filipfatalattractionrblog askedI think this has as much if not more to so sub-textually with the audience wanting to feel good about itself.
it started a little bit in the 80s, but especially ever since 9/11, there’s been an underlying narrative throughout popular fiction that amounts to, “In order to fight terrorists, the only thing that can be done is to become a terrorist yourself.” And that seems to me to be a product of a society that knows that things like the abuses at Guantanamo Bay are wrong, but doesn’t actually want to change the behavior or demand accountability. In a world where even Superman can’t find a way other than to become a terrorist, it’s more all right for ordinary people to feel the same way.
I think grappling with hard moral choices, and the question of where heroism stops, at what point you become a villain, is definitely interesting–it’s certainly been the backbone of the storyline in AVENGERS and NEW AVENGERS for months. But I don’t think the example that was given fulfills that quandary. That isn’t a hard choice at all, not for a super hero–if it is, then they’re a piss-poor super hero, and will be dead on in prison soon anyway. No, it’s a false choice that we want to see go the other way because we’ve become societally convinced that doing so makes somebody a “badass” and worthy of emulation. And because, on a visceral level, we want to see the bad guy get theirs. But that isn’t justice, that’s vengeance.
THIS!
I used to call this dark for the sake of dark or “Darkity dark dark dark.” But the interpretation here makes it feel more sinister, as if people have taken their modern mythologies (The superheros) and use them to justify things that are cruel, sadistic, and inhuman and pretend it’s cool and justifiable. It’s good to see real heroes making a come back and writers and artists who recognize the difference.
Hi, I'm Charlie.