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cic2007-02-02.jpgLast week I began my commentary on Peter Coogan’s book Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre (MonkeyBrain Press, 2006), in which he attempts to define both the superhero as a literary character and the superhero genre. He identifies three basic elements of the superhero, which he abbreviates as MPI: the mission, which benefits society and will typically last the length of the hero’s career; the powers; and the heroic identity, which is signified by a codename and costume, and which is usually accompanied by an alternate, secret identity.

Coogan makes one important point almost in passing. Wondering what made the cover of Action Comics #1 (1938), featuring Superman lifting a car, so different from past pulp and comics covers, which featured “outlandish action,” he theorizes that “Most likely, it was Superman’s costume in conjunction with the display of superpowers in a contemporary setting. This setting did not distance the action as a more exotic setting, such as an African jungle or an alien world, would have done” (Superhero p. 36). Coogan’s emphasis here is on the costume as “marker” of the superhero genre. But the setting is important, too. A cover featuring a man without a superhero costume who was lifting a large object on an alien planet would indicate a science fiction adventure story, not a superhero tale.

Over at his blog recently, former Marvel and DC writer Peter B. Gillis wondered about the Marvel and DC Universes: “How is it possible, I’d say, that in a world with antigravity, FTL travel, time travel, conscious computers, an alien contact every 2 1/2 weeks, and teleportation, that people still run around in gasoline powered cars with rubber tires?” Indeed, instead of using his anti-gravity discs for crime, why doesn’t the Wizard, one of the Fantastic Four’s enemies, mass produce them for sale to the general public? He’d become as rich as Bill Gates, and honestly. The Wizard would have also transformed the lives of ordinary people on Marvel-Earth possibly even more than the personal computer transformed our lives in the real world.

Gillis propounds what he calls “the Fundamental Theorem of Superheroes: that A superhero strip is a story in which, whatever the science fiction or fantasy elements are in the main premise, the background is always everyday reality.” He then explains that if you “change the background too much, and the strip becomes science fiction or fantasy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it stops being a superhero strip.” Moreover, superheroes “embody our myths and our self-images, or they fail. And therefore, for maximum effect, they should be us. And it gets harder to be us if you have a vastly different backdrop.” Gillis concludes that “you can play with the tensions all you want (and to good effect), but there’s no solving it. The superhero strip is basically like opera: there’s a contradiction built in to the form itself.”

Last week I referred to opera as an artform in which one must accept the non-naturalistic convention that people sing rather than speak. The superhero genre is similarly founded on nonrealistic conventions, including the idea that superheroes and supervillains possess technology that is unavailable to the common man.

For example, in Alan Moore’s recent series Albion, in which he resurrects characters from comics published by Britain’s IPC Media, the British government has locked up the various heroes and villains, as well as their advanced technology. It is explained that the government considered the technology too valuable to destroy, but too potentially dangerous to make publicly available. So here is Moore abiding by Gillis’s rule without even knowing about it, to ensure that the background of Albion remains an “everyday reality” like our own.

So here’s another defining rule of the superhero genre, and I’d take it even further: a superhero story is typically set in an urban environment on Earth in the 20th or 21st century. Time travel stories and “Elseworlds” sagas that place superheroes in past centuries are by their very nature exceptions to the rule; they are not the normal settings for ongoing superhero series.

One reason that Zorro is not a true superhero is that his stories are set in early 19th century California, and hence are historical romances. Zorro’s time is therefore not our own “everyday reality.” Zorro fits specifically into the tradition of the swashbuckler, a type of adventure hero associated with period settings, like Robin Hood and Captain Blood. There are even elements of Zorro stories which overlap with the Western (the California setting and pursuits by horseback, for example).

Neil Gaiman’s 1602 (see “Comics in Context” #13, 18, 21, 25, 28, 33, 35, 36) transplants familiar Marvel superheroes and supervillains into the early 17th century, and persuasively shows how they could fit into the culture of that period. This is indeed a superhero series, but 1602’s premise is that 17th century superheroes are anachronisms: the superheroes don’t belong there, and time must be set aright. 1602 thus acknowledges that it is an exception to a rule that is otherwise strict.

The first two volumes of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (see “Comics in Context” #22, 23) are set mainly in late Victorian London, another urban environment which serves as an effective counterpart to the New York (and such fictionalized analogues as Gotham City) in the modern superhero genre. The League has an overall mission (though some members–Mr. Hyde and Griffin, the Invisible Man–don’t have altruistic motives), some (Hyde and Griffin) have actual super-powers (while Captain Nemo has super-advanced technology), and some (Hyde and Griffin, and even Nemo) have codenames and dual identities. None of them wear unusual costumes, although Griffin’s bandages and Hyde’s bestial appearance are sufficiently iconic to count as substitutes. Significantly, Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray, the two core members, who will star in future installments, have neither codenames nor costumes nor superpowers (though they will acquire immortality). Moore intentionally portrays that the Victorian League as a precursor of modern superhero teams. But the League members are not true superheroes, though they are “extraordinary gentlemen” (and an extraordinary lady).

The prime example of a superhero series set in a future time is DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes. Coogan points out that Legion is actually a “cross-genre” series that “blends the superhero and science fiction genres. It is set in the thirtieth century and features futuristic technology, space travel, alien races, other worlds, and a variety of other SF elements. . . . But it is clearly a superhero book” inasmuch as “The characters all have superpowers, wear costumes, have codenames, and the group’s founders sought to emulate. . .Superboy and Supergirl” (p. 52). Coogan might have added that the Legionnaires have an ongoing altruistic mission, and that many of their primary adversaries (such as the Fatal Five and Time Trapper) clearly qualify as supervillains.

These various examples of series demonstrate that determining whether or not a certain character is a superhero may be a complex task. Coogan observes that “specific superheroes can exist who do not fully demonstrate these three elements [mission, powers, and identity], and heroes from other genres may exist who display all three elements to some degree but should not be regarded as superheroes” (pp. 39-40). It may be necessary to examine the context in which the character under examination exists. Coogan states that “If a character basically fits the mission-powers-identity definition, even with significant qualifications, and cannot easily be placed into another genre because of the preponderance of superhero-genre conventions, the character is a superhero” (p. 40). On the other hand, he asserts, “if a character largely fits the MPI qualifications of the definition, but can firmly and sensibly be placed within another genre, then the character is not a superhero. Typically, the identity convention (codename and costume) plays the greatest role of the three elements in helping to rule characters in or out” of the superhero genre (pp. 43-44).

Hence, the “preponderance of superhero genre conventions” makes the Legion a superhero series perhaps more than a science fiction series. But the weakness of the “identity” element in League means its first two volumes are a pastiche of Victorian science fiction, but not a true superhero series.

Since this column is titled “Comics in Context,” it should be no surprise that I quite like the idea of examining the context of a character in the story to determine whether or not he or she is a superhero. As I stated last week, this was the most eye-opening insight I got from Coogan’s book.

For example, Coogan asserts that the Hulk is a superhero without a mission. In the traditional portrayal of the Hulk, he has not dedicated himself to fighting criminals and protecting the innocent: he merely seeks solitude and survival. What happens is that supervillains attack the Hulk, or he inadvertently stumbles across them, so he ends up battling them. Of course, the Hulk qualifies under the Identity and Powers categories. Moreover, Coogan points out, Hulk stories “are suffused with the conventions of the superhero genre: supervillains. . .superhero physics–the transformative power of gamma rays;” a sidekick “—Rick Jones, superteams-the Avengers and the Defenders,” and more (p. 41).

But this poses the interesting dilemma of whether or not The Incredible Hulk live action television series of the 1970s was a true superhero show. There were no supervillains or superteams or sidekicks. Apart from the presence of the Hulk, the series seemed to be set in a thoroughly realistic world. What if we did not know that the Hulk was a lead character in Marvel’s line of superhero comics? Isn’t it possible that viewers of the show who did not read Marvel comics might have considered The Incredible Hulk to be a science fiction series, or even a horror series, since the Hulk is so obviously a variation on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Arguably, it was not until the later Hulk TV movies that guest starred Daredevil and Thor that the live action TV Hulk more clearly became a superhero series.

Batman has no actual super-powers, but Coogan observes, he has the Mission and Identity, and “operates in a world brimming with the conventions of the superhero genre,” including supervillains, sidekicks, superteams, and the helpful authority figure, Commissioner Gordon. Here is where my own theory about non-superpowered superheroes comes into play. As I explained last time, Batman has adopted a persona and modus operandi that figuratively cast him as a superhuman being: he is metaphorically a bat in human form.

In the case of the Fantastic Four, they have mission and powers, but Coogan contends that “elements of the identity convention [are] absent or weak” (p. 41): although they have codenames, they do not have secret identities. Coogan concludes that “The secret identity is a typical, but not necessary, convention for the genre” (p. 42). I would say that in the FF’s case, what is important is that the characters have real names and code names that signify the two sides of their lives: they are superheroes as well as people who are members of a family and have to contend with everyday problems. This duality is what is more important than actual secret identities, although a secret identity is often a practical measure necessary to ensure that the superhero can lead an everyday life as “one of us.”

Coogan then provides an extended case study of Marvel’s Luke Cage, alias Power Man, who on first glance seems to be a 1970s-style blaxploitation hero with super-powers. Coogan notes that a superstrong character like Cage “could operate a detective/security agency within a science fiction or horror/SF milieu and not be considered a superhero” (p. 44). But Coogan then demonstrates in detail just why Cage is a true superhero.

Cage has super-powers, and he acquires a code name, “Power Man,” which, as Coogan points out, not only denotes his superpowers, but includes the “racial subtext” of “black power” (p. 47). Oddly, Coogan overlooks the fact that Cage does not have a purely altruistic mission as most superheroes do: as the original title of his series stated, he is a “hero for hire,” a mercenary. Still, by this point, Cage has demonstrated he will not accept unethical assignments, and that he will risk his life to combat evil even when he isn’t being paid to do so.

In Cage’s case Coogan makes an important point perhaps without fully realizing its significance. He observes that “The editors and writers at Marvel Comics took great care to place Luke Cage within the superhero genre by surrounding the character with superhero conventions and foregrounding these conventions” (p. 44). In the first story, a man who witnesses Cage stopping a criminal tells him that he “nailed him like a real super-hero!” Cage then goes to a costume shop where he acquires his familiar outfit. Although it does not look like a conventional superhero costume, Cage thinks of it that way, commenting, “It’s all part of the super-hero scene.” In a later issue Cage even adopts his codename “Power Man” explicitly in order to be taken as seriously as the more traditional superheroes.

All of this suggests to me that another factor in determining whether or not a character is a superhero could be called “declaration of intent.” What Coogan has demonstrated here is that not only the editors and writers of the Luke Cage series, but also Luke Cage the character explicitly stated their intent that Cage would be a superhero.

Reading Coogan’s book, I realized that there are other characters who do not strictly fit his three main criteria for superherodom, but who are unquestionably superheroes. Take Rogue of the X-Men. She has super-powers, and upon joining the X-Men, she accepted their mission (protecting “normal” humans from evil mutants, etc.) as her own. But her “identity” also seems weak. Not until her 2004 limited series, decades after her debut, was Rogue’s real name, Anna Marie, established, and her last name is still a mystery. According to Dictionary.com, her codename “Rogue” can mean “a dishonest, knavish person,” “a playfully mischievous person,” or “a tramp or vagabond.” The first and third definitions fit Rogue at earlier stages of her life, and the second only describes one aspect of her personality. So her codename doesn’t tell you much about her present personality and nothing about her powers.

Her colorful skintight costumes suggest she is in the superhero business, but do not indicate her powers or mission or persona. Often she does not even wear an “X” insignia to denote her membership in the X-Men. (And what kind of insignia could possibly indicate her absorption powers?: A sponge?) She has changed costumes so often that one cannot identify specific colors with her costume as one can with Superman. Rogue’s iconic visual trademark is instead the white streak through her brown hair, but that indicates nothing that makes her a superhero.

Not only does Rogue effectively lack a full “real name,” but she does not truly have a life apart from her role as a member of the X-Men. The personas of the victims of her absorption powers provided Rogue with a kind of alternate identities. Still, Rogue lacks the true sort of dual identity that conventionally characterizes the superhero.

Obviously Rogue, as a super-powered member of the X-Men, is a superhero. But perhaps these inadequacies in “identity” are part of the reason that Rogue remains a supporting character in X-Men, and not a star. Rogue can star in occasional limited series, but not in her own ongoing series as Wolverine does. She is simply not as iconic a character as he is.

In his book Coogan examines a number of characters, such as Adam Strange, the Punisher, and Shang-Chi, to determine whether or not they fall within the definition of superheroes. Inspired by his example, I decided to apply his approach to some other characters, in and out of comic books.

What about DC Comics’ Zatanna? She has a costume, but it’s not a superhero costume. Her top hat, tails, and net stockings comprise a leggy feminine counterpart to the traditional stage magician’s costume. But like a superhero costume, Zatanna’s outfit denotes her biography, powers, and personality: she’s the daughter of a magician, wields magic herself, she’s a performer, and she’s sexy. Over the years there have been attempts to give her a superhero costume, but they’ve failed, in part because they did not convey her identity as well as her magician’s outfit does.

Zatanna’s got powers, but she doesn’t have a codename or dual identity: Zatanna is her actual first name. As for mission, she is altruistic enough to fight alongside the Justice League, but she seems to spend most of her time as a stage performer; she doesn’t patrol cities looking for criminals as Batman and Spider-Man do. So just what makes her a superhero?

I’d say it’s context. Coogan makes the intriguing point that Shang-Chi, the the protagonist of Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, is “a martial arts hero operating in an older pulp-style universe as the son and enemy of Dr. Fu Manchu” (p. 55). I would add that Master of Kung Fu writer Doug Moench and artist Paul Gulacy updated that “pulp-style universe” into a world resembling that of the James Bond novels. However, Coogan asserts, when Shang-Chi operates as part of the Marvel Knights superhero team, he becomes a superhero. I’m not sure that membership in a superhero team is necessarily sufficient to make Shang-Chi a superhero; he still lacks actual super-powers, a codename, or a superhero-style costume. (Shang-Chi’s outfit is supposed to be traditional Chinese clothing.) But certainly being a member of Marvel Knights puts him in the superhero genre in those stories.

Similarly, though the Punisher wears a costume, complete with chevron, and has a codename, Coogan believes that in his own stories he fits more into the subgenre of vengeful vigilantes that was founded by Don Pendleton’s The Executioner. And it’s true that even though the Punisher usually wears a costume, he has no super-powers and his solo stories usually are comparatively realistic crime stories, minus the exaggerations of the superhero genre. But when the Punisher appears in a superhero series like Daredevil or Spider-Man, Coogan contends that he too becomes a superhero (or, I’d say, a superantihero, or maybe a supervillain). Here I agree. When the Punisher interacts with superheroes, his own costume takes on more importance than it does in his solo stories, since it now marks him as one of the same kind as the likes of Spider-Man. Borrowing a metaphor from his colleague Randy Duncan, Coogan compares Shang-Chi and the Punisher to planetoids that can “get pulled by the gravity of writers and publishers into the superhero genre and out of their own genre systems” (p. 55).

Coogan’s law of gravity applies well to Zatanna. First, Zatanna is the daughter of Zatara, a crimefighting magician from comics’ Golden Age, and who is not a true superhero but a knockoff of the comic strip character Mandrake the Magician. She was created to be Zatara’s younger, female counterpart, so she wasn’t truly conceived as being a superhero. Editor Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox introduced Zatanna as a featured character in various superhero series: Hawkman, The Atom, Green Lantern, Elongated Man, and finally Justice League. She even became a member of the Justice League. So, following Coogan’s rule, Zatanna is a superhero because of the company she keeps. But significantly, Zatanna also functions well in DC’s Vertigo line of titles, not only because her powers are supernatural, but also because her costume is a variation on conventional formal wear, and does not necessarily mark her as a superhero. Hence, Zatanna is a superhero when she’s in a superhero story, but isn’t when she’s in a Vertigo book.

How about the Spirit? His creator, Will Eisner, repeatedly contended that the Spirit was not a superhero. Interviewed in The Jack Kirby Collector #16 (1997), Eisner asserted that “They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he’d have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, ‘Yes, he has a costume!’ ” (Superman had debuted only two years before, in 1938, and was an enormous success.) So here is Eisner’s “declaration of intent” NOT to make the Spirit a superhero! But the author’s intent is not necessarily the decisive factor, as far as I’m concerned.

Just giving the Spirit a mask doesn’t necessarily make him a superhero, either; he could be a masked avenger from the pulps, like the Shadow, or radio drama, like the Green Hornet, or even the comics, like the Golden Age Sandman in his original hat, suit and gas mask.

How does Eisner’s Spirit fit Coogan’s three principal criteria? He has mission: the Spirit combats criminals purely for altruistic reasons. He’s not a member of the police force, and he makes no money off crimefighting. (Actually, I’m rather puzzled as to how he supports himself.)

The Spirit also has a secret identity: his real name is Denny Colt. His codename, the Spirit, signifies his origin: seemingly killed by Dr. Cobra’s formula, Colt actually fell into suspended animation and then “returned” to life. One could say that the mysterious “Spirit” is haunting the criminals he pursues. The name “Spirit” might also suggest the character’s commitment to his ideals; he is not in crimefighting for material gain. (It occurs to me that the name “the Spirit” might even have been a knockoff of the name of the Saint, Leslie Charteris’s amateur sleuth who had been appearing in novels since 1928 and films since 1938, again only two years before the Spirit’s debut.)

The Spirit’s costume does not signify his biography, powers, or mission. It’s not a typical superhero costume, anyway: it’s a conventional hat and suit, along with a mask and gloves, all blue, except for his tie, which is usually red.

Ah, but here we can apply Coogan’s observation that a superhero’s costume typically has iconic colors, so that, for example, the combination of red, blue and yellow signify Superman. Isn’t the Spirit’s blue outfit similarly iconic?

The Spirit, of course, lacks super-powers. Moreover, whereas, say, Batman is clearly superior in athletic ability and combat skills to most ordinary people. In contrast, Eisner repeatedly showed the Spirit getting beaten up, as if he were not that much better at fighting than his adversaries.

Nevertheless, the Spirit’s origin story casts him as figuratively superhuman: as noted, he seemingly rises from the dead. Moreover, he continues the ghost motif by making his home underground in Wildwood Cemetery, as if he were an avenging spirit from the hereafter.

Sometimes Eisner even depicts the Spirit as if he somehow has superhuman qualities. In reviewing Eisner’s story “Ten Minutes” about a hapless criminal named Freddy (in “Comics in Context” #68) I wrote, “But then Freddy sees the Spirit approaching in a mirror; the Spirit even calls Freddy by name. How does he know?” How did the Spirit know his name, or where to find him? I concluded, “This is the Spirit as the spirit of nemesis, all-knowing, unrelenting, inescapable.”

Darwyn Cooke’s recent Batman/Spirit comic book surprised me by revealing so many similarities between the two heroes and their series: both have supervillains, secret underground lairs, fatherly authority figures in the police department, urban settings. In other words, Cooke emphasizes that the Spirit’s world has the same “preponderance of superhero-genre conventions” as Batman’s. Indeed (and here I issue a spoiler alert for the remainder of the paragraph), when the Spirit and Batman exchange masked identities towards the story’s end, Cooke makes his thesis plain.

Moreover, the fact that the Spirit does not seem out of place interacting with Batman and his supporting cast of friends and foes may be an example of the “gravitational force” of the superhero genre. Even if the Spirit is not a superhero in Eisner’s stories, perhaps he becomes one when he interacts with Batman.

If Eisner had lived long enough to see Cooke’s Batman/Spirit crossover, it would have been interesting to see how he would have reacted to it. Eisner did not always adamantly deny that the Spirit was a superhero. In the introduction to The Spirit Casebook, Eisner wrote that “The Spirit was for real; he was human, made of flesh and blood and therefore killable,” and yet also asserted that “He was simply a guy who had a perfectly acceptable trade–that of chasing and catching crooks. He was good at it. He got into the superhero business by accident; stumbled into it, you might say.” Just as Eisner perhaps stumbled into realizing that the Spirit is indeed a superhero.

How about the successful new NBC series Heroes, whose title characters all possess superhuman powers? As far as Declaration of Intent goes, the show’s creator, Tim Kring, believes that Heroes is in the superhero genre. But, he told The New York Times (October 30, 2006), he had little knowledge of superhero comics, the prime source of superhero stories. “’I was not a comic book nerd,’ Mr. Kring said, sipping an iced tea with lemonade in a restaurant near the studio lot here where Heroes is shot. ‘But the truth is that nowadays that world is so pervasive, especially when you have kids, that you go to movies in the summertime and that’s what you see. I didn’t really feel like I had to come from that world.’” (And just why do some people gratuitously insult part of their core audience?)

So Kring taught himself about the superhero genre from film adaptations of comics series, rather than the primary sources themselves. Then it’s not surprising that his understanding of the genre is somewhat flawed. (Nonetheless, I’m amused to discover that the show’s official fan website, 9th Wonders, is done in the style of Stan Lee’s Marvel Bullpen Bulletins pages from the 1960s.)

According to the Times article, Kring believed that “the idea of heroes” was “missing” from today’s world, and “That’s where the notion of superheroes came in, though he had no interest in anybody ‘donning a costume.’ Instead, he said, he wanted to make ordinary people suddenly extraordinary. ” Well, of course, Peter Parker was an “ordinary” person who became “suddenly extraordinary” when he gained the powers of Spider-Man, so in this respect Heroes isn’t different from traditional superhero sagas.

How does Heroes fit Coogan’s three main criteria? Powers, yes. But identity, no. Although the super-powered characters keep their powers secret from the general public, they do not have secret identities, codenames, or costumes. More importantly, they don’t have heroic identities distinct from their everyday selves. Coogan mentions “the exaggeration inherent in the superhero genre” (p. 31). Part of that exaggeration lies in the concept that the adoption of alternate, heroic identities is a reasonable choice in the world of the superhero genre. In the world of Heroes, it seems, it isn’t.

And what about mission? In Heroes some of the title characters are famously out to “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” presumably meaning saving New York City from being blown up, as has been prophesied. But these are only immediate goals. Another example of the larger than life exaggeration in the superhero genre is that the heroes are dedicated to career-long tasks of protecting other people and combatting injustice, at great risk to themselves and without recompense; there aren’t many people in the real world who are this selfless. As far as I know from the episodes I’ve seen, the title characters in Heroes don’t have that sort of ongoing mission as yet.

To my mind, Heroes isn’t truly in the superhero genre; it’s actually a science fiction series. As far as superheroes are concerned, Heroes does not make the list.

Next week I will turn to a particularly controversial question about who’s a superhero and who’s not: what about Buffy? And, for that matter, who’s a supervillain and who’s not?

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF
Believe it or not, I have yet another book out. This is the Marvel Vault, from Becker and Mayer, and is a project similar to the Marvel Classic Super Heroes book I previously wrote for the company. Marvel Vault contains a history of Marvel Comics, written by Roy Thomas (who covered up to 1974) and myself (who did the rest), as well as reproductions of rare collectibles from the Golden Age onward. And the book is already in its second printing!

-Copyright 2007 Peter Sanderson

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