{"id":768,"date":"2004-04-06T16:00:08","date_gmt":"2004-04-07T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/04\/06\/superheroes-the-literature-of-ethics\/"},"modified":"2004-04-06T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2004-04-07T00:00:08","slug":"superheroes-the-literature-of-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=768","title":{"rendered":"Superheroes: The Literature of Ethics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eve Tushnet <\/a>reminded me of Jim Henley’s “Gaudy night: Superhero stories and our own.”<\/a> (“Alas” readers may be familiar with Jim for his excellent blog Unqualified Offerings<\/a>). The essay and the comments thread that follows are well worth reading.<\/p>\n

For me, the most striking part of Jim’s essay was his suggestion that superheroes are “the literature of ethics.” Here’s the key passage:<\/p>\n

If we narrow the question still further, to volunteer firemen, we eliminate one obvious answer: It’s a living<\/i>. Then the darkness yawns before us. Because the core question, “what could possibly make them think that it was worthwhile to risk their own lives to save others,” can be spun and flipped in a number of important ways. From Why do firemen do what they do? <\/i>to Why don’t the rest of us do what they do? <\/i>to Why shouldn’t the rest of us do what they do? <\/i>and even How dare we not do what they do? <\/i>Superheroes become a way of addressing these questions. If science fiction is the literature of ideas<\/a>, the superhero story is the literature of ethics. Or say, rather, it should be. As “literature” need not mean “sober-sided drudgery,” I would even say the formulation holds for kids’ superhero tales.<\/p>\n

Fantasy provides external analogs of internal conflicts, and the subtype of fantasy about superheroes is a way of externalizing questions of duty, community, and self. How should the powerful behave? (Most Americans are, in global-historical terms, “the powerful” in one aspect or another.) These questions are salient whether you wear tights or not. They apply to you. Because most of us, certainly most of us in the developed world, have more power, wealth, or wherewithal than somebody. Certainly almost everybody reading this essay could, in principle, quit his or her present job and work pro bono for an African AIDS clinic while subsisting on donated food, or maintain a couple of homeless people instead of taking vacation, or — join the volunteer fire department. Depending on your politics, you may believe that people like yourself or people like Bill Gates really do owe some non-trivial portion of time, wealth, influence, or attention to something or someone. The poor, the ill, the frightened, alienated, the “doomed, damned, and despised” as Jesse Jackson once put it. […]<\/p>\n

The core question of the superhero story might be phrased as What do we owe other people?<\/i><\/div>\n

As Kip wrote, “I like the basic idea quite a lot: it’s made me look at superhero books with a less jaundiced eye since I first read it over at Unqualified Offerings: an ‘Oh, I see! Oh, I get it!’ moment, which I’d callously written off as hard to achieve these days with superpowers.”<\/p>\n

Jim’s essay kicked off a rather long debate, with Rich Puchalsky taking up the dissent. Rich’s point (as I understand it) is that superheroes stories tend to be about vigilantism, and vigilante stories have virtually nothing interesting to say about ethics. I tend to agree with Rich about that (the only ethically interesting superhero stories tend to be stories that deconstruct the genre rather than exemplify it), but think he makes a stronger point when he writes:<\/p>\n

. Let’s grant that the majority of works in any genre are mediocre. Even so, I would still agree that science fiction is “the literature of ideas”, because even mediocre science fiction is often primarily concerned with ideas. The problem is that mediocre superhero comics are not really concerned with ethics. They are concerned with boyhood fantasy, which is not really about adult ethical choice.<\/p>\n

Even really great superhero comics are often not really concerned with ethics. Just because you can find one or two great superhero comics that are concerned with ethics, that doesn’t say anything about the genre as a whole — after all, you can equally well find one or two great superhero comics that are concerned with metaphysics. <\/p><\/div>\n

Jim then responded:<\/p>\n

BTW, because it was so cheap, I picked up the DVD of “Return of the Hulk,” TV-movie sequel to the Bill Bixby\/Lou Ferrigno series. Finally watched it last night. I can assure you that ROTH is mediocre art AT BEST. (Though the musical guest is Dave Alvin – how cool is THAT?) But its engine is ethics. Both Banner and Don Blake are placed in situations where they must make decisions about whether to prioritize Self or Other. This very much IS what the story is “about.” It isn’t just exceptional works of the genre that have this focus.<\/div>\n

Although I’d like to agree with Jim, I think Rich has the better of the argument at this point, because Jim has convinced me that the “engine of ethics” is in no way a distinctive trait of superhero stories. Prioritizing Self or Other is one of the most common themes in literature; it’s a major theme in such diverse works as Anne Tyler’s novels, TV shows like Judging Amy<\/i>, and the Talmud. Looked at broadly, any form of literature in which the main character makes choices could, in Jim’s terms, be seen as a “literature of ethics.” In which case, calling superheroes “the literature of ethics” tells us nothing distinctive about superheroes, and is not meaningful.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The subtext, it seems to me, is an argument over whether the superhero genre has literary worth or if it’s just kinda dumb. I’d say a genre cannot have literary worth; specific works have literary worth, but genres do not. There are a bare handful of superhero comics that are actually excellent work: Zot!, Miracleman<\/i>, a few others. There are a few hundred which maybe aren’t that great, but are reasonably intelligent, entertaining reads. Then there are uncountable thousands of superhero comics which range from utter crap to mediocre pap. It’s not true that “ninety percent of everything is crap”; with superhero comics, it’s closer to 99.99%.<\/p>\n

But so what? Just one example would be enough to establish that superhero comics can be worthwhile art. So look at Zot!<\/i>, look at Big Man <\/i>(a short story by David Massuchelli), look at Watchmen<\/i>; that’s all the proof that’s needed.<\/p>\n

Here’s the question: Why is it so much harder to produce a great superhero comic than to produce a great – well, almost any other genre – comic?<\/p>\n

Consider funny animals. A list of the best comics featuring talking, thinking animals puts any list of the best superhero comics to shame: Krazy Kat, Pogo, Calvin & Hobbes, Quimby the Mouse,<\/i> the Barks Duck comics, Maus, Beanworld, Peanuts, Barnaby, Frank, Bone, Cerebus <\/i>(let’s say, pre-issue 186), and that’s just off the top of my head.<\/p>\n

I’m not denying that most funny animal comics are crap (ninety percent of everything…); nonetheless, there are more superhero comics than funny animal comics out there, but the funny animals have produced more masterpieces. Why do you suppose that is?<\/p>\n

It seems to me that superheroes are a more restrictive genre, and thus harder to work with. It’s difficult to do a superhero comic that isn’t, at some level, about fighting evil with violence, and that’s a relatively limited form to work in. Of course, some succeed, but not many. Funny animals aren’t as restricting, making it easier for cartoonists to reach great heights.<\/p>\n

Of course, that’s just a guess..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eve Tushnet reminded me of Jim Henley’s “Gaudy night: Superhero stories and our own.” (“Alas” readers may be familiar with Jim for his excellent blog Unqualified Offerings). The essay and the comments thread that follows are well worth reading. For … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-comics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}