Reconsidering the Superhero

The superhero genre originated as early as 1917, most commonly to American comic books. It is a type of specular fiction examining the adventures of costumed fighters, known as superheoes, who often possess superhuman powers and battle similarly powered criminals known as supervillains. It is one of the oldest american-born types of comic book fiction, and at its core, I personally have no taste for the earlier forms of it.

Thankfully, around the turn of the modern century, the superhero genre received an overdue overhauling makeover, transforming the superhero norms of the 20th century into a more human take on the heroes, but making them no less super.

Watchman is one such example, a series written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and colored by John Higgins. The story itself is used to reflect contemporary anxieties and to critique the whole superhero concept. Watchmen depicts an alternate history where superheoes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s, helping the United States win the Vietnam War. The country is edging towards a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes are outlawed and most former superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. The story focuses on the personal development and struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement, and eventually leads them to confront a plot that would stave off a nuclear war by killing millions of people.

Hellboy is another. Created and written by Mike Mognola, the story of a well-meaning demon, summoned from Hell to Earth as an infant and raised into working for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). The story takes the idea of a normally, radically negative force-- the force of the demonic-- and transforms it into the potential to be a positive one. Although Hellboy, also known as Anung Un Rama, is a demon, he is in every way a kind-hearted, if somewhat gruff protagonist.