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I don't know that this makes any sense or if I'm just blinded by the oddity, but it seems interesting, even if it isn't right.
So: Superheroes seem to come in two primary modes, which are the selfish and the selfless. As power fantasies, I think our tendency might be to know we ought to portray them, to view them, as selfless because it's the inherently better, more liked state (in others), but as reflexive selfish types, we put ourselves into the power fantasy and it ends up being a defense of our own selfishness.
Examples because I'm being horribly unclear:
One of Hama's last 'Wolverine' issues, and Heather Hudson tells Logan he's the 'least self-involved mutant [she's] ever known.' Without the least bit of the sort of sardonic angle you'd expect to be there.
The recent 'Nightcrawler' series has something similar to say about Hank 'The Beast' McCoy.
Superman is frequently cited as a sefless, superduperselfless individual. Better than Jesus because he doesn't have to die and he'd win in a fight unless they pinned each other up on lances of Longinus and kryptonite or something. But he's usually not. Superman is more often than not, portrayed as, yes, a dick. Unrepentent manipulative cocky asshole. Or he's Jesus married to a brilliant, snippy reporter and just being exta nice to everyone. Then he pitches a car at someone for irritating him.
Or, Batman, who is often played as a repressed, angry, snippy shiteyed sonuvabitch in a fetish suit, being all angry loner with a family on some skyscraper ledge. Or he's trying to be the greatest parent ever to the entire world. Again, dick or Jesus.
Maybe it's different ages, different creators with different opinions about the characters, but does it seem to anyone else like it's the uber fanboy angle that keeps and promotes the assholity, and a far healthier, usually outside (perceived), perspective, that does the selfless thing? Comics sold to the traditional comics audience, as is perceived, tend to paint the characters in 'darker and mature' sensibilities that are in fact, thin excuses to be an ass, while people who come from outside comics, film or theatre or novelists, or people who're into a lot of things not-comics... I'm just thinking Jack Kirby, Grant Morrison, and even Agguire-Sacasa seem to tap the selfless superhero aspect because these aren't engrammed phantoms we throw up to excuse ourselves, necessarily, but to demonstrate a better option.
Alan Moore might make a real clincher in one direction or the other, considering his eighties' bad-mood and his post-Watchmen fun hero heroing stuff with cosmic explosions of fun! But I'm irrevocably biased against Moore, so I'm not even gonna tackle it right off the bat. |
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