Comic Book Politics? The O'Neil-Henley Debate

Are comic books an effective vehicle for exploring the kinds of big questions of political theory which I want to raise?  What about superhero comics?   Before advancing any arguments or ideas of my own, let me flash back to the grand debate on exactly this subject earlier this year. 

Tim O'Neil, of the essential comics blog The Hurting, kicked things off:

But if it were possible to strip away all this useless baggage, and examine the superheroes from the viewpoint of normal, rational human existence, you'd probably come very close to achieving the "literature of ethics" model that Henley propounds. It’s a good idea, and I think that some of the very best superhero books have approached this question in some way or another. Henley himself mentions the usual suspects - "Watchmen," "Dark Knight Returns," "Born Again," "Animal Man" - all works that I think do succeed in exploring these thorny ethical issues in some degree. I would add to the list "X-Force" by Milligan and Allred (not "X-Statix," mind you), and the first twelve issue "Punisher" arc by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon (I believe it was published under the title "Welcome Back, Frank", although I may be mistaken). I think that all these titles are worth reading, and if the superhero genre consisted of nothing but works of this caliber it would be a much more rewarding place in which to spend time.

But the fact is that the superhero genre just doesn't bear up to this much scrutiny on such a sustained basis. Most superhero books stink, and they stink for reasons a five-year-old could understand: you have to buy into an inherently Manichean view of the world to understand them in the slightest. You will be exposed to a more complicated worldview from reading "The Cat In The Hat" than your average issue of "Spider-Man." The fact is, I seriously doubt whether the fact that these compelling stories haven't been told (very often) does not so much mean that they are waiting to be told as that they are just never going to be told. Perhaps we will all be surprised when the Great Libertarian Wonder comes out in a few years, but I am not holding my breath. (What exactly would a Libertarian superhero do, anyway? Beat up poor people? But I digress . . .)

And O'Neil again:

I think that Captain America would be able to understand pretty quickly how this issue [Iraq] parses out. We have a responsibility not only towards those who are weaker and unable to protect themselves, but also we have a deep and abiding moral responsibility to ensure that our motives and our means are never anything less than exactly what we purport them to be.   

Which is why superhero books are such a canard in this respect: there's no moral vagary in the why's and wherefor's when the Avenger's stop the Kree from destroying Earth with a death ray. Even something like Millar's "Ultimates," which I do accept as satire from a left/liberal point of view, ultimately fails to make any sort of convincing argument against current policy. Where is the ambiguity when it comes to stopping the Hulk from smashing Manhattan or stopping the Chitauri (or, as we like to call them, the dirty Skrulls!) from making Earth into a giant pinata? Again, superheroes are inherently reactionary because, at their core, they exist to prevent change. Now, most of that change would be a bad thing - no-one wants the Hulk to flatten Manhattan (hey, that rhymed) - but when you boil it down, superheroes are really only any good when they are stopping things from happening. They can't actually work for change because A) in most cases they can't change the framework of their fictional universe that drastically from our own and B) whenever a superhero or heroes tries to change the status quo, it never ends up good. Just look at the Order (who only tried to conquer the world because they were being - wait for it - mind controlled!), or Force Works (whose premise was to try and root out evil before it reared its head, if you recall), or the Authority (is there any doubt that they are currently the Bad Guys in the Wildstorm U?). Admittedly, there are more effective ways to change the world than to conquer it, but most of those ways aren't very interesting to read about (who would buy a comic with 22 pulse-pounding pages of the X-Men handing out gifts to kids in the leukemia ward? That'd be pretty damn depressing, if you ask me).

The dissenting view was expressed by Jim Henley, who penned this much-discussed essay claiming superhero comics for "the literature of ethics". 

If we narrow the question still further, to volunteer firemen, we eliminate one obvious answer: It's a living. Then the darkness yawns before us. Because the core question, "what could possibly make them think that it was worthwhile to risk their own lives to save others," can be spun and flipped in a number of important ways. From Why do firemen do what they do? to Why don't the rest of us do what they do? to Why shouldn't the rest of us do what they do? and even How dare we not do what they do? Superheroes become a way of addressing these questions. If science fiction is the literature of ideas, the superhero story is the literature of ethics. Or say, rather, it should be. As "literature" need not mean "sober-sided drudgery," I would even say the formulation holds for kids' superhero tales.

 

Fantasy provides external analogs of internal conflicts, and the subtype of fantasy about superheroes is a way of externalizing questions of duty, community, and self. How should the powerful behave? (Most Americans are, in global-historical terms, "the powerful" in one aspect or another.) These questions are salient whether you wear tights or not. They apply to you. Because most of us, certainly most of us in the developed world, have more power, wealth, or wherewithal than somebody. Certainly almost everybody reading this essay could, in principle, quit his or her present job and work pro bono for an African AIDS clinic while subsisting on donated food, or maintain a couple of homeless people instead of taking vacation, or -- join the volunteer fire department. Depending on your politics, you may believe that people like yourself or people like Bill Gates really do owe some non-trivial portion of time, wealth, influence, or attention to something or someone. The poor, the ill, the frightened, alienated, the "doomed, damned, and despised" as Jesse Jackson once put it.

 

And having had the thought, you've got more problems. Which will it be, first of all -- the poor, the ill, or the frightened? Just how should you help them? Do you decide, or do they? And when, if ever, do you get off-duty? There is a global political dimension to this. Because the question of what responsibilities impinge on the powerful has everything to do with the position of "hyperpower America" in the present world situation.

 

There are works out there that play with all these questions, and thanks to the shift in publishing strategies toward reprint collections sold, not just through comic book specialty shops, but bookstores, the best of the field is easier to acquire than in the days when the reader had to seek often-expensive back issues one at a time. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, Frank Miller and Lynne Varley's The Dark Knight Returns, Miller's Daredevil arc Born Again, Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil runs, Grant Morrison's New X-Men and Animal Man series represent, but do not exhaust, the "literature of ethics."

 

The core question of the superhero story might be phrased as What do we owe other people? One problem is that superhero stories have typically answered the question before they've barely asked it: "With great power must come great responsibility!" Spider-Man's Uncle Ben tells us. Are you sure about that? And how much is "great," anyway? What part of my life can I keep back for myself?

 

Most of the field's best writers have been liberals or leftists, so our core questions tend to get answered accordingly: the powerful should behave like social workers at home (violent social workers, mind you) and neoconservatives abroad. The challenge of providing stories, not lectures, that answer our questions from a conservative or libertarian standpoint intrigues. (Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko later created some heroes as vehicles for his Objectivist beliefs, but these have been little reprinted and have a reputation for overmuch didacticism.) Most superheroes have been white, male, childless professionals or students. America is also less white and less urban than it used to be and the market has yet to catch up with the changes. The shift to books -- graphic novels -- offers the opportunity for stories to end -- for protagonists to culminate. Freed from the demands of periodical publication, creators can tell some stories that are novels not just in format but form.

The debate then bounced around the blogs for a while, before settling down to wait for the next outbreak.    But Tim O'Neil and Jim Henley do a great service here by framing the debate:  do superhero comics, specifically, offer a unique and useful entry point into theoretical and political debates?   Should they?