The social origins(and likely political leanings) of Marvel superheroes

[ShadowBoxing]

One of the worst sweeping changes to a character's personality in recent memory, if you ask me.

Yeah.

 

[DoomJester]

The social origins of a character like Iron Man or Batman run far deeper than a represenation of capitalism. They resonate with two very American, very Western ideas: 1) the white man as teacher and leader of the world, "rugged individualism," the Tarzan idea; 2) the wealthy man as protector of the poor.

The first idea is most well known in its Tarzan manifestation. A white man conquers the harsh jungle, much better than the natives ever had, and rules over it wisely and well. It tapped into a popular cultural belief at the time, which was that white people had a responsibility to spread their civilization all over the world (an idea that still pervades American foreign and corporate policy today.)

The second idea is one that goes all the way back to the feudal system. The wealthy were obliged to protect their serfs. Later, noblesse oblige dictated that the wealthy extend nominal charity and protection to the poor. This condescending attitude shaped how the wealthy behave in Western society, and has also played a major role in ensuring that the status quo of extreme disparity between rich and poor is maintained.

These are very apparent in Iron Man. He represents white wealthy America, and his very origin story took place in one of the most heinous historical examples of white wealthy America trying to spread its ideology. And, of course, like Batman and Zorro and many others before him, he easily fits into the concept of the wealthy protector of the weak and poor.

The comment that you made about Batman is interesting because in a paper I wrote I argued that Batman... how do I say this... has a lot of latent themes concerning class warfare. The argument I was given, which I tend to believe is that Batman is really a commentary against the city. His protection of the city in many ways serves to denigrate the city (simply because the city is a violent place that someone has to clean up). So I don't believe in this sense Batman is protecting the poor, he is more containing them!

Not every act of protecting a city denigrates it, but Batman's does. And it does because Batman... is Bruce Wayne (his alter identity). Bruce/Batman comes from outside the city, his home in Wayne Manor, away from that life. He comes and descends into the seedy underbelly as though he is one of its inhabitants that just so happens to be good. His use of the secret identity is telling because it allows him to protect a largely white, upper-class identity from a lot of the crime and also ethnicity that occurs in the city. The competition of the city is a corruptive type of competition as well that is mainly thieving from people... And Batman puts on this mask and adopts the city identity to protect the suburban, wealthy, white identity from that aspect of the city. And if you look at Bob Kane's life, and the abuse he suffered as a child from the city, this becomes a lot more probable.

I think that it is different from what Superman does (since Action Comics). A comparison between the two characters in that sense is very appropriate (I don't normally believe Superman and Batman deserve comparing, but in this case they do).

Now, please, keep in mind that Batman reads like a fuzzy document. It has been in the hands of many writers over-time. I don't believe there is a memo in DC floating around saying what I said earlier, or mandating that Batman has these biases. You won't find that. I'm not saying he is prima-facie a character about class-warfare or anything like that. Just that these are some predominant themes that are latent in the character.

Frank Miller ran with the themes in DKR, though with one or two (troubling?) modifications... some writers write these things and they don't realize what they are saying... or at least some of the assumptions behind it. Some do and try and change it... So expect that you will find some stories that don't quite mesh with the thesis, and some that directly contradict it. But the core of the character, his early and early formative status, works strongly with the idea of class warfare and anti-city.

It is an interesting way to look at Batman, and it is one that has a lot of explanatory power. I mean, it is something that you could talk for a long time on, going back and forth on assumptions to be made and thrown out, but it is quite interesting.

 

[The Question]

The comment that you made about Batman is interesting because in a paper I wrote I argued that Batman... how do I say this... has a lot of latent themes concerning class warfare. The argument I was given, which I tend to believe is that Batman is really a commentary against the city. His protection of the city in many ways serves to denigrate the city (simply because the city is a violent place that someone has to clean up). So I don't believe in this sense Batman is protecting the poor, he is more containing them!

Not every act of protecting a city denigrates it, but Batman's does. And it does because Batman... is Bruce Wayne (his alter identity). Bruce/Batman comes from outside the city, his home in Wayne Manor, away from that life. He comes and descends into the seedy underbelly as though he is one of its inhabitants that just so happens to be good. His use of the secret identity is telling because it allows him to protect a largely white, upper-class identity from a lot of the crime and also ethnicity that occurs in the city. The competition of the city is a corruptive type of competition as well that is mainly thieving from people... And Batman puts on this mask and adopts the city identity to protect the suburban, wealthy, white identity from that aspect of the city. And if you look at Bob Kane's life, and the abuse he suffered as a child from the city, this becomes a lot more probable.

I think that it is different from what Superman does (since Action Comics). A comparison between the two characters in that sense is very appropriate (I don't normally believe Superman and Batman deserve comparing, but in this case they do).

Now, please, keep in mind that Batman reads like a fuzzy document. It has been in the hands of many writers over-time. I don't believe there is a memo in DC floating around saying what I said earlier, or mandating that Batman has these biases. You won't find that. I'm not saying he is prima-facie a character about class-warfare or anything like that. Just that these are some predominant themes that are latent in the character.

Frank Miller ran with the themes in DKR, though with one or two (troubling?) modifications... some writers write these things and they don't realize what they are saying... or at least some of the assumptions behind it. Some do and try and change it... So expect that you will find some stories that don't quite mesh with the thesis, and some that directly contradict it. But the core of the character, his early and early formative status, works strongly with the idea of class warfare and anti-city.

It is an interesting way to look at Batman, and it is one that has a lot of explanatory power. I mean, it is something that you could talk for a long time on, going back and forth on assumptions to be made and thrown out, but it is quite interesting.

That's an interesting look. Especially when you take into account that The Joker, who is very often portrayed as a dark reflection of Batman, is almost always shown to have had a very poor upbringing.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Batman actually these days seems to have a lot more respect for the poor and downtrodden than the middle class or upper class. Look at Batman: Year One, where he eventually descends upon the rich and powerful of Gotham to inform them "their feast (on Gotham's poor) is over". Or you could go onto to look at the Killing Joker where Batman reveals, even after the attack on Barbara Gordon, Batman still has compassion to help the Joker because he knows he is not the Joker by choice, but by the harsh nature of his own upbringing.

 

[Anubis]

Harsh nature of his upbringing? Funny, I thought he was a nut because of the chemicals and his dead wife and unborn child.

 

[The Question]

Harsh nature of his upbringing? Funny, I thought he was a nut because of the chemicals and his dead wife and unborn child.

Well, it was plain to see that his life was hardly roses before his wife died.

 

[Anubis]

True, but I'm willing to bet he wouldn't have become a mass murderer if it wasn't for his dead wife and unborn child and that dip in those chemicals courtesy of the caped crusader.

 

[fifthfiend]

Reed Richards: Originally Reed seemed staunchly liberal. Freeing Hulk from trail, speaking out for the rights of mutants, and even risking himself to defend the right to allow Galactus, a walking tyrant, to avoid the Universe's version of the death penalty, facing that fate himself. Now however they have rewritten him to be almost a "political logicist" (or whatever), being informed by logic and math in political decisions rather than the big heart he was known for before.

Speaking totally tangental to the actual subject and probably not the first person to say it but I think what most irritates me about Reed's "Math predicts EVERYTHING!" thing he's got going on nowadays is, setting aside its relative plausibility as applied to anything like the world we know, as applied to anything like Earth 616 it's just flat-out ******ed.

I mean I can maybe, maybe see where at least hypothetically speaking totally smart guy might be able to work out that global policy trend X is going to lead to reaction Y which causes armed uprising Z, if you set aside all the reasons why that would never work at all. But throw something like that onto a world which at any given moment is liable to be eaten by a hungry space god, caught in the crossfire of an intergalactic war, have it's present wiped out by a time traveler from the future changing events from 20 years ago or have the very fabric of the reality on which it rests utterly rewritten by the two ****ing dozen omnipotent beings who hang out there, one of which is Reed's own goddamn son, who are you trying to kid you're going to solve that **** with calculus? What kind of silly-ass good is the SHRA gonna do when a week later the Phoenix could decide she's done being dead and make everybody in the whole damn world an atomic-powered superman?

Take together MU Earth's population of superheroes, mutants, gods, monsters, super-scientists, time travelers, megalomaniacs and every other damn thing and you have collectively maybe a million totally different fundamentally unquantifiable variables that make anything like "futurism" a ridiculous parody of a joke.

 

[fifthfiend]

The comment that you made about Batman is interesting because in a paper I wrote I argued that Batman... how do I say this... has a lot of latent themes concerning class warfare. The argument I was given, which I tend to believe is that Batman is really a commentary against the city. His protection of the city in many ways serves to denigrate the city (simply because the city is a violent place that someone has to clean up). So I don't believe in this sense Batman is protecting the poor, he is more containing them!

I've always found it interesting how many of the crimes Batman thwarts are of the "screaming maniacs with guns break into a high-society gala" variety.

 

[MaskedManJRK]

Batman actually these days seems to have a lot more respect for the poor and downtrodden than the middle class or upper class. Look at Batman: Year One, where he eventually descends upon the rich and powerful of Gotham to inform them "their feast (on Gotham's poor) is over". Or you could go onto to look at the Killing Joker where Batman reveals, even after the attack on Barbara Gordon, Batman still has compassion to help the Joker because he knows he is not the Joker by choice, but by the harsh nature of his own upbringing.

I think the seed of this can also be attributed to Thomas Wayne. In current continuity, I believe that it's said that he's a wealthy doctor who did a lot to help the city with charity funds and such--so in that interpetation, it can be said that Batman is less "anti-city" and more a man picking up where his father left off in a bit more "theatrical" manner.

 

[Varient]

[American Reporter] "So,... Doctor Doom,.... What is YOUR political Party?"
(Doom looks up from picking from the live Suishi bar)
[Doom] "Exactly."
(Dumbfounded,... The reporter starts in surprise as a minion firmly takes him by the elbow and steers him back to the other idiots foolish enough to enter the Lavertian Embassy)
[Minion Whispering quickly] "FOOL! My Lord DOOM is THE ONLY PARTY!"

V.

 

[fifthfiend]

Doom's political philosophy is something like an absolute monarch except instead of "because God wills it" as a justification he just goes with "because I'm Doctor ****ing Doom and I say so."

 

[DoomJester]

Harsh nature of his upbringing? Funny, I thought he was a nut because of the chemicals and his dead wife and unborn child.

I don't know what the retcons have done to The Killing Joke, but my understanding was that not even Joker knew if this was the case or not, that the origins of Joker are in the air still.

 

[Xofenroht]

I think the only way to look at these characters and get a true understanding of their social origins is to consider the time in which they were created and then apply that to what goes on in our world today (not to mention how that is reflected in each of their respective titles.)
In a lot of the classes I've taken, where we analyze literature, one common thing that our professors tell us to look out for is projecting our own feelings on to characters. For instance, determining the political leaning of a certain character (without them actually saying it, which they wouldn't, because they'd alienate readers) has a lot to do with how we perceive people within that particular party or social standing.
I really don't think that the super heroes themselves hold any particular political stance.

They're all (generally) fighting for what they believe is the greater good. For them to put their faith in a politician would be for them to contradict their own presence as super heroes. Most super heroes are above the law and I can't think of a single title I've read where the government's actions aren't called into question right along with the actions of the civilians they serve.

 

[Fantasyartist]

Apropos of "paternalistic" and "noblesse oblige" charges levied against Tony Stark/ Iron Man and Bruce Wayne/Batman, this is probably true, but even so it's NOT necessarily a bad thing(at least in its past time). Remember that social and moral teaching(at least of my own denomination) encourages those who have been blessed with material good fortune to "give back" to the less fortunate( it is worth noticing that Stark Industries/ Enterprises has been socially conscious towards minorities and the environment long before these issues were fashionable, according to Tony Stark himself in a conversation with Roxie Gilbert in Iron Man#83).
Any way it's NOT so much a sin to be rich as long as you use it responsibly ( pace Drew Barrymore giving $1 million to African famine relief as opposed to Paris Hilton's hedonistic ways!)

Terry

 

[bored]

Well, it was plain to see that his life was hardly roses before his wife died.

No, but he wasn't bad. He turned to petty crime out of desperation.