I despise the very concept of superheroes

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Brawndo

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When one looks at superhero franchises like Superman and X-Men, or fantasy works like Harry Potter, the common characteristic is the existence of a super-human class with genetic and innate traits that make them superior to regular humans. In all of these works of fiction, humans are at the complete mercy of these Ubermensch to save us because we are too weak to do it ourselves. And what's more, human attempts to level the playing field with technology are generally rendered ineffective because most superheroes and supervillains are conveniently immune to human weapons.

How can works of fiction that exist primarily to celebrate the innate superiority of one group of persons over the rest of humanity be so popular? What does this say about us? In the 19th century, some intellectuals subscribed to the flawed theory that the bulk of human progress could be attributed to the efforts a small number of "super men" through history. This worldview is related to eugenics, Social Darwinism, Randian thought, and all kinds of other superiority theories. I don't consider that crap to be much different than superhero worship.

There are no super men. Although there have been standout examples of great people through history, all of them were assisted in innumerable ways by other people. Human progress is the product of human collaboration, and not the product of a few.

The only superheroes I can abide are those who gain their powers through technology, such as Batman and Ironman. Screw Superman.

- A proud Muggle and Non-Mutant
 

tippy2k2

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Ah yes, Iron Man and Batman. Proof that being rich is the greatest super power of them all...

The reason that super heroes are so popular is that they are a fantasy-fulfillment. No one ever watches Superman and dreams about being the poor bastard that just had their car flipped; THEY'RE Superman, the man who flies in and saves the poor bastard because he needs someone as awesome as me to do it.

See Zombie Apocalypse for another example
 

Norithics

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Interesting. Though I think your hatred should be directed toward the muggles instead, because what superheroes really are is contained within supervillains.

Superhero lore contends that only the superhero can deal with the supervillain. This does two things. 1. It contends that the biggest problems that we face as humanity are bigger than anything we could ever personally handle, and just too strong for us to contend with. And 2. It puts all the onus on the magical ubermensch to solve our problem for us.

People have inverted this and put superheroes in normal real-world situations for the grit factor, but ultimately it's all kind of backwards, because the entire point of the exercise is to pretend that if we all wanted to enough, we couldn't just come together and solve the vast majority of our problems if we weren't just so dickishly petty.
 

Julius Terrell

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I kind of agree with you, but that's probably because I'm more of a fan of how japan does things. Super Hero Worship makes me feel ill. I'd rather get real fantasy works than stupid superhero movies. Nobody really cares about real sci- fi and fantasy. Makes me glad I read books.

There is the Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings. They are exceptions and not average. Hell there was steven speilber's A.I. which was fantastic, but nobody cared.
 

Norithics

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Julius Terrell said:
I kind of agree with you, but that's probably because I'm more of a fan of how japan does things.
... Y'mean Super Robot and Super Sentai? I'm having trouble parsing the meaningful differences here.
 
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I wouldn't say I despise them (I guess there is an element of humour and exaggeration in your post), but I've never had the slightest interest in them. Not as a child, not now. Blah blah, magical bullshit super powers, whatever, don't care, not interested. Same goes for psychic powers and magic, although I can tolerate magic to an extent in high fantasy.
 

Launcelot111

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I feel like the X-Men would in a way be a subversion of the superman trend you don't like, as each character has a very narrow, specialized skill set and has to focus on training and teamwork and having an infrastructure in place to handle these threats rather than merely swooping in and taking them out in one punch.

Anyway, your take on superheroes makes me think on the conceptual divide between DC and Marvel, where DC focuses on the superhero as a symbol and the apex of human existence, while Marvel throws them in the real world and forces everyday problems onto these people, which shows in Spiderman's persistent use of his powers as an unconventional way to pay the bills and in the marital troubles of Ant-man or Mr Fantastic or in the X-men as an extended metaphor for persecution of minorities. This may seem corny, but it always seems to me like Peter Parker is disguised as Spiderman, but Superman is disguised as Clark Kent.
 

Julius Terrell

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Maybe it's the way America treats comic books and how Hollywood treats Super heroes. It's just always the same old damn thing with very little imagination.

I loved Watchmen and Sin City because it was something different for comic based movies. It truly was a breath of fresh air. Give me some variety and maybe I'll complain less.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Launcelot111 said:
I feel like the X-Men would in a way be a subversion of the superman trend you don't like, as each character has a very narrow, specialized skill set and has to focus on training and teamwork and having an infrastructure in place to handle these threats rather than merely swooping in and taking them out in one punch.
Are you kidding me? Half the X-Men shoot lasers, the other half has some sort of passive telepathy skill. There're maybe 4 or 5 X-Men with truly specialized skills, and even those get repeated. Nightcrawler=Vanisher, Mystique=Courier, Wolverine=Deathstrike, Colossus=Emma Frost, Xavier=Jean Grey, etc. I get the whole teamwork thing but isn't that the same as Avengers and Justice League? Everybody's super awesome, but they share their screen time anyway?
 

EternallyBored

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I'm sorry but it really seems like your just reading way too far into what superheroes and escapist power fantasy is supposed to be. Like Tippy above me said, nobody is reading superhero comics or Harry Potter and putting themselves in the place of random civilian #55, they are imagining being able to have superpowers themselves and going to Hogwarts to learn magic. Frankly that is the way it should be, nobody wants to read about the life of Joe Schmoe, faceless bureaucrat with the unenviable job of enforcing state child care laws and removing crying children and babies from their families, returning home every night to play video games and hang out with his friends; who then spends the occasional weekend biking in the mountains. I just described my own life, and I may be mostly satisfied with it, but I sure as hell don't want to read about it.

I want to read about people and places greater than myself, who do the things I can't or won't do. I want to travel to fantasy lands and extraordinary planets that no normal human could ever visit. That is what a good fantasy or superhero story does, it allows us an escape into things that can never be in reality. Yes, this sometimes means that there are unfortunate implications, but a good story will make them unimportant to the plot and keep our suspension of disbelief in tact. If you overthink the wizarding world in the Harry Potter books, then yeah the muggles get treated like crap and I will honestly agree that the muggle side of the story really gets no payoff by the end of the 7th book, but that's not really the point. We don't read Harry Potter to experience a moralizing tale about the Ubermensch, it's a somewhat simplistic fantasy story about good wizards fighting bad wizards, and a child growing up in that fantastic story. The average reader isn't thinking or identifying with the muggles in the story, he/she is imagining moving paintings, owls that deliver mail, magic duels at night, enchanted mirrors, and creatures right out of fantasy existing in the modern day, all set amongst an idyllic Scottish countryside. While the societal, cultural, and psychological effects of living in a society with a clearly superior class of people is an interesting setting for stories, that should hardly be the only focus in any story featuring super powers or magic.

As a final point, you may not like it, but it is something that I have experienced as true many times in my life, and that is that we are not all created equal in ability. To a child born with severe Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a normal healthy person might as well be Superman to that child, because as much as they may try, they can never equal that average, physically or mentally. If I drop everything in my life right this second and spend every waking moment training for the Tour de France, I will never be able to win, simply because I am a severe asthmatic. Those people will always be faster, in a way they are the Flash to my normal human abilities. There is always someone faster, smarter, stronger, better looking, or more experienced than you, that is a fact of life; that does not mean that the best of the best should be able to discriminate or abuse those weaker, slower, or sicker than them, we must strive to create a society where even the weakest are at least given the chance to succeed and excel. Which is exactly what many superhero and fantasy stories do, superman does not lord his strength as the Ubermensch over the normal people, he is portrayed as all too human in his emotions, and feelings, he is shown with personal flaws and struggling to uphold noble ideals, and even sometimes failing. This is why DC and Marvel seem to have their setting stuck in a perpetual time freeze, with all the iconic heroes never aging but always being in the present day, so that they can focus on character and setting rather than trying to extrapolate out what the actual existence of superheroes would really do to society, I will give you that it's cliche and really kind of played out by this point, but taking the other road requires them to invent a very different earth that would bear almost no resemblance to where we live today.

To wrap this whole probably pedantic diatribe of mine up, feel free to hate on superheroes all you want, god knows there's plenty of bad stories and legitimate criticisms to lay against the tired old genre. Hell, I mentioned Superman but stuff like the end of the recent Man of Steel movie, that make you stop and say, "wait how many people probably died when that building collapsed?" are good points and when suspension of disbelief is broken we often start questioning everything else in the story as well.

But don't for a second sit there and try to extrapolate people enjoying the genre out into some commentary about how they are similar to supporting the silliness that is Social Darwinism, or the evil that is enforced eugenics. That goes past reading too far into something and right into the kinds of leaps of logic that started the theory of Social Darwinism to begin with.
 

wizzy555

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Power located in individuals allows for personal drama.

Power located in faceless governmental or corporate mechanisms don't.

Even if not "true", journalists strive to attach faces and personalities to collaborative episodes, for the sake of weaving narrative.
 

Murais

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Man, you would love the shit out of Garth Ennis's "The Boys."

It pretty much raises all of these questions and concerns that you brought up, and responds with a group of smart, well-informed, and most importantly MOTIVATED group of mercenaries to take them out. All the while being cheeky and lampooning current superhero mythos and pop culture.

Also, the protagonist/audience surrogate is Simon Pegg. So, I mean, you can't go wrong there. Check it out. Seriously.
 

Cekil1

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I had no idea Lex Luthor was a member of the Escapist. Awesome! As Murais said just above me, you'll LOVE The Boys.
 

BiscuitTrouser

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Brawndo said:
Screw Superman.
What i find a little sad is that superMAN, the pinnacle of all that is humanity and the idol we strive to be, isnt even human. He isnt even a man. He isnt a super MAN hes a super "Something BETTER than a man". Is our race so terrible that we feel the need to take something different, pretend its human because of superficial similarities and then hero worship it? (Im talking about the actions of the humans in super man cannon). I dunno the fact superman isnt human is glossed over when people want to idolise him as a paragon of humanity but then suddenly it matters when he is lonely. Is the fact he is called superMAN ever talked about when he isnt even human?

Lemme just quote homestuck:

CG: YOU ALL TRACE THE MYTHOLOGICAL FOOTSTEPS OF YOUR BELOVED HUMAN SUPERMAN WHO'S REALLY JUST A MUSCULAR CAUCASIAN ALIEN.
CG: IT'S HILARIOUS HOW HUMANS WORSHIP HIM AS A PINNACLE OF HUMAN HEROISM AND VIRTUE BUT HE ISN'T EVEN HUMAN.
CG: ACTUALLY IT'S INCREDIBLY PATHETIC.
CG: BUT ALSO IN A WAY KIND OF ADMIRABLE.
CG: BECAUSE IT MEANS DEEP DOWN YOU ALL MUST REALIZE WHO YOUR DADDY IS.
CG: WE ARE, BITCHES
 

Lieju

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Brawndo said:
The only superheroes I can abide are those who gain their powers through technology, such as Batman and Ironman. Screw Superman.

- A proud Muggle and Non-Mutant
How is getting your powers through technology any different than for example being bitten by a radioactive spider?

Batman was born into wealth that makes it possible for him to do the stuff he does, Spiderman was a normal kid who accidentally got powers.

I do have a soft spot for 'badass normal' characters, but they just compensate by being prepared/smart/working hard.
Or actually, I most like characters with weak/useless powers and great weaknesses, but that they overcome and turn into strength.

It as much a power-fantasy as Superman, even more so.
After all, instead of having the power handed out to them they can achieve great things without that, or working against great odds.
 

Casual Shinji

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Since when did wish fulfilment fantasies become nazi propaganda for subjugating the common man?

Superman is cool, cuz he can fly and lift cars. We can't.
Spider-Man is cool, cuz he can swing around the city and climb any surface. We can't.
Batman is cool, cuz he's got a shitload of awesome crime fighting gadgets and a badass car. We don't.
Wolverine is cool, cuz he's got metal claws and is practically indestructable. We're not.
Cyclops is cool, cuz... Uhm... We'll skip that one.

That's as far as superhero worship goes, my friend.
 

ghostrider409895

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I always liked reading into heroes that do not have incredible power from luck of genetics, or from a lab accident. One of my favorite comics to read where Garth Ennis's Punisher comics since there is a guy with no power, but able to still take on villains. I am also a big Daredevil fan, and while I understand Daredevil has heightened senses which do qualify as a power, he is handicapped. He is blind, but rather than let that hurt him he trained his body and takes on super criminals and corruption. To me, it is neater to see something that realistically could happen because it shows an idea of what a person really dedicated could do. When a major hero is a person who obtained his heroic standing through realistic hard work it becomes something much cooler than reading that a alien just came down and saved the day in a deus ex machina moment.

That being said, I still like to read some heroes that do have powers, but with a qualification there. I am with the whole idea that I don't like the sound of a super human race, but I do like it when what makes a person a hero isn't just that they have powers and save people. I like to read into heroes that are heroes for their actions. I like it where their superpower might let them do something, but all it really did was let them actually act on their own personality. With Infamous, I liked Cole as a hero, and while I felt for Zeke in that it was unfair that Cole has powers while others don't, if you play as a hero Cole is a hero because of the decisions he makes. He is a hero because of his great sacrifice towards helping people regardless of what happens.

Edit: I actually like playing games, or reading into comics like the Gotham detectives run, or games like Red Dead Redemption, or horror style games. I figure it is just a little bit easier to think of myself as a guy trying to fend for himself with only a crowbar, or a shotgun with maybe some futuristic aid, than as a really big guy that can smash a building. I just enjoy it more when the power fantasy is something that I could realistically achieve, even if that would require extreme dedication and special circumstances.
 

Flaery

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I don't think this is a problem with the concept of superheroes, it's the execution. A superhero's origin, the inherent concept of the character itself, can be determined by the writer. undoubtedly most heroes are written as wish-fulfillment or as some sort of beacon of hope for the current generation, but if so desired, someone could write about a hero who worked hard through thick and thin to earn their power. For instance, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trained with their master to become the crime-fighting quartet they are today and I don't think the mutagen helped them much in that respect. As stated in my opening sentence, it's not a problem with the concept, it's just that not many people have really bothered to write anything more than what you're complaining about.

There's also another thing worth considering; is power really what's important? With super heroes, yes, but with human themselves, no. Superheroes are all about fighting, but is fighting the meaning of life? Is it the meaning of being human, or being special?
 

C. Cain

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Julius Terrell said:
I kind of agree with you, but that's probably because I'm more of a fan of how japan does things. Super Hero Worship makes me feel ill. (...)
I have to concur with Norithics; from an outside perspective I see very little difference between 'Super Hero Worship' in the West and its Eastern counterpart. Some cultural dissonance and aesthetic differences in its execution notwithstanding. Therefore I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate.
 

likalaruku

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tippy2k2 said:
Ah yes, Iron Man and Batman. Proof that being rich is the greatest super power of them all...
Neither of them are super heroes, just regular heroes. You have to have a supernatural ability to be a superhero or supervillain.