{"id":7290,"date":"2011-10-15T19:02:57","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T00:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=7290"},"modified":"2011-10-15T19:06:52","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T00:06:52","slug":"dysfunctional-superheroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=7290","title":{"rendered":"Dysfunctional superheroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Superman has never an easy superhero for the modern age. Unlike the classic Joseph Campbell hero, he has no conflict, no real journey to embark upon. Batman, on the other hand, is perfect for the modern era of conflicted, dysfunctional heroes. His entire quest to rid the world of evil is arguably a quixotic — and by definition impossible — attempt to right the terrible wrong that was done to his own parents. *<\/sup><\/p>\n

Still, Batman is highly traditional in certain ways. Unquestionably the boy tormented by tragedy has grown into a kind of uber<\/i>-man — an unapologetic vigilante who believes thoroughly in himself and in his own brand of frontier justice.<\/p>\n

Even when the hero is dark, these comic books were pure wish-fulfilment fantasy. Even the most insecure teenager could project themselves into a fantasy version of adulthood — an individual who has overcome doubts and fears to be the modern version of a knight of old.<\/p>\n

Spiderman represents a far more radical evolution. Peter Parker is not Billy Batson being swapped out into Captain Marvel when danger comes calling. No, Spiderman the super hero is still a lonely lost boy, his self-doubt and insecurity highly visible, to the point of being a badge of identity. Stan Lee’s brilliant innovation was to project the insecurity of the reader onto the superhero himself.<\/p>\n

By now we take such ideas for granted. Buffy is a good example of a modern superhero. We watch not to see her defeat vampires and demons (something she can do with ease), but for her far more interesting and difficult battles against her own inner demons. To quote Berlin artist’s Marcus Wittmers’ brilliant work Superman Crashing<\/a>: “Auch Helden haben schlechte Tage!”<\/i><\/p>\n

Which brings us to the inevitable next evolution in the superhero — “Breaking Bad.” More tomorrow.<\/p>\n

* Yes, Superman’s parents — and, in fact, his entire planet — were annihilated, but as a child he didn’t have to deal with that, and it never seems to have really bothered him.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Superman has never an easy superhero for the modern age. Unlike the classic Joseph Campbell hero, he has no conflict, no real journey to embark upon. Batman, on the other hand, is perfect for the modern era of conflicted, dysfunctional heroes. His entire quest to rid the world of evil is arguably a quixotic — … Continue reading “Dysfunctional superheroes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7290"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7298,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290\/revisions\/7298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}