Real-Life Superheroes

SOME THOUGHTS ON REINVENTING YOURSELF AS A MARKETABLE ICON

The phenomenon of ‘real life superheroes’ is interesting on several levels for several reasons. We could talk about the psychology of such people and why they would want to put themselves in such high risk situations? Is it the thrill of danger? A death wish? A genuine inability to see the real world as more dangerous than the fictional worlds of comics and movies? Or we could talk about the sociological conditions that have led to these groups of people springing up now. Is it some increased juvenilesation of culture that leads to grown adults playing children’s games out in the streets of major cities? Why now and not in the middle of the seventies? What differentiates these ‘real life superheroes’ from standard vigilantes or neighbourhood watch groups? They don’t actually, after all, really have superpowers.

But rather than pursuing these kinds of cultural questions I want to look at the element of this phenomenon that most strongly resonates with my personal interests, and also speaks to something quite fundamental to the phenomenon: the decision of ordinary people to do good deeds as someone else. The fascination for me is how these people – who I actually have the utmost respect for in terms of their altruistic intentions – feel compelled to reinvent themselves as marketable icons, as distinct entities that can be differentiated from other ‘products on the shelf’ thanks to a specific look, gimmick and name.

A 'marketable icon' is a pretty vague category. I don’t mean it to be taken literally, as something designed to be tied to particular advertising strategies, but rather that it is some kind of individuated entity, distinct from all others through a particular set of visual, and sometimes conceptual, codings which are – it must be said – usually enforced by copyright laws. Mickey Mouse is clearly a marketable icon. But so too are the Universal Studio Monsters, though as characters Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are in the public domain and exist in numerous instances, it is their 1930s and 40s incarnations that remain the marketable icon. Would Kenneth Branagh’s take on the monster really have made a particularly good action figure?

This question is actually quite important, because the benefit of a marketable icon is that it can exist in a variety of media; movies, toys, posters, t-shirts, video games, collectible cards, etc. We can probably all recognise Robert DeNiro as a distinct individual, but he’s not a marketable icon in that he cannot be successfully translated into other media in the way that Frankenstein’s monster can. The simpler the figure, the more easily translatable to different contexts it is. Cartoon characters, monsters and superheroes are the most common kind of marketable icons that we come across in our day to day lives, not least of all because the genres that these types turn up in naturally lend themselves to extending into franchises of various kinds. Few superheroes only exist in one single issue of a comic.

Ownership of a marketable icon is also important. Icons are designed to be easily read as belonging to a particular company or group. Mickey Mouse does not endorse Warner Brothers products; Spider-Man is not going to convince you to eat Kellogg’s Frosties. DC and Marvel are the two biggest owners of marketable iconic superheroes, indeed, they each make sure to spread their characters across as many mediums as possible at any given time. Whatever variations Spider-Man might take across films, cartoons, video games or action figures, he is still recognisably the same icon that appears in the original comic.

The common academic cliché surrounding superheroes is that they are the myths of today, the equivalent of Hercules’ adventures or the saga of Odysseus. This is perfectly acceptable as an explanation, that superheroes feed a basic need that we have and have had since our earliest ancestors started telling each other stories. We like to invent people who are more than human so that we can aspire to be them. But Hercules wasn’t owned by a corporation. If an ancient Greek pre-school put on a play of The Odyssey, they weren’t going to get sued by the estate of Homer. The ownership issue surrounding superheroes is precisely what defines them from previous generations of heroes. We like to think that superheroes belong to us all, but they don’t, they belong to Time-Warner and Disney.

In the HBO documentary Superheroes (sometimes known as Real-Life Superheroes), we are shown the lives of a selection of would-be heroes who don costumes each night and set out into the city streets to fight evil doers. Of course, the majority of these are slightly overweight well meaning middle-aged men who are just comic book geeks living out their dreams. The documentary draws attention to the fandom of these men (and women occasionally) in a few ways. Self-proclaimed superhero Mr. Xtreme spends his days watching episodes of Power Rangers on TV. We are given the opinions of comics legend Stan Lee on the phenomenon of real-life superheroes (he’s a little concerned, obviously). During the interviews with Lee, Mr. Xtreme and another hero, Master Legend, the camera pans across posters and action figures of various Marvel superheroes. All of these associations seem perfectly harmless, even commonsensical, until one realises that HBO is owned by Time-Warner, who also own DC comics. The references to DC heroes are surprisingly sparse. Practically non-existent, in fact. The documentary functions as reverse-propaganda; Time-Warner tells us that the phenomenon is the responsibility of Marvel – DC comics don’t inspire such nutty behaviour, blame Disney (who also owned Power Rangers when the documentary was filmed).

This continues through what is not said by the documentary. Several of the heroes during the documentary cite the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese as a prime reason for their actions; the kind of apathy that led to her death, when there were dozens of people who could have helped her, is exactly what they’re fighting against. It seems highly unlikely that any of these people knew about this 1964 event through any means other than Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel Watchmen. In that work, the somewhat imbalanced but highly morally indignant vigilante Rorschach is inspired to become an ultra-violent crime-fighter because of the Genovese murder. Though the heroes of the documentary claim to be inspired by the real life event, they are actually replicating Rorschach’s actions, recasting themselves as the character. Their inspiration for becoming real life vigilantes is not a 1964 stabbing, but a seminal comic published by DC and owned by Time-Warner.

So why reinvent yourself as Rorschach? Why decide to put on a mask, kit yourself out with a variety of home-made gadgets, call yourself an odd name and fight the good fight? Why not simply do good as yourself? It seems to me that there are two answers. Firstly, there’s the desire to transcend the boundaries of your own identity and become the heroic figures of myth, to stop being Joe Nobody and become Hercules. These actions of vigilantism and charity are not about ego (well… mostly), or about making sure that your neighbours know all about the good deeds that you do. They are about the actions themselves, doing good for good’s sake and separating it from an individual person. But there’s also a more culturally specific reasoning behind it. As has already been said, nearly all of the known superheroes are owned by major corporations. The people don’t really own these heroes, the money-men do. But by becoming the next generation of heroes, equally distinct, equally iconic, equally ‘marketable’ (not literally, but I’d be happy to own a Black Monday Society action figure set), but not owned by any of the major corporate power brokers that dictate the majority of our day to day lives. Becoming your own marketable icon allows you to distinguish yourself from the rest of society, to be an individual in the crowd, to become that transcendent icon that Spider-Man is without having to put money into Sony Pictures’ pocket.

There is a third reason, of course, one voiced by another of the documentary’s subjects: “It’s hella cool!”

                                                                     - P.S.