{"id":5609,"date":"2012-01-07T16:17:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T21:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=5609"},"modified":"2012-01-07T16:17:14","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T21:17:14","slug":"the-avengers-blink-superman-and-the-problem-of-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/07\/the-avengers-blink-superman-and-the-problem-of-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Avengers,’ ‘Blink,’ Superman and the problem of evil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

OK, let\u2019s step aside from politics and religion (mostly) for a moment and talk about comic book superheroes and Doctor Who<\/em>. Because we can.<\/p>\n

Like most people who are fans of comics and\/or Joss Whedon, I\u2019m geekily excited about the Avengers movie coming out this summer.<\/p>\n

I was never more than an occasional reader of the Avengers<\/em> comics, but those characters made an impressive appearance in one of my all-time favorite comic book stories \u2014 the\u00a0 1986 Daredevil<\/em> \u201cBorn Again\u201d series by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli.<\/p>\n

That series was a brilliant bit of noir-ish storytelling, with Matt Murdock falling to pieces as the Kingpin \u2014 a crime lord with no super powers \u2014 slowly took away or destroyed every part of his life. The big final showdown involved the Kingpin losing all restraint and sending a psychotic killer after Murdock with automatic weapons and a helicopter gunship, wreaking havoc and mass-destruction in the middle of Manhattan.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when, \u201cOut of nowhere they appear.\u201d The Avengers show up and take charge and you suddenly remembered that in the Manhattan of the Marvel comics universe there aren\u2019t just heroes, but super<\/em>-heroes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As I said, I\u2019m looking forward to the Avengers movie. I\u2019m sure it will be great fun to see such a talented cast exploring the characters and camaraderie of this super-powered team as they battle against super-powered villains like the Marvel-universe version of Loki (and, possibly, the Red Skull). Plus I think Whedon\u2019s dialogue as spoken by Robert Downey Jr. promises to be enormously entertaining.<\/p>\n

But the kind of comic-book superhero movie I\u2019d like to see would be one that captures the awe that poor Ben Urich shares with the reader as he narrates those panels shown above. I haven\u2019t seen the recent Captain America<\/em> or Thor<\/em> movies, but I doubt they convey the essence of those two heroes any better than that single page by Mazzucchelli. By showing us how they appear through another character\u2019s eyes, Miller and Mazzucchelli allow us to see what familiarity had worn away.<\/p>\n

One perennial trouble with superhero stories is that they turn into an arms race. The more powerful the hero, the more powerful the villains need to be to provide a credible challenge. This is part of why I\u2019ve always found characters like Daredevil and Batman more interesting than Thor or Superman.<\/p>\n

One way around this arms-race problem is to move the superhero to the periphery of the story \u2014 to allow your superheroes to be superheroes, but not to make them your superprotagonists. Make the story about<\/em> someone else, someone more human and not quite so unstoppably powerful and invulnerable. The trick is to find a way of doing that without reducing the superheroes themselves to a tacked-on deus-ex-machina<\/em> role.
\n
\nTwo of my favorite episodes of TV shows managed to do this, and I think they point to two different approaches \u2014 either one of which might work to give us a superhero movie quite unlike the summer blockbusters we\u2019ve been seeing.<\/p>\n

The first example I\u2019m thinking of is the Doctor Who<\/em> episode \u201cBlink.\u201d If you\u2019re a Doctor Who<\/em> fan, then I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen it. If you\u2019re not a fan, then I can\u2019t think of a better introduction to the show than this episode, even though the Doctor himself appears only as a peripheral character. Moffat turns the usual story around. Instead of a story about the hero racing to the rescue to save some random damsel in distress, the random damsel, Sally Sparrow, turns out to be the one who rescues the hero. The story is told through her eyes, allowing viewers to see the familiar hero with a fresh perspective.<\/p>\n

Darin Morgan did something similar in a classic episode of the X Files<\/em> spin-off Millennium<\/em> called \u201cSomehow, Satan Got Behind Me.\u201d The show\u2019s main character, Frank Black, barely appears in that episode, which focuses on four grumpy old demons telling stories in a coffee shop. When Frank Black does appear, briefly, in each of their stories, he is seen as they see him and, again, viewers are given a fresh perspective and new insight into a familiar hero. Morgan turns the usual story around by showing us the hero through the eyes of the villains.<\/p>\n

Both of those approaches might serve as a model for a superhero movie that wanted to be something other than an explosion-y summer blockbuster that ratchets up the arms race between superheroes and super villains.<\/p>\n

Again, I\u2019ve never been a big fan of Superman. His almost limitless power creates an obstacle that proves too great for many writers to overcome. Ultimately, there\u2019s only so much kryptonite to go around. But what would it mean to tell a story set in Metropolis, but not centered around Superman, or Lois Lane, or the Daily Planet?<\/em> What would it mean to turn the story around, to move Superman to the periphery and put a fresh perspective at the center of the story?<\/p>\n

That would raise another problem, I think, but it\u2019s a good problem \u2014 or, rather, it\u2019s a problem that ought to provide grist for a good story. This problem, which is always lurking somewhere in the background of every Superman story, is more or less the same as one of the central puzzles of theology: the problem of evil.<\/p>\n

Think of it in terms of Ben Parker\u2019s famous advice for his nephew: \u201cWith great power comes great responsibility.\u201d If that was true for Spiderman, who has \u201cgreat power,\u201d what does it mean for Superman, who has nearly limitless<\/em> power? It seems to follow that with nearly limitless power comes nearly limitless responsibility.<\/p>\n

One night in Metropolis there\u2019s an accident. A drunk driver strikes and kills a pedestrian, a newlywed as it turns out. These things happen all the time in big cities. But they don\u2019t happen all the time in this<\/em> city. In Metropolis, most of the time \u2014 but not all<\/em> of the time \u2014 Superman flies in to carry off the car, or carry off the pedestrian, or both, and save the day.<\/p>\n

But not all the time. And not this<\/em> time. This time he was off with the Justice League, or he was spooning with Lois or he was battling Lex Luthor or he was asleep or \u2026 he wasn\u2019t there,<\/em> is the point. And because he wasn\u2019t there when he was needed, someone died, leaving behind a spouse who carries an aching resentment for the drunk driver and an even greater, more painful resentment for the city\u2019s red-caped hero. Where was<\/em> he? Why did he allow that to happen?<\/p>\n

If this were a Golden Age comic book story, this grieving spouse would go mad and turn to a life of crime, vowing to destroy Superman. But I don\u2019t want to turn this grieving spouse into a super-villain. I want to see what she will do if she finds herself in the same situation as Sally Sparrow, having to risk her life to save this alien hero.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Superman movie I want to see.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I\u2019m looking forward to Whedon\u2019s explosion-y summer blockbuster, and I\u2019m hoping that Darren Franich gets his wish<\/a> to see Ryan Gosling play Matt Murdock in the rumored Daredevil: Born Again<\/em> movie.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, let\u2019s step aside from politics and religion (mostly) for a moment and talk about comic book superheroes and Doctor Who. Because we can. Like most people who are fans of comics and\/or Joss Whedon, I\u2019m geekily excited about the Avengers movie coming out this summer. I was never more than an occasional reader of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n'The Avengers,' 'Blink,' Superman and the problem of evil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"OK, let's step aside from politics and religion (mostly) for a moment and talk about comic book superheroes and Doctor Who. Because we can. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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