Almost never do superheroes make, create, or build anything. The villains, in contrast, are endlessly creative. They are full of plans and projects and ideas.
Never really thought about this but it would be really interesting to flip this, but I'm sure if done it would just end up as like Batman building a hot new surveillance police state and the villains just keep getting in the way.
Its not strictly true. A bunch of Silver Age comics were utopian, particularly wrt Superman fighting natural disasters and relieving famines and doing diplomacy on behalf of warring nations. The original JLA built a giant space station in order to guard the Earth against calamity. They regularly served as ambassadors to alien civilizations and inventors of fabulous quasi-magical inventions. They would routinely speak before the UN, counseling the general progressive wisdom of the moment.
But, as a consequence, they had to face ever greater stakes and threats. Super plagues and Time Bandits and War Worlds and the collapse of reality itself were all treated as solvable problems by superhumans who got more and more absurdly overpowered.
So there was this initially token effort to bring the heroes back down to Earth. Make Superman a story less about flying across the galaxy to punch a Space God and more about juggling his superhuman duties with his dating life. Make the villains more complex, by giving guys like Lex Luthor salient ideological positions rather than just having him be the guy who steals 40 cakes. Introducing ideas about how these heroes might be too powerful and perhaps prone to hubris as a result. That gets you to the whole "Flash doing time travel wrong" arc that became the most recent movie flop.
Modern comics have largely abandoned the Utopian vision in favor of the Endless Conflict approach to comic book storytelling. But go back 20 years or so, and there were plenty of superheroes that were engaging in positive and productive pursuits.
Its not strictly true. A bunch of Silver Age comics were utopian, particularly wrt Superman fighting natural disasters and relieving famines and doing diplomacy on behalf of warring nations.
Yeah I can see how that can create a conundrum for the writers. Now I guess they hit those massive stakes like what your describing, but really no attempt at changing the world outside of stopping the big bad. I've been reading comics a lot more over the last couple years and especially now cannot get into the superhero comics at all. Might have to check out some of the silver age comics since that does sound a bit more refreshing.
but really no attempt at changing the world outside of stopping the big bad
They DID change the world, significantly. Pick up a copy of Kingdom Come and you'll see the fruits of their labors.
But the end result of a century of superheroes/villains is a world that's wholly unrecognizable to a new reader. Superheroes siding with the status quo is as much about normalizing the setting to new audiences as it is about the heroes themselves.
You either have to retcon back to basics in order to reset the stakes or the heroes need to end their arcs having reset the status quo, so the next writer can pick up on a functionally fresh slate.
Might have to check out some of the silver age comics since that does sound a bit more refreshing.
YMMV. They are definitely more Utopian, but they're still fairly liberal.
But the end result of a century of superheroes/villains is a world that's wholly unrecognizable to a new reader. Superheroes siding with the status quo is as much about normalizing the setting to new audiences as it is about the heroes themselves.
You either have to retcon back to basics in order to reset the stakes or the heroes need to end their arcs having reset the status quo, so the next writer can pick up on a functionally fresh slate.
Yeah I can see how that all would lead to issues and then requiring the retcon/ reboot. Also, probably explains the constant spin-offs. Like I was thumbing through those freebie program things they give out and I know this is the modern stuff but there were like 4-5 Spiderman comics going at the same time. I've been reading nothing from Marvel and DC so it was wild to see.
YMMV. They are definitely more Utopian, but they're still fairly liberal.
There was a whole episode in Batman: The Brave and the Bold which was about The Joker dismantling a surveillance panopticon Batman had built... not out of any revolutionary motivation of course, he just thought it would be funny.
I think ot has to do with how hegemonic the status quo asumptions about the world are. For example japanise ligth novels and anime are generaly also like this. The protagonists simp for some monarch or some already exsisting structure. Contrast that to chinise wuxia novels where the protagonists usually remake the world as they see fit. I think this means the chinise audiences are corrently seeing their country being built up and so recognise that improvments can always be made and so change is good. while western audiences have been condotioned to beleve liveralism is the end of history and thus the status quo needs to be preserved (even if its a monarchy in a tantasy world)
As other posters have mentioned older turn of the century fantasy and science fiction involved more positive changes. There was after all significant technological progress and audiences could imagine improvments in society. So while many campbellian heroes are reactionaries in their values they all have their own ideas about how to change society. They are creative.
Yeah, why DON'T they create anything? There could be a whole arc about Bruce Wayne designing, building, and testing a device to create a solution to a problem.
But that's all antagonists. They're the ones that have agency, protagonists simply react, they're at the mercy of the antagonists, story wise. The relationship, as presented in TDK is actually inverted, the joker doesn't need batman to exist, it was the other way around all along.
That's sorta Batman INC, except it is more of an international NGO thing. Morrison plays with the implications but never gets to actually go anywhere with it because, as he has Bruce in a meta way comment on in the final issue, in comics nothing can change, the profit motive will always destroy risk or creativity
Never really thought about this but it would be really interesting to flip this, but I'm sure if done it would just end up as like Batman building a hot new surveillance police state and the villains just keep getting in the way.
Its not strictly true. A bunch of Silver Age comics were utopian, particularly wrt Superman fighting natural disasters and relieving famines and doing diplomacy on behalf of warring nations. The original JLA built a giant space station in order to guard the Earth against calamity. They regularly served as ambassadors to alien civilizations and inventors of fabulous quasi-magical inventions. They would routinely speak before the UN, counseling the general progressive wisdom of the moment.
But, as a consequence, they had to face ever greater stakes and threats. Super plagues and Time Bandits and War Worlds and the collapse of reality itself were all treated as solvable problems by superhumans who got more and more absurdly overpowered.
So there was this initially token effort to bring the heroes back down to Earth. Make Superman a story less about flying across the galaxy to punch a Space God and more about juggling his superhuman duties with his dating life. Make the villains more complex, by giving guys like Lex Luthor salient ideological positions rather than just having him be the guy who steals 40 cakes. Introducing ideas about how these heroes might be too powerful and perhaps prone to hubris as a result. That gets you to the whole "Flash doing time travel wrong" arc that became the most recent movie flop.
Modern comics have largely abandoned the Utopian vision in favor of the Endless Conflict approach to comic book storytelling. But go back 20 years or so, and there were plenty of superheroes that were engaging in positive and productive pursuits.
Yeah I can see how that can create a conundrum for the writers. Now I guess they hit those massive stakes like what your describing, but really no attempt at changing the world outside of stopping the big bad. I've been reading comics a lot more over the last couple years and especially now cannot get into the superhero comics at all. Might have to check out some of the silver age comics since that does sound a bit more refreshing.
They DID change the world, significantly. Pick up a copy of Kingdom Come and you'll see the fruits of their labors.
But the end result of a century of superheroes/villains is a world that's wholly unrecognizable to a new reader. Superheroes siding with the status quo is as much about normalizing the setting to new audiences as it is about the heroes themselves.
You either have to retcon back to basics in order to reset the stakes or the heroes need to end their arcs having reset the status quo, so the next writer can pick up on a functionally fresh slate.
YMMV. They are definitely more Utopian, but they're still fairly liberal.
Yeah I can see how that all would lead to issues and then requiring the retcon/ reboot. Also, probably explains the constant spin-offs. Like I was thumbing through those freebie program things they give out and I know this is the modern stuff but there were like 4-5 Spiderman comics going at the same time. I've been reading nothing from Marvel and DC so it was wild to see.
Damn, yeah I guess I should have expected that.
There was a whole episode in Batman: The Brave and the Bold which was about The Joker dismantling a surveillance panopticon Batman had built... not out of any revolutionary motivation of course, he just thought it would be funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkz71ph2aSU
this shit's cringe wtf
Am I trippin' or is this animation terrible? Low ass frame rate lookin' shit.
I think ot has to do with how hegemonic the status quo asumptions about the world are. For example japanise ligth novels and anime are generaly also like this. The protagonists simp for some monarch or some already exsisting structure. Contrast that to chinise wuxia novels where the protagonists usually remake the world as they see fit. I think this means the chinise audiences are corrently seeing their country being built up and so recognise that improvments can always be made and so change is good. while western audiences have been condotioned to beleve liveralism is the end of history and thus the status quo needs to be preserved (even if its a monarchy in a tantasy world)
As other posters have mentioned older turn of the century fantasy and science fiction involved more positive changes. There was after all significant technological progress and audiences could imagine improvments in society. So while many campbellian heroes are reactionaries in their values they all have their own ideas about how to change society. They are creative.
Yeah good point on the material conditions and existing ideology affecting the art.
Yeah, why DON'T they create anything? There could be a whole arc about Bruce Wayne designing, building, and testing a device to create a solution to a problem.
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But that's all antagonists. They're the ones that have agency, protagonists simply react, they're at the mercy of the antagonists, story wise. The relationship, as presented in TDK is actually inverted, the joker doesn't need batman to exist, it was the other way around all along.
That's sorta Batman INC, except it is more of an international NGO thing. Morrison plays with the implications but never gets to actually go anywhere with it because, as he has Bruce in a meta way comment on in the final issue, in comics nothing can change, the profit motive will always destroy risk or creativity