A Superfight to Pick with Jeet Heer
Why superhero movies for adults are a good thing, and saying otherwise is an affront to the spirit of comics
I was reading through a backlog of New Republic issues while on a series of airplanes and was incensed by Jeet Heer’s grumpy old man “Stop Making Superhero Movies Just for Grown-Ups” rant. (I bet that article didn’t generate much controversy relative to the rest of TNR’s output, so someone’s got to take a stand!) While no comics slouch, Heer seems to miss the entire point of adult-oriented superhero comics, as well as misrepresents the history of comics itself.
Heer’s primary argument is that since superhero comics used to be marketed to kids, they should remain so. That logic would imply that South Park, Family Guy, Archer, and pretty much all animated shows on Adult Swim and Comedy Central are an affront to their genre, too. It precludes the possibility of satire, critique, and evolution. And how does this argument apply to other countries where comics were historically embraced by wider demographics?
Heer goes on to declare that “Superheroes work best as all ages entertainment because the roots of the genre are in the children’s daydreams: to be able to fly like Superman, to wield a lasso like Wonder Woman, to run like the Flash, or to leap from building to building like Spider-Man.” Do Sci Fi and Western movies also need to cater to kids since kids long dreamt of rocket ships and cowboys? And since when have stories about superhuman powers been exclusively the domain of children’s literature? Samson, Hercules, and Gilgamesh beg to differ. (It is doubly curious that Heer sees lasso-wielding as the central attraction of Wonder Woman.)
Watchmen’s central question is a decidedly adult fantasy: what would you do if you had the power to rule the world? The Dark Knight Returns indulges a fantasy of sticking it to the Man and redeeming a broken world. These comics use the conceit of superheros to ask adult questions in an adult setting. Saying Watchmen is a book about superheroes is like saying Animal Farm is a book about talking animals.
I also question Heer’s entire premise that superhero comics were targeted to kids until the ’80s. Neal Adams’ Batman was an emphatic rejection of the ’60s campy Batman tv show. Jim Steranko’s work on Nick Fury was decidedly sexual and adult — at least as much as it could be under Comics Code restrictions. If anything, the child-friendliness of ’50s and ’60s comics and later was more a result of a moral crackdown than one of a natural audience. Frederick Wertham’s nefarious Seduction of the Innocent asserted that since comics were necessarily created for kids but featured adult content, they should be banned. But Wertham didn’t understanding that some of these comics were not intended for that audience. In the days before video game ratings and helicopter parents, and aided by an assumption by parents themselves that comics were obviously kid-friendly, youngsters did indeed get their hands on material inappropriate for them. The consequence of the resulting crusade was that mainstream comics became silly and juvenile, and adult comics either went underground, switched formats so as to not be regulated (hence Mad Magazine), or ceased publishing.
Beyond that, what we consider entertainment suitable for kids has changed. PG-rated movies in the ’70s and ’80s included topless women. I can’t imagine a comic about a kid orphaned by a thug who shoots his parents in front of him growing up to fight mobsters being considered appropriate for kids today. Frank Miller’s depiction of what that experience would lead a man to do is, I’d argue, much truer to the source material than Adam West’s portrayal. The expanse of government power questioned in Captain America II and Avengers I is similarly a true extension of the issues explored in the comics when Captain America became disillusioned with the US government in the ’70s, as well as being a poignant expression of our modern day concerns and power fantasies. Comics grew up, and so did the movies based on them, and our culture is richer for it.
Last week, I helped Deadpool break all kinds of box office records. A breezy romp brimming with sex, vulgarity, and destruction, Deadpool stars a character who doesn’t even define himself as a “hero.” He plays opposite Colossus of the X-Men, whose moralizing speeches on heroism and obnoxious can-do attitude are played up for comic effect. We don’t relate to do-gooder Colossus but to caustic, bloodthirsty Deadpool. If we had magic healing powers, would we be heroes or would we take the opportunity to giddily, gruesomely take revenge on everyone who’s ever wronged us? That’s the ultimate amazing adult fantasy.
The problem is that Heer’s definition of superheroes as adolescent-oriented is as pervasive as it is wrong. Sitting two rows ahead of me were two boys who looked to be about 7 or 8, one of them dressed in a Deadpool costume. Their parents likely couldn’t imagine the possibility that a Spider-man lookalike wouldn’t be suitable for their elementary schoolers. Hopefully they do now.
I still don’t have a desire to see Dawn of Justice or Suicide Squad, but that’s because they look terrible.
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