The Best Seats in the House (to View the End of the World) by Emie H
At age twenty-three, I’m unsure if I’ll continue to be a lifelong superhero fan.
I can’t quite locate the origin of my superhero obsession.
Reminiscing on my childhood, there’s an almost excessive presence of caped hijinks.
I was three years old circa 2003, the year that marked the release of Ang Lee’s Hulk film. Although—and I am unashamed to share this—I don’t know if I’ve ever truly watched it; back then, my immediate reaction to just its play movie screen was to spontaneously, inconsolably burst into tears, rush out the front door, and search for my sister for reassurance. Shortly after that, I watched Sam Raimi’s Spider-man: much more my speed.
…Admittedly, the first sentence published here is a little clickbait-y.
I am quite literally in the process of writing my own superhero story. I credit superheroes with getting me through some of my bleakest moments; I wrote fan-fiction about them for three years; I perpetually carry a Hot Wheels Batmobile in my pocket to fidget with; and I visit my comic shop on a monthly basis.
I still love superheroes.
And I adamantly encourage ambivalence about them.
There is a dilemma, originating maybe farther back than Aristotle, that I imagine most are familiar with: “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Well, The inception of superheroes is at least half as ambiguous: what came first, Superheroes or World War II?
In a literal sense, superheroes predate the declaration of WWII: Superman met the public eye in ‘38, being created by Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel over a year before Great Britain and France declared war on Germany in September of ‘39.
Did you know that both creators, Schuster and Siegel, were Jewish? The version of Superman that they were publishing, that they were introducing to the world, was just shy of flagrantly opposing antisemitism. Remember that antisemitism wasn’t unique to Germany, and was rampant in the US as well. Superman’s Jewishness was veiled by design; as baby Moses did float down the Nile, away from the threat of death, so did Kal-El fly, on a ship away from Krypton to Earth. “Kal-El”, too, sounds suspiciously similar to the Hebraic words for “voice of god.” It’s also not coincidental that Superman has been used as a symbol against all types of xenophobia in recent years. The man is literally an “alien,” a refugee.
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Captain America , too, created in 1941, famously depicted him socking Hitler, which is quite a bit more explicitly anti-war, specifically at conception. Cap’s first appearance, interestingly, happens to have preceded America’s formal entrance into the war, which certainly leads to a comparison with Superman for Action Comics #1…
If I had a nickel…
Captain America, March 1941, No. 1
Comic books just might be the quintessential (read as: propagan-tastic) wartime consumer good. In the times of WWII, that’s purportedly, maybe, a good thing.
But Schuster and Siegel had previously attempted to bring Superman to the market. Their first attempt, "The Reign of the Superman" in 1933, which has more in common with H.G. Well's The Invisible Man (published the same year) than the Man of Steel we know today, established how superpowers would incorrigibly corrupt those who possess them, making them power- and profit-hungry opportunists who indiscriminately seek self-interest. The main protagonist—I wouldn’t call him a “hero”—is, like Captain America, chosen to be a scientist's test subject. While Steve Rogers' heroic story would dispute absolute power corrupting absolutely, this original Superman story does not; with the protagonist being picked from a bread line, the story would seem to believe that upward mobility—dare I say The American Dream— is farcical.
Much less marketable than Superman, the American icon, wouldn’t you say?
Don’t get me wrong, I love comics. I believe in comics, in superheroes. They’ve helped build momentum, pushed that pendulum into progress. Although, political palatability seems to have plagued the industry since its origins, i.e. implicitly Jewish Superman. Examples can be made of other eras, too, but not always “on the right side of history,” so to speak. For instance, in the 1960’s, with no minorities being present on the X-Men, itself a metaphor for the civil rights movement, or how the Fantastic Four's Invisible Girl (at the time) was “empowered” to be invisible.
The comic industry, like any industry, is subject to market demands. In my many years on earth, I’ve come to know that no one can be heroic under capitalism while decency isn’t profitable. It becomes immediately apparent that economy, and politics, if not intrinsically, has been conditioned into a tool that concentrates power with those already possessing it.
Superheroics literally fed the military industrial complex of America—alive and well. So alive, actually, that the MCU receives money from the American military so long as their movies have favourable depictions of those in uniform. Comic Cons, too, also happen to be one of few places that are available for army recruitment.
Remember how Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios, Pixar, and Lucasfilms? Remember how they financially supported every legislator behind Florida’s highly stigmatising 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” bill?
Remember Triumph of the Will?
Remember Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel?
They tried to warn us about this.
PS. F*** you, Bob Kane.
P.P.S. I love you, Charles Moulton Marston.
If you liked this article,
Here are 10 leftist vigilante-ish graphic novel recommendations:
Eternity Girl by Magdalene Visaggio
Mean Girls Club: Pink Dawn by Ryan Heshka
Guerilla Green by Ophelie Damble
Man-Eaters Series by Chelsea Cain
She Changed Comics edited by Betsy Gomez
Bitch Planet Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick
Bitter Root by David F. Walker
Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy
Lady Killer by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich
We Are Robin, Volume 1: The Vigilante Business by Lee Bermejo
Finally, check out this relevant poem, written by yours truly.
