scans_daily: MARVELS: The Hero Hate Machine

starwolf_oakley (

scans_daily,
@ 2011-05-21 08:56 pm UTC

Entry tags:

char: j. jonah jameson sr., char: spider-man/peter parker, creator: alex ross, creator: kurt busiek, creator: stan lee, creator: steve ditko

MARVELS: The Hero Hate Machine

A few posts down about Miriam Sharpe, we discussed why the Marvel Universe General Public seems to hate superheroes. What started with J. Jonah Jameson hating Spider-Man and Bolivar Trask building Sentinels to "save humanity" from mutants turned into Standard Operating Procedure for the MU public. And they act that way even without the Hate-Monger or the Serpent from FEAR ITSELF.

From MARVELS #4. Two pages, and the Lee/Ditko panels from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #10 that established J. Jonah Jameson's envy problem after the cut.

Envy is a weird thing, as is Jonah being envious of Spider-Man. Is it that Jonah wishes he had spider-powers and super-strength as well? (Actually, that will probably be covered with SPIDER-ISLAND, when 8 million New Yorker's get spider-powers.) Or is it he wishes something else?

Here's the classic scene from the early Lee/Ditko days, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #10.

There's more to Jonah than wanting to make money. Yes he's a blowhard and a cheapskate, but there's not much to say he's greedy. He wouldn't get an Orange Lantern Ring.

baxter2814 said in another post that the average MU citizen might not be jealous of the superheroes' powers, but their morality.

Actually, the "irritatingly moral" idea feels like it would be an excellent explanation for a lot of canon civilian behavior. It's actually something pretty damn disturbing however, as it implies that people can't stand to be around other people who are actually decent and upstanding and selfless because it makes them feel bad about themselves. So instead of looking up to them as role models, they lash out at and demonize and try to tear them down. It's only one step below how Lex Luthor is with Superman, or Doctor Doom with Reed Richards.

It's also very similar to how real-life people who want their superheroes to be amoral assholes because it's "realistic", even though the genre is "superhero" not "superasshole" or even "superperson" (Relatable flaws =/= total jerkwad). Which I really find pretty uncomfortable too. I could understand it in the Silver Age, where all heroes were portrayed as Always Right no matter what, but now it just reeks of jealousy and resentment.

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blunderbuss
2011-05-22 03:51 am UTC (link)

I'd agree that it's Tall Poppy Syndrome, but I also think that it's something else too - the apparent elitism of superheroes. These are people who, whether anyone likes it or not, are responsible for keeping the world and the people safe. But an ordinary MU citizen can't become a superhero, either because they didn't get powers or have the ability to make their own substitute, making them powerless to do anything but place their lives in a bunch of people who were never trained or elected for the position they have. That's why they made things like the sentintels; to give humans some morsel of power over these people.

I mean, imagine living in a world where the entire police force/army was made of people who were born into the position and it was nearly impossible for an average person to join or even oppose these people. Wouldn't that be really unnerving, having to hope that these people will be good people or you're totally screwed? Wouldn't it be really irritating, having a class of people stationed so far above you that you could never touch them? But you have to tolerate it, because you need them.

That's what I think it is, really, a form of class warfare. When you have an untouchable super-class, people resent them real quick. Add in the fact that most of them have flashy costumes, masks, and neat toys and they're totally unrelateable. They are to us, the reader, because we see inside their lives, but to the average MU citizen they have no idea of knowing if Spidey isn't some asshole glory hound.

See, this is what Civil War should have been about for the pro-regs; unmasking heroes to make them seem like normal, relateable people who are trained and hired by the government just like anyone else.

It's also very similar to how real-life people who want their superheroes to be amoral assholes because it's "realistic", even though the genre is "superhero" not "superasshole" or even "superperson".

While the genre is 'superhero', I disagree with the idea that this means all super people must be heroic/good people. After all, the term has been around for a very long time to cover a pretty big genre, and Superman did a lot of dickery back when he was the superhero.

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lilacsigil
2011-05-22 04:00 am UTC (link)

I mean, imagine living in a world where the entire police force/army was made of people who were born into the position and it was nearly impossible for an average person to join or even oppose these people.

See, I find this terrifying, though I don't think it's so much the police force or army. I live in a highly fire-prone area where the firefighters (the CFA) are an all-volunteer force. I rely on them to protect the town and my life. There are also arsonists around (including one who lit fires on Black Saturday, which was fucking terrifying), and, based on past events, at least some of them are part of the CFA, though others are not; lightning, cigarette litterers, idiots using angle grinders and exploding trees can also start fires in the right weather. This means that whenever the weather is dry and hot, everyone is a little bit on edge; when it's an extreme or critical fire danger day, everyone is a lot on edge; and then when the sirens go off everyone has to watch and wait. These conditions happen maybe 3-4 times in an average summer. In 2010-11, only once; in 2008-9 something like 20 times resulting in a lot of deaths. (Not in my town, though there were evacuations and arson attacks here.)

Now imagine living like that every day of the year, but almost all the causes of the fires are people, and you don't know who anyone in the CFA is or why they're doing it. And they wear masks all the time and sometimes start fires themselves.

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blunderbuss
2011-05-22 04:50 am UTC (link)

Wow. That's really a perfectly good analogy for superheroes. And by the way you describe it, you can just imagine the never ending tension that a normal MU person has to go through. And imagine all the times that a hero gets mind-controlled or something; that'd be like having a nice upstanding volunteer suddenly start setting fires everywhere, get back to normal, and then go back to his job. And it all happens repeatedly. I would be half-terrified of all of them.

Also, I'm sorry about Black Saturday. I'm in WA so it didn't affect me personally, but it must be hell living in such fire-prone areas.

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arilou_skiff
2011-05-22 03:21 pm UTC (link)

Exactly.

And rememeber, to he average person, there's not a whole lot of distinction between hero and villain (the fact that villains keep reformin and heroes keep falling doesen't help, but even if you IGNORE that...) they don't get the context, they don't know WHY Bullseye is fighting Daredevil.

To most people in the MU it's not so much that there's heroes and villains, but rather normals and supers, and the latter ae doing their own thing quite unrelated to anything else.

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	no subject glimmung 2011-05-24 12:48 am UTC (link)
	Amusingly this is an ongoing subplot in Adam Warren's Empowered. The main character's boyfriend was actually an insurgent in an anti-super uprising. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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