The Superhero Reader

by Worcester, Kent, Hatfield, Charles, Heer, Jeet

  The superhero genre’s emphasis on branching and multiplying “continuities” may appear highly specialized and inward-turning. The proliferation of alternate worlds speaks to the extreme self-awareness of the genre and its fans, and is thus another aspect of the almost overbearing sense of tradition also charted by Klock. At this point the genre may seem well nigh hermetic. Scott Bukatman, however, in “A Song of the Urban Superhero,” reminds us how powerfully the genre reflects the dreams and realities of twentieth-century urban life. According to Bukatman—and here he extends Reynolds—superheroes belong to the modern City, indeed are “vehicles of urban representation,” acting out the City’s utopian and dystopian possibilities. In their flamboyance and mobility across the cityscape, in their panoptic vision (from above) and defiance of urban order and rationalization, and yet too in the anonymity of their “secret identities”—an anonymity that confers a type of freedom—superheroes mythologize what the City is, and what it makes possible. Bukatman’s free-ranging, very personal argument, a lattice of unexpected references and connections, unites the social and political perspectives of earlier critics with fandom’s deep knowledge of the genre, finding a new relevance by simultaneously digging in and looking outward, to phenomena beyond the boundaries of the genre narrowly conceived. Everything from ideology, commerce, fashion, architecture, and the history of communications media (newspapers, comics) becomes part of Bukatman’s web. The challenge of theorizing the superhero as genre is met precisely here, as Bukatman reveals a fan’s passion for and minute knowledge of the tradition, yet places all this within a much larger cultural matrix, where ideology and aesthetics are indissolubly linked and where pleasure and skepticism collide.

  Literary Formulas

  JOHN G. CAWELTI

  Reprinted by permission from John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (University of Chicago Press, 1977), 39–41.

  THE CENTRAL FANTASY OF THE ADVENTURE STORY IS THAT OF THE HERO—INDIvidual or group—overcoming obstacles and dangers and accomplishing some important and moral mission. Often, though not always, the hero’s trials are the result of the machinations of a villain, and, in addition, the hero frequently receives, as a kind of side benefit, the favors of one or more attractive young ladies. The interplay with the villain and the erotic interests served by attendant damsels are more in the nature of frosting on the cake. The true focus of interest in the adventure story is the character of the hero and the nature of the obstacles he has to overcome. This is the simplest and perhaps the oldest and widest in appeal of all story types. It can clearly be traced back to the myths and epics of earliest times and has been cultivated in some form or other by almost every human society.

  At least on the surface, the appeal of this form is obvious. It presents a character, with whom the audience identifies, passing through the most frightening perils to achieve some triumph. Perhaps the basic moral fantasy implicit in this type of story is that of victory over death, though there are also all kinds of subsidiary triumphs available depending on the particular cultural materials employed: the triumph over injustice and the threat of lawlessness in the western; the saving of the nation in the spy story; the overcoming of fear and the defeat of the enemy in the combat story. While the specific characterization of the hero depends on the cultural motifs and themes that are embodied in any specific adventure formula, there are in general two primary ways in which the hero can be characterized: as a superhero with exceptional strength or ability or as “one of us,” a figure marked, at least at the beginning of the story, by flawed abilities and attitudes presumably shared by the audience.

  Both of these methods of characterization foster strong, but slightly different, ties of identification between hero and audience. In the case of the superhero, the principle of identification is like that between child and parent and involves the complex feelings of envious submission and ambiguous love characteristic of that relationship. This kind of treatment of the hero is most characteristic of the adventure stories constructed for children and young people. The superhero also frequently embodies the most blatant kind of sexual symbolism. More sophisticated adults generally prefer the “ordinary” hero figure who is dominant in the fictions of those who are usually considered the best writers of “grown-up” adventure stories such as H. Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson, or, to take a more recent example, Alistair MacLean. Some of the most popular writers of this type have managed to combine the superhero with a certain degree of sophistication as in the James Bond adventures of Ian Fleming.

  Beyond the two general adventure patterns of the superhero and the ordinary hero, specific adventure formulas can be categorized in terms of the location and nature of the hero’s adventures. This seems to vary considerably from culture to culture, presumably in relation to those activities that different periods and cultures see as embodying a combination of danger, significance, and interest. New periods seem to generate new adventure formulas while to some extent still holding on to earlier modes. Adventure situations that seem too distant either in time or in space tend to drop out of the current catalog of adventure formulas or to pass into another area of the culture. Thus, tales of knightly adventure, still widely popular in the nineteenth century, no longer play much of a role in adult adventure literature. More recent cultural situations—crime and its pursuit, war, the West, international espionage, sports—have largely usurped the battle with dragons and the quest for the grail.

  Crowds of Superheroes

  ROBERT JEWETT AND JOHN SHELTON LAWRENCE

  Reprinted by permission from Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence, The Myth of the American Superhero (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002), 43-47.

  FOLLOWING THE PHENOMENAL SUCCESS OF SUPERMAN COMICS IN 1938, THE axial decade closed with a proliferation of superheroes. The masks, uniforms, miraculous powers, and secret alter egos combine with sexual renunciation and segmentation to complete the formation of the monomythic hero. Batman, Sandman, Hawkman, and The Spirit all sprang to life in 1939; Flash, The Green Lantern, The Shield, Captain Marvel, and White Streak followed in 1940; and Sub-Mariner, Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, and Captain America were born the following year. [Jewett and Lawrence are not quite accurate here: The Spirit (star of a weekly newspaper insert) launched in June 1940; both Hawkman and the Flash began in Flash Comics No. 1, cover-dated Jan. 1940; and the Sub-Mariner first appeared in Marvel Comics No. 1, cover-dated Oct. 1939 (or, for sticklers, in the undistributed Motion Picture Funnies Weekly No. 1, 1939). The obscure White Streak is perhaps an odd example, having appeared only in Target Comics (Novelty Press) in issues cover-dated from Feb. 1940 to Dec. 1941.—eds.] The opening captions of these comic superhero tales reveal the degree to which the monomythic definition of mission, character, and powers was permanently crystallized by the axial decade.

  The first episode of Batman in May 1939 introduces the disguised isolate as “a mysterious and adventurous figure fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrongdoers, in his lone battle against the evil forces of society … his identity remains unknown.”1 The initial issue of Captain Marvel comics announces itself in these monomythic terms: “Whiz Comics proudly presents THE WORLD’S MIGHTIEST MAN—POWERFUL CHAMPION OF JUSTICE—RELENTLESS ENEMY OF EVIL.” In the story, Billy Batson is confronted by a divine personage looking suspiciously like the “Ancient of Days” in old Sunday school material. “All my life,” the figure says, “I have fought injustice and cruelty. But I am old now—my time is almost up. You shall be my successor merely by speaking my name. You can become the mightiest man in the world—Captain Marvel. Shazam! Blam! Captain Marvel, I salute you. Henceforth it shall be your sacred duty to defend the poor and helpless, right wrongs and crush evil everywhere.”2 Thus a new superhero takes up the redemptive task from a senile religious symbol, offering for the fantasy life of every schoolboy an opportunity to be transformed by a magic word into the all-powerful redeemer.

  The connec
tion of these superhero materials with the American religious heritage illustrates the displacement of the story of redemption. Only in a culture preoccupied for centuries with the question of salvation is the appearance of redemption through superheroes comprehensible. The secularization process in this instance did not eliminate the need for redemption, as the Enlightenment had attempted to do, but rather displaces it with superhuman agencies. Powers that the culture had earlier reserved for God and his angelic beings are transferred to an Everyman, conveniently shielded by an alter ego. Even the most explicit references to the mythology of the ancient world are conditioned by this new superhero paradigm. This can be documented in materials created long after the axial decade. The television version of the goddess Isis began in 1975 with these mysterious-sounding lines:

  “O mighty queen,” said the royal sorceress, “with this amulet you and your descendants are endowed by the goddess Isis with the powers of the animals and the elements. You will soar as the falcon soars, run with the speed of gazelles, and command the elements of sky and earth.”

  But as the narrator extends the context, it is clearly the familiar redemption scheme with a segmented superheroine in disguise.

  Three thousand years later a young science teacher dug up this lost treasure and found she was heir to the secrets of Isis. And so, unknown to even her closest friends … became a dual person—Andrea Thomas—teacher—and Isis—dedicated foe of evil, defender of the weak, champion of truth and justice.3

  The references to ancient gods and amulets may sound archaic to some, but the format was shaped during the axial decade of the twentieth century.

  As the superhero genre was elaborated in the years following the axial decade, the displacement of traditional religious symbols was frequently articulated. An issue of Flash from August 1971 seems archetypical: a gang of urban thugs has taken over a church to store and divide their loot; when the faithful nuns pray for relief, one of their oppressors pours scorn on the thought of divine intervention.

  “Haw! Whatcha doin’? Askin’ your own top man to help you? No way! Nothin’s gonna stop us from keepin’ this loot!”

  The gang then accuses the nun’s brother of being an informer. Flash arrives just in time to save him from death as they throw him off the roof of a tall building. The boy decides to go straight, but the chief has hidden the loot. The boy confides his problem to Sister Anne, who says that she will pray for help. Flash overhears the conversation and comments: “There’s only one way of quickly finding that hidden loot … and that’s scientifically!” The superhero becomes a rapidly moving radar unit, systematically projecting grids over the city and searching until he finds the cave where the loot is hidden. He saves the young informer and his girlfriend from retaliation by secretly warding off hostile bullets and making clubs disintegrate while increasing the strength of the good guy’s fists. After triumphing over the crooks, the young man tells his girlfriend, “Might makes right!” The nuns get control of their church again, the juvenile delinquents are reformed, and, as Vic recounts the events, “It all seems like a miracle!” Barry Allen, alias Flash, mutters to himself, “Made possible by the miracle of superspeed!”

  In the final scene, Sister Anne expresses her thanks to God for deliverance. As Barry acknowledges that it has been “a kind of miracle,” the caption reads: “Perhaps, Barry—but to those who believe, ‘the moment of a miracle is like unending lightning.’” The miraculous intervention of the modern superhero has confirmed the faith of the naïve sister. She thinks God still works in mysterious ways, and if this story is right, he does—through the jet-age counterpart of the Lone Ranger’s speedy horse.4 The superheroes thus provide a secular fulfillment of the religious promise articulated in the endings of The Birth of a Nation and The Virginian. They cut Gordian knots, lift the siege of evil, and restore the Edenic state of perfect faith and perfect peace. It is a millennial, religious expectation—at least in origin—yet it is fulfilled by secular agents. The premise of democratic equality is visible in that superhuman powers have to be projected onto ordinary citizens, yet their transformation into superheroes renders them incapable of democratic citizenship. Moreover, total power must be pictured as totally benign, transmuting lawless vigilantism into a perfect embodiment of law enforcement. That such fantasies suddenly became credible in the popular culture is the abiding legacy of the axial decade. Although they had not yet appeared in the minds of their creators, the parameters for Kirk and Spock, Dirty Harry, Rambo, and the Steven Seagal characters were already defined. They were ready to play out their roles of redeeming the American Dream, along with their nonviolent cohorts from Heidi and Mary Poppins to Lassie and Flipper. All that remained was for the subplots to vary and the scenes to change. Henceforth, materials for mass audiences would have to undergo a kind of mythic alchemy to fit the new monomythic consciousness. A story paradigm as potent as Hercules or Odysseus had been born, spawning its offspring in a popular culture that would soon encircle the world. It would not be long before the American monomyth became a subculture of Planet Earth, managing especially the consciousness of youth and adults, evoking a wide array of imitative behaviors.

  By the end of the axial decade, a new mystical consciousness shaped by the American monomyth was already emerging. E. E. Smith’s vivid description of the mindset at the end of the axial decade is equally applicable today. Asked to define the meaning of the First International Science Fiction Convention for its participants in 1940, he did so in terms that are disarmingly religious:

  What brings us together and underlies this convention is a fundamental unity of mind. We are imaginative, with a tempered, analytical imagination which fairy tales will not satisfy. … Science fiction fans form a group unparalleled in history, in our close-knit … organization, in our strong likes and dislikes, in our partisanship and loyalties … there is a depth of satisfaction, a height of fellowship which no one who has never experienced it can even partially understand.5

  Although Smith felt that science fiction fans would never comprise more than a fraction of the population, and that outsiders would have trouble grasping the basis of their fervor, the attitude of credulity and the yearning for fantasy redemption were already visible within the widespread audience for monomythic entertainments. A revolution in spiritual consciousness was underway, allowing for the emergence of formal and informal pop religions in which the various superheroic rites could be conducted. Fandom began to emerge as a new form of religious community, and in the alter ego feature of the superhero fantasies every worshiper could become a god.

  NOTES

  1. Jules Feiffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes (New York: Bonanza Books, 1965), 26; italics omitted.

  2. Ibid, 68; some caps omitted.

  3. “Shazam-Isis,” CBS (November 1975).

  4. Flash Comics #208, August 1971.

  5. E. E. Smith, “What Does This Convention Mean?” in All Our Yesterdays: An Informal History of Science Fiction Fandom in the Forties, ed. H. Warner, Jr. (Chicago: Advent, 1969), 96.

  The Epic Hero and Pop Culture

  ROGER B. ROLLIN

  Sections I–III and V of Rollin’s essay are reprinted by permission of the National Council of Teachers of English from College English, Vol. 31, no. 5 (February 1970), 431–449.

  The student’s unmediated responses are to his comic books and television programs, while his response to Macbeth has every conceivable kind of inhibition attached to it.

  NORTHROP FRYE

  MANY A TEACHER OF ENGLISH VIEWS WITH TREPIDATION THE PROSPECT OF INtroducing members of the present student generation to the study of Beowulf, The Faerie Queene, or Paradise Lost. The poems themselves have always posed enough scholarly and critical problems to make teaching them a problem, but nowadays the students themselves seem to make that pedagogy still more difficult. Many of them, more than is sometimes realized, are deeply concerned about the race problem in America or are involved in it, have fought in Vietnam or fought going there, have dem
onstrated against the brutality of police or of college administrators, have been actively engaged in politics or social work, have complained about their education’s lack of relevance, or have tried to do something about it. For such students the great old poems of the Anglo-Saxon scop, of Spenser, and of Milton may well seem not merely remote, but irrelevant. Even the best among them, those who despite their other real concerns can still be responsive to esthetic or scholarly appeals, may feel that reading the great English epics is reading only for art’s or history’s sake. Encountering Spenser’s proud claim in his letter to Raleigh that “The generall end thereof of [The Faerie Queene] is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline …,” they may at worst scorn or at best savor what seems to be the poet’s quaintly Elizabethan squareness.

  Yet these same serious students, when they temporarily put aside their socio-political and academic cares, will watch television programs like Mission Impossible or Star Trek, will follow installments of Steve Canyon or Batman in the comics, or will read Ian Fleming or attend “James Bond” films, all of which have a “generall end” similar to Spenser’s: “to fashion a gentleman or noble person” for the age. The students themselves, however (and not a few of their teachers), think of such extra-curricular, extra-political activities as “escape.”