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The Death of the Hero: Why We Need Captain America to Punch Hitler Again
In 1941, Captain America’s first comic showed him punching out Adolf Hitler.
It wasn’t a metaphor, an exploration of the complexities of international relations, or a statement: evil exists, and sometimes, you have to face it.
Imagine that cover being pitched today. “But have we considered Hitler’s perspective? Shouldn’t we explore the socioeconomic conditions of 1930s Germany? What about the complexities of pre-war European politics?”
No. Sometimes, evil is just evil.
The Tyranny of Both Sides
Our culture has developed an obsession with seeing both sides, with finding the middle ground, with insisting that every villain is just a misunderstood hero, that every conflict is just a failure of communication, and that every moral stance is just one perspective among many.
This sounds sophisticated and feels nuanced. It allows us to congratulate ourselves on our broad-mindedness, our ability to see shades of gray and our transcendence of simple moral binaries.
It’s also killing our ability to tell stories that matter.
Look at what we’ve lost: Spider-Man used to fight the personification of unchecked power and corrupted…