This post is a total geek-out; non-geeky readers will want to scroll on past this one. Later today, I’ll also post this week’s baby blogging (sorry for being late on it!).
Paraphrasing Katie Schwarz: No definition will ever work perfectly, because “superhero” isn’t a concrete, distinct category but an archetype. One can use a definition to determine if a character is nearer or further from the archetype, but never to find a definitive line, with supers on one side and everyone else on the other. That line doesn’t exist.
To me, a good definition has to unambiguously include the most iconic superheroes; a definition that excludes Superman, Batman, Robin or Wonder Woman is no good. Additionally, characters that virtually no one would consider superheroes – Mr. Spock, Jessica Fletcher, Garp, Daddy Warbucks, etc. – should be clearly excluded by a good definition.
A superhero is a protagonist (or part of a group of protagonists) possessed of some characteristic(s) not attainable through even extraordinary effort by the ordinary members of his or her narrative baseline social milieu, who uses those characteristics to defend that social milieu’s health and existence.
I think this is clearly wrong. First, Robert’s definition grossly expands the conception of which characters are superheroes. The detective character Adrian Monk is a superhero by this definition. So is Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote. So is Jesus. So, arguably, is Bill Gates.
Secondly, Robert’s definition excludes even many characters who virtually all readers will identify as superheros. For instance, the excellent superhero comic Astro City contains dozens of characters who both the creators and experienced superhero readers would identify as superheroes – they fight crime, in costumes, using superpowers and special identities. But most of those characters aren’t protagonists, or part of a protagonist group. So I’d argue that the “protagonist” part of Robert’s definition cannot stand, because it excludes obviously superhero characters.
Similarly, superheroes without extraordinary abilities are excluded. The original “Nite Owl” from Watchmen, for example, wore a costume and mask, was part of an association of superheroes, and fought crime – but he didn’t have any special abilities, he was just pretty good in a fight.
Here’s my definition, which is based on discussions on Usenet many years ago (and so incorporates many people’s thoughts):
To be a superhero, a character must fight for the good of society1, and possess at least 4 of the following 5 traits…
1. The character has a second identity, the “super” identity; assuming this identity sets the character apart from ordinary society. This second identity is so distinct that another person can conceivably adopt it, becoming “The New Robin” or whatnot.2
2. The character has superhuman abilities. This includes “powerless” characters, if they are frequently shown accomplishing extraordinary or virtually impossible feats, such as Batman’s acrobatic skills.
3. The character has an extraordinary (not merely distinctive) appearance or costume, for the society the character lives in.
4. The character is dressed or presented in a manner which emphasizes an extraordinarily powerful and/or well-defined musculature, and/or to emphasize their secondary sex characteristics.
5. The character inhabits a continuity/shared system of stories in which most of the protagonists fit the above criteria.3
A character that fights for the good of society, but possesses only one of these traits, isn’t a superhero at all. So Jessica Fletcher, Adrian Monk, Sherlock Holmes, and the rest of the super-smart detectives aren’t superheroes by this definition. Neither is Daddy Warbucks, nor Bill Gates.
A character that fights for good and possesses two or three of these characteristics isn’t a superhero, but is getting closer to the archetype. Tarzan, The Bionic Woman, and Buffy are two examples of such characters. (This goes against my previous claim that Buffy is a superhero, but that’s fine with me: Buffy is pretty clearly a borderline case.) James Bond and Jesus would also fit into the “borderline, but not really superheroes” category.
A character that fights for good and has four or five of these traits is unambiguously a superhero. Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Spiderman are clearly superheroes, as are all those background crimefighters flying around Astro City.
[Edited to add a bit about secondary sex characteristics, as Kip suggests in comments.]
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]
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4. The character is dressed or presented in a manner which emphasizes an extraordinarily powerful and/or well-defined musculature.
Change to “exaggerates secondary sexual characteristics,” or you’ll exclude the distaff half.
How would Sandman fit into it? No alternate identity, and doesn’t reallu fight for good, per se. Is he even a superhero, or do we need a parallel category of neo-mythic demi-gods?
ANd I’d argue that Buffy ain’t a superhero, but The Slayer is. Until the series finale, anyways.
What about Martian Manhunter? (Pardon if that’s mis-spelled or the wrong name; I’m going off my son’s Justice League animated show. This is the character who’s the last survivor of the Martian race, and he can fly, turn ethereal, and I think some generic psychic-type powers.)
He only does #2 and #5. You could argue that he also has #3 since he lives on Earth now, but he’s just wearing regular clothes for Mars. No secret ID, no rippling muscles.
Martian Manhunter’s appearance definately does number 4.
Check it out.
And I think you can easily argue number 3 since the society he currently lives in is ours. So I thnk he totally fits.
It is an interesting question. For an article I wrote (not available online, sorry) I came up with a not dissimilar set of criteria (corresponding to your points 1-3, with a fourth criterion for super-technology and super-weapons used to artificially gain superhuman powers), although I put a less emphasis on the costume (your criteria #3 and 4) and more on the superhuman powers (if characters have superhuman powers), which I defined more narrowly than you. (Sherlock Holmes for instance, in my view, is not superhumanly smart – not surprising considering that he occasionally encounters people of comparable intelligence in the stories and even said himself that his brother Mycroft is smarter). I am not totally sure about the costumes having to emphasize or display well-developed muscles, this does seem to be an artistic convention to a large extent and varies from time to time. Spider-Man as drawn by Steve Ditko did not *look* as well-muscled as when rendered by Ditko’s successors, and when you look at the first appearances of the Fantastic Four, apart from Ben Grimm they did not look well-muscled either.(1) So in my book, Zorro is a superhero as he fulfils your criteria #1-3. That he does not fulfil #5 does not bother me, as that state of affairs was shared with e.g. Superman during his early appearances (and pretty much all of Superman’s movie appearances). Criterion #5 is not always helpful, as it drifts away from the character to the way an author or publisher handles the relationship between different stories. What if a hero appears in only one story (like Wylie’s “Gladiator”) or in a self-sufficient series of stories (Doc Strange) that does not reference others? What if a writer wants to write a story or series of stories in which there is only one superhero in the world? I think a lot of people probably subconsciously add the additional criterion “and not first published before Action Comics #1” to whatever list they use, because they are accustomed to think of Superman as the first superhero.
What I think is a good idea is postulating a second, not secret identity. There are a lot of superheroes who do not keep their civilian ID a secret, yet have a special costume and/or “code-name” when they go out into a fight – for instance the Fantastic Four from their beginning did not keep who they were a secret, yet still they felt compelled not to use their civilian names in action, but noms de guerre which in two cases were actually longer than the civilian ones they “replaced” (Reed Richards – Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm – Invisible Girl (later Invisible Woman – six syllables!). In that way, condition #1 is also fulfilled by the Martian Manhunter (who goes by that name as well as his given name J’onn J’onzz). (2)
(1) The same would also apply to secondary sexual characteristics if that were a criterion.
(2) Leaving aside that at least in the comics his natural shape is very different from his normal appearance and that he for a time he also operated in Caucasian male human shape as Detective John Jones.
I’ve only seen him in the TV show, zen. In the TV show, he’s rather ordinarily built.
Robert, Martian Manhunter is generally drawn as having a very powerful physique. Even in the TV cartoon, where he’s streamlined, his arms and chest are drawn to be extremely thick and powerful looking (albeit a bit less so than Batman’s). But even if you don’t see that on the TV cartoon – and I think you’re nuts, look at how huge his shoulders and arms are in the image you linked – drawing MM as less than musclebound would clearly be the exception, not the rule.
MM does have a “civilian” identity in which he blends in with Earth society, although he doesn’t use that identity often nowadays. And his appearance on Earth is both extraordinary on earth, which is where he lives, and for that matter on Mars (it’s been established that he looks very different when he goes native – his entire anatomy changes).
I’d say MM meets all five of my criteria, although I admit the second identity thing is a little dicey, since he uses it so infrequently.
Kip, female superheroes are generally drawn with very defined muscles – check out their abs. But yeah, you’re right, I’ll add in the secondary sex characteristics thing so it can cover more ground.
Aliera, I think that Dream, Death and the other Endless are definitely not superheroes, and that any definition that said they were superheroes would be a bad definition.
As for “The Slayer,” she meets only two or perhaps three of my traits, so I’d argue that she’s significantly distant from an archetypical superhero – although of course she shares some important traits with them, too.
Menshevik, lots of very interesting points. I’m short of time now, but I’ll try to find time to respond to you later.
Amp,
I agree, but the question is why? What makes the Endless clearly NOT superheroes while Superman clearly is?
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Did the Thing from the Fantastic Four have a secret identity or was he stuck as the Thing?
#4 is a common characteristic of superheroes as they are usually presented, but I don’t see it as so essential that it has to be part of the definition. If you took, say, Wonder Woman, drew her so that she could be played by Callista Flockhart instead of Lynda Carter, and put her in a costume that covered her from ankles to throat, would she be less a superhero? I don’t think so.
Teenage superheroes have often lacked #4. Shadowcat (of the X-Men) had a slight figure. Robin always looked spindly to me, at least back when I used to read Batman comics.
Oh, and if Batman is a superhero then so is Zorro. The creator of Batman used Zorro as his archetype.
The characteristics seem, to an extent, to have been drafted to ensure Batman’s inclusiondespite the fact that he is not endowed with supernatural powers (which is fine) . Yet Buffy falls short, apparently because she doesn’t have a distinct enough “secret identity” and costume. I think this is in error.
Within BTVS Universe, The Slayer is unique (though peculiar circumstances gave rise to first two and, later, essentially unlimited numbers of them), which more or less precludes the notion of someone else adopting the persona. She does try (for the most part) to keep her Slayer side and what The Slayer does a secret from the “civilian” population (the fact that some quasi-civilians know is hardly unique amongst supers, though) and to the extent it’s feasible to do so, to keep her personal and Slayer lives separate (the difficulty of doing so is, in fact, a frequent source of narrative tension). It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose, whether or not she’s presented in a way that emphasizes secondary sexual characteristics (no more so than other females her age, I’d say), but it seems that this crtierion should be an optional element of the costume trait, not a separate trait in itself.
Further, Buffy’s enemies repeatedly refer to her as a superhero. Setting the standard to exclude characters with one exceptional but not supernatural talent (Holmes, Fletcher) is legitimate. But setting them such that a character who is supernaturally endowed by definition is excluded merely because she doesn’t wear a flashy, sexualized costume is un-necessarily restrictive.
Actually, none of the Fantastic Four had secret identities; their names were known to the general public. (At least that was the case back when they first came out; Marvel might have “reinvented” them since the last time I looked.)
Could Ben Grimm (the Thing) take on the appearance of a normal human being? Generally, no. There were storylines where he got changed back temporarily, and I think there were one or two in which he got the ability to change back and forth at will, but most of the time he was stuck being orange and scaly.
Rex, to me, the issue isn’t “secret” identities but “second” identities. It’s possible to imagine a storyline in which Ben is “cured” of his monsterhood (which they’ve done more than once), but someone else accidentally gets stuck with the big rocky orange muscles curse and decides to join the FF and be “the new Thing.”
Dodd:
Actually, I think Buffy’s second identity CLEARLY passes the definition I gave: “The character has a second identity, the “super” identity; assuming this identity sets the character apart from ordinary society. This second identity is so distinct that another person can conceivably adopt it, becoming “The New Robin” or whatnot.” Buffy’s identity as “The Slayer” fills this criteria very well.
I think it’s an essential and separate element from the costume design. In the upcoming Wolverine movie, Wolverine might not be shown wearing a distinctive costume at all, but we can be sure that for much of the movie he’ll be in a tight armless shirt (or no shirt at all), to emphasize the extremely well-defined muscles that Hugh Jackman works so hard to achieve. (See the poster).
Holy crap.
Do NOT cross Amp. This dude NEVER forgets. NEVER.