Posted on 11/12/2002 7:08:48 AM PST by fight_truth_decay
While created by the same company, DC Comics' two most famous superheroes differed in political alignment.
Clark Kent, also known as Superman, was raised by two Kansas farmers.
He was born, however, on the planet Krypton. Superman's race was a group with great powers: incredible strength, X-ray vision, heat vision, ice vision, the ability to fly, super-sensitive hearing and super speed.
When grown, Kent moved to the city, where he landed a job as a writer for the large newspaper, the Daily Planet.
Bruce Wayne--also known as Batman--was an industry-owning millionaire. He inherited much of his wealth from the parents he lost to the hands of savage murderers at an early age.
As Batman, Wayne battled his enemies with the use of wit, human strength and a slew of high-tech gadgets.
Through their actions as both average citizens and superheroes, Superman and Batman exhibited characteristics that pitted them with clear political ideologies.
The location where Superman spent his childhood statistically fosters a Democratic spirit. As a man from a small farming community in a rural state, Superman is a Democrat. His place of employment encourages a Democratic political philosophy.
As Clark Kent, he writes for the Daily Planet, a large paper operating out of the city of Metropolis. Such large papers are typically liberal, with a heavy focus on moving forward with equal rights for racial or sexual minorities.
The villains Superman often combated were rich and powerful. For example, the criminal Lex Luthor was a wealthy businessman, likely utilized by the writers of Superman as a symbol of massive, corporate, unregulated American business practices.
Democrats often combat the Republican approach to an unregulated market.
Some Democrats believe that wealthy citizens comprise the great majority of the Republican Party. Owner of Wayne Enterprises, Bruce Wayne surely had the interest of his industry in mind while voting and allocating personal funds to the political campaigns of his choice.
As he inherited much of his wealth from his family, Wayne highly valued the status quo. He expressed his resistance to change at home. He had the same butler, Alfred, for his entire life and lived in the same, early 20th century mansion for just as long.
Unlike Superman, Batman was human. He did, however, possess the most tangible of all superpowers: wealth.
While Superman was able to fend off the most vicious villains with his natural powers, Batman battled with a tone body and with an expensive arsenal of grappling hooks, vehicles, guns and other devices.
He was human, and as demonstrated by the 1960s television series, he most often used wit to escape the toils of his enemies. In fighting crime he aimed to subdue the radical criminals that corrupted Gotham City with their new-age terrorist tactics and left-wing views toward public policy and capital punishment.
While Batman used intelligence, Superman often resorted to violence, the political equivalent to war. Superman would sooner melt an opponent with his heat vision than he would extend a negotiation or use intellect. He was a supporter of the use of force. This use of force is clearly a parallel to the Democratic Party ideal of a large, mobilized army.
While the heroes differed far beyond their powers, their creators at DC Comics cleverly crafted their polar political alignments.
The parent company of both heroes was DC Comics, a company founded in 1935. During this period of American history, the economy was at its all-time worst. It was an outright poor and foolish time to found a business.
The creative heads at DC were clever, however. In order to garner mass appeal, they created two generally likable characters with starkly different political alignments. Selling their stories at 10 cents a pop, they made their source of entertainment affordable to the Roosevelt supporters suffering from the pain of the Great Depression.
The eager Democrats enjoyed Superman's All American spirit, his courage in the face of danger and his sheer invincibility.
While the comics were cheap entertainment, they served as quality entertainment to Republicans of the time, nonetheless. Bruce Wayne was a savvy businessman--surely not a victim of the Crash of '29. He was a charming man with a sleek and ambitious attitude.
Both characters had mass appeal but catered to more specific tastes when observed more closely.
Each of these wildly successful superheroes has had a dramatic impact on American popular culture. While they appear at first as incredible, outstanding citizens with wills to do good, when one looks deeper it is clear that these heroes do so in their own, politically specific ways.
Although they can be taken for the face value of entertainment, what fun is there in that?
Eventually, Marvel comics even ran a series "explaining" the anti-Communist Captain America comics of the 1950s. Their explanation was that the 1950s Captain America was an imposter (as was the 1950s Buckey) who perverted Captain America's anti-Nazi legacy by becoming a pro-McCarthy red-baiter.
Yeah Batman didn't carry a gun but I don't know that the Batman of the 1930s wouldn't carry a gun in todays' media environment.
Let me add this; a liberal comic book writer, Peter David, made an informed statement one time that it is advisable for any writer/actor/director who includes gun use in their stories actually take some firearms training. It is funny to see these anti-gun nuts arming heroes with gargantuan guns and actor tipping the brim of their hats with the barrel of a gun.
"Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", by Larry Niven.
I'd been looking for an opening to bring up that old chestnut.
If they'd "done it", would there be a race of flying mermaids somewhere here on Earth???
Some author is trying to introduce a storyline of black "guinea pigs" who were given early test samples of the "super soldier serum" ala the syphilis observations in the Tuskegee Experiment.
This is a wrongheaded way to examine such issues.
He also made the point, after the accidental shooting of Brandon Lee, that there's no reason to use real working guns in moviemaking. If Hollywood can fake a phaser from a picture of an actor holding a plastic model, it can do the same for an AK-47.
I agree, given that California has strict "gun control" laws with very narrow exceptions for "necessity". If the desire of J. Random Citizen to protect himself from hooligans does not constitute sufficient "necessity" (and by the standards of the PTB in California, it doesn't), then surely the desire of Hollywood studios to save a few grand on the SFX budget doesn't cut it.
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