It’s not just you, even superheroes have father issues

Minor Spoilers for Iron Man 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther.

Are our heroes allowed to be anything other than what we expect of them? Are they afforded the luxury to differ from our expectations?

Most children have two sets of superheroes- the heroes on their pages/screens and the real life heroes: their parents. Over the course of the years, both sets of heroes get certain expectations ascribed to them. Sons (for the sake of this article), begin to hold their fathers to certain standards. We begin to, in many cases, equate them with our comic book heroes. These may not be fair, or even entirely accurate standards to hold them to, but the validation is right there in their names- they are our superheroes, hence better than most.

One of the most endearing things about comic book heroes is that they go through the same problems we go through, with father issues proving not being an exception. Granted, the father-son relationship is an overused trope in pop culture (that’s what happens when you have dudes writing all the stories), but it remains an intriguing and complex relationship (both in real life and onscreen). An aspect of intrigue always being how the fathers choose to carry out their roles.

On the one hand is the outdated idea of the “macho man”- the hard man, head of the house. Provider. His job is to make sure his family’s needs are always met, no matter what (this is often paired with an inability to show any positive emotion). On the other hand, rests the noble desire to protect his family, to shield his children from the harsh, cold world till he felt they were sufficiently prepared to face it. Then, somewhere in between, burgeoned the façade. The façade that would become the persona many fathers would eventually present to their sons- a façade of invulnerability and omniscience. “What I say goes” “My way is the only way”.

As a young boy, already believing his father to be a “superhero”, this façade only helps to cement that nascent thought. Of course you buy into the hype, you know no better. All you know is what you see and all you see, is what is shown. So even when the rest of the world exemplifies that there is more to everyone than meets the eye, we disregard this for our fathers. It will eventually take us far too long to see them as the flawed humans they are, susceptible to missteps and grave misjudgments.

Three out of Marvel’s last four movies have sought to portray that realisation on screen- the crashing of the façade (with Spiderman: Homecoming expertly sidestepping that Uncle Ben shaped hole). They’ve managed to show, through some of our favourite heroes, the various shades to that father-son relationship. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) are all forced to confront the idea that their fathers are not entirely what they always believed them to be, continuing a Marvel staple that began with the clubhouse leader, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) back in Iron Man 2.

For Thor and T’Challa, their fathers were also their kings. As a result, these forced confrontations, not only gravely affected how they saw their fathers but also, logically, how they saw themselves and their approach to their future duties. They had spent their entire lives being bred to rule and had willingly studied their fathers closely as prime examples of good leadership.

Irrespective of what was going on around him during the Thor trilogy, some things always remained consistent for Thor- his love, admiration and respect for his father, his King, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). Everything he did, either as a warrior or a prince, was in the hope that it would make his father proud.

Similarly, T’Challa grew up adoring and learning from his father, T’Chaka (John Kani). A King adored by his people, he always put his people first and led his nation courageously and intelligently. He was the blueprint for the type of King T’Challa hoped he would one day be. Thor and T’Challa both held onto these perfect ideas of their father as men, fathers and kings who constantly led through morality and justice.

For T’Challa and Thor, holding on to these long held beliefs only worsened the eventual confrontations with their fathers’ secrets. T’Challa is ambushed with the realisation that his father had, for years, covered up a murder he committed (albeit for noble reasons) and had left his infant nephew in a different continent to grow up without a father. This, of course, is a stark contrast to the noble king he had spent his life admiring. This was not the image of his father he was familiar with.

Thor is confronted with a similar rewrite of history. He is presented with the bombshell that his father had not built his kingdom through diplomacy and peaceful resolutions, as the history books told it, but rather through war, conflict and death. The peaceful and diplomatic Odin was actually a murderous conqueror. It is fitting that the villains in both movies are family members who are direct results of these secret acts. They force both Thor and T’Challa to quickly acclimatise themselves with both these shocking reveals and the new versions of their fathers they were now presented with.

Now, your father didn’t commit murderous acts in his past but what he did do was make mistakes. He will also continue to make mistakes which is why it is important for us to see and accept them as humans, who will make mistakes. We have to understand that the façade we had come to believe as gospel is indeed just that, a façade. The sooner we are able to understand and accept that, the easier the rest of the journey becomes.

Peter Quill, on the other end of the spectrum, represents the absent father relationship. Peter grew up without his father and tragically, resorted to telling his friends that his dad was David Hasselhoff and he was always away touring with his band or shooting his show (the awesome Knight Rider). After the death of Peter’s mum, he is abducted by a group of alien outlaws led by Yondu (Michael Rooker), whom we later find out was sent to retrieve Peter by his dad (more on that later).

Yondu decides not to deliver young Peter, informing Peter that this is because he is skinny and can fit into tiny spaces hence, “good for thievin’”. He raises Peter as his own and eventually inducts him into his group of outlaws- the Ravagers. Peter is never able to see Yondu as anything more than his abductor. To Peter, he is the grumpy old man that kidnapped him from his home planet and continually threatened to eat him if he ever stepped out of line.

“You said you were going to eat me”

“That was being funny”

“Not to me!”

Peter would eventually meet his real father and unfortunately, be confronted with the opposite of what he had spent his entire life imagining his dad would be like. It would be in meeting this anti-expectation that Peter would be able to appreciate Yondu for being that father he had been searching for all along.

Peter had solidified the ideas of both what his father should be like and what Yondu actually was, that he didn’t realise the love that was already in his life. He took for granted the love Yondu showed him because he was already set in his ways towards Yondu. He did not recognise the father that had been present for him for the majority of his life.

We now arrive at Tony, the one who with the present but absent father.

“He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me”

Growing up, Tony Stark had no reason to believe that his dad liked him and while he respected him greatly, as he grew older, he saw less reason to maintain this unrequited love. Howard remained Tony’s hero though, he was in constant awe of his intelligence and business acumen and he spent his whole life trying to live up to his father’s expectations and after his father’s death, his legacy. Sure, as head of his father’s company, he maintained that he and his father were close and that he had been lucky to have him but in that rare candid moment with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), he finally puts his real feelings in words.

In a comic story, is a universal truth hidden, a feeling almost every child experiences- the search for validation. As earlier mentioned, we see our parents as our heroes. We look up to them, we are in constant awe of their accomplishments and continually seek validation from them because, obviously, what is more important than your hero’s validation?

For Tony, the search for this validation would subconsciously guide and haunt his adult years. It takes going through his father’s decades-old materials to find that validation. In a video, recorded over thirty years prior, Howard Stark (John Slattery), calls Tony “his greatest creation”, praising his intellect and showcasing belief in what his son would eventually become. At that moment, an adult Tony Stark finally receives that validation many sons (secretly) crave.

Howard Stark’s façade and all its accompanying beliefs prevented him from telling his son how he really felt about him. He appeared distant and emotionless as a way to toughen up his son and prepare him for the trials the world had waiting. From his point of view, he was protecting his son, preparing him for the world that was waiting for him. However, all this would do is lead his son to believe that his father didn’t care about him, resulting in statements like “he wasn’t my biggest fan…You are talking about a guy whose happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school.”

Out of the four relationships examined, Tony’s relationship with his father is probably the one that best mirrors most father-son relationships. It is also no coincidence that this relationship is the only one that is improved by the shattering of the façade. Uncovering his father’s true feelings helps Tony get rid of the chip on his shoulder and move on. He is able to finally see his father in a new light, understanding his perspective and the motivations for his actions.

Perspective. The relationship between Howard and Tony definitely highlighted the importance of looking through the other person’s point of view. Tony had never even considered coming to terms with his father’s decisions because he never sought to approach things from his point of view. Even in adulthood when he was in a better position to understand his father’s reasoning, he never attempted it. He was planted firmly in his corner. Howard, on the other hand, never considered how his actions might have been affecting his young son. If he did consider this, he always fully believed that his actions were the best ones for his son in the long run. He disregarded his son’s perspective for the belief that he knew best. Experiences many of us can empathise with.

The other three relationships (Thor/Odin. T’Challa/T’Chaka and Peter Quill/Ego/Yondu) help to highlight that no one person is just one thing and that everyone, even our fathers, can never be perfect. We are all the results of our mistakes. Our fathers (even kings) are guilty of regrettable decisions. These relationships help to deter us from holding on to those idealised versions of our parents for far too long. It prevents us from spending our entire lives ascribing unrealistic standards to our fathers only for them to turn out to be planets that want to make the entire universe in their image (I mean, probably not but…maybe?).

What they all show though, is the importance of honesty, transparency and vulnerability. Perhaps we have transcended the notion of the façade. Perhaps it is now okay to be open and honest with your children. To be vulnerable when the time called for it. Perhaps it is now okay to show your humanity. To show that you are no superhero. Perhaps.

Far be it from me to postulate the right way for fathers to raise their children or to speak from any other perspective other than my own but I do know that, like with every other thing, a greater understanding of the other party’s point of view is always the first step in the right direction. Nothing is ever one thing, especially not something as complex, volatile and imbalanced as the father-son relationship. Conversely, few relationships are as enriching, dynamic and invaluable as this relationship has the potential to be. So, as fathers who were once sons and sons who will be fathers, is it not imperative that we aim to continually evolve and do all we can to enable the relationship to reach its full potential?

Bankole Imoukhuede

@banky_I

Originally published at popcornfordinner.me on 1/04/2018