R-5

Since I have to come to know worlds of superheroes, and have participated in conversations with people who find some kind of reprieve in such worlds, I have found most often that there are those who would relish in being the heroes of these worlds, and those who relish in being the villains; I have found that many people would rather ask which power I would hold rather than what weaknesses I would mitigate. I rarely find those who ask the follow-up question, "Why?" to any of those.

I argue that those who would see themselves as heroes or villains seek some kind of escape that can be found best by obtaining some power they assume they are without. If I were stronger; if I were cleverer; if I were softer; if I were able to communicate with any and everyone on the planet; if I could throw out of orbit... some problem of some sort would be solved. I cast no judgement on this, to clarify; there is use in yearning for, striving towards greater than one is. If anything, it tells you about how you perceive yourself. For example, to see oneself as a hero or a villain is to see oneself as outside of the social norm, for better or for worse. There are those who hope or believe that they would be acceptable to society (heroes) and those who hope or believe they never could be acceptable to society (villains).

We won't get into anti-heroes, who fall blissfully between.

There are further implications, there, too. Those aspiring to be heroes believe that society could and would not only approve of them, but aspire to join them. They believe that society is worth fighting for, that people are worth giving one's all. Those aspiring to be villains believe society could never approve of them, or that they could never approve of society; rather than be run towards, they would rather corral society into the form it should be.

Of course, there are more practical questions to ask, then. What if society rejects you, hero? What if society embraces you, villain? If you seek to remain a villain, do you turn against yourself? If you seek to remain a hero, do you go with that which society prefers?

These are general themes of heroics and villainy which have been played in a great many tales. I'm sure you can think of specific writers' reins on any of your favourite characters which might lean one way or another.

Often, I find my displeasure with the superhero genre (if we don't mind calling it that for the duration of this rumination) to be the scope of the project. The best superhero stories I have read or watched are not the epic sagas spanning decades, but the small, contained, detailed stories focused on the heart of the characters in question.

I think fondly of that moment in Spider-Man, when we see in his eyes a falling train car and a falling MJ, and we're not sure whether he'll have to choose, or whether he can do both – but we realise he is assuredly going to try.

I think fondly of The Dark Knight trilogy, in which we followed a man climbing his way from grief, and hoping to uplift the city his parents died loving with him.

I think fondly of The New Mutants, a story contained to a single building, with few characters, and the worlds of story we found therein.

I think fondly of Superman (2025), which balanced a diverse cast of characters in a story that was still focused on and detailed the core of its titular character.

I think fondly of Jane Foster's time as Thor; of Harleen Quinzel's fight towards independence and actualised selfhood; of Logan's brilliant finale in the film sharing his name, and the passing mantle to Laura; of Raven's growth into all she is and all she can do, beyond the burden of her father's mantle.

The sprawling, scrawling, patchwork method of haphazardly throwing clods of clay and fibre together in the hopes of making something cohesive may be beautiful to those seeking to amass wealth from bored and half-starving masses, but it is poison to those seeking to enjoy a story with those characters they have found solace.

I suppose the mistake is believing that those who hold ownership over those characters care beyond the scope of how much money those characters might make them. Perhaps if there were some language besides finances that they understood, they might, too, find value in those we find pieces of ourselves within.