later write for DC Comics, and would place his experiences with Zamora (among other places) into his work on Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and just like with 'Hard Travellin' Heroes', it would not turn out well in the long run.
Winick's flaws, in the end, is the classic insecurity of not allowing a work to speak for itself. In Green Arrow, Winick would create the character of Mia Deardon, who would become the latest Speedy, and was also HIV positive. Fine by itself...except Winick would write Oliver Queen, a grown man, a millionaire crime fighter, who at this point in his life had actually died and come back to life, as utterly and completely clueless over what HIV and AIDS was when this was revealed (perhaps acceptable if this was written in the 80's or early 90's, but this was written in the mid-00's). Before that, Winick would write Green Lantern, where a secondary character and friend of the then-sole-Lantern, Kyle Raynor, would be revealed as gay, and several issues later become the victim of a vicious hate crime. Again, 'fine' by itself...except the assault (which Kyle would personally avenge) would affect Kyle so deeply that he would abandon Earth (his primary protective sphere, other heroes aside) and drift off into space, lost in his crushing shock and despair over the evils of humanity. While hate crimes are exceptionally vile, the fact that an experienced superhero (who had just briefly achieved godlike power and perception in a storyline just before the attack, and given it up) would be so deeply affected by it that he would basically wash his hands of his chosen heroic responsibility and wander off to try and 'make sense' of it all (never mind Kyle's other experiences as a hero by this point) is a bridge too far. While the human mind is complicated enough that the most arbitrary things can set it off, there is also the fact that Kyle was the secondary victim of the infamous event that created the 'Woman In Refrigerators' noted aspect of comics, and this was when he had just STARTED as a superhero, and that did not drive him to fly off to soul search slash brood. Kyle had not even gone through a series of events that the gay bashing could count as a 'last straw'; in fact, the immediate event before this was an act of rebirth and creation, as Raynor would begin the rebirth of the Green Lantern corps. Yet this attack drove Kyle into space, seeking answers for the great evils of humanity, and unable to face the world of his birth. All because of a hate crime.
Does this strike you as good storytelling? Or does it strike you as what Hard Travellin' Heroes was; clunky, a square peg being forced into a round hole? Winick would raise valid issues that deserve attention, but his writing would denote a fear that these issues would not be noticed unless they were shoved into the readers' face, and perhaps more irritatedly, if the main heroes of the work were not reduced to the author's mouthpiece in complete disregard for what their characters logically should be like. The stories could still be just as easily told without such character alteration, but Winick desired above all else to get the message across, and in doing so, he provoked equal parts annoyance to any understanding, which is the absolute worst reaction a message can receive. People do not like to be lectured, and they dislike being lead around even more. The worst thing you can do for a message, in the end, is to shove it in someone's face, or worse, do so under manipulative circumstances. There are many stories of people listening to organizations like D.A.R.E make presentations over drugs in a vein only a few steps below Reefer Madness, only for young people to later experiment with minor drugs, discover the immensely negative effects do not occur, and completely dismiss DARE's still-valid message in feeling they have been lied to. A message should speak for itself, and the best way for a message to speak is for it to naturally occur in the framework of a story. Attempting to push in a message will ultimately just damage both story and message, just as attempting to create art will just ensure you don't. Moore simply attempted to do his best to explore his idea and its layers, and he would create Art. He'd do pretty well on the Message front too.
He would also destroy comics, because as I have said repeatedly, the main thrust of these articles is that everyone has their own personal interpretation of things, and that many comic-book types are insistent, maybe even desperate, to prove they are not childish. In Watchmen, they finally got their golden egg from the goose. Watchmen was not only Art, but ADULT. It was not a story for children, and by the basis of what was to come, it was not a story for a lot of comic book fans either. Unfortunately, just like how Gordon Gecko inspired legions of people to get into stocks, and how Walter White from Breaking Bad would be admired and cheered on while his wife Skyler (a FAR more sympathetic and put upon character) would be reviled, many comic book fans, and writers, would embrace its 'adult' nature...while completely and utterly misunderstanding what the hell was 'adult' about it.
And in the way of addicts, they would decide what the comic book world needed was more of it.
A tragedy...and at this point, human nature will make it worse.
This fact is what the third part of the triangle of Watchmen's plot revolves around; what would happen to the world if a superman (hell, a GOD) appeared...in the middle of the Cold War, his ascension having left him with no real desire to do much of anything himself because by the nature of his perception, he's already doing everything he will ever do all at the same time? While this is a sort of a plot device, one only has to try and apply realism to that degree of superhuman power (and the effects it would likely have on the mind) to realize that such a path is the most likely one such a world would take. If Watchmen had other superhumans with lesser powers, it would be a very different story. As it stands, it is an examination of what would drive people to be 'superheroes', what it would be like to really be powerful enough to make a difference, and how the world would respond.
Watchmen is not a world in a good state. While Manhattan's presence has had positive aspects (battery-run cars due to him being able to play philosopher's stone and synthesize rare elements easily, which means less pollution), the insane advantage he has given the United States in the Cold War has left the Soviet Union feeling cornered and angry. Considering studies show that each side of said Cold War (released after it ended) fully expected the other to wipe them out and that said other side would strike first, and with a literal godly being hanging over the Russians' head who could theoretically blunt if not completely neutralize their offensive efforts and aid the return fire to completely annihilate them, the Soviet Union is rapidly approaching the point of nothing left to lose, where pride twists into the insanity of M.A.D. The old saying went 'Better dead than red'; in Watchmen, it is more accurately 'better dead than impotent red' (It will not be the only point in the story that allegories about impotence will be made; heck, one of the most famous black comedies about the Cold War revolved around impotence). As a result, the Watchmen world (set in the mid 80's) is a world of passive fatalism, as most of society has concluded on some subconscious level that Manhattan's disruptive presence is eventually going to overturn the boat and cause everyone to drown. Its 'heroes' are either neutered and broken dolls, or black and white absolutists, with no agency to save anyone, let alone themselves. Its 'villain' might very well be its greatest hero, and the events that play out suggest that the world should just be grateful the costs were so low and that the villain was completely right. And that maybe it was all for nothing. Watchmen, as per one definition, is about failure.
And yet...
It's very easy to dismiss Watchmen as a purely cynical 'The world is fucking doomed because we're all fucking broken stupid apes' type of story; the elements that support that type of view are very strong. But what a lot of people tend to forget is that to see humanity at its best is not to always look at the Mother Teresas or the Oskar Schindlers of this world (as it is very easy to scratch the surface and discover their unfortunate traits, which has a weird effect on human brains where it will make them go 'They're not a saint, ergo they're nothing'), but to look at humanity at its absolute worst, and see where it still shines (The Christmas Truce is a good example). To dismiss Watchmen as wholly cynical nihilism is to ignore that the story is also about two damaged people finding each other, or a lunatic seeing what cast him in his form and holding back his more-than-justified urge to scratch the rage and hatred itch, even if just one time. It's to ignore a man looking into humanity at its most warped and lost, and despite being floored and metaphorically bloodied, refuse to let it change him for the worse, or a man finally realizing just how wrong his path has become and accepting the consequences of it. It's a man who's not a man who briefly remembers aspects of being a man. It's a man who in many ways has cut away everything for the sake of greater things realizing this does not mean he is no longer human (for better or for worse). Like Stan Lee's work, it is a story about human beings, at their very brightest and at their very worst, and all the myriad ways this intersects. Hell, the most prominent aspect of the story of about how complicated human beings are straddles the line between 'amazing' and 'horrible' so thoroughly that it might be impossible to tell which one it really is, beyond personal assessment. Watchmen is a dark work, it has many nasty elements, and it pulls out a few aspects of the enjoyment of comic book superheroes and shows up the things behind them we many not want to admit are there, but in the end, it's still the story of the sacrifices to try and save the world.
Hell, it even has some of the silliness, like the background minor plot point of the main character's issues with a robotic exo-suit he built (which ends in a joke so subtle most people probably need it pointed out to them), or the scene in a jail where one of the main characters is visited by The Big Figure, a crime boss in prison...and a midget. It wouldn't be out of place in any average comic about superheroes. Watchmen has its issues, but I would not consider it a wholly cynical work. It is deeply layered. It speaks of all aspects of the human condition. It is the human part of a 'super human' story (I may talk about a 'super' type later). It is, in my own opinion, be it ever so unimportant, Art.
A side note on art, while I'm here...
You cannot create art.
This opinion is about as valid as what I would consider a Jackson Pollock painting to be (as in, wholly arbitrary and personal), but this is my blog, so I'm going to write about it. I do not think Art can be created, at least not intentionally. Art just happens. Art just IS. All you can do is try and create a good work, maybe even a memorable work, and while I would normally suggest hoping for the best, in this case I think such things would be counterproductive. You cannot go into creating a work trying to make art, on any level. In my opinion, it will cause whatever artistic merit the work might have to ring false. And god knows there are enough 'artists' running around, radiating smugness and myopic arrogance about their brilliance, surrounded by sycophants and clueless hangers-on who might as well be calling a random messy room 'art', as they probably don't understand or trust themselves to try and figure out what art REALLY is. A person who does their best to craft a great work might create art. A narcissist in love with their talent can only produce works with no soul.
And hand in hand with the idea of trying to make 'art' is the idea of trying to create a work with a message. I believe such a thing falls under the same purview at art; it cannot be intentionally done without rendering the message less effective. Here, I turn to an old latin phrase I like: res ipsa loquitur, ie 'the thing itself speaks' (or 'the thing speaks for itself'); while technically a law term, I believe it also applies to virtually any argument or creative work. One should simply create a story and let any message come through organically; while it is true that there are cases where one cannot be subtle, I honestly believe they do more harm than good, especially to the message.
I took a jab at comic writer Judd Winick earlier, mainly because he's a prime example of someone being so enamored with his message he undercuts it. Winick's defining life moment of his early life was being a contestant on MTV's The Real World, where he became close friends with his roommate Pedro Zamora, a gay man afflicted with HIV which later developed to AIDS. Zamora would die less than six months after the show wrapped (and one day after the final episode of the filmed season aired). Winick would later write for DC Comics, and would place his experiences with Zamora (among other places) into his work on Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and just like with 'Hard Travellin' Heroes', it would not turn out well in the long run.
Winick's flaws, in the end, is the classic insecurity of not allowing a work to speak for itself. In Green Arrow, Winick would create the character of Mia Deardon, who would become the latest Speedy, and was also HIV positive. Fine by itself...except Winick would write Oliver Queen, a grown man, a millionaire crime fighter, who at this point in his life had actually died and come back to life, as utterly and completely clueless over what HIV and AIDS was when this was revealed (perhaps acceptable if this was written in the 80's or early 90's, but this was written in the mid-00's). Before that, Winick would write Green Lantern, where a secondary character and friend of the then-sole-Lantern, Kyle Raynor, would be revealed as gay, and several issues later become the victim of a vicious hate crime. Again, 'fine' by itself...except the assault (which Kyle would personally avenge) would affect Kyle so deeply that he would abandon Earth (his primary protective sphere, other heroes aside) and drift off into space, lost in his crushing shock and despair over the evils of humanity. While hate crimes are exceptionally vile, the fact that an experienced superhero (who had just briefly achieved godlike power and perception in a storyline just before the attack, and given it up) would be so deeply affected by it that he would basically wash his hands of his chosen heroic responsibility and wander off to try and 'make sense' of it all (never mind Kyle's other experiences as a hero by this point) is a bridge too far. While the human mind is complicated enough that the most arbitrary things can set it off, there is also the fact that Kyle was the secondary victim of the infamous event that created the 'Woman In Refrigerators' noted aspect of comics, and this was when he had just STARTED as a superhero, and that did not drive him to fly off to soul search slash brood. Kyle had not even gone through a series of events that the gay bashing could count as a 'last straw'; in fact, the immediate event before this was an act of rebirth and creation, as Raynor would begin the rebirth of the Green Lantern corps. Yet this attack drove Kyle into space, seeking answers for the great evils of humanity, and unable to face the world of his birth. All because of a hate crime.
Does this strike you as good storytelling? Or does it strike you as what Hard Travellin' Heroes was; clunky, a square peg being forced into a round hole? Winick would raise valid issues that deserve attention, but his writing would denote a fear that these issues would not be noticed unless they were shoved into the readers' face, and perhaps more irritatedly, if the main heroes of the work were not reduced to the author's mouthpiece in complete disregard for what their characters logically should be like. The stories could still be just as easily told without such character alteration, but Winick desired above all else to get the message across, and in doing so, he provoked equal parts annoyance to any understanding, which is the absolute worst reaction a message can receive. People do not like to be lectured, and they dislike being lead around even more. The worst thing you can do for a message, in the end, is to shove it in someone's face, or worse, do so under manipulative circumstances. There are many stories of people listening to organizations like D.A.R.E make presentations over drugs in a vein only a few steps below Reefer Madness, only for young people to later experiment with minor drugs, discover the immensely negative effects do not occur, and completely dismiss DARE's still-valid message in feeling they have been lied to. A message should speak for itself, and the best way for a message to speak is for it to naturally occur in the framework of a story. Attempting to push in a message will ultimately just damage both story and message, just as attempting to create art will just ensure you don't. Moore simply attempted to do his best to explore his idea and its layers, and he would create Art. He'd do pretty well on the Message front too.
He would also destroy comics, because as I have said repeatedly, the main thrust of these articles is that everyone has their own personal interpretation of things, and that many comic-book types are insistent, maybe even desperate, to prove they are not childish. In Watchmen, they finally got their golden egg from the goose. Watchmen was not only Art, but ADULT. It was not a story for children, and by the basis of what was to come, it was not a story for a lot of comic book fans either. Unfortunately, just like how Gordon Gecko inspired legions of people to get into stocks, and how Walter White from Breaking Bad would be admired and cheered on while his wife Skyler (a FAR more sympathetic and put upon character) would be reviled, many comic book fans, and writers, would embrace its 'adult' nature...while completely and utterly misunderstanding what the hell was 'adult' about it.
And in the way of addicts, they would decide what the comic book world needed was more of it.
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| In reality, this is much more what comics needed. Both the character, and many people needing a giant fist to be applied to some part of their bodies. |
The worst part is, even if done well...the concept was doomed to begin with. In the final column on Watchmen, how it tainted comics and how, just like Gecko and White, why so many people couldn't even begin to grasp why taking anything from Watchmen was a bad idea.
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