There is a reason why super heroes did not exist in the Soviet culture.
Heroes in the Soviet culture were just average people who went above and beyond their duty when the situation calls for it, not people who possess supernatural abilities that distinguish them from the masses. This is something that the Western mind cannot comprehend.
To be fair, there was admittedly a personality cult towards a few people in a few socialist countries. Stalin as a personality cult was a pragmatic choice by the soviet administration during the tough 30s and 40s to add cohesion and unity to the country.
Absolutely, they can't conceive other forms of heroism apart from being some sort of special individual, a typical liberal sickness.
As an example of something different, a comic I would recommend is The Eternaut (by Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Argentinian), it's a classic from the late 50s. There, the hero is conformed by a group/a collective. I don't want to spoil it too much but the enemy is a very interesting allegory for western imperialism. It's available in english at libgen.
You know it's funny but I can't conceive of a comic or really any story where the main character isn't this 'better than everyone else' type. Novels? Drizzt was my favorite recurring character and he is the best swordsman, and if it isn't Drizzt, the main character is still either the best swordsman, best wizard, best thief, a literal king or prince, or the best....at whatever he/she does. Comics? Superhero stuff.
Movies are probably one of the few places where this doesn't apply as I'm a huge horror movie fan and I like them for the monsters, not the protagonists; I like my protagonists to be ordinary people, not folks who are specialized in one thing or another. I could never get excited about simple action movies, so movies like John Wick don't do anything for me.
Sadly I came to the realization that 'best guy' trope is a lazy one, because if they were ordinary like us then the difficulties are real and many times insurmountable, especially for us as individuals; also the best guy doesn't need the system to improve, he's already doing great and once the villain is defeated, he can go back to his cozy life. Imagine if the superhero main character was a guy who belongs to a dirt poor family, for whom fighting crime meant time not working and earning a necessary income, where while he's out fighting crime the cops break into his house (or even visit because maybe his father thought he saw a criminal in the house) and they end up shooting a member of his family and guess what, as the good guy he's not allowed to do something about it and has to trust the system; also he has a member of his family who's addicted to really hard drugs because there's nothing else in their lives and they have to choose between spending their free time fighting crime or trying to help their family member break their addiction. Also perhaps the cops decided to arrest him on false charges and guess what? He can't afford a good lawyer and his public attorney is both swamped with tons of cases and telling him to just take the damn plea deal and he's also a drug addict who's literally on drugs even during the trial (I read of one case where that actually happened), so now....do you use your powers to break free and be on the run forever (and God only knows how you'll eat or where you'll sleep, or how your desperate family is supposed to survive without you), or do you just go to prison because even though the system failed you, you must do as the system demands?
If I wrote a realistic superhero story the main character would just toss his superhero identity aside or would probably just emigrate to China.
In this story, Superman is the antagonist, go figure, and the world is saved by the benevolent capitalist Lex Luthor, who uses the ultimate liberal move (a strongly worded letter) to beat Superman, which ushers in a golden age that ends in the destruction of Earth. Kind of an unintentional self-own.
Also the Batman of this universe is coded as an anarchist and has a tattered American flag hung in his Siberian batcave, like all anarchists.
Some stuff is really bad in this comic, like how Lex out of nowhere managed to "fix" capitalism and how the ending says you have to combine both capitalism and communism lmao.
The movie is even worse having Superman kill Stalin because Gulag.
That being said, fuck does it have an amazing artstyle, aesthetic and some good moments. If only it wasn't so lib.
Don't they call it Luthorism or something, too? lmao. I choose to read this as a secret endorsement of Ghaddafi's Third Way
Gulag? You mean hollowed out mountain full of chained up slaves, including children?
I only saw the movie, but lol.
Oh I forgot it was actually a mountain, I watched it years ago when I was still a lib. I always heard other libs say that gulags were slave labor, so I made The connection because of that.
Yeah sounds like the movie was better than the comic
Only saw the movie too
who uses the ultimate liberal move (a strongly worded letter)
It wasn't even a strongly worded letter, it was a note containing what was basically just a snarky twitter post that he tricked Superman into reading, and his snark was such a cognitohazard it made Superman abandon all of his values and beliefs instantly.
They are greeted by Lois Luthor with the last weapon, a small note written by Lex that reads: "Why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle, Superman?"
Yeah I read this awhile back and it's pretty lib (in some ways). I will say, however, it does seem to do a bit with playing with the reader's expectations in interesting ways.
I actually really like Superman in the story. He’s not the modern take on “Superman but evil.” He’s more or less the same guy he normally is, just less trusting of others to put it mildly. I think the biggest difference with his personality is that he feels much more intelligent than normally is in mainline stories. Probably because Miller leans into how his upbringing, political ideology, and powers could create a fiercely smart Superman. His intellect is overall used as a foil to Luthor’s. Regardless, there’s neat moments I appreciate with Superman.
Like when Superman meets Wonder Woman, recognizes she doesn’t speak Russian, flies to some library in Stalingrad or whatever, learns to speak Ancient Greek fluently, and flies back to Wonder Woman, all in about 10 seconds.
