Superheroes: A Roundtable Discussion

[zuludelta]

Steven Grant writes a good analysis of Watchmen and its impact on the comics industry in this week's Permanent Damage column:

http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20319

Or maybe I think it's good only because his opinion (of the book, and Alan Moore's other prominent works) mirrors my own to a surprising extent (in general, I disagree with Grant's opinions as often as I agree with them), thus throwing my obejectivity-meter out of whack.

Discuss.

[lugaru]

My relationship with Watchmen is that it hit certain buttons that most other comic books almost never have. For one I am a huge Kurt Vonnegut fan and for me Dr. Manhattan reminds me of Slaughterhouse Five, in that sometimes a characters story should be told not in cronological order but instead in the order of relevance. The narrative bounces around in time telling you exactly what you need to know while it races twards something inevitable.

The other thing is that as a foreigner I tend to see a lot of xenophobia, racism and general creepyness in the more patriotic defenders of America. And while a lot of people think Rorschach is awesome, I love that he is coated in a thick layer of ultra right concervative slime. Now Rorschach does not explicitely come out against gays, liberals or foreigners but his choice in reading material does, giving you a good idea as to why he fights "the good fight".

So yeah, in terms of narrative experimentation and uneasy subject matter, I think it is great. On the other hand Alan Moore just does not know when enough is enough sometimes. Read "From Hell" and you will see what I mean, much like Stephen King he always ends up "unedited" to his detriment.

[tommyboy]

I think he's mostly right, and a little bit wrong.

Spoiler

I think that he underplays or maybe underestimates the strengths of Watchmen as a work of art and literature.
He mentions the symmetrical structure as adding little of value, and I suppose he could be right. But I think that he is wrong. The "rigid" structure and symmetry add greatly to the weight and strength of the book, to me.
I've always thought that the numerous, sometimes seemingly contrived "coincidences" of art and dialogue which are found throughout the book to be an indication that structure, that connectedness, is part and parcel of what it is "about".
Many of the characters speak or think about how they have a unique perspective and knowledge about the world and its workings.
Manhattan is the most spectacular and obvious, with his perception encompassing all time, past present and future.
Rorschach claims to "read" the signs of the city, and to have been enlightened as to the "real" nature of people by his experiences.
The Comedian also feels he understands the "joke" but few others do; "what's going down in this world, you got no idea".
Ozymandius views dozens of screens simultaneously, taking in information and making connections and conclusions on which to plan and act.
Even the news-vendor on the street corner often claims his job gives him access to information which allows him to put together the "bigger picture".
All have different viewpoints but all feel that they see the "real" structure of things, the nature of existence.
Very little in the book is accidental. The art, it's layout, the little details usually are significant in either giving information about the "plot" of the book, but more often echoing back and forwards themes and images which are within the plot. The synchronicity of the words and pictures is far beyond what we normally get in comics, and although some of the devices used to shift scenes, for instance, in retrospect look a little contrived, overused or clumsy, they all speak to a connectedness, of all things.
The whole book is so carefully and thoughtfully crafted that it reads unlike 99% of other comics. Few have tried anything so ambitious, and few of those have succeeded.

Summary: tommyboy goes on and on about watchmen. He thinks its really good.

[zuludelta]

Points in the article that I found myself agreeing with:

1. The industry's (and fandom's) tendency to canonize particular writers and artists occasionally stifles critical analysis of their works

- One thing that has always bothered me when attempting discussion of comics is that many readers/fans of prominent comics creators (on the internet and in "the analog world") seem to equate critical evaluation of a work with an attack on the creator's person, or an attack on comics in general. Granted, this isn't just particular to the comics industry and comics fandom, but in a relatively small industry like comics publishing, I think this has contributed to the somewhat limited intelligent discourse concerning the medium.

2. An oft-overlooked feature of Watchmen is its faithful adherence to underlying structure and theme

- For me, this is actually the most interesting feature of Watchmen. Moore and Gibbons really went to town with the whole symmetry stuff. Every page layout is replicated at some point within each chapter/issue on an opposing page (a mirror image, so to speak). There's also the symmetry and polarity in characterization, with each prominent character being paired with a constitutive Other that serves to define and complete that character. EDIT: And of course, there's the "Tales of the Black Freighter" thematically mirroring the evets in the main comic and the meta-symmetry of the pirate comics genre succeeding the superhero comics genre within Watchmen's world.

I can't remember any other comic work that has so throughly carried over its theme in both the writing and the art. I'm still wondering how the people behind the new film adaptation will attempt to recreate that sense of symmetry on screen (if they attempt to recreate it at all). 

3. Watchmen's plot, such as it is, doesn't strike me as anything too remarkable

- I always hear people raving about Watchmen's groundbreaking story. I just assume that these people have never seen "Architects of Fear," the 1963 Outer Limits TV show episode that Moore cribbed the plot device (folks who've read Watchmen will know what I'm referring to) which the story hinges on from, or they've never read the numerous post-World War II sci-fi short fiction stories that utilize said plot device (premiere among them Theodore Sturgeon's 1948 short story "Unite and Conquer"). Also, as a corollary to point #1, (rhetorical question alert!) why is it that when Moore cribs from others' work, it's an homage or "cultural allusion" but when a less prominent but similarly capable writer does it, comics fandom calls him/her unimaginative or derivative?

As it is, and I think Moore would be the first to admit this (if he hasn't already, and I think he has in a number of interviews, unless my memory is going all wonky again), Watchmen is basically an overly-elaborate shaggy dog story that was elevated to a deserved premier status by the ambition and level of its craft. 

There are a bunch of other points I want to bring up, hopefully I'll be able to add them later when time allows.       

[tommyboy]

See, i don't really consider the ending as the plot, anymore than I think of it as a whole as being a "whodunnit" murder mystery.
I actually think that what it is about is the connectedness of things, of the structure of things, as well as being an examination of morality and how people get to their different worldviews and morality.
And although it may have been used before (the ending twist, that is), I think it's fair to say it had never appeared within a context quite like this before.
So, yes, there are many elements, ideas and themes Moore "borrows" within the book (I was struck whilst rereading to research my latest meshes how the "Rorschach origin" bit with the saw and handcuffs was circulating when I was a boy (15 years pre-Watchmen) as an apocryphal tale of the cruelty of Japanese prisoner of war guards, and probably dates back even further). Why people are forgiving of him for recycling this stuff is he does it in ways that make it fresh, or in contexts that provide new, richer meaning. You might as well complain (and I know that you aren't complaining ZD, it's just a figure of speech) that he recycles the Charlton "ideas" as his Watchmen. The point is that often the ideas are only the starting point from which he proceeds, whereas lesser writers merely reproduce other's ideas often in the very same contexts as originally seen.

[zuludelta]

I actually think that what it is about is the connectedness of things, of the structure of things, as well as being an examination of morality and how people get to their different worldviews and morality.

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree it is largely about those things (and then some). But those concerns fall under the purview of narrative theme and motif. The technical plot, the linear sequence of events upon which the theme is wound around, is what I personally found a little unsatisfying and a bit stilted.

And lest I come off as somebody who doesn't (or can't) enjoy Watchmen, let me say that I do like it (particularly in how Moore tackled the fetishistic implications of the superhero morality and ethic), and I think it is one of the most significant comic book works of all time, although one side-effect of having read Watchmen is I don't enjoy the comics that attempted to follow suit in the (sigh) "grim 'n' gritty" fad that sprung up post-Watchmen the same way I did when I was a kid (a lot of them just come off as trite, hollow, and sensationalistic to the older and more well-read version of myself).   

[zuludelta]

More thoughts on Watchmen (continued from post #3 of this thread):

- One thing I took away from reading Watchmen is the notion that "superheroing" (by which I mean the use of violence and the threat of violence by costumed do-gooders to deter crime) is really a child's affair. Far from painting superheroes as "mature" or "adult" as he is often credited as doing, Moore depicted his protagonists as a pair of societal misfits regressing into teen roles and living out idealized childhood fantasies (Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II) and an emotionally and socially stunted man-child who refuses to outgrow a juvenile and simplistic binary view of morality and ethics (Rorschach).

Ozymandias and The Comedian on the other hand, elevate themselves to "adult" status by seeing costumed crimefighting for the illusion it really is. It is part and parcel of the joke that The Comedian (and hopefully, the reader) is party to. It is apparent in Watchmen's world that the costumed crimefighting exploits of superheroes leading up to the events depicted in the story have been ineffectual in engendering any real positive change in society at large.             

[tommyboy]

Good points ZD.
Going back to my referencing the density and structure of the book, I want to look at part of one page from chapter 8, page 3.
Top of the page, 3 panel spread panning left to right across an intersection.
Panel one
News-vendors voice from off panel; "it's like all our old nightmares come back to haunt us y'know?"
Caption from the black freighter comic text; "adrift and starving my darkest imaginings welled up unchecked, spilling from brain to heart like black ink, impossible to remove".
The art shows the left part of the intersection, the only thing of note is the graffiti on a wall of a couple embracing, which earlier we were shown is the work of the Knot head gang that will figure large in this issue. These graffiti have also been compared to shadows of people at hiroshima (the fear/nightmare of nuclear war looming large throughout the book), and are akin to the rorschach card and shadows Rorschach remembers his unhappy childhood with. So they simultaneously foreshadow the issues events, and echo one of the central themes, and remind us of the ugly past of one of the characters.
The voice of the newsvendor and pirate comic obviously echo in theme, as do the silhouettes on the wall, even down to being "black ink, impossible to remove".

Panel two
NV ;"Red invasions, masked men...seen this weeks Nova Express? "spirit of 77" I mean, I remember 1977...God spare us"
Pirate caption; "I pictured Davidstowns quiet streets overrun by tatooed fiends. Recalling their brutality, I moaned."
Picture shows; view down street at centre of intersection. WE see the newsvendor receiving a delivery, it's night so the street is largely empty.
Again, the two text captions echo each other, the riots of 77 mirriring the "quiet streets overrun by tatooed fiends". Also note the streets overrun by tattooed fiends is again forshsadowing this issues events. The art showing "quiet streets", which in 77 were not quiet.

Panel three
NV; "everythings going to hell. I'm just glad my Rosa ain't alive to see it."
Pirate caption; "The freighter had surely reached Davidstown already. My wife was almost certainly dead. These notions transfixed me, stopping time in it's tracks."
The art shows the right hand side of the intersection, the institute for spatial studies building (more foreshadowing of whats to come later in the book), a man with a Pyramid company jacket (interconnectedness and foreshadowing), and a movie street sign advertising "the day the earth stood still".
Once again the two text lines echo each other, with references to dead wives, and the "transfixed me, stopping time in its tracks" line in the pirate caption is neatly echoed in the advert for "the day the earth stood still".

What is my point?
That these three panels, chosen almost at random, show the complexity of the narrative text, the interplay between text and art, the richness and density of the book. To dwell only on the "symmetry" of the book completely misses the symmetry and denseness present on every page.
People often mention that the pirate comic mirrors and echoes Ozymandius in the main story. But few mention that every single pirate comic caption or picture also mirror and echo the scenes around, before and after them, weaving together the "comic book" and "real world" through puns, double meanings and symbolism.
In short, I guess that I am saying that it is a much better book than it is given credit for, that the overt "plot" and story tend to get discussed as if they were more important than the themes and ideas it evokes as a whole.

[zuludelta]

Nice breakdown tommy.

the overt "plot" and story tend to get discussed as if they were more important than the themes and ideas it evokes as a whole.

I think a lot of it has to do with many readers and reviewers confusing plot and the stylised dialogue for narrative theme and motif and vice-versa. And that's understandable. As mentioned in the article I linked to at the beginning of the thread, most comic book stories are fashioned (even multi-part stories), structurally, after the traditional short story. Short stories, due to their brevity, tend to focus on narrating sequences of events, going from plot point A to plot point B to plot point C. Watchmen, however, was envisioned from the start as a novel. Not a collection of single issues to be later strung together as a "graphic novel," but an actual novel, albeit one doled out into pamphlet-sized chapters to fit in with the market at the time. A novel, of course, contains the linear narrative, but it also gives the writer the space to explore a much larger theme and to utilize motifs to reinforce that theme.

It stands to reason that many comics readers (and perhaps many comics writers) may miss out on the themes and motifs found in Watchmen or alternatively, focus on the superficial narrative aspects of the book (the violent Rorschach sequences, for example) having been conditioned by a lifetime of reading "typically structured" comic book stories.

That's also probably why a lot of the writers who came later doing what they thought were works inspired by Watchmen only managed to ape the the book's superficial aspects (the bande-désignée vérité aesthetic, if you will), but hardly any of its depth or complexity.   

[zuludelta]

Despite my misgivings about certain plot elements in Watchmen (the clunky Outer Limits-inspired plot device, Dr. Manhattan's overly-sentimental and logically flawed "thermodynamic miracle" epiphany), it still manages to blow my mind with repeat readings all these years later.

I have to agree with Grant's observation (see original article I linked to in the first post) that Watchmen might be the most deliberately structured piece of popular literature since Milton's Paradise Lost (well, the most deliberately structured one that actually manages to work as a popular culture artifact, at least... there are probably more deliberately structured works out there that are of interest mainly to the literary "technician"). It's damn near impossible to catch all the repeating motifs with a single reading and it's one of the rare comics that gives up definite rewards to the astute and attentive reader.

For instance, one of the many underlying themes in the work is that of the modern "hero" as one who has an adaptable and flexible moral stance, one who is willing to compromise/concede certain personal needs and principles in service of a practical good. We see this theme in the larger motif of Ozymandias compromising his pacifist principles in order to create the illusion that will trick the world into adopting a Cold War truce and in Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Doc Manhattan's being silent party to this lie in order to sustain that peace (in contrast, Rorschach is a "hero" who has an inflexible and rigid personal moral and ethical code, one who would rather risk the world covered in the flames of a nuclear conflagration rather than violate his beloved principles). This thematic patterning is repeated in the subplot/motif of the original Silk Spectre lying to her daughter about her true parentage, in order to give her some semblance of a normal childhood and avoid the distress that might be caused by her daughter's knowing that her father is the same person who sexually assaulted her mother. And again this is repeated in the brief and smaller motif of the prison psychiatrist willing to sacrifice his crumbling marital relations in order to help break up a lesbian lovers' quarrel gone terribly violent (this happens, if you recall, right before the big squid explosion hits) and in other smaller motifs peppered throughout the book. It's really an impressive example of thematic patterning and layering of narrative motifs, one whose nuances, I think, are lost on many readers who read the book as a "traditional" comic book story, focusing mainly on the events that comprise the "A" plot.

[danhagen]

Each character's philosophical and psychological outlook is presented, and you can understand and virtually emphasize with all of them, including the ruthless liberal Ozymandias, the detached superman Dr. Manhattan, the uncertain idealist Nite Owl and the Travis Bickle Randite Rorschach. I have the hardest time with the fascist Comedian, but you understand even him. Ebert said it's about "the dilemma of functioning in a world losing hope," and super heroes, the ultimate expression of individualistic hope and power, are effective symbols in contrast.
Favorite bits: when asked what happened to the American dream, the mass-murdering Comedian chortles, "It came true! This is it!" And the uncompromising Rorschach's silently hurt feelings and apology when Nite Owl dresses him down for being a bad friend.

[zuludelta]

Neat observations dan. I probably empathize with the Comedian's cynical outlook (within the context of the book, mind you) more than most people who read the graphic novel, and I think that there's really not much that differentiates him from Ozymandias... they're both intelligent pragmatists who can see through the joke of "crimefighting," with the key difference between the two being that The Comedian revels and thrives in a world that's going to hell in a handbasket while Ozymandias looks to change things for the better.

I will disagree with you that Ozymandias is "ruthlessly liberal," though. The thing I like about the characters in Watchmen is that they don't fall into the populist, typically "conservative" superhero mold (i.e.; Batman, Superman) nor are they one-dimensional "liberal" reactionary creations (à la Denny O'Neil's Green Arrow). The difference between Ozymandias and Rorschach, I think, is rooted in the contrasting styles with which they solve problems. Ozymandias is able to think out of the box to solve seemingly intractable problems (the Gordian knot metaphor for the problem of mutually assured nuclear destruction) while Rorschach, playing by an artificial set of moral "rules" refuses to bypass those self-imposed rules in order to get at the only reasonable solution to the problem. I think this speaks more to differences in intellectual flexibility and applied intelligence than it does to their positions on the left-right political spectrum. I mean certainly, one can have "liberal values" and still be dogmatic and intellectually inflexible, and holding "conservative beliefs" shouldn't preclude one from being open-minded and having the intellectual capacity to adapt.     

*BTW, I use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in this post not in the formal sense, but as they're colloquially used by popular media these days to denote particular socio-politico-economic generalizations in American society 

[Talavar]

I suppose my largest problem with Watchmen is that it suggests that the superheros (Rorshach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the Comedian & Dr. Manhattan) are pointless - they haven't made the world a better place, they're just doing it for the thrill, compulsion, costume-kink, to fulfill expectations, sociopathy, etc. 

I think if non-powered people dressed up and tried to fight crime themselves it would end up being like that, and they'd probably get themselves killed very quickly.  However, in the Watchmen world, they've been doing this for a significant amount of time without dying, and presumably saved a fair number of people from violent crimes.  To dismiss lives saved as pointless because it didn't change the world misses a pretty important point; paramedics rarely change the world either, but the people they help are pretty darn glad they got up and went to work that morning.

[tommyboy]

I suppose my largest problem with Watchmen is that it suggests that the superheros (Rorshach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the Comedian & Dr. Manhattan) are pointless - they haven't made the world a better place, they're just doing it for the thrill, compulsion, costume-kink, to fulfill expectations, sociopathy, etc. 

I think if non-powered people dressed up and tried to fight crime themselves it would end up being like that, and they'd probably get themselves killed very quickly.  However, in the Watchmen world, they've been doing this for a significant amount of time without dying, and presumably saved a fair number of people from violent crimes.  To dismiss lives saved as pointless because it didn't change the world misses a pretty important point; paramedics rarely change the world either, but the people they help are pretty darn glad they got up and went to work that morning.

Yep.
At the risk of offending anyone, we already have people who dress up in a special costume and fight crime in the real world, they are known as the Police. They have not, as yet, gotten rid of all crime, injustice, and evil, but that hardly makes them pointless. It doesn't mean that the world is not "a better place" for them doing what they do.
I never read Watchmen as saying or even implying that the heroes are "pointless". Every person saved, every crime averted changes the world, a lot, for someone. Does it create a utopia? No.
As to motive, that varies from individual to individual, both in fictional superheroes, but also in real heroes like police, paramedics or firefighters. The same spread of idealist, thrill seeker, costume kink etc is found in real humans too. The proportions may vary considerably, but the extent of the spectrum is pretty accurate, even if the proportions of each type are exaggerated.
"Mainstream" comic book superheroes often imply that their role is to supplement, replace or 'do properly' the job of the police. That there are villains beyond the reach or power of the law, (usually because of super powers). Watchmen has no "super powered" villains, so it's heroes do little that beat policemen could not do, which could be read as "pointless", I guess. But are Private Detectives pointless? Are Bouncers? Are Bodyguards? Are Bail Bondsmen? All are covering aspects of Police work to some extent, regardless of motive. And so too are Watchmen's super heroes.

[BentonGrey]

There is so much that I'd like to write here, but I don't have the time at the moment.  I would like to thank ZD, though, as his point about the contrast between Ozy's and Rorshach's brand of heroism and morality has solidified a point for a paper I'm writing.  Thanks ZD, you just brought something important out to which I wasn't paying attention.

[zuludelta]

To dismiss lives saved as pointless because it didn't change the world misses a pretty important point; paramedics rarely change the world either, but the people they help are pretty darn glad they got up and went to work that morning.

tommyboy pretty much said my response for me, but here are some additional thoughts:

The key difference between paramedics saving lives and the superheroes in Watchmen's world saving lives is this:

Paramedics (not to mention police, soldiers, firefighters, etc.) save lives as a matter of course in the line of duty. It's their job. There might be an underlying motivation of altruism, or a self-serving need for adulation or whatever colouring that sense of duty, but on the whole, police and paramedics fulfill their roles as lifesavers and crimefighters as a part of the normative social structure. In the case of superheroes, they do their lifesaving as a fringe phenomenon existing outside of the law, and, if you agree with Moore, as a way to escape the mundanity of their everyday lives. For Hollis Mason (the first Nite Owl), for example, it's not enough that he stop crime within the bounds of his duties as a police officer, he has to do it in a fashion that somehow aligns with his fantastical childhood idea of what a "hero" does. A life saved is a life saved, of course, whether it's saved by a cop or a guy wearing gaudy underwear on the outside, but Moore makes it clear that in terms of motivation, there is a difference between the superhero-type and the garden-variety crimefighter.

You may not agree with Moore (and I suspect many superhero fans don't), but that is one of the primary delineations he outlines between superheroes and sanctioned crimefighters like the police.

I suppose my largest problem with Watchmen is that it suggests that the superheros (Rorshach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the Comedian & Dr. Manhattan) are pointless - they haven't made the world a better place, they're just doing it for the thrill, compulsion, costume-kink, to fulfill expectations, sociopathy, etc.

Well, that's sort of a blunt way to put it, but essentially, yes. It's not so much that Moore is saying that superheroes are incapable of making the world a better place, but the practice of "costumed crimefighting" and "costumed adventuring," even when done by legit authorities like the police or the military is, at best, a symptomatic treatment of an endemic social ill (such as say, when city governments think that simply increasing the police presence is sufficient to reduce crime in an economically depressed area) or largely an exercise in playing out juvenile power fantasies (Nite Owl I and II, Rorschach), a way to make money (Silk Spectre I), or a way for certain individuals to get their kink on (i.e.; Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis). Lasting crime (or war) prevention isn't a product of a case-by-case application of directed violence (as cynically, people have the innate urge to stir up trouble with each other), it can only be achieved through widescale social and economic engineering.   

To drive the (admittedly very clumsy and overly simplified) "social ill" metaphor further into the ground, imagine society as a person who develops hypertension (high blood pressure) due to poor diet and lack of exercise. Sure, that person can just keep taking blood pressure medication to treat the symptomatic manifestations of the illness, but ultimately, unless that person takes concrete steps in changing his/her lifestyle, a heart attack or a stroke is almost inevitable.

In a similar vein, the directed application of violence or the threat of violence (legally sanctioned or not) treats the immediate symptoms of criminality, but does little in the way of ameliorating the causes of the problem, which are more often than not, rooted in socioeconomic factors immune to bullets, punches, and headlocks. Now, I'm not saying that there is no place for the directed application of violence in curbing crime because there is a practical need for it, but a crimefighting outlook that relies solely on this, which is how most superheroes have been traditionally portrayed, is juvenile, flawed and incomplete.

I would like to thank ZD, though, as his point about the contrast between Ozy's and Rorshach's brand of heroism and morality has solidified a point for a paper I'm writing.  Thanks ZD, you just brought something important out to which I wasn't paying attention.

Hey, glad I could help. Good luck on that paper!

EDIT: BTW, It's not my intent to "condemn" traditional depictions of superheroes... I enjoy them for the nostalgia and they also help me keep in touch with the more naive sensibilities of my youth. In the same vein, any writer or comics creator who thinks they're making a superhero comic fit for a mature reader by simply amping up the sex, violence, and the language, or heaping on "socially relevant" themes while not taking a more sophisticated view of social realities, morality and ethics isn't really getting me to buy their work on a regular basis.   

[Gremlin]

Well, that's sort of a blunt way to put it, but essentially, yes. It's not so much that Moore is saying that superheroes are incapable of making the world a better place, but the practice of "costumed crimefighting" and "costumed adventuring," even when done by legit authorities like the police or the military is, at best, a symptomatic treatment of an endemic social ill (such as say, when city governments think that simply increasing the police presence is sufficient to reduce crime in an economically depressed area) or largely an exercise in playing out juvenile power fantasies (Nite Owl I and II, Rorschach), a way to make money (Silk Spectre I), or a way for certain individuals to get their kink on (i.e.; Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis). Lasting crime (or war) prevention isn't a product of a case-by-case application of directed violence (as cynically, people have the innate urge to stir up trouble with each other), it can only be achieved through widescale social and economic engineering.

To drive the (admittedly very clumsy and overly simplified) "social ill" metaphor further into the ground, imagine society as a person who develops hypertension (high blood pressure) due to poor diet and lack of exercise. Sure, that person can just keep taking blood pressure medication to treat the symptomatic manifestations of the illness, but ultimately, unless that person takes concrete steps in changing his/her lifestyle, a heart attack or a stroke is almost inevitable.

In a similar vein, the directed application of violence or the threat of violence (legally sanctioned or not) treats the immediate symptoms of criminality, but does little in the way of ameliorating the causes of the problem, which are more often than not, rooted in socioeconomic factors immune to bullets, punches, and headlocks. Now, I'm not saying that there is no place for the directed application of violence in curbing crime because there is a practical need for it, but a crimefighting outlook that relies solely on this, which is how most superheroes have been traditionally portrayed, is juvenile, flawed and incomplete.

Preeecisely. It's interesting that the only characters in comic mags that actually want to change the world on a grand scale are the villains. Magneto? Over-run the violent and worthless human race. Sinestro? Unite everyone under a banner of order. Lex Luthor? Eliminate mankind's pathetic need for gods. Dr. Doom? Take over the world, just for the heck of it. What happens when a superhero turns their powers to the forces of global good? They're thwarted, as the author is always trying to tell us some story about how difficult real life problems are. Superman can't feed the world because of despots and fear and his own physical limitations. The only time a hero can actually fix things are Elseworlds or What Ifs, like Superman: Red Son. (That's kind of preposterous; ALL superhero comics are Elseworlds.)

People expect to read about heroes relating to their own society. Getting too far away from that would drive people away. Do you honestly think if Superman was around on September 11th, the towers would've fallen? Or that the Japenese would've bombed Hiroshima? If telepaths existed we wouldn't have any more missing children. If super-geniuses existed we wouldn't have an energy crisis, we'd have flown to the stars, we'd have resolved quantum mechanics and general relativity. It's the bane of serial publication: everything has to stay in line with the status quo, rather than acknowledging how far things would drift from our own world over time. Because people don't WANT to read that. They don't want to read a story about Green Lantern stopping Vietnam, about Punisher assassinating Castro, or Storm averting Katrina. Because it would be a disservice to the people who actually lived through such atrocities, or the memories of those who died in them. It's only looking back that we can say "What if Captain Marvel had stopped this?" But the universe of comics are set in stone (barring retcons) every month, so they don't have that luxury.

[Talavar]

I suppose my largest problem with Watchmen is that it suggests that the superheros (Rorshach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the Comedian & Dr. Manhattan) are pointless - they haven't made the world a better place, they're just doing it for the thrill, compulsion, costume-kink, to fulfill expectations, sociopathy, etc.

Well, that's sort of a blunt way to put it, but essentially, yes. It's not so much that Moore is saying that superheroes are incapable of making the world a better place, but the practice of "costumed crimefighting" and "costumed adventuring," even when done by legit authorities like the police or the military is, at best, a symptomatic treatment of an endemic social ill (such as say, when city governments think that simply increasing the police presence is sufficient to reduce crime in an economically depressed area) or largely an exercise in playing out juvenile power fantasies (Nite Owl I and II, Rorschach), a way to make money (Silk Spectre I), or a way for certain individuals to get their kink on (i.e.; Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis). Lasting crime (or war) prevention isn't a product of a case-by-case application of directed violence (as cynically, people have the innate urge to stir up trouble with each other), it can only be achieved through widescale social and economic engineering.   

To drive the (admittedly very clumsy and overly simplified) "social ill" metaphor further into the ground, imagine society as a person who develops hypertension (high blood pressure) due to poor diet and lack of exercise. Sure, that person can just keep taking blood pressure medication to treat the symptomatic manifestations of the illness, but ultimately, unless that person takes concrete steps in changing his/her lifestyle, a heart attack or a stroke is almost inevitable.

In a similar vein, the directed application of violence or the threat of violence (legally sanctioned or not) treats the immediate symptoms of criminality, but does little in the way of ameliorating the causes of the problem, which are more often than not, rooted in socioeconomic factors immune to bullets, punches, and headlocks. Now, I'm not saying that there is no place for the directed application of violence in curbing crime because there is a practical need for it, but a crimefighting outlook that relies solely on this, which is how most superheroes have been traditionally portrayed, is juvenile, flawed and incomplete.

But just as I don't go to a baker to get my taxes done, I'm not going to necessarily tap a guy with super-strength or who knows kung-fu to draft my government's social policy.  To use your hypertension metaphor, you don't stop needing your blood pressure pills unless you take those concrete steps to change your lifestyle, and turn your health around.  To condemn the treatment for not being a cure doesn't make a lot of sense.  You take the pills, and then you try to improve your overall health.

Watchmen is Moore's deconstruction of superheros, but in a way, I think it's a strawman argument.  He's written a story that doesn't need superheros, and created characters whose range of motivations omit a big one: guilt (shared in some form and to some degree by Superman, Batman, Spider-man, etc.), and then that construct is applied to the genre as a whole.  Socio-political situations don't need superheros, but lots of individual problems could sure use one - plane crashes, natural disasters, random assaults.  In fact, in a way, Watchmen deconstructs the superhero but advocates the supervillain - no one like Ozymandias really exists, but the Cold War and MAD get resolved by him using a fairly traditional super-villain set-up (not his motivations, but his methods). 

Because Ozymandias is a villain, whatever his intentions.  The man killed millions to avert a potential disaster, a disaster that we managed to avoid in the real world without any such dramatic events.  Now, the Soviets of Watchmen's reality had the added pressure of an American super-man egging them on, but Ozymandias could have removed Dr. Manhattan from the equation much more easily than his chosen solution - probably with a well-worded argument. 

The superhero genre is flawed & incomplete though.  While I don't think the existence of superheroes would make our world idyllic, they would change it radically.  Beings like Dr. Manhattan & Superman simply by existing would change how people think about even things like philosophy & theology - what are biblical miracles compared to the stuff they can do?  Super-inventor characters like Tony Stark, Mr. Fantastic, etc., would rapidly have us living in a world whose technology would far outstrip what we have today.  Action movies and the actors who play them would probably be much less popular.  Society would change in thousands of ways we can speculate on, and probably thousands more no one would guess, as normal people reacted to the existence of superheroes.  The genre is incomplete because it almost never takes that next step - we get a version of today's society, + superheroes.

Preeecisely. It's interesting that the only characters in comic mags that actually want to change the world on a grand scale are the villains. Magneto? Over-run the violent and worthless human race. Sinestro? Unite everyone under a banner of order. Lex Luthor? Eliminate mankind's pathetic need for gods. Dr. Doom? Take over the world, just for the heck of it. What happens when a superhero turns their powers to the forces of global good? They're thwarted, as the author is always trying to tell us some story about how difficult real life problems are. Superman can't feed the world because of despots and fear and his own physical limitations. The only time a hero can actually fix things are Elseworlds or What Ifs, like Superman: Red Son. (That's kind of preposterous; ALL superhero comics are Elseworlds.)

I think many of the heroic characters would like to change the world on a grand scale, they just aren't willing to use the same methods.  To decide that you know best, and then to impose that viewpoint on anyone who dissents with you is what makes a villain; it's not necessarily the ends, but the means.  Superman can't feed the world because to do so, he'd have to impose his will on a great number of people who would otherwise object.  Superman the hero/benevolent god would cease, and Superman the planetary dictator would begin.  A relatively benevolent planetary dictator might actually be good for most of humanity in the long run, but I wouldn't vote for it.

[zuludelta]

But just as I don't go to a baker to get my taxes done, I'm not going to necessarily tap a guy with super-strength or who knows kung-fu to draft my government's social policy.  To use your hypertension metaphor, you don't stop needing your blood pressure pills unless you take those concrete steps to change your lifestyle, and turn your health around.  To condemn the treatment for not being a cure doesn't make a lot of sense.  You take the pills, and then you try to improve your overall health.

Well, I did say that the "costumed crimefighting" aspect is a a necessary piece of the modern and contemporary crimefighting schema Moore is pushing. It's not an either/or thing. The "problem" with most traditional superhero stories is that it focuses solely on that aspect, which is okay for young readers and adult readers looking for simple entertainment, but is a creative hindrance when it comes to writing something with more substance and sophistication.

He's written a story that doesn't need superheros

I agree with you here, and it's another one of the perceived flaws (which you may or may not share) I ascribe to the narrative aspects book, and that I've discussed at some length in this thread. The internal logic of the main plot and most of the subplots is solid and consistent, no doubt, but I fear it doesn't stand up to more rigid critical scrutiny, in my mind.

But as I've maintained, the main draw of the book for me has always been the more technical aspects of its creation and construction (which remain unparalleled in contemporary comics, I feel), and not so much the themes associated with its story or the story itself (purely a matter of subjective taste, of course).

A great exercise is to read Larry Hama's 1989 Nth Man maxi-series after reading Watchmen. Hama tackles some of the same themes (albeit in a much much less sophisticated manner) and he arrives at many of the same conclusions as Moore while providing his own unique insights contrary to some of the ones Moore popularized in Watchmen, but in a context that's much more agreeable to my personal sensibilities (that's basically just me saying that I felt Nth Man was a more "fun" read... but then again, I'm a sucker for comic book ninja action).

[danhagen]

I appreciate your points, Z. My point about Ozymandias is that his purposes are traditionally "liberal" -- to help the great mass of people achieve peaceful, decent lives -- but that he is willing to kill millions in order to do that. He is a committed teleologist, justifying any number of murders as long as they serve the greater good, while Rorschach is an equally committed deontologist, who will remain true to his idea of universal moral law though hell should bar the way. And the Comedian is a fascist, contemptuous of ethics and wedded to pure power, whether expressed in murder for amusement or what he did to Silk Spectre.  That's why, unlike the others, the Comedian sickens me, for the most part. I imagine Ozymandias enjoyed doing what he did to him.

[danhagen]

By the way, I regard Ozymandias as a kind of Captain Nemo -- a supremely arrogant and powerful but well-intentioned individualist who believes he can solve the world's problems by himself, and decides to do so. One of the interesting facets of "Watchmen" was the delicious hash it makes of the hero/villain dichotomy in melodrama. Super heroes and monsters are two sides of the same coin, and both are entirely dependent on an outside point of view.
When the magnificent Marvelman reappears in Moore's earlier work, the military's grim response is "The monsters are back."

[daglob]

I can't remember where I read it, or who said it (Jules Pheiffer, maybe?), but it was more or less that comic book/strip heroes (not only the "super" ones) are basically modern myths. Some stories give you something to aspire to, others are cautionary tales, some are told merely to give you a thrill. If you don't think that some of those early mytholizers weren't trying to please an audience, you weren't paying attention.
Comic books and strips weren't originally "for kids", pretty much as most entertainment was for general audiences (watch Warner Brothers cartoons from the 1940s, and look for the adult references; my favorite: "If only the Hayes Office would let me, I'd give him the boid"). More "adult" stuff and more "kid" friendly stuff was available, and usually the advertising and publicity was sufficient to let people know which was which. But... did newsdealers keep the Spicy line under the counter by choice, or was that a requirement? Anyway, adults followed Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Li'l Abner, Popeye, Major Hoople, and Maggie and Jiggs same as kids. The same was probably true of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (lots of bondage and fetish images there), Captain America, The Human Torch, and so on. Comics didn't become exclusivley for "kids" until after Fredric Wertham had his day (Did you know that he attacked SF fandom too? BIG mistake).

The Watchmen series was basically an "anti-myth", with Moore telling the tale of what might really have happened if there had been super-heroes, given that human beings are human. Supers DID change the world they lived in, in a lot of small and large ways: the whole society was the result of there having been costumed crimefighters and one super-being. They just didn't make it a Utopia, which was what Ozymandias was trying to do. Funny; so many of the characters in the book are idealists: Rorschak, Ozzy, both Nite Owls...

One odd note: in the comic Ozzy killed his servants so they couldn't betray him, but he didn't kill Nite Owl Silk Specte, or Rorschak. Why? He treid to kill Dr. Manhattan, because Dr. M was a possible threat to his plan, but did he think that NO and SS would see things his way? Need to re-read that section again.  

Side note: Watched "V for Vendetta" recently; can't recall seeing Alan Moore's name anywhere.

[zuludelta]

One of the interesting facets of "Watchmen" was the delicious hash it makes of the hero/villain dichotomy in melodrama.

The moral ambiguity Moore offers up in Watchmen is perhaps one of his more important contributions to the superhero comics medium. Certainly, other writers have created well-meaning but ethically and morally conflicted popular superheroes before him (most of them from pre-1985 Marvel), but it was Moore who crystallized and fully realized the concept in a way that transcended Chris Claremont's very entertaining but ultimately shallow X-Men soap opera or Stan Lee's Spider-Man, which was an almost parodic take on the monomythical Internal Conflict.

I can't remember where I read it, or who said it (Jules Pheiffer, maybe?), but it was more or less that comic book/strip heroes (not only the "super" ones) are basically modern myths.

Ooooh... I very much disagree with the notion that comic strip/book stories serve as modern myths (it's one of those things that seems to make sense when you first hear it, but quickly falls apart upon further examination), but I think that's a discussion that probably deserves its own thread. Let me just say that comic strips/books, historically, have never fulfilled the same social role and significance as the classical myths, traditional fables, and narrative legends that some people seem compelled to compare them to. 

[Talavar]

I think a parallel can be drawn between superhero stories and various types of legends/folktales.  I don't mean creation myths, myths and legends that were attempts at explaining why the world is the way it is, but the equivalents of King Arthur & his knights of the Round Table legends, or Robin Hood, Jason & the Argonauts, some of Hercules' stories, etc.

A lot of these characters had series of adventures made up by various people over long periods of time, often with little regard for established "continuity."  Many of the characters had special powers, and the stories got retold and added to because people knew and enjoyed the characters.  A lot of legends and stories about King Arthur & his knights are basically the first fan fiction, for example.

[lugaru]

I've discussed this before but I dont see comics as modern myth since people dont really believe in any of it, I'm sure those few pagan Thor believers dont envision the Marvel Comics version. But as Fables they are perfect, good people punish bad people in hypothetical morality plays facilitated by super powers, time travel and crazy inventions.

Watchmen divorces the characters from any form of Karma and any evil deeds done remain on the ledger at the end, never trully redeemed.

[Alaric]

I think a parallel can be drawn between superhero stories and various types of legends/folktales.  I don't mean creation myths, myths and legends that were attempts at explaining why the world is the way it is, but the equivalents of King Arthur & his knights of the Round Table legends, or Robin Hood, Jason & the Argonauts, some of Hercules' stories, etc.

A lot of these characters had series of adventures made up by various people over long periods of time, often with little regard for established "continuity."  Many of the characters had special powers, and the stories got retold and added to because people knew and enjoyed the characters.

I agree with most of what you're saying here, but, as something of an amateur Arthurian scholar, I had to seperate this part out;
 

A lot of legends and stories about King Arthur & his knights are basically the first fan fiction, for example.

I would disagree with this on two levels; first of all, there were plenty of intentionally-fictional adaptations of mythological and legendary figure long before the Arthurian legends. Much of what we think we know about Greek mythology, for example, comes from intentionally-fictional accounts by Greek authors and poets, utilizing characters and (sometimes) situations from existing myths to tell their own stories. Secondly, in order for something to qualify as "fan fiction", I think there needs to be an "official version" to contrast it to. While people nowadays tend to think of Sir Thomas Mallory's version of the Arthurian legends somewhat that way, it wasn't so regarded until the 19th century, and hadn't even been written when most of the Medieval Arthurian stories were written. There really was no "official", "correct", or "cannon" version of the Arthurian legends- and, if those legends were originally based on any kind of reality, that reality had been mostly forgotten by the time the earliest versions still existing were written.

I've discussed this before but I dont see comics as modern myth since people dont really believe in any of it, I'm sure those few pagan Thor believers dont envision the Marvel Comics version. But as Fables they are perfect, good people punish bad people in hypothetical morality plays facilitated by super powers, time travel and crazy inventions.

That's a common misconception about myths- that people had to have believed in them. There are plenty of stories included in most books on mythology that have known fictional literary sources- the story of the theft of Thor's hammer, for example, was composed in Iceland in Christian times. There are many more such stories where we have no idea whether they were actually believed. Joseph Campbell, in one of his books, talked about a tribe in Africa where a distinction was made between the gods as actually believed in, and as they appeared in the stories the people told, which were considered pure entertainment.

As to whether comic books are a form of modern mythology, I think it's a complex question. Certainly, a strong case could be made that, during certain time periods (such as the '40 or the '70s), they did in part serve that function. There are certainly fictional characters who I would consider to have entered into a kind of mythic level of societal consciousness, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, James Bond, Godzilla, Lassie, Dracula, etc. I would certainly put both Superman and Batman on that list, in which case those comic books featuring one or both could be seen as tales of mythological characters, whithin the culture those cahracters belong to, and therefore, as myths, themselves.

[daglob]

I can't remember where I read it, or who said it (Jules Pheiffer, maybe?), but it was more or less that comic book/strip heroes (not only the "super" ones) are basically modern myths.

Ooooh... I very much disagree with the notion that comic strip/book stories serve as modern myths (it's one of those things that seems to make sense when you first hear it, but quickly falls apart upon further examination), but I think that's a discussion that probably deserves its own thread. Let me just say that comic strips/books, historically, have never fulfilled the same social role and significance as the classical myths, traditional fables, and narrative legends that some people seem compelled to compare them to. 

And I aggree that they don't serve the function of the original myths and legends. We have progressed beyond that. We haven't progressed beyond the need to make up tall tales and tell them to people to make them laugh, cry, think, dream, forget, or just marvel at our skill. Nor have we progressed beyond the need to hear these tall tales. I hope we never do.

It's funny to go back and read stories from the '50s and '60s, and see how simplistic and one-sided each character's view is. Batman may have the most complex view. They do things and never (or at least very, very seldom) think of any consequences. But, then again, they ALWAYS make the correct decision, without agonizing over it for several pages.

[danhagen]

There are certainly fictional characters who I would consider to have entered into a kind of mythic level of societal consciousness, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, James Bond, Godzilla, Lassie, Dracula, etc. I would certainly put both Superman and Batman on that list, in which case those comic books featuring one or both could be seen as tales of mythological characters, whithin the culture those cahracters belong to, and therefore, as myths, themselves.
----
I would view them as memes, concepts that have taken on a life of their own to become self-perpetuating. Like genetic information, the ideas evolve to fit changing environmental circumstances -- thus, for example, the tough socialist reformer Superman of the Depression becomes the conflicted, well-meaning teenager Clark Kent in "Smallville." Batman battled child pornographers in one incarnation, and met a talking cartoon dog in another. The New Sherlock Holmes will be gay. Bond was now a child during the cold war, not one of its foremost secret agents. Tarzan went from turn-of-the-century pulp action with a Victorian sensibility to Disney blandness. The same character, and not the same character.
Not even the corporations that "own" these characters control the transcendent memes, which exist in the minds of the public.

[Gremlin]

There are certainly fictional characters who I would consider to have entered into a kind of mythic level of societal consciousness, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, James Bond, Godzilla, Lassie, Dracula, etc. I would certainly put both Superman and Batman on that list, in which case those comic books featuring one or both could be seen as tales of mythological characters, whithin the culture those cahracters belong to, and therefore, as myths, themselves.
----
I would view them as memes, concepts that have taken on a life of their own to become self-perpetuating. Like genetic information, the ideas evolve to fit changing environmental circumstances -- thus, for example, the tough socialist reformer Superman of the Depression becomes the conflicted, well-meaning teenager Clark Kent in "Smallville." Batman battled child pornographers in one incarnation, and met a talking cartoon dog in another. The New Sherlock Holmes will be gay. Bond was now a child during the cold war, not one of its foremost secret agents. Tarzan went from turn-of-the-century pulp action with a Victorian sensibility to Disney blandness. The same character, and not the same character.
Not even the corporations that "own" these characters control the transcendent memes, which exist in the minds of the public.

How is that different than ancient myth?  Any unit of cultural information is a meme, according to Dawkins' definition (if I recall correctly), and the heroes of yore are certainly similar in that sense.  In fact, I'd say that King Arthur, Robin Hood, et cetera are even more thoroughly defined and developed memes than, say, Batman because the "successful" interpretations of the characters (how well they are received and thus passed down through the meme pool) are more limited.  You CAN write a wacky, silly King Arthur and still have it be successful (Monty Python the the Holy Grail, for instance,) but nobody confuses that with the "real" Arthurian mythos. But Adam West's Batman remains the definition of the Dark Knight for some people, despite all the fanboy love for a darker, grittier Caped Crusader. That meme survived because people enjoyed it, and it worked because the concept of Batman could sretch enough to include it (although stretching is a poor term, since I'd argue that the concept has to also stretch to accomodate ANY version, including the realism of the Nolanverse or the gothic darkness of Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum.  But that's beside the point).

I wonder if in a couple centuries' time, Batman will be as rigidly defined as, say, Odysseus is now...

[zuludelta]

First off, I want to thank the people who've contributed their thoughts to this thread. This is the type of comic book discussion that one hardly gets over in other boards or blogs without the inevitable "You suck! No, You suck!" back and forth that's endemic in comics fandom.

Secondly, maybe I should re-title this thread and make it a general comic discussion thread seeing as how we're drifting away from the original topic and maybe get more people interested in participating?

And finally, my thoughts on the whole "comics are modern myths" topic:

One thing that many people seem to miss when attempting to draw parallels between comics and classical myths is the medium of transmission. Comics are a product of the post-industrial age, and as such, are different from classical myths in all the ways that all post-industrial mass media is different from pre-industrial media (instead of digressing, I'll instead refer those interested to Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media).

Do comic book superheroes tap into the same Jungian archetypes that myths and fables tap into? I would say yes, but no more than any other form of modern literature or mass media narrative entertainment. And that's if you subscribe to Jung's theories, and by extension, Joseph Campbell's, regarding the existence of psychological archetypes in fiction (personally, I think the archetype model lacks evidential rigor... it's a good literary heuristic, but hardly set in stone).

And even if we take for granted that the superhero type is a direct descendant of Jungian archetypes allegedly inherent in myth, there is still the matter of a different social utility and function. The superhero's creation, at least in part, was motivated by commercial concerns. It is a product (in every sense of the word) of the commercial art era, equal parts commodity and creative endeavour. Myths retain their saliency and cultural currency across time whether or not a market exists for them, while the relevance of superheroes rise and fall with consumer interest. It is a common mistake, I think, particularly in today's media-saturated era, to confuse commerce and its products with culture and its artifacts (or perhaps we have finally reached the sad point in our societal development where culture and commerce have become inextricable from each other... "We are what we buy!").