Hello, Welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. A superheroes fascist? What
does Alan Moore have to say about this question? He did an interview in
twenty twenty two for screen Rant that has been discussed in a lot of places
where he talked quite a lot about this idea that there's something fascist about superheroes,
and well, this is perhaps one of the biggest names to talk about
it. Alan More, for those who don't know, is the author of
comic books graphic novels such as Viva Vendetta and The Watchman. He did a
lot of some of the people's favorite of the Batman comics runs. In recent
years, he's really become very critical of a lot of things in industry,
including bringing up this idea that there's something fascist about superheroes and superhero culture and
the messages that they convey. And while this is, like I said,
this is probably one of the most high profile versions, it's an attitude that
I've heard many other people bring up. And so when Rieky brought and so
Reeky and I have been talking about this from a couple of different directions,
talking about how we really want to dive into this question, and I think
We're probably going to cover this a couple of ways, both in story,
which is one where we're going to probably do in a couple of weeks or
maybe months, talking especially about Attack on Titan, but also now in more
kind of the you know, what did these creations of art do in our
larger world? So, Reeki, why you say hello and introduce yourself and
where you kind of coming to from this question? Yeah, Hi, Matthew,
it's good to be here again. Greeky. I actually on board to
talk about fascism. It's actually kind of what I studied in school, and
I never thought it would be this relevant to study fascism, but here we
are in twenty twenty four is the year, and I brought this to you
as you mentioned guarding Attack on Titan. I was like, hey, have
you seen this? Like it's a really, in my opinion, a problematic
manga anime, and then you start asking questions about it, and brought this
interview with Alan Moore, and there's a lot going on in this sphere of
ideas and thought and we're going to try. We're not going to cover it
all, so we may only briefly talk about Attack on Titan today, but
kind of get into the subject and then explore where it goes, because it's
it's very I think it's very deep. Like Alan Moore, I'm not like
a huge fan of his work, I would say, but I am a
fan of his his thinking and what he tries to do with his work.
So that's that's a funny thing to say about him. And I do want
to preface, like anything about Alan Moore his criticism of the industry. He's
gone through some stuff, Yes, like he's been I would say, screwed
by the industry by you know, his various works being adapted and some of
his friends not getting paid. So he has some bitterness. He had some
jadedness about the comic book industry and especially like adaptations and movies and stuff.
But I don't think like that can completely discounts what he has to say,
like because he does talk about it in a broader sense. Well, especially
because and we're kind of talking surface level here, we'll dive in more in
just a moment. We're also gonna have some feedback from our last episode at
the end of this episode talking about the Last Jedi and failure. One of
the things that really struck me reading his interview and some of his other recent
works, all of which we'll have notes to the in the show notes.
He's also very self referential and very self understanding of his own effect in some
ways. I think I was kind of confused when I saw that it was
more who was saying this, because I think Watchmen is something that a lot
of people point to as when superhero stories started to get more grim dark,
and also when they started to get maybe not more, but like a new
generation of them becoming much more authoritarian and perhaps fascist. And he's very open
about that, and he says that sort of he he was disappointed that the
result of Watchmen was everyone doing these sort of dark, gritty approaches to things
and stuff like that. And I want to get into more of the alan
more of it, but let's just start by defining our terms. Riki is
someone who really studied it. Can you can you say what, how would
you define fascism and particularly how is it different than authoritarianism? Because I think
a lot of times people use those terms interchangeably, and it's important to understand
that they're not the same. Well, yeah, I mean this is one
of the complicated questions of our time right now. As people point to other
people in the political spectrum and say you're being a fascist, and it's like,
well, what does that mean? Right? Right? And you're right,
Like I think fundamentally like authoritarianism is like a bigger umbrella. Mm hm.
It's like it is about the government exerting control, right, more control
than perhaps should be allowed in most cases. And certainly like we have seen
in the recent in the twentieth century history of Soviet the Soviet Union was an
authoritarian state but based upon communism, right, and then of course Nazi Germany
was an authoritarian state based on a more right wing ideology that we now call
fascism. And I would I think like one of the fundamental differences of like
what separates the bucket of fascist for me is the idea of a scapegoat of
of like a out group, right, it gets persecuted and blamed and drives
a lot of the ideology of the state too. You know, some extreme
cases obviously eliminate that group and to use that group as an excuse to do
things like right, just carry out their political agenda and get people behind it,
say like, hey, we want to do things for you. The
in group, the usually the majority in the nation. But to do that,
like we really got to take stuff or like you know, punish this
outgroup, but it's okay they are and then like it develops this you know,
dehumanization element. Yeah, and I think that's really important, and especially
because it's also very linked to this idea of nationalism specifically and of like there
being that one particular kind of people who the government's supposed to represent and you
know, and that that is tied to the nation. And so for example,
that's why it's very different than for example, Soviet communism, where it's
all about the work. You know, it's not about like we are Russians
and so we're supposed to be free of Azerbaijanis or Georgians or Ukrainians. There
was certainly a lot of that in communist Russia, but it was much more
about all about the workers and all that kind of stuff. And then the
authoritarianism, Nashism becomes very much about we the people, the right kind of
people, and the purity of the people, and that this other group,
as you said, is is dirtying us. There's a whole lot of like
purity and dirtiness language, and that ties into and this is something that more
talks about specifically, and that's kind I wanted to frame it to help people
understand this that there's also a lot of often a lot of nostalgia tied into
this, of the good old days of the back before our name went,
back when like men were real men and women were real women, and we
didn't have all these immig so we didn't have all these foreign ideas or we
didn't have all of this kind of stuff. And I think that it's gonna
helpful to understand what that distinction is before we start to dive too much in
this conversation, because I think there is a lot of conversation out there of
our superheroes authoritarian in terms of because a lot of superhero a lot of authoritarianism
is instead of the people getting what they want, the people get what's best
for them, and someone a much smaller group of people or an individual gets
to decide what's best for them and tell them that very much in a kind
of paternalistic way. And fascism has a lot of those elements, but it's
something again, very much more specific, and since that's what Moore is saying,
it's important to kind of start with there. Yeah, and I just
want to end on the difference, like the different types of authoritarianism. The
Soviet style communism was like an exportable ideology, right so far as like the
whole Cold War was about stopping the spread of communism, and and that meant
like stopping it from springing up in other nations around the world. And that's
not something like you don't you don't stop fascism from springing up like I mean,
we would like to, but it is something that comes more internally rather
than is exported from like the Soviet Union, right, Like Italian fascism definitely
had a strong influence on Spanish fascism and German Nazism and MUSSOLIDI wanted that,
but that you know, Spanish nash Spanish fascism is about the Spanish people and
there, you know, and and German is about the German people, not
about you know, the Italian et cetera. And yeah, so with that,
let's turn back to Alan Moore himself. Say a little bit more about
your impressions of more before I say that you wrote read this article, but
like his work, you said, you don't always love it, but you
respect it. Say it bit more about that, like The Watchman is obviously
one of the most influential graphic novels in our lifetime. Yep, and I
certainly appreciate it. I'm pretty sure I still own a copy. I might
have sold it, but I mean I bought a copy. I read it
multiple times. I enjoy it like as a think piece, but for me
for my personal taste, like I don't tend to read or watch like super
graphically violent things, and it was definitely like one of those things, one
of those eras when as you said, like he was so influential that it
led to this whole really change in the industry of comics, and so like
that's why, like he's not one of my favorites, but I enjoy that
he exists and I enjoy his work, just not in the ways that like
a lot of other people do. Yeah, And I think that's really fair,
and I think that there's definitely a lot of truth in that. I
really love Watchmen, But I also kind of you know, it's one of
those stories where when someone tells me they love it, I always kind of
want to get a sense of like do you think it's pro these people,
or like, like what do you think of your perspective on it. The
story of his though that I think is most relevant for me at least to
these conversations, And there's gonna be a bit of a digression, but I
think it's very related because I think it subverts the natural tendency that a lot
of these superhero stories can have towards authoritarianism and strongmanism, and specifically towards fascism.
Is v for vendetta because spoilers for the end of a comic book that's
I think thirty years old and a movie that's twenty years old, but one
of the key things that happens at that movie is that the strongman character,
the person who has been enacting great violence justifiable reasons, but in part out
of wanting to help the nation, but part very much for his own personal
vendetta against the bad guys, the authoritarians in power, the fascists in power.
He realizes that what he's doing is clearing away the authoritarianism, but that
if he actually leads the new government, it's just gonna be another kind of
authoritarianism. It's gonna be another strong man taking over, and so he very
intentionally arranges it so that inspired by him, the people rise up and is
a people's uprising that takes over. And while there's not very much given about
what happens next, we learn a little bit of that it is a return
to, you know, a democracy of some kind. Because to me,
I think that's often the question with superheroes or any kind of like when it's
a heroic figure helping to overturn or overthrow a corrupt government or corrupt authority,
is what do you replace it with? Because if everyone ouse sees this one
strong person as the hero, it's gonna be really easy for them to want
to say, Okay, cool, will you just be the new dictator?
You be the new whatever it is? Yeah. I mean, for the
history of the United States, I think one of the most remarkable things that
happened was that George Washington chose not to run for a third term, right,
And they're specifically a quote that basically says like I don't want to be
king, and that led to this precedent of until FDR like no other president
attempted to run for a third term because of the Washington, George Washington president.
And there's a lot we can say about the founding fathers, and you
know how good or bad they were, But I think like that decision by
George Washington is one of the most like fundamentally impactful that any individual has made
in the history of this country. Right, Yeah, it's fun. I
hadn't even thought of that in the context, but I think George Washington played
that kind of superhero role in you know, the media of the time and
the perspective. And as Maybeoe said, if he wanted to just make himself
king instead of King George, it would have taken over. We're gonna start
diving into the article itself right after this quick break. We're starting the conversation,
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great, Membership is great. So let's talk about the article itself, because
it's actually quite a long article and it's not just about the superhero question,
but I think a lot of things in it are are very connected. But
Ricky, do you want to start by just kind of focusing on what is
his argument about superheroes and superhero culture and so the way that superhero media is
affecting our culture. Yeah, I think if I were to sum it up,
it is that there's a fundamental problem with having a fantasy setting where it
takes extraordinary people with superhuman abilities to solve extraordinary problems, because like that's not
reality, Like we don't have superpowers in real life, and so it creates
this model, like a mythology almost of super superheroes themselves being the only ones
who can solve these problems. And I it's interesting, like there's a lot
of the stuff in the article, in the interview that I fundamentally disagreed with
in a sense, but I understand where he's coming from. Yeah, I
guess my my main criticism, my main critique. If I can, let's
just kind of lay out some more of the arguments in the article specifically and
then get into their critique. So, yeah, he has this point.
At one point he says, the thing is, in order to actually accomplish
these extraordinary things, we have to put in quite a lot of work,
perhaps years of our life, perhaps our entire lives, getting better at something,
and then we can do incredible things. It's this desire to be like
that without any work, to have that as an appliance. Almost you find
the power ring. You happen to be standing too near the rack of chemicals,
and then in a stroke of fate or luck, you suddenly have incredible
powers. It's that kind of longing for a quick fix. And when he
was talking about that and talking about this idea of that you're waiting for someone
else, I got thinking about the book that came out a number of years
ago, Waiting for Superman, and it's a book that was all about trying
to fix the educational system. And I'm not gonna get into the book itself.
I think a lot of people have been very critical of it for I
think very good reasons that what it's suggesting to fix the educational system wasn't the
best way. But putting that aside, the title comes off I think a
very important idea, which is that we can get to this time where we
think the problems are so bleak and we think ourselves are so impowerful that we're
just waiting for someone to come along and save us instead of doing the work
to save ourselves. And I definitely think that that's at that is a big
part of what can lead to authoritarianism and lead to fascism when it's this idea
of Okay, there's all this poverty, there's all this problems. We see
these other the others the problem. Instead of us trying to do work to
do it, we're gonna wait for the part or the person or the hero
to come along and fix it. And I you know, I think a
lot of that existed long before superheroes were there, but I definitely see some
truth to the idea of how it can encourage that that kind of thinking.
Talk also about his idea of nostalgia and how that plays into his argument,
Well, nostalgia is fundamental to fascism in most of its existence. It is
countries having problems like in the present and then saying, remember when things were
better, like let's let's get back to that. And usually, like I
said, like there's a persecution of an outgroup, and and so you blame
like in the in the in between, like from the good times to now
the bad times, like well what happened, like now we have all these
these outgroup people that we should persecute to get back to the good times,
right. I mean in the United States, there is this nostalgia of like
the nineteen fifties, I guess, nineteen fifties, nineteen, just before the
sixties, because the sixties is seen as like when America broke right. You
look at the reasons why, like one of them was Vietnam. But another
thing that people point to is the civil rights movement, right, and so
you say, well, that has taken us away from the good nineteen fifties,
so we have to reverse all that, and that means persecution of minorities.
And of course ro v wade that the Supreme Court decision is another one
that gets nostalgized as like let's go you know, Unfortunately we're going back.
That was what nineteen seventy something, seventy two, I believe seventy three,
So it's weird because it's so far ago. And yet yeah, like nostalgia
drives fascism, I think in a lot of cases because people forget there's like
not enough people who were there to be like, yeah, I mean it
was okay, but a lot of stuff is better now. Like that's for
me when I think of obviously like progressivism, progress like moving forward. But
I look at our lives now and I'm like, okay, yeah, like
some things bad, yes, but like look at the things that are better
than when I was a kid. Yeah. I think that's a really important
part of this is that often it's a nostalgia not for the actual history,
but this mythologized idea of history where everything was better and you know, the
the nineteen fifties were the time of you know, dads at work and moms
at home and the kids are hiding under their desks for air ray drills because
we all think nuclear war is right around the corner, and that great American
dream is actually pretty terrible for anyone who's not white, and who's not male,
and it's not you know, straight, and cisgender and you know,
and not to mention Christian and you know, the right kind of European and
all this kind of stuff. Even Catholic was pretty left out at that point.
Or or just the fact that like why why could the why could the
mother stay at home and be a housewife? Right Like now both the mother
and the father have usually have jobs and good work. Well, it's because
the father like stopped getting a fair wage or like you know, didn't keep
up with inflation, so now you have to have a dual income family.
So it's like the nostalgia for that lifestyle ignores some of the reasons why that
lifestyle no longer exists, and it's like you can't rewind to that without also
rewinding the economic inequalities that it started to take the roots. And even then
it was still very much a white middle class phantasy. There were lots of
women working just as you know, nurses or maids or servers, often people
of color, but often just poor white because their husbands weren't making anywhere enough.
You know, it is true that that was a time when a working
class person could like the ability to be the person who made enough money to
buy your own house and take a vacation and do all the things that are
almost completely out of reach for so many people today. Yes, was true,
but even that again was still for not the entire population by any means.
Absolutely. I mean, it's a nostalgia for a certain lifestyle that like,
even if you transport yourself to the nineteen fifties, like you're probably not
living that lifestyle, just like from a percentage like standpoint, now, I
tell you get that. And I think one of the most injuring parts of
Moore's argument is he talks about how not only are superheroes a sign of nes
can be a part of that nostalgia, but also that they're often the discussion
about them today is often very nostalgic itself and often just as inaccurate. You
know, he talks about how, you know, anytime someone says, why
are superheroes so woke today? That is itself fundamentally an argument from nostalgia,
because it's a claim that they weren't woke in the past, that they used
to just be all white and male and defenders of you know, truth justice
in the American way, when the fact is, you know, the first
Superman, as he points out, invented by two working class teenagers from Cleveland
in the middle of the Depression, who created a character that was an embodiment
of a disempowered working class community. He was an immigrant like most of them,
but he's not forced to dress in the drab browns and grays of most
of the other people in the nineteen thirty spreadlines. He was wearing bright primary
colors, and he could leap over the streets that they were having a trudge
down looking for work. The early Superman beat up strike breakers and threw a
slum lord over the horizon. Obviously, that Superman didn't last a long while.
He was pretty soon taken from his creators and made a much more socially
respectable, middle class and right naming character. Mm hmm. Yeah, Superman
to me is a really interesting one because of that immigrant background. And I
actually had this thought the other day of just like, what what if there
was like an Asian Superman, right, And it's so weird that Superman's stories
oftentimes like ignore the immigrant aspect of his origin or just like mention it,
like obviously they mentioned that he's from Krypton, but it doesn't focus on him
being an immigrant, right, And so like I thought, like a reimagining
of Superman is an Asian or maybe like now like a Muslim brown person,
you know, not Muslim in a religious sense, I guess, but you
know from that region of the world that I don't know. What do you
think, Like, is that something that it's too late? Because like Superman
is white, right, Like if if you try to do that, like
people are going to lose their minds, even though we like Krypton is a
made up planet and like who cares what color their skin is on Krypton type
of thing, right, I just like I had this thought while we were
like circling around this subject. I was like, what if someone just fundamentally
changes Superman. So I think it's a really interesting conversation. And I I
will say, I do think that they've already started some element of this conversation
in that the son of Superman is now out as canonically bisexual, which is
interesting because it is still there's no physical change, the change to who the
character is and wants to be, but he still looks the same. But
you're right, it's still almost always still been white. I think one of
the actors who played him on the Supergirl was Latino, but still kind of
like you know. And I'll say one of the first things that courage me
with an Asian Superman, and I'm gonna try and say this delicately, but
please, if any of my terms are are the way I'm approaching it is
problematic, please let me know. And I promise I would say that and
then not edit this out. So if I, you know, really step
in it, people can learn from that, I hope. But one thing
that was striking me is that one of the persistent narratives around immigrants, particularly
at the time of Superman but also today, is that they're a drain on
the economy. They come here and they don't work, and they don't have
jobs, and they don't have education, they don't know how to speak the
language, and so they don't add to the tax space. They just take
away from it because you know, we have to pay them all this welfare
and all this criminal policing of them. And the fact is that that's fundamentally
not true. But I think that that is that is the general understanding of
the black and brown especilarly like African and Latin American immigrant experience. My understanding
is, and again you can correct me on this, that is very different
than the Asian American immigrant perspective, at least today, back in then like
eighteen hundreds, in earlier days of like the Chinese workers and like this was
in this case. But today often the fear of the Asian immigrant is not
that they're uneducated, but that they're so much better educated that they're going to
take our jobs, that their children are going to take our kids spots at
colleges. You know that. That's something I see all the time about how
in New York City there was this very racist thing that played out about how
Asian immigrants were very overrepresented. That sounds prajorative, You mean, like that
a higher percentage of them compared to other racial groups in New York City in
terms of how many kids got into the specialized high schools that you had to
pay test that you had to pass tests for, like Stuyvesant Bronx Science in
Brooklyn Tech. And the reason I'm making that connection is because Superman obviously isn't
the useless immigrant perspective of like the person who comes here just to drain on
the system, again a false narrative, but the narrative's out there. He's
incredibly useful, he's incredibly helpful. It's just a question of like when who
gets to control that? So and again tell me on way off base here,
But I feel like an Asian Superman would be an interesting perspective on that
because it connects more to that part of an immigrant experience where the issue isn't
oh, you're useless and you're helpless and we have to support you, but
instead you're different and you're changing things in ways we don't want and you're taking
things away from us. Does that does that all make make any sense?
I'm not sure. Okay, that's fair. It was a lot to take
in. Yeah, let me I don't know how to answer that, Okay,
let me tell a much shortened version of it. Is that I think
people didn't think of Superman in terms of the immigrant experience because they think of
immigrants, again from a racist perspective, as people who come here without skills,
without jobs, and become drain on the system. And I'm wondering,
so, okay, I think I disagree with that. Okay, I think
the central issue regarding Superman's immigrant status is that he passes m passes as a
native white person, right, and so that that would be the fundamental difference
if you created or like changed Superman to be Asian coded, is that he
wouldn't pass as white or like maybe I don't know, Like it's interesting I've
been I've started following like Asian actors and especially those who often do pass like
Darren Chris is a delightful actor, like you might remember him on Glee.
It's been in a lot of musical type stuff. He's a great singer,
and he's half Filipino and recently, like he won some award and talk about
that, talked about his Filipino mother and about his experiences, and he has
definitely like started to come out stronger and identifying as Asian. And quite frankly,
again, like when I watched Glee, like it didn't occur to me
that he was half Asian. Like if you if you say that, you're
like, okay, I think I can. I can kind of see it.
But he's definitely on like that passing side of half. So yeah,
my point is like, if you have a Superman that doesn't pass, like,
how does that change his story? I think is where I am.
I'm going with this idea. Someone take care of it. You get in
there. I think that it makes a lot of sense, especially because I
think that makes a lot of sense, especially because remember, again the two
creators were Jewish. And this is where I want to start history of more,
because I was gonna say that today I think a lot of jew This
issue of passing is one that comes up a lot in Judaism, and being
clear, I should say within Ashkenazi Judaism, there's a perspective there are a
lot of Jews, and I think my family and my father and to the
extent that I'm Jewish myself, who benefit from white supremacy because we are white.
And thus there's a perception often that Jews are white. That's very much
not true. There's Jews from all over the world, and I believe more
are Sephardic from kind of Spain and Africa and Southern Europe and all that.
But the question of passing is also one that I think of a lot as
a disabled person, because I sometimes use a prosthetic leg and at the moment
my health is not great. I've gained more weight and so people generally can
tell I walk with a limp, but on a good day, I don't
walk with a limp, And it used to be I never walked to the
limp, but then i'd be in a wheelchair sometimes and that would get really
confusing for people. I have a lot of unfortunate memories of parking in a
disabled parking spot, getting out while I'm on my two legs, and getting
really dirty looks from people who think, on this able bodied guy who's taking
a spot. And the reality is that if I'm like I'm going into a
mall or something, probably after an hour of working of walking, my leg's
gonna be in real trouble and I'm going to need that spot that's as close
as possible. But they don't see that. So yeah, I think that's
a really interesting idea, and I think it's also really interesting in terms of
how recently Marvel and d C have really split on this question of secret identities.
I'm saying that because I think secret identities is kind of party of this
whole passing question. You know, where in d C most of the superheroes
want to pass to some extent, in Marvel not so much. And you
know, feel like Tony Stark are very open about who they are. Four
certainly is not trying to pass in any way except for a couple of comics
where he tries to be a doctor, and within the X Men itself,
this is an active part, an active debate of you know, I think
some of the X Men movies x Men two did a great job of saying
this, where you know, Beast is saying to uh, mystique, wouldn't
you want to pass? And and she's saying no, I think that we're
beautiful the way we are. So yeah, I think this is kind of
a whole other topic that I think I haven't been prepared for, But I
think you're right. I think it's a really interesting question there of well,
how much is in terms of the marginalized experience, how much passing is out
or not passing is obviously a huge issue that I think can get very easily
simplified, like a lot of people who other people say pass like. It's
much more complicated than that. But yeah, I think it's very much reflected
in hero culture to be sure. Well, let me let me help bring
it back to the Alan Moore of it all, because it's it's mentioned a
couple of times as this interview, like why superheroes are fascist is that there
I canography gets used by people like by fascist now. And I think he
mentions Donald Trump like having like laser beam eyes like obviously Superman reference. I
think literally that you can find images of him like in a Superman suit,
like doing the hands on the hips pose as if he's gonna save the world,
right, And it's to me, like, I don't think that this
is where I said, I disagree with some of Moore's ideas as far as
my understanding of them, Like I don't think superheroes by definition like our fascist
or lead to like fascist interpretations, but they but they can be taken because
oftentimes these organizations are fronted by a quote unquote strong man, right literally like
and the age of Superman is so ingrained in our psychology as like the strongest
man, right, and so if you if you see Gi slap your face
on Superman's body, like, people instantly make a connection, and it's it's
this great irony, like as we've been saying that Superman is an immigrant and
that you know, he traditionally fights for the downtrodden, right, but of
course, like again like that's part of fascist ideology is that you are trying
to appeal to people who feel that they are downtrodden and saying like I'm going
to help you, like I'm the superman that's going to help you. And
I think one thing is really interesting about that and this kind of allows me
to touch on my all time favorite story. They're love going back to Marvel
Civil War, is it. One of the things I think that makes Superman
work is that the part if you if you believe the story, if you
believe that he can fly and that kryptonite hurts him, you also have to
believe that it's okay for him to have this incredible amount of power because he
is committed to not using it, to not abusing it specifically, and to
an extent, that's part of the point of a team Cap in Marvel Civil
War that you don't no government can be trusted to have oversight over Cap because
you can trust Cap to decide how to use that power, but you can't
trust anyone else. And whatever you think of those two fictionalized characters, I
think that the danger of that kind of thinking is that, yes, it
does lead to we can trust this government leader, we can trust Trump and
just to show that I'm somewhat even handed about this. I do think that
there was some element of that with Obama, of like he can do no
wrong and everything he does is right because and he was certainly described as our
Superman, and there was a lot of that, like Obama as Superman language.
And I think then about you know, some of us who during his
presidency were like, guys, he's killing lots of people with drones. He's
doing a lot of these kind of moderate things that are not cool, ran
up into of this idea of no, but he's Obama, we can trust
him. And you know it's and if you're familiar, if you're familiar with
the Dark Brandon memes, like that is feeding off of that same imagery and
iconography. Yeah, very much ideology of like the laser beam eyes and like
when he puts on the aviators, like it gives him superpowers type of thing.
Like that's almost like his costume, like his superhero costume. Now one
of my favorite Superman comics, and I admit I've not read many of them,
but this one I have read. And I just say favorite Superman stories
because the experienced stories and other mediums is Kingdom come by Mark Wade and Alex
Ross. Have you read that. Yeah, it's been a few years,
but I remember it. Yeah, because I think the fundamental idea of this
is that when Lois Lane and other people are killed, hold on a second,
let me just quickly check this. Yeah. So a big part of
that story is this idea that Superman does start to cross the lines, that
he does start to say, you know, the way things are being run
is not okay. I need to step in and stop this, even though
I don't have the actual authority, because I have the power to do so,
and that people have to trust me that I know what I'm doing is
right in order to make this work. And I think I'm mixing it.
And there's another story that is similar where he does something similar. I think
I'm mixing the two of them up. But Justice probably, yeah, which
is the one where he keeps like, uh, Metropolis locked up in a
little glass jar that sounds like Kingdom come okay, yeah. But and in
Justice, like he literally just becomes a tyrant and takes over the entire world.
Yeah, Injustice is that one. Red Son is another one that's like
because red Son is about the idea of what if his capsule had arrived a
couple hours later and crashed in the Ukraine instead of in Kansas. But in
all of them, I think the idea is supposed to be that this is
a horrific idea that is meant to be a tale to say that the reason
why it's safe to have Superman is that we know he would never actually do
this, right, and having these Superman stories where he does do it,
where he becomes a dictator, where he kills people, et cetera, I
think that's problematic from a industry standpoint. I guess from a storytelling standpoint.
Like we talked in the past, I love Sinestro. He's literally a fascist,
like designed to look like Hitler with his little mustache. And when Alan
Moore mentioned, you know, the power Ring, he's talking about the green
Lantern mythos, and I felt like he was specifically talking about Sinestro, right,
Like Sinestro uses his power ring to take over his planet and impose his
style of order, which often you know, involves imprisoning people who speak out,
et cetera. So it's just classic dictor dictatory. But he is the
villain, like he is always clearly the villain. Yeah, there's a couple
of stories where he takes on an anti hero role, and I do find
that interesting, but he's never the good guy. And that's why I think
like having him is fine because we understand who he is and what he is.
Having Superman like occupy that same space of being a tyrant is problematic because
we have so much history of Superman as the good guy, and then we
see him do some tyrant stuff and he's like, eh, but he's super
Man, so it's mostly fine, Like maybe he crosses the line this one
time, but it's mostly okay, Like I'm okay with this. Yeah,
I think that's the problem at Yeah, I think that makes a lot of
sense, and I like one thing that I'm also struck by is that for
a lot of comic book characters, not all and maybe this is something that's
fading, and listeners, definitely let me know what you think, you know,
because I was thinking is that Clark isn't just someone who comes to Earth
and randomly gets powers and he's never thought about this before. Part of the
idea is that that whole time that he's in the Capsule, uh, both
both when he's in the Capsule and then when he's with Martha and and you
know Mom and Pac Kent, both his Kryptonian parents and his Earth parents are
teaching him from a very early age, Yes, you have the power,
but you have to have these lines that you will not cross. You have
to be able to you know, because there is no police that can stop
you, there is no one else, and you could just become an authoritarian.
So we have to teach you to be that person. And in Captain
America it's flipped a bit. It's not that people give him the power teach
him that. It's that they only give him the power because they can tell
he already knows that. And Spider Man has you know Uncle Ben saying,
with great power comes great responsibility. And one thing I think is that a
lot of newer stories you don't have that you know, no one's saying to
Jessica Jones, like, I mean, her friends are kind of tearing her
hair out, but like she just gets powers. Luke Cage just gets powers.
And I think I like those stories more because we see them wrestling with
it and it feels more realistic to me. But it has more of the
danger of you know that it's funny because I'm often goodhead you have to have
Clark Kent's because what you're describing, like the Kent raise Superman as Clark Kent
and teaching these values, and oftentimes, like people describe it as different characters,
like Clark Kent and Superman being different characters, or like different sides of
the coin, like who's the real one, like who's the disguise, et
cetera. But in my opinion, a good Superman story needs to have significant
Clark Kent. And that's where like stuff like you're talking about, like Injustice,
I think has like zero Clark Kent, Like they call him Clark because
like once you're a dictator who cares like you don't have a secret identity anymore,
but he's that he never no longer dresses as Clark, like obviously doesn't
work as at the Daily Planet as a reporter while he's also the dictator.
Well, one of the things that happens in that story is that forgive me
spoilers here if you want to skip ahead, Well, it's like five pages.
Yeah, Lois Lane dies, and I think that's one of the things
that that's one of his last connections. Yeah, that's what drives it.
Yeah, but that I think Yeah, what gets what gets forgotten is the
Clark Kent character in a lot of these Superman stories, And I think,
like Zack Snyder Superman Man of Steel is very similar and that there's not enough
Clark Kent to really balance the story out. And that was one of the
things about the christiher Reef Superman, Like some of the most delightful scenes are
the Clark Kent scenes, right, or the scenes where it's like there's both
of him, right. I think there's a scene that gets clipped a lot
where he is Clark Kent talking to Lois Lane and he's debating whether to tell
her his secret identity and she turns away and you watch him like literally transform,
like it's just a posture, and I think he like takes off his
glasses and changes his posture and he's thinking about telling her, and then he
changes his mind and like changes back, like his posture changes back. Not
like it's not only a great acting performance like Christopher read, but also just
like a fundamental and interesting exploration of this character, the duality of it,
and you have to have that. And I think, like again, like
that's where Alan Moore is going, is like superhero stories shouldn't just be about
superpowers. It should be about the human beings or whatever Kryptonians behind the powers
and exploring their stories. Yeah, And people often say stuff like Superman is
a boring character because he's in vulnerable and he can do all these things.
That's why you got to have the Clark Kent. Yeah, and I think
it's It's like I used to very much be one of those people. And
Jessica Plumber, who's a freaking guest on here and who is a huge Superman
fan, has a very similar perspective to what you're saying. She often talks
about how her favorite Superman on screen is the New Adventures of Lois and Clark.
I don't say that and that and it's hard and soul, I think
very much. Also, she said, like the first of the Christophery Superman
movies, it's a rom com. Oh yeah, like like it with meet
cutes and all this kind of stuff, and they're like, which one are
you gonna fall in love with? In f Dan Kane like and everything he's
done since then. But yes, like the show is so great that that
show had a lot of Clark Kent. And because Clark Kent is vulnerable,
right, Like not he's not physically vulnerable because underneath he's Superman, but he
can't get Lois to go out with him as Clark Kent. And like in
the movies as well, like Lois is in Lowe Superman and ignores Clark Kent,
and yeah, like I love that. I love those stories. Yeah,
and then in so many homages to that, you know, like I
I everything from the the Toby Parker Spartan, the Toby Parker, Toby Parker,
I don't know where you're going, Toby Maguire, the Tobyoguire Spider Man,
where you have the you know, the Mary Jane character who kind of
is has much more crush on Spider Man than Toby. I think Princess Leah
is in many ways a Lois Lane figure of the you know, she's the
damsel, but she's not the damsel, and she's gonna all sorts of back
talk for the people who rescue her and stuff like that. Let let's pull
back, though, to our main topic, and there's a lot more we
can say about this. I think I'll just say that I'm a little different
than you and the kind of stories I like in that I think for me,
because I fundamentally do not believe the conceit that it's okay for someone like
Superman or Captain America to have all the power they do and that we can
just trust them, because I just don't. I don't believe that, and
I think it's dangerous. And I think that's why I really like stories like
Kingdom Come or even more the stories where the character wrestles with how are they
going to use the power and the decides to do the right thing, because
those are stories in our own world, you know, Like underdog stories are
great. But and this isn't all my audience, but it's a lot of
us. If you're an American citizen, A lot of times our story isn't
the plucky little underdog. Our story is the superman of the world who has
to decide when is it right for us to use our power to do what
we think is right in the world or should we be holding back because us
coming in as superman in the world doesn't actually help. So I guess to
me, going back to this original question, I want to read more of
Alan Moore's thinking. I'm not quite convinced that superheroes are fascist, but I
think He's got a point in that the modern revising, the modern sort of
rebirth of fascism, I don't think is caused by superhero culture, but do
you think has some overlaps there? And I think certainly there's a lot of
elements of superheroes that overlap with authoritarianism that we're definitely gonna keep talking about because
I think there is something about all all these stories about one strong person will
come and save the day. Yeah, And I think part of his criticism
is on media literacy or audience literacy and like understanding the stories, because if
we go back to The Watchman, like his Ozamandias is a villain, right,
like we should read him as a villain, like he is a hero
in that world, but then does villainous things and so like this is this
is where we point to. It's like he's creating this archetype of the evil
Superman. But I think like in the in reading The Watchmen, like the
graphic novel, like it's pretty clear, but then you get to something like
the movie and and Zack Snyder like frames it in much more of a question
mark, like is Osmandias a villain? Like I don't know, you decide.
It's like, no, like, don't let people decide because you might
be disappointed by what they decide. I don't. I don't think Alan Moore
is like you decide like he's a villain. I'm writing him as a villain,
but he quote unquote wins anyway, And yeah, should we tell stories
like that? I don't know. I think it's I think it's somewhat different
and that there's a good reason for us to rewatch the movie. But also,
have you seen the TV show that was made of a Watchman? I
have not. It is very good, and I think goes a lot deeper
into the question, and I think it's asking. Actually, I think you're
right that those people were saying no, as Amandias is kind of an antihero,
are completely wrong. It's not an open question. He is a villain.
But I think what Alan Moore is saying the world was saved by a
villain, that if he had not done what he did, there was almost
definitely going to be a nuclear war. Yeah, And to me, that's
the other question is what does it say about our world when the fact was
we needed a villain, and so does that mean that he's not a villain?
Or does it mean that we need to fix thing so that we don't
need the villain again? Right, that the world itself was already broken to
a degree beyond repair, like hopefully, like it does get repaired, but
it was broken to a point where a hero could not save the world.
Right, I have a tangent that want to asks. We're gonna save that
for our I have a tangent that want to ask, So we're gonna save
that for our bonus content for our members. The other thing I guess I
want to end on is like at one point, he mentions again like the
audience, and about how comic book heroes were originally written for kids, and
then like as kids grew up, the stories continued and the industry, like
these companies wanted to keep making money all of these characters. And that's why
like nostalgia comes into play, right, Like if you liked Superman as a
kid, well, like, we still got Superman as an adult for you.
But because it's for an adult, for an adult audience, like,
it's a little more mature, it's a little darker. Like he makes some
questionable decisions, right, Like, because that's what we think much mature storytelling
is, and I I a like, I fundamentally disagree because you and I
watch a lot of cartoons like Star Wars. Cartoons are for kids, like
Rebels is for kids. I don't think there's any question about that. But
we enjoy it as adults, and we find interesting things to discuss in it,
and it doesn't have to be like this gritty, dark thing. So
you walked right into my trap. I mean sorry, you actually led to
the point I was going to make, which is also a disagreement with more
because I think he actually seems to believe that it's only adults who are reading
comics. I don't think that's true. I think adults are continuing to be
the comics they grew up on, and so some of them have matured.
But also there's a whole bunch of new comics, like there are versions of
these things for kids. But also there's Kamala Khan, there's you know,
uh god, I can't remember his name. There's Miles Morales. There's all
sorts of and thousands of new characters that I don't even know about, that
kids love and that all ages can love. But to go to your example
in Star Wars, yes we have those kids shows. We also have and
Or. And if there's anything that says we're going to take the more simple
young adults you know, all ages story of Star Wars, of good and
evil and complicated a lot, and make it a lot more gritty and dark,
that's and Or. So to me, I guess I kind of see
that. I think that can be the medium is we don't If Star Wars
was all Mandor and Or, it'd be terrible, terrible. I said Mandor
because as a Mandor, I think it's that same like when a person's body
gets chopped in half ten minutes into the first episode of Mando and you hear
the thud of the body hitting the ground. I was like, oh,
we're not for kids anymore. But yeah, so I hear your point.
I just think that I think we do have some of that in the comics
universe right now. It's just probably like we're not I was gonna say,
but they're not getting made into movies. But like ms Marvel is a movie,
you know, yeah, well it's a TV show, and then The
Marvels was a movie. That's true, that's true. Yeah, And into
the Spider Verse, the Miles Marlan stuff, well, there's a lot more
on this topic we can discuss listeners has always let us know what you think.
Go to the website the Ethical panda dot com find us under the Ethical
Panda. We did get some interesting feedback about the topic we discussed last week
that wanted just to end on and as always, yeah, keep giving us
this feedback. Let's know what you think. Chris mccurl when it was a
big fanity stories and some of the things a lot about these kind of issues,
wrote in response to my question about is failure good teacher? Failure is
a good teacher so long as you try and learn from it. If you
fail and quit, as Luke did until Ray and Yoga came calling, it
can't teach. Okay, Yeah, well, first off, thank you very
much for the feedback. I think in our discussion I talked about like depression,
like cycles of depression when you fail, and yeah, like that.
That's why fundamentally, like I guess I would disagree with the failure as a
good teacher. It's because if you fail, like if you continue to fail,
you can fall into the cycle where you give up. And in a
sense, like giving up is the ultimate failure, right, because you know
if you don't come back, like you're not doing the thing, so you're
not succeeding. And so if we're talking about like teachers or like how to
mentor someone to do something. That's why like, I don't think failure is
all that great. I think you can create an environment where you don't fail
but still learn lessons or just kind of maybe like stumble, but there's a
safety net and the stumble doesn't cost you or your your organization too much.
Yeah, going back to like you and I used to do magic to gathering,
judging and that this is one of the things I would try to set
up is environments where there was like a safety net. They gave people an
opportunity to try something new, but two be okay with not succeeding. Yeah,
modular mentor could be something we have a mentor d over your shoulder who
can catch you if you're about to call it that problem, but not failing,
because a failure would mean, you know, like a tournament, an
event goes badly and then the customers, the players have a experience, and
that that person the judge running that is going to have a bad experience too,
and be like I don't I don't know if I want to do this
anymore. Like that's what you got to avoid. And that's why, Like
I I love Yoda, but this is not the Airport Book for me,
Like he is the best teacher. No, like to give people an opportunity,
I think stumble and me. Yeah, like that that's where like nuance
of these phrases is important, right, which, by the way is uh
Reeky introduced me to another fantastic podcast called If Books Could Kill, which is
a lot about like diving into the problems with these books, with these uh
airport sell help books, which is wonderful, and I love those books.
I love reading those books. But you have to you can't take them at
face value. Yeah, just like Yoda, I think I'm a little more
defensive of that's wrong term. I think I'm a little more still on Yoda's
side with this, but I think I would change it to failure can be
a great teacher, Yeah, because I think I think it's like like because
I think, on the one hand, is good to set up situations where
people can try things and possibly fail, you know, like put really big
mats under the jungle gyms that kids can try it and if they slip,
They're gonna be okay. But I mean, I this was not working for
you, which I'm happy about because I don't know they wouldn't kept working for
you. But I certainly made a screw up that caused a huge problem at
a conference I was working at, a tournament I was working at. I
didn't try to do it. It wasn't a good thing that I did it,
And it did take some very strong mentorship to help me realize, like,
you know that it doesn't mean I'm terrible and I should never do this
again. But I'm actually never gonna do that again. I would definitely learn
from it, And so I think, yeah, it's that it's to me,
failure is an opportunity, is maybe the way I would say it,
like failure gives you the chance to learn from it. But you have to
both. You have to have a support system, both internally and maybe externally
that helps you stay away from the depression, stay away from the therefore I
should quit. And you also have to be self reflective enough to be able
to recognize is this a time where you failed because you made a mistake,
or is this a time where you did everything right and still failed? You
know, so there's yeah, and you have to have like a certain amount
of fortitude to get over failure and that that I think that's where I have
problems with it is like you often hear phrases like oh, well, it's
just tough enough, right, right, And people have different toughnesses, whether
it's emotional, mental, like physical toughness. Again, like going back to
my experience as a runner, like when you run a marathon, it's it's
really rough and not everyone's going to finish, and you can't just be like,
well, like you gotta you gotta train more, right, Like it's
there's a lot of stuff that goes into it and I don't know. Life.
To me, if I never fail in life again, like that would
be great. I would prefer that. That's fair. That's fair. Uh,
listeners, what do you think is always we want to hear from you,
We want you to become a member. It's a great way to be
part of the process. Help us along. Riki, thank you so much.
We're going to have a quick conversation going a little bit deeper on the
Watchman for our bonus content for members for everybody else. Thank you so much
for listening. We have spoken Superhero Ethics is an ethical pan of podcast part
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