Oh, That Again

Tim O'Neil, back after a long hiatus, has written another dismissal of superhero comics, this time arguing, yawn, that superheroes are fascist.

You'd probably have to raze a forest to produce all the masters theses and term papers that have been written on this subject - and another one just to print all the comics that have said the same. As Tim himself notes, almost all of the "mature" superhero comics of the past two decades - and even more of the derivative, pseudo-mature ones - have addressed the authoritarian dangers of power and super-power. And like most of those comics, Tim's point rests largely on equating superheroes solely with their power and power solely with fascism.

I also have to question some of the standards Tim uses to paint superhero comics as fascist:

But if you grow older and never at some point examine the deeper ethical questions of obligation, responsibility, and corruption that would inevitably follow if superheroes really existed, you are ignoring the facts of reality and history.

Certainly readers should examine a comic's ethical stance, but "What if superheroes really existed?" is only one way to write - or read - a superhero comic. Grant Morrison tends to draw attention to their fictionality; Jack Kirby abstracted the real world into superheroic terms; Kurt Busiek often asks, "if the world of superheroes really existed, on its own terms, what would it look like?" I'm not always enamored of his work, which too often strikes exactly the note of abject worship we might reasonably associate with fascist aesthetics, but this can be an interesting approach.

My point, though, isn't just that "What if superheroes really existed?" is a narrow standard for judging superhero comics; it's a poor standard for evaluating any genre. Many of Tim's objections are predicated on what would happen if superheroes were real, entirely overlooking the fact that mimetic realism is not the goal of most superhero comics.

Some of the in-comic associations Tim forges are equally shaky:

"With great power comes great responsibility" could easily have been said by Mussolini.

Said, possibly, but not meant in the same sense Peter Parker means it, which is one of the reasons fascists and quasi-fascists have made such workable antagonists in superhero comics; they share the same power or will to power but they don't serve the same social order. Parker's responsibility is to protect individuals within the liberal-democratic order; Mussolini's aim was to subsume them within a totalitarian state. In fact, Tim alights on exactly this difference:

Fascism was, above all else, a system dedicated to the destruction of the Individual by powerful forces in the State.

This should be one of the first signs that superheroes, as traditionally represented in American comics, don't perfectly fit a fascist ideology; they're about nothing if not the exaltation of the individual. The worst you can say for most of the comics is that they partially adhere to a fascist aesthetic, but even there the fit is mercifully incomplete.

It might be useful to consult Susan Sontag's classic essay, "Fascinating Fascism," which categorizes fascist aesthetics as idealizing physical perfection, the joy of surrendering to a higher authority, and "situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain."

Nearly every superhero comic focuses on two or three of these; William Moulton Marston routinely took the superfecta. On the other hand, how many superhero comics oppose any aesthetic of submission, surrender, or control? How many Kirby comics revolve around characters who escape and transcend such controlling forces? (This, by the way, is probably the reason Kirby's the only artist ever to make pikers like the Trapster or Virman Vundabar into entertaining menaces... ol' Paste-Pot's second-rate shtick dovetails perfectly with Kirby's antifascist convictions and his personal struggles for artistic freedom.)

Sontag also says that fascist pageantry "alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, 'virile' posing. Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness, it glamorizes death." The first sentence describes almost every superhero artist - I'd bet that "congealed, static posing" invokes the same guy for at least half of us - while the second one describes only a minor and generally unpleasant fraction.

Sontag also writes that the fascist aesthetic idealizes "ecstatic feelings of community... [and] the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders)" (96). Yet here, on the edges of ideology, the comics begin to diverge. Superhero comics, especially post-Marvel, have explictly rejected any feeling of belonging in any community larger than an affinity group. At most pressing for a sort of pluralism in X-Men and the like, superhero comics typically set the heroes apart from their societies and stress a heroic individualism that doesn't mix well with fascism's attempt to subsume the individual identity. At the same time, the classic superhero comics often resist the impulse to place the heroes above their societies by assigning them a put-upon "everyman" identity. It's a delicate balancing act, but that's ideology for you - we always want to have it both ways, our art no less so. At any rate, the secret or split identity has proven a fairly durable convention for bearing these contradictions.

I'm just trotting out Sontag for a handy definition of fascist aesthetics and ideals, not as an unimpeachable authority on the subject. I think there's a lot to disagree with there - for example, just because the Nazis idealized a certain sterile physical perfection, does that mean any art that presents any idealized physique is fascist? Is classical Greek sculpture? What about Italian Renaissance sculpture? We may need to narrow some of Sontag's parameters, but even taking them at her word, superheroes only meet the fascist aesthetic fitfully and inconsistently.

Tim isn't talking about aesthetics, though. He's talking ideology, and that's an even worse match:

So, if you are a grown person who takes the moral underpinnings of superhero comics seriously, I don't know what to say: you would make a great fascist.

As Dave Fiore asks, "what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value?" When did taking the art form seriously become taking its ideological underpinnings seriously as a moral blueprint for real life? (And, as I hope I've shown, those moral underpinnings are themselves a lot more conflicted and contradictory than Tim allows.)

There's a lot else to say about Tim's piece, but those clever folks at Peiratikos cut through the chaff and get to the heart of it:

His real point seems to be that he prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike (uncritical) manner rather than an adult (critical) manner, and his elaborate justifications merely obfuscate this.

Or, we might say, he prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike manner and then criticize them for being childlike. Which would probably explain why his proofs of the inherent and total unworthiness of the genre tend to revolve around artistic masterpieces like Secret Wars II and Millennium. QED.

Going on Hiatus: I hate to cut and run, but I'm going on vacation for about two weeks and won't be posting much if at all during that time. Do feel free to use the comments section to respond to this post, share your thoughts, and Discuss Amongst Yourselves. I'll be checking in here from time to time although I won't be attempting to answer all takers in my usual style - which, come to think of it, might be a better environment for discussion anyway. So enjoy, and I'll see you (inasmuch as I ever do) when I get back.

Comments

[J.W. Hastings]

Great post. This is probably the best response to the "super-heroes are fascists" canard I've ever read.

[David Van Domelen]

It's been a while since I read all the definitions of governmental systems, but IIRC, it strikes me that superheroes have more of a potential to be oligarchist. A sort of natural aristocracy, running thing in fact if not officially by law. Even if it's only a paternalistic "it's allowed because they don't interfere" sort of rule.

At least, that's the direction I've been pointing things in Academy of Super-Heroes. :)

[Jess Nevins]

"It's been a while since I read all the definitions of governmental systems, but IIRC, it strikes me that superheroes have more of a potential to be oligarchist. A sort of natural aristocracy, running thing in fact if not officially by law. Even if it's only a paternalistic "it's allowed because they don't interfere" sort of rule."

Of course, that does lead us into a consideration of sf & fantasy (and, inevitably, comics) after the establishment of the idea of fandom, in which the theme of the superior, hidden group surrounded by ordinary folk, who are the untermenschen to the hidden ubermenschen, ala Rowling's wizards/witches & Muggles, and mutants & humans, and what the appeal to fandom of such scenarios says about fandom (c.f., "fans are Slans").

[Marc]

In addition to the responses by Dave Fiore and Steven Berg that I cited in the post, everybody should check out J.W.'s own response on his site, especially since he also addresses Tim O'Neil's rather disingenuous reaction to all this discussion. Admirably, J.W. saved the best line for last.

[Marc]

As an addendum, I can't help but notice that Tim's defensive follow-up posts have nothing to do with his original contention that superheroes are fascist, instead focusing entirely on his beliefs that Comics Are Childlike and No Adults Should Take them Seriously. Which is odd, since Tim begins by offering this criticism, or mock-criticism:

"In my life, I have spent some time thinking about just this concept. As I see it, it's pretty cut-and-dried. Superhero stories, at their heart, were created to appeal to children. As such, they make great childrens stories, and can even have some appeal to non-children when done well enough. But the same attributes that make them marvelous vehicles for entertaining children make them absolutely poisonous - ideologically speaking - for grown adults to take too seriously."

Apparently it is okay to do ideological analyses of these comics, so long as the analysis is negative. Question his analysis, though, and suddenly nobody should have been talking about the comics in the first place.

Tim also laments that folks like Dave Fiore (and, presumably, me) would be so recherche as to write about the comics they like when they could be writing about the comics Tim likes. Which begs the question, if we all should be writing about Chester Brown or Chris Ware or Los Bros Hernandez, why didn't Tim start us off on them instead of Identity Disc and Manimal?

[Pablo P.]

Excellent work in getting at one of the key writers on fascist aesthetics, Sontag like a number of political critics finds that art has "dangerous" paths that constitue good think and bad think. Something which rankles out of its Orwellian party conscienceness. I glad that I have taken this dive into the blog world and have found such solid writing and prolonged thought. I found my way over here from the thread http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=006919

thanks

[Marc]

Well, I wasn't trying to "get at" Sontag, if that's supposed to carry a negative connotation. In fact, I've found her essay very useful, although it does occasionally stray into what J.W. so acutely terms "guilt by association" - assuming that because Nazi Germany used a particular aesthetic feature that any other use of that aesthetic must similarly be fascist. This is probably quite true for features like the exaltation of submission and surrender, but I'm not willing to concede that any and all celebration of physicality is fascist - whoops, there goes the ballet. (Admittedly, Sontag's point is much more compelling in its immediate, local application in "Fascinating Fascism" - that just because Leni Riefenstahl uses a particular aesthetic feature means it's probably fascist.)

Also, I don't see how articulating an opinion, political or aesthetic, makes a critic comparable to Big Brother or to Stalinism - that comparison strikes me as having little to do with the substance of Sontag's arguments.