delano's hellblazer pt. 2
towards a post-punk superheroics pt. 5
In my last post I stated that it was Hellblazer’s essential ‘Britishness’ that really distinguishes it from the classic American superhero comics and not a difference of structure or character. I want to discuss this in a little more detail, and lay a groundwork analysis of the Americanized superhero in order to better get at what makes Constantine distinct from, say, the Flash.
Superheroes originate, and remain, a deeply American form. That is not to say that non-Americans cannot or have not written excellent superhero stories. If that were the case, there would be nothing to write about in this blog. The fundamental Americanness of superheroes lies in several factors. For one, they originated in large part as US war propaganda and a means to sell war bonds effectively during WWII. They were unabashedly pro-involvement, and anti-Nazi, and they remain for the most part deeply invested in a belief in violence, war, and the ultimate power of the law to determine justice. This fealty has waxed and waned over the years and across characters, but one need look only at any handful of superhero comics to see that the police are part and parcel to most.
American superheroes also exist in a kind of atemporal a(dys)topia in which contemporary politics is rarely allowed to invade the realities of the universe. Exceptions include explicit references to Hitler and World War Two in early Marvel comics, as well as more recently 9/11, which was given a famous special one-shot issue. These examples are excellent indicators of how the American superhero comic has evolved over time.
Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, and Jack Kirby, all men hailed as titans of American comics, given the kind of canonical status in the form that Dickens has over the novel, or Christ over Christianity, were all Jewish artists and writers creating overtly political work. Comics at the time existed as a solely pulp medium. They were not, as they are today, multi-billion dollar industries which produce intellectual property for even larger dynasties like Disney, Warner Brothers, and Sony. The political leanings of these creators were unabashed and uniterested in censorship. These creators were not anesthetized to the market forces of sales, which were boosted by Captain America or Superman punching Hitler, but they were also driven by real political conviction.
Take, now, the J. Michael Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man #36, in which, brought together by the tragedy of 9/11 heroes and supervillains, along with NYPD officers, and firefighters all attempt to help however they can in the aftermath of the destruction of the twin towers. Unlike the kind of straightforward explicit political stance of Kirby’s early work, Straczynski’s issue is obsessed with American victimhood. The 9/11 attack exists as an all-unifying force across the Marvel universe. In one panel, villains stand together in the wreckage, united with the heroes in the face of atrocity. Among them stands the Kingpin, a psychopathic serial killer, Doctor Doom, an authoritarian dictator from another continent, and Magneto, a genocidal villain who has done just as bad and worse. Morality and narrative are put on hold for what is an incredibly jarring intrusion of a real world event into an otherwise contained storyline. The absurdity of the superhero industry is put on full display by the issue, as they’ve abandoned any kind of narrative loyalty for the 9/11 issue.
What’s more, the comic is embarrassingly politically lukewarm. It makes weak assertions that 9/11 wasn’t the fault of gay people or feminists in the US, and neither is it the fault of ALL muslims, just a lot of them. What’s most notable and disappointing is that Marvel has simply given up on attempting to address actual politics through narrative and fiction, and instead made the surreal choice to make a “Spider-Man 9/11.” This ideological lack of commitment iis a hallmark of the modern and contemporary superhero story, and was such a dominant force in American comics from the 1990’s onward that nearly all American attempts to create new superhero comics, from the likes of the Image founders for instance, was never able to escape the apolitical swamp.
It took Karen Berger, someone entirely disinterested in superheroes and American cartoonists to open the door to our postpunk superheroics.