The United States are in a state of flux. It’s a very different place than it was only two months ago – chief amongst the changes being that we’re in the “Honeymoon Period” of Barack Obama’s presidential term. It seems that America has at the very least, a tempered enthusiasm, which we can attribute to the fact that the voting public hasn’t seen anything outwardly bad coming from the new administration.
To put it in a different way: if Obama farted in public, people would call it a rainbow, and all those caught in the cloud would be deputized as “America Happy Elves”.
It’s odd then, to see that some of our escapism have taken a darker term. The television show “Heroes” shows a group of well-meaning super-powered folks on the run from an oppressive government detention program – including a President obviously meant to be Barack Obama.
We’ve also got the new status quo of the Marvel Comics Universe, the so-called “Dark Reign”. In most Marvel titles, the heroes are also on the run from the government, whose super-powered defenses are now under the purview of Spider-Man’s archnemesis, Norman “The Green Goblin” Osborn. Although Osborn was installed by former President Bush, he’s already ran head-to-head with Obama… and allowed to continue his activities.
If Dick Cheney were more honest.
Our superheroes have gone to war – against the United States Government.
It’s been said that Superheroes are American Mythology, taking the place of the didactic Greek pantheon or cautionary tales of the European supernatural. If that’s so – and the case can be made that it’s largely true – why are shadowy, corrupt governments becoming a normalized setting in genre fiction?
An important distinction must be stated right away: neither story arc has outright said their President is our Barack Obama. This is largely a feint, however, because every move they make with their President character is designed to make the reader associate him with the current American President.
The most important tell is, of course, that each character is Black. Now, genre fiction is usually ahead of the curve in diversity, even if only in singular moments. The President has largely been different, though – Presidents, as the were throughout history, were White. Switching to African-American Presidents at the dawn of the first to take the office is not an instant change in modus operandi. It was an automatic response, designed to force the reader into making real world identification.
Yes, Obama famously met Spider-Man in a recent comic. It’s been pointed out by Marvel brass that this is out-of-continuity… all while they continue to make it known that the President of the Marvel Universe is always the same as the current President of the United States. They’re just trying to have it both ways; get some mainstream publicity for being “relevant”, and still tell the “Dark Reign” story they think will make them tons of cash.
The History of the genre further muddles the picture. When Ronald Reagan was President, Alan Moore delivered “Watchmen”, which tore down the entire superhero paradigm and put it back together in a more cynical format. Reagan was so divisive that the old rules no longer applied – if Superheroes were purely American, and thus the de facto mythology, they had to stop merely telling stories and become relevant.
When Bill Clinton took power in the ‘90s, comics shifted to meet the pulse of the country. Although Clinton himself was a morally ambiguous figure, his politics resulted in a boom period, typified by a collective consciousness of wealth and security. Superheroes didn’t have a big villain to fight, so just followed the curve. Comics in the ‘90s are legendary for their excess; bigger guns, bigger breasts, flashier covers… less story. Superheroes almost didn’t survive the crash that nearly ruined the comic industry, and their presence in larger mainstream culture largely fell away as their home medium lost the slight air of importance that came with “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Returns”.
Somewhere along the way, literary superhero fiction became synonymous with darkness. The lone mainstream success of the 1990s was “Sandman”, a universally acclaimed masterpiece from gothic genius Neil Gaiman. “Sandman” is the “Dark Side of the Moon” of Comic books – it sells in perpetuity, creating new fans on a continuing basis. Writers came out of the ‘90s renewed in their dedication to legitimizing the genre, because they had to… the money had dried up.
Also to Hot Topic as free candy to that guy's van.
Escapism is defined by it’s ability to help people forget their problems, but superhero fiction has decided it’s not Escapism anymore. Their audience has changed, from the children people always assumed were reading to the lifelong, sophisticated adults that always were.
Superheroes are, however, driving towards another shift in focus. The “Fugitives” arc of “Heroes” has been largely maligned, and although “Dark Reign” has sold well, it’s conceit isn’t entirely accepted as interesting. Vocal critics have maintained that although the main books have been decent, it’s not a sustainable status quo, and it will run its course sooner rather than later.
To be honest… the “Heroes” thing may not be a sign of the realignment of superheroes. Those writers couldn’t find their assholes if they had a roadmap, asshole sniffing dogs, and Indiana Jones, who had gone back to school and got a degree in asshole finding.
Indiana Jones at the Crack of Doom: AVN Best Picture (1986)
What is a possible sign is DC Comics’ “Final Crisis”. It’s written by Grant Morrison, arguably the most respected writer regularly creating comics. It has been controversial, but most first salvos against the norm usually are. “Final Crisis” was confusing in its theme when taken piecemeal, but taken as a collected story, it is about the triumph of story over the sturm und drang of modern superhero storytelling. Yes, as the advertising for the series said “Evil Won”, but it was defeated, through a song and a wish by the ultimate symbol of Superhero Escapism, Superman.
That song? Disco Duck by Rick Dees
It may be nothing. It may turn out that the intricacies of “Final Crisis” are merely a blip on the radar, brought down by its failure as a month-to-month adventure and the fact that it demands closer than the brisk reading so often assigned to event books of its type. Thus the proliferation of superheroes vs. government in modern genre storytelling can mean two things: that the darkness has one in pursuit of artistic legitimacy, or the minds of Americans have been lost by years under a cloak-and-dagger oligarchy.
Dark comics in an Obama world seem to say that hope must always be tempered and even with brightly clad warriors patrolling the skies to save us, darkness is only a whisper, or a panel, away.
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