The Superhero Symbol

Media, Culture, and Politics

Liam Burke, Ian Gordon, Angela Ndalianis

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780813597164
• eBook ISBN: 9780813597188
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

"As a man, I'm flesh and blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed; but as a symbol... as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting". In the 2005 reboot of the Batman film franchise, Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne articulates how the figure of the superhero can serve as a transcendent icon.It is hard to imagine a time when superheroes have been more pervasive in our culture. Today, superheroes are intellectual property jealously guarded by media conglomerates, icons co-opted by grassroots groups as a four-color rebuttal to social inequities, masks people wear to more confidently walk convention floors and city streets, and bulletproof banners that embody regional and national identities. From activism to cosplay, this collection unmasks the symbolic function of superheroes.Bringing together superhero scholars from a range of disciplines, alongside key industry figures such as Harley Quinn co-creator Paul Dini, The Superhero Symbol provides fresh perspectives on how characters like Captain America, Iron Man, and Wonder Woman have engaged with media, culture, and politics, to become the "everlasting" symbols to which a young Bruce Wayne once aspired.

Part 1

Superheroes, Politics, and Civic Engagement

1

“What Else Can You Do with Them?”

Superheroes and the Civic Imagination

HENRY JENKINS

In his comic book Astro City, writer Kurt Busiek asks, “If a superhero can be such a powerful and effective metaphor for male adolescents, then what else can we do with them?”¹ Busiek rejects the premise that the superhero saga suffers from genre exhaustion,² proposing other allegories to explore: “Could you build a superhero story around the metaphor of female adolescence? Around mid-life crisis? Around the changes adults go through when they become parents? Sure, why not? And if a superhero could exemplify America’s self-image at the dawn of World War II, could a superhero exemplify America’s self-image during the less-confident 1970s? How about the emerging national identity of a newly independent African nation? Or a non-national culture, like the drug culture, or the ‘greed-is-good’ business culture of the go-go Eighties? Of course. If it can do one, it can do the others.”³ This chapter asks what superheroes can stand for, seeking to identify what political meanings they can carry in contemporary culture. Around the world, activists, struggling for immigrant rights, battling rape culture, questioning the police state, or condemning wealth inequality, deploy superhero iconography and mythology. Superheroes are now a vital element in our collective civic imaginations. Before they can change the world, civic agents need to imagine what a better world might look like: they need to believe that change is possible; they need to see themselves as capable of making change; and they need to develop a sense of solidarity with others whose experiences differ from their own. The civic imagination describes the shared mental constructs that inspire social and political change.

Recent research on participatory politics suggests that today’s civic imagination is being fueled by popular culture, especially among youths.⁴ Historically mass-media superheroes have been understood as speaking to an audience largely of white males from the West, but within this expanded space of the civic imagination, others also desire heroic narratives that they can share with their children. Busiek’s question animates this chapter: what else can society do with superheroes?

Origin Story

In On the Origin of Superheroes, Chris Gavaler traces several cultural streams that merged around this popular icon, suggesting that the debates that shaped the superhero genre took root well before the launch of Superman and Batman in the 1930s.⁵ Gavaler links superheroes to the mythology of Guy Fawkes within British radical politics. Gavaler also sees early signs of superhero mythology in the figure of Robin Hood, who directly inspires DC’s Green Arrow character. This trajectory of rebel leader to superhero leads from swashbucklers—the Man in the Iron Mask and the Scarlet Pimpernel—through to the masked avenger figures—Zorro or the Shadow—in early pulp novels. Keep in mind that in the most repeated version of his origin story, Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed coming out of a cinema screening of The Mark of Zorro, DC’s acknowledgment of the influence of this earlier protagonist. Gavaler summarizes this trajectory: “When God retired from politics, Superman claimed the empty throne.… Even when the star-spangled warriors of World War II fought for democracy, they never represented it. Peel back Captain America’s flag costume and you find Guy Fawkes and Oliver Cromwell, revolutionary radicals championing their own self-defined liberty. Today we call them terrorists.”⁶ With great power comes great responsibility, but who defines the superhero’s responsibility and acceptable tactics?

The superhero genre allows a broad ethical range. The original Superman was described as “champion of the oppressed, the physical Marvel who has sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need.”⁷ In these early stories Superman is accountable only to his own conscience: he protects women against abusive spouses, mine workers against exploitative owners, and the public against corrupt politicians. By the time America entered World War II Superman was waging “a never ending fight for truth, justice, and the American way!”⁸ Thomas Andrea tells us, “[As of this period] Superman no longer operates outside the law but is made an honorary policeman.… His struggle against evil becomes confined to the defense of private property and extermination of criminals; it is no longer a struggle against social injustice, and attempts to aid helpless and the oppressed.”⁹ His powers are frightening as he is an alien with unknown loyalties, therefore Superman must become an establishment figure.

And it is in this role that he and other supermen in capes performed as professional mourners in the wake of 9/11.¹⁰ In one poster from the period Superman stands before the burning towers, clutching a tattered Star-Spangled Banner as he weeps for America’s lost innocence. As DC and Marvel artists confronted the traumas surrounding the terrorist attack, the publishers’ most iconic figures—Superman in the case of DC, Captain America in the case of Marvel—were often depicted paying tribute to the first responders, these mighty men now subordinate to both local and national authorities. Strikingly, post-9/11 superheroes did not punch America’s overseas enemies, as they might have during World War II, but stood against domestic intolerance, suggesting a different model for the American way. Questioning what it means to be an American hero ultimately led Superman to denounce his American citizenship and fight, at least briefly, on behalf of the United Nations.¹¹

In The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics, Ramzi Fawaz reclaims the radical potential of the superhero genre, suggesting the ways that the superheroes of the 1960s and 1970s embraced countercultural identity politics. Fawaz writes, “The superhero comic book expanded who got counted as legitimately human within liberal thought by valuing those bodies that were commonly excluded from liberal citizenship, including gender and sexual outlaws, racial minorities, and the disabled.… [It also suggested] a need for a political common ground that would bind people across multiple identities and loyalties.”¹² As Fawaz notes, the X-Men and other Marvel mutants often operated as multifunctional metaphors for those who felt excluded from the American mainstream. But DC during this period also provided narratives where Green Arrow and Green Lantern, embodying different ideological perspectives, set off on the road together to better understand America during this tumultuous time. In one key story an angry black man confronts Green Lantern: “I’ve been reading about you.… How you work for the blue skins.… And how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins.… And you done considerable for the purple skins! Only there are skins you never bothered with.… The black skins! I want to know how come?!”¹³ Recall that other iconic narrative about setting out in search of America—Easy Rider (1969)—that paid tribute to the superhero stories by nicknaming Peter Fonda’s iconic red, white, and blue chopper “Captain America.”

Superheroes have accumulated conflicting meanings since their conception, whether they were understood as championing the oppressed or performing policing functions. Their individualism created a tension within a democratic culture, where they either must apply their own standards or accept subordination to the public will. Superheroes perform these duties most explicitly during times of national crisis, such as World War II or 9/11. Stories may expose these political tensions, or the narrative could mask them as the characters choose how to apply their power within particular tales.

Figure 1.1. Like other superheroes, Superman served as a professional mourner in the wake of 9/11. DC Comics.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: “Everlasting” Symbols
• Part 1: Superheroes, Politics, and Civic Engagement
• Part 2: The Superhero as Brand
• Part 3: Becoming the Superhero
• Part 4: Superheroes and National Identity
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Contributors
• Index