
Alan Moore on superhero culture - cmsefton
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-50473092
======
cmsefton
FYI, the full interview is available here
[https://alanmooreworld.blogspot.com/2019/11/moore-on-
jerusal...](https://alanmooreworld.blogspot.com/2019/11/moore-on-jerusalem-
eternalism-anarchy.html)

EDIT: The relevant quote (although the whole interview is pretty interesting):

"I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously
embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally
perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen
year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly
adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and
fulfilling different needs. Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be
abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their
relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th
century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of
deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing
condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular
music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum. The superheroes
themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for
their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights
of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely
employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the
nightstand. I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white
characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters
are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race. In fact, I
think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation
as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those
capes and masks."

~~~
malvosenior
This is probably the most astute comment on the current media landscape I've
ever seen. Just as Moore says, much of our world is trapped in the 20th
century. The media, the philosophy, the people in charge...

I once read Baby Boomer culture described as an ugly toad squatting on the
rest of society, holding it back. The truth turned out to be a bit different
though. Even the younger generations still willingly embrace 20th century life
(probably more than they realize).

I think social media will finally tip things over into a new era though. The
narcissism that is its core feature is also an outgrowth of 20th century
individualism and a quest for self actualization. Pushed to its limits, it
destroys its participants and society at large.

For anyone interested in these topics, I highly recommend The Century Of The
Self. It talks about the intersection of psychology, marketing, technology and
the generation that grew up with them in the 20th century.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self)

~~~
ecf
I feel it’s a chicken - egg problem.

Are we embracing 20th century life by clinging on to old movie IPs, or are we
just constantly being fed the same type of stuff by Studios who’ve found
“their formula” for making content with a low risk of flopping, for example.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We're embracing a _subset_ of 20th century themes. Star Trek: The Next
Generation was a very popular XX century series, and yet after it, never
again[0] did sci-fi embraced the themes like optimism about the future,
exploration, diplomacy, a society as a protagonist just as important as the
heroes, etc. I'm saddened about it (and about post-ENT Star Trek reboots). I
want my TNG back, and I'm not ashamed of clinging to it.

\--

[0] - With the possible exception of Disney's Tommorowland, and of course DS9,
VOY and ENT Star Trek series from the same universe as TNG.

~~~
goatlover
DS9 had an all-out war, Section 31, and Sisko being compliant in murder to
further the war effort.

~~~
thrownblown
have you seen the recent DS9 documentary "what we left behind"?

[https://ds9documentary.com/](https://ds9documentary.com/)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Didn't know about this, thanks for the link!

------
Zelphyr
I have to agree with Scorsese here. I don't remember the last superhero movie
I saw where I didn't walk out with a yawn. They're just so predictable.
Everyday guy or gal gets bestowed with or discovers powers of some sort and
cut to blowing a bunch of stuff up. End credits with some teaser afterwards.
And that's just the first of what will inevitably be many more movies
culminating in blowing even bigger things up (has any of them gotten to the
point of blowing up a whole planet yet?)

If I'm being fair, this predictability problem is pretty rampant in Hollywood.
I rewatched Pulp Fiction recently and I remember seeing it for the first time
and being blown away. It was anything but predictable. It was hilarious and
disturbing at the same time but, most of all, it was creative. To my mind,
there's little true creativity to movies anymore.

~~~
smacktoward
Before I lost interest in Marvel movies altogether, I used to get annoyed at
how they would show these little glimmers of creativity, only to then crush
them under the boot of The Marvel Formula.

The most interesting parts of the early Marvel movies weren't the super powers
or special effects, it was the little notes they gave to their protagonists to
humanize them -- Tony Stark as a selfish alcoholic, Thor as a cheerfully
oblivious fish out of water, Captain America as earnest but painfully naïve.
They seemed to be opening up the possibility of superhero stories that were
also _human_ stories, rather than just the kind of juvenile power fantasies
Moore is decrying here. But each movie would eventually put that stuff aside
and build to yet another Epic Battle as climax, which was disappointing.

In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that the stuff that I found appealing was
the result of Marvel, still finding its feet, allowing its filmmakers to
doodle in the margins of their studio-approved blueprint a bit. Once the
movies took off and the Marvel Formula was proven, they no longer needed to
allow space for such divergence from the formula. So we get movies like the
_Avengers_ entries, where the entire story is just moving chess pieces around
to get them into place for the inevitable Epic Battle.

The Marvel movie I always wanted to see was one that put the Epic Battles
aside completely, and focused 100% on telling a character-driven story.
Something like the Matt Fraction _Hawkeye_ comics, where the point of the
story is deepening our understanding of this one character, grounding him in
the context of the brownstone he lives in, the ways he interacts with his
neighbors, and their common problem of potentially losing their homes to an
aggressive developer. Human-scale stories about human beings.

In other words, I didn't want _Avengers: Endgame_ , I wanted _My Dinner with
Ultron._ But once the Marvel juggernaut picked up enough steam, that was
exactly the movie I was never going to get.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _The Marvel movie I always wanted to see was one that put the Epic Battles
> aside completely, and focused 100% on telling a character-driven story.
> Something like the Matt Fraction Hawkeye comics, where the point of the
> story is deepening our understanding of this one character, grounding him in
> the context of the brownstone he lives in, the ways he interacts with his
> neighbors, and their common problem of potentially losing their homes to an
> aggressive developer. Human-scale stories about human beings._

It kinda sounds like what you dislike most about superhero movies is the
superpowered heroes.

~~~
TacticalTable
Seems more like he's upset about the stories being _about_ the super powers
rather than the _effects_ of the super powers. Superheroes are always as
powerful as the plot needs them to be. Of _course_ they're going to win in the
end with their power. But most of Marvel's movies just come down to reacting
to the movie's 'twist', and believing in themselves to become stronger.

The more interesting ramifications/consequences are often only footnotes. Not
every problem can be solved with super strength - Show those.

------
RHSeeger
> Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who
> do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring
> childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century.

Or, you know, sometimes we just like a little escape-ism. It's no different
than reading a good sci-fi/fantasy book where the hero(es) win in the end.
It's fun. Not everything needs to be a deep exploration of our intellectual
and emotional destitution, not for everyone.

~~~
myself248
I think his point is that escapism is fine for kids, but we're adults now and
we're hindering ourselves by always escaping to a black-and-white good-and-
evil fantasy land where there's no need for compromise or understanding as
long as you have a big gun and supernatural powers.

Sometimes a hero is someone who unites, explains, or educates. But there's
precious little of that in the kind of simplistic, violent, nuance-free "win"
that continues to be perpetuated in this material. And that is to the
detriment of society's ability to reason.

~~~
thomascgalvin
> I think his point is that escapism is fine for kids, but we're adults now
> and we're hindering ourselves by always escaping to a black-and-white good-
> and-evil fantasy land where there's no need for compromise or understanding
> as long as you have a big gun and supernatural powers.

One of the most popular entries in the Marvel universe was about a moral
argument between Captain America and Iron Man regarding the appropriate use of
power, and the limits of personal autonomy versus international law.

Yes, it was dressed up in bright colors and had plenty of pew-pew-pew, but it
was very much _not_ a black and white story. To this day you can find people
who agree with either side.

> But there's precious little of that in the kind of simplistic, violent,
> nuance-free "win" that continues to be perpetuated in this material.

Stephen Strange's first outing featured him having an emotional breakdown over
causing the death of someone who was actively trying to kill him, and saw him
save the world through cleverness, not violence.

Are comic book movies the pinnacle of moral debate? Of course not. But they
aren't always punch-hard-save-day simple, either.

~~~
Ensorceled
Is there are second example? This is the first thing I thought of ... and then
couldn't come up with more.

~~~
dx87
Black Panther was like the civil rights movement, with one faction advocating
for peace, and the other component advocating violence against their
oppressors.

~~~
munificent
The hero of the movie wins against both M'Baku and Killmonger by being the
most physically powerful and violent.

Strip away the civil rights veneer, and the moral lesson of the story is still
that the punching-est man is the best man.

~~~
thomascgalvin
The moral lesson was that the best man had to _become_ the punching-est man,
in order to thwart the power of someone who wanted to use his might to
conquer.

And, moreover, that an incredibly rich nation's resources should be shared
with the world at large, in order to make the world as a whole a better place.

------
hardwaregeek
I have a theory that this obsession with superheros is part of a greater
obsession with continuity. Whether it's TV shows or cinematic universes,
people crave a sense of continuity in their narrative. Right now there's a
lack of continuity, a lack of semantic cohesion within the world. Values have
disintegrated. Stuff that would have been otherwise meaningful, whether that
be working class life, or the institution of the presidency or the guarantees
of a college degree, are now meaningless or less meaningful.

~~~
Izkata
> I have a theory that this obsession with superheros is part of a greater
> obsession with continuity. Whether it's TV shows or cinematic universes,
> people crave a sense of continuity in their narrative.

I have a strong suspicion this part is correct, but that most are unaware of
it. Kind of a "you don't miss what you never had" situation. Not so sure about
the rest.

Aside from realizing it about myself several years ago, here's some evidence:

* Up above, someone mentioned a couple of failed cinematic universes [0]: Warner/DC and Universal's Monster Universe.

* No one has mentioned a second successful one: The Conjuring Universe.

* The Conjuring Universe did one of the exact same things that the MCU did, that the failed ones did not: Separate films drawn together.

* The MCU's first films were completely standalone, just sharing things like Coulson and Fury as easter eggs, and only later drawn together into the same universe. Until Avengers, it was entirely possible for the casual moviegoer to miss this, creating a low barrier to entry - you didn't have to know the previous film, as you would a sequel. Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America could each draw in a different audience.

* The first "universe" film in the Conjuring, _Annabelle_ , was designed to work standalone instead of as a sequel, same as the first MCU films. Like the MCU, they included callbacks that fans could catch, but nothing important that broke the movie's flow. Again, low barrier to entry for moviegoers who are used to standalone films and don't want to commit themselves to a longer series.

* On the flipside, DC and Monster both announced up front they were creating a cinematic universe, before the first movies were even out. This created a high barrier to entry for casual moviegoers - they knew up front they'd have to see further movies to get the full story.

I think that's the big key, capturing the casual moviegoers with seemingly
standalone films, then holding their attention with extended continuity only
after they're invested. It's really easy to go see a second movie if you'd
already seen the first. Conjuring and MCU both did that well, without creating
an initial commitment by announcing multiple films.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577536)

------
jrochkind1
This is a serious mic-drop line that had my jaw hanging open:

> In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth
> of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin
> for all those capes and masks.

Super heroes capes and masks as inspired by KKK hoods? I don't think it was
probably intentional/conscious in the minds of those who originated it, and I
don't think Moore necessarily means it was either... but it's definitely an
interesting cultural collective unconsciousness sort of lineage.

~~~
myself248
I'd point to that right alongside the recent obsession with bacon as a subtle
anti-Jewish anti-Muslim sentiment. Certainly plenty of folks do just like the
taste of the stuff, but I think often those folks are along for the ride on
the coattails of a dog-whistle.

If you're someone whose faith commands that you not go near swine of any sort,
a catalog with several pages of bacon-themed products might start to feel like
it was written with someone else in mind...

~~~
magashna
Why can't a BLT just be a BLT? Seems like a reach.

~~~
jrochkind1
Pretty positive the person you are replying to is being sarcastic and/or
trolling, and agrees with you.

------
papito
In our post-shame, fact-resistant world, maybe we should recalibrate what a
superhero is. Perhaps it's someone who values public good over personal
profit, and someone who doesn't compromise their principles in the face of
trolling and smearing. Children should be looking up to THAT, not being able
to punch through walls. The bar is pretty low.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
But superheroes provide convenient excuses why we don't do that: they're
super. Oh sure, you can argue that some of them don't have magic powers, like
Batman and Ironman, but that's ignoring super-wealth (and impossible
engineering).

What we need is a superhero who's just a guy with a crappy office job who
wants to make the world a better place, and his only tools are his sense of
justice and a costume he bought at a garage sale. Someone so utterly
unremarkable that they just use their regular name as their superhero name.

That's right, I'm saying we need an Arthur movie.

...more realistically, I think we could use more stories about regular people
who made a difference just by be being good people.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _...more realistically, I think we could use more stories about regular
> people who made a difference just by be being good people._

TNG-era Star Trek had a lot of that. Sure, the protagonists were not _regular_
people, but they also didn't have superpowers. Their specialness served
primarily to ensure they had lots of problems thrown at them, problems they
very often solved through the strength of their character (and the character
of the organization backing them), instead of trickery or violence. I miss
that in today's entertainment.

------
jmull
I can't imagine worrying about Alan Moore's (or Scorsese's) narrow opinions
when choosing entertainment.

For one thing, I think Moore is clearly wrong about what adults typically get
out of superhero movies. I think it's entertainment, and not some kind of
deeper emotional experience.

Put it this way: if people generally need movies for meaningful emotional
experiences, there are some profound problems in our society that goes far
beyond cinema.

It really is OK, and not a sign of some deficiency, that people are making and
enjoying well-made, epic action/fantasy films.

Anyway, when I see something like this:

> He says superheroes are written and drawn by people who've never stood up
> for their own rights against the companies that employ them - saying they
> appear "to be largely employed as cowardice compensators".

I think he's really struggling with understanding the perspective of people
who don't see the world or think of it the way he does.

~~~
leftyted
I think it is a "deeper emotional experience". But I'm skeptical that this is
anything new.

Today we (or at least me and Alan Moore) look back at the 60s and 70s and
think "wow a movie like Easy Rider was a hit. How times have changed". Maybe.
But maybe we just remember the hits from 40 years ago that were actually good.
And maybe 40 years from now we'll remember a handful of good movies made today
that did well in the box office but we'll forget all the junk.

Part of me does think that big movies today are essentially philistine. But
it's also true that movies are cheaper to make than ever. And plenty of
wonderful movies are being made, so I find myself unable to get too sad about
our situation. There's more interesting movies coming out than I have time to
watch, so if I was complaining, I'd be complaining that "other people don't
have the same taste as me," which seems childish.

> Put it this way: if people generally need movies for meaningful emotional
> experiences, there are some profound problems in our society that goes far
> beyond cinema.

I think you're deeply wrong. People experience "meaningful emotional
experiences" via narrative, fictional or not. This has always been the case
and there's no reason to assume it will ever not be the case. Movies are just
another narrative form.

------
olivierlacan
There's no timelier follow up to Alan Moore's stance on superhero culture than
Damon Lindelof's Watchmen which is currently in the middle of its first (and
likely only) season run on HBO:
[https://www.hbo.com/watchmen](https://www.hbo.com/watchmen)

It's not only a high-flying feat of television writing, acting, and directing.
It's something Moore will likely never endorse or even see (he's apparently
denounced any adaptation/continuation of his work) and yet embodies the spirit
of Watchmen better than anything I've ever seen in the genre.

Lindelof and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin records an hourlong podcast
([https://www.hbo.com/watchmen/watchmen-listen-to-official-
pod...](https://www.hbo.com/watchmen/watchmen-listen-to-official-podcast)) for
HBO talking about the genesis of show, its relationship with the Zach Snyder
movie (respect for the form, detachment from the execution and alterations),
and the very subject of this BBC piece: people who wear masks to enact
vigilante justice are and should be concerning.

The parallels between 1985 and 2019 malaise, worldwide unrest, and that awful
feeling that something's not quite right with the way the world is running are
incredible well capture by the show.

Whether you've read the graphic novel or not, I can't recommend watching HBO's
Watchmen enough. Even if you dismiss it as an unworthy heir to Moore and
Gibbon's work, you will without a doubt be blown away by the show and how
impeccably crafted it is.

For detail-hungry folks, the show's writing staff is release ancillary
material that expands on the world (re)building within the show at
[https://www.hbo.com/peteypedia](https://www.hbo.com/peteypedia). Obviously
don't read this before you watch each specific episode.

PS: I found the premise of the Amazon's The Boys interesting but beyond some
impressive sequences and shocking twists, the show's writing is a bit too
cynically shallow for its own good. There's not much commentary beyond the
rottenness of (almost) every character in the show and that ends up feeling a
little too much of one-note throughout the whole season.

~~~
beart
Also - the music in Watchmen is incredible and really sets the tone.

~~~
olivierlacan
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross definitely deliver the goods. It kind of baffles
me how little I see this show discussed.

[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/trent-
reznor-a...](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/trent-reznor-
atticus-watchmen-soundtrack-901981/)

------
rchaud
Well, I suppose I should say thanks that an actual auteur of the genre has
finally said this. Should a regular person make the same point (although not
as articulately), they'd be shushed by the "let people enjoy things"
industrial complex.

I would have no issue with superhero movies if we lived in the pre-Spiderman
(2002) world where comic book franchise products co-existed with other types
of cinema compared to dwarfing them in terms of budget and release frequency.

That development has sucked all of the oxygen and funding out of other types
of films, and has poisoned the well to the extent where studios are too risk-
averse to put money behind anything other than a spinoff or reboot of
something that already has name recognition.

------
RHSeeger
Admittedly, this is Martin Scorsese instead of Moore, but....

> It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional,
> psychological experiences to another human being.

I'm in my late 40s, and I teared up when during the death scene in the most
recent movie. And again during the scene with his daughter, talking about
burgers. If I had been watching it at home alone, I would probably have been
outright crying, thinking about how I miss my own father.

Just because the movies don't speak to everyone doesn't mean they don't speak
to anyone. I feel like there's an awful lot of people out there that think
they're better than everyone else because they're more limited in what they
can understand. That seems backwards.

~~~
emptysongglass
You are being emotionally manipulated to feel. That's all cinema, really. That
doesn't, on its own, make it high or low-brow (and I'm not ascribing a good or
bad quality to this emotional manipulation). What makes art Art is conveying a
profound aspect of the human condition. A recognition superseding the mundane.

"But I just want a good yarn, there's nothing wrong with that," you protest.
OK, fine but at some point, preferably not right at the moment of your death,
you ought to challenge the conditioned mind you've been born and raised into
because otherwise we find ourselves living out the story that we've been
living since the dawn of humanity. It's this story that rapes the earth and
covets possession.

Art should _challenge_. That can happen at any age. These two dimensional
superheroes duking it out with transparent villains don't do much more than
the manipulating.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
What is the Mona Lisa challenging? Michelangelo's David was never
_challenging_ , but it's very much art. You're moving the goalpost.

Looking up art: "the expression or application of human creative skill and
imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,
producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional
power."

That right there is what they felt. Some art challenges, some art doesn't, but
if it makes you feel or is beautiful it's art.

~~~
emptysongglass
I fundamentally disagree with this definition of art, "consensus" as it may
be. It's OK as an application to the field of "making art" but as an M.F.A. I
see artists in this form of purely aesthetic/emotional production all over and
it's not in service of what I see as its real weapon: the challenge to the
viewer.

I can't say I'm challenged in my corner of art by the Mona Lisa or David so I
won't speak to it. How about Ad Reinhardt's "Black Square", an obsessive
pursuit of the pure object, the Thingness of the Thing stripped of the heart?
Or how about Detroit techno that Jeff Mills described as "architecture" (you
mean music can be architecture, can this be real?) and makes immanent that
other artist Wagner when Godfrey says to Parsifal, "here my son time turns
into space"?

That's the shit right there. That's the stuff that blows open your head and
lets the good stuff come rolling in. That's worth fighting for.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Like I said, just because some art challenges, but not all art does. Some of
it is just beauty and emotion for beauty or emotions sake. Some it was just
art for a paycheque. Just because it's not your cup of tea doesn't mean you
should discount is as not being art. I find "Black Square" neither invoking of
emotion, nor of beauty, it doesn't appeal to me nor does it challenge me in
the slightest, it feels far more pretentious than artistic, it seems of an
intensely low effort and it says nothing at all about the human condition, but
I won't discount it just because I don't understand why it speaks to you.

~~~
emptysongglass
And I disagree with the beauty or emotion product labeled as art. It's not
art. That's what I'm saying.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Fair enough. If we can't agree that Michelangelo's David is art, there's
really no room for agreement.

------
altoidaltoid
I actually enjoy anti-hero series such as "The Boys" which runs counter to the
MCU

~~~
arkh
If you have not read it and don't mind reading, I'd like to direct you to
Worm: [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/)

People with powers have their behavior explained, the good guys are far from
perfect. The world is a dark place, dead protagonists stay dead (and it's not
the worse which can happen) and the cause of the powers is explained. This
kind of take on superheroes make the Marvel and DC universes bland.

~~~
asokoloski
Seconded! Also, the criticism in this article about lack of diversity doesn't
apply very much to Worm (and its sequel, Ward).

To give some examples -- one of the protagonists of Ward is gay, as are two of
the antagonists. One of the protagonists is trans. One is black. Two are
Hispanic. One of the side characters (a hero) is a recovering homophobe.
Another side character is a white supremacist who's trying to turn over a new
leaf.

One of the main villain groups in Worm are white supremacists -- and one of
the heroes is a kid who leaves that life. Two of the protagonist villains
(brother and sister) are black. There's a lesbian couple -- one a hero, one a
rogue/villain. There's a character who I think would be called genderqueer?
One of the protagonists is asexual.

It sounds like a lot, but there's a huge cast of characters, and it never felt
tacked-on to me.

And so much of the story is about really, really traumatic stuff. It's really
dark, sometimes horrifying, sometimes tragic, sometimes awesome, and overall
really gripping. It's sort of ruined mainstream superhero media for me -- it
seems so flat and predictable in comparison.

Highly recommended.

~~~
fullstop
One half of the lesbian couple is of Arab descent as well. That part of her,
as far as I have read, is only important with respect to her backstory /
trigger event and helps the reader understand her behavior and actions better.

------
ergothus
Something I've noticed in recent superhero movies is the idea that:

* For all the talk about "heart", superheroes are extraordinary by some aspect the rest of us can't expect to get

* Yet supervillains are often just normal people who got too pissed off. The villains in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Spider Man: Far From Home, Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man, etc are just people that got ticked off.

We have to count on others to be superheroes, but we're all one bad day from
becoming supervillains.

------
hirundo
Co-opting Thor as a superhero was a clear commentary by the writers on how
superheros and theism are intertwined. The most popular supers of our cultural
imagination are Jehovah, Muhammad, Buddha, et al. So this is no sort of new
phenomenon, but a secular reinvention of an ancient one. Apparently there is a
deep psychological need for the great Father or Mother, and superheros are a
way that modern markets attempt to fulfill it. Or to sedate it.

------
carapace
Moore is spot on here, IMO, but there's another dimension in which our current
mass obsession with kid's characters is embarrassing: the comic books that
make it to the big screen are far from representative of what's available.

I started collecting comics ironically a few years ago. I was watching "The
Big Bang Theory" and had the thought that I should go buy comic books as a
kind of joke. I started going to the local comic book store each week after
work on new comics day and dropping ~$50 on 10-12 books.

It didn't take me long to realize that comic books today are among the most
awesome and mind-blowing stories and art being published in any medium. (I
mean, the Internet _et. al._ has more, but you know what I mean: in physical
form the story and art has been reified into something particular and special.
A comic book is a physical _event_. Even the serial nature of the format is
part of it. It's just now quite the same to read a graphic novel or a web
comic. I don't mean to disparage those formats, I'm just lauding comic books
here-and-now.)

They have really become an art form far beyond the stereotypical superhero in
tights and a cape. (Which is not to say that there are some comics out there
that treat the whole super-beings idea in rich and fascinating ways!)

Comic books are going through a new Golden Age right now. Go to your local
comic book store and ask them about it.

------
PaulHoule
Funny that the most durable stories of all time (Gilgamesh, Greek Myths, Norse
Myths, the Bible) are all basically superhero stories.

~~~
cbron
Mythology has served various purposes over the course of human history. This
is referring specifically to modern superhero culture which may be derived
from mythology but isn't comparable to it.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Ok so persuade us - that's a very big statement to make there

~~~
cbron
religion != entertainment

~~~
PaulHoule
Depends.

The first two seasons of Pretty Cure looked like religious education to me.

The first season was about Shinto and the second about Confucianism. The
series systematically worked through about how you would feel about your
place, your town, nature, the people around you, history, work, community,
etc.

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gimmeThaBeet
I find Moore's criticisms a little odd. Imo part of what has made Moore's work
so notable is that it turns the genre sideways, or obviously deals with
subjects in a much more mature way than an audience is used to seeing. The
subversion doesn't work if there's nothing to undermine.

There's things like The Killing Joke that are sort of things unto themselves,
but I feel without the context of 'normal' superhero stuff, you lose quite a
bit of the venom in like Watchmen or like The Boys (although it's Ennis,
they're in the same realm).

But I can admit some sympathy with what they may be getting at indirectly,
perhaps there's a risk it draws in too much talent. There's the Banksy quote
"The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the
bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow
and self-obsessed to become our artists."

It feels a bit self-aggrandizing, but instead of just criticizing people and
the stuff they make, ask where the talent is going, and is that a good
development?

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Touche
This criticism seems similar to the criticisms that Bill Maher has leveled in
the past (of course Moore has much more understanding of the culture).

They both are based on the premise that we must live our entire lives focused
on cultural and political issues. That it's somewhat shameful to take a break
and rest your mind on something comfortable.

It's the atheist equivalent of many religion's focus on suffering as being a
virtue. By visiting pleasant worlds in our mind we are not spending enough
time focused on progress.

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mnm1
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. People are obsessed with super heroes because
they are hopeless and helpless to change the society and move forward due to
the large forces in society holding us back that can only be changed with
collective action. But no collective action happens because, at least in
America, people expect one person to rise up and fix everything, to "save the
world," as it would be. This is as impossible in the real world as the concept
of "saving the world" itself is stupid, childish, selfish, grandiose, and
ultimately beyond delusional.

Why does the world need saving all the time? It's been going on for millions
of years (human populated world) or billions of years (the whole universe)
without ever needing saving. Maybe instead of waiting for Superman to come fix
our healthcare or inequality or climate or insert any other modern problem, we
should try to do something about it ourselves together. Unfortunately, these
movies standardize the idea that people working together cannot achieve
anything and only super heroes alone or in small groups can. That's completely
delusional, the opposite of reality. And this mindset has become the
cornerstone of our real society feeding the helplessness that leads to
hopelessness that leads to hoping to be "saved" by imaginary children's
stories.

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Vysero
They aren't meant to be anything more than a quick thrill. They are literally
the equivalent of a theme park ride and that's the whole point. Contrary to
popular belief not everything you do in life needs to be mind blowing and life
changing. Sometimes you just need to sit back and enjoy the ride.

"Life is a playground or nothing." -Jaco Van Dormael

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vkaku
I also think that the everyday super hero, for all purposes is not available
in movies any more.

What happened to movies like Volcano or Speed?

~~~
protomyth
Event Films. Even Fast & The Furious are basically low-powered superhero
films. We want deeper dramas (so TV) and the price of buy-in for films is
pretty damn high. Plus, you need to appeal to US, China, and maybe Europe.
High powered stuff works better. Horror seems surprisingly resilient, but that
might be the nature of going to a theater.

I'm sure the trend will switch again, but I have doubts that some genres will
ever return to movie theaters in mass.

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tialaramex
Lots of people have been exposed to Watchmen - his book about masks
(vigilantes, no more "super" powered than the hero of any Hollywood movie they
won't die if shot but they can't fly), but he'd also by that point written
Miracleman - which is about supers (whose identity may not even be a secret,
since they are to varying extent god-like and it hardly matters). In both
cases Moore covered all the ground popular culture still thinks is radical and
interesting today and went beyond it - thirty years ago.

Miracleman in particular has a lot of stuff about abuse of power, the title
character has been brain-washed basically by the government, so as to have a
tame superhero who can be sent out to do whatever they want. Once he is free
and understands what's going on he doesn't beat up muggers, or even corrupt
politicians, he destroys _capitalism_ and remakes the whole world as a utopia.
Moore was done with the book at that point.

And so here we are in 2019 and people haven't moved on to even where Moore was
in the 1980s, that's got to be fairly frustrating.

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blaesus
Superheroes are so...conservative. Nothing ever changes. If you want to change
the game then you're probably the villain, who is to be stopped by the
superheroes, who don't really have a plan themselves.

Batman has huge wealth and advanced technologies and the best way he can come
up with to fight crimes is beating the "criminals" up himself, rather than
contributing his power to improve the economy (or run for an office to change
policies or whatever) to prevent people from having to commit crimes. No
wonder there're always more crimes for Batman to fight...

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sharadov
I enjoy deep philosophical exploratory stuff and at the same time love the
quick respite that a movie like John Wick or a X-men provides. To each his
own.

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irrational
I love the current superhero movies. I'd be worried about this backlash from
people like Moore and Scorsese if it wasn't for the fact that these movies are
pulling in around a billion dollars on average. Disney is in it for the money
and as long as the movies are pulling in the $ they will keep making them.

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neilobremski
There isn't much difference between superheroes and Disney protagonists:
inherent and unearned talents followed by lying and abuse of them and then
finished up with their (usually powerless) friends reminding them how special
they are which fills their egos enough to defeat the antagonist.

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miguelmota
Agree, Marvel characters are narcissistic elitists that in every movie seems
as if they like destroying civilian cities for things that they caused
themselves. The MCU movies are overdone but Disney knows that it’s like crack
for kids and teenagers.

~~~
pnw_hazor
The MCU format is also acceptable in China. That's what really matters the
most to Disney.

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dualboot
My heroes are folks like Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. I think that any time
someone takes _entertainment_ too seriously, they've missed the whole point.

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Noos
Actually I'd argue modern superhero culture is a rebuttal to the kind of
ponderous dreck Moore and the rest of the British invasion put out. A reaction
against the constant need to politicize and comment on a genre as opposed to
simply explore it.

Sort of the reason why Manga is so popular is that it doesn't focus heavily on
political themes; My Hero Academia is really just about the superheroes.

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tlholaday
Was he asked about James Bond movies?

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Krasnol
I tried to get into Watchman and I couldn't...found it too embarrassing. I do
get what he wanted to do through the story but the dresses and die dialogues
are as cringe worthy as the rest of the genre.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I'm not going to defend Alan Moore, weird wizard who worships a snake god as
he is, but the Watchman movie isn't his baby. He's only put his name behind
the graphic novel, which you might find much less cringy.

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jstewartmobile
These movies--including V--are violent power fantasies for people without
agency.

This is " _anime was a mistake_ " tier clarity on Alan Moore's behalf. Good on
him!

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tracer4201
Hollywood is self serving. Supposedly they come off as liberals, but how many
superhero movies are there where the world isn’t being saved by a white,
American man?

I mean - Arabs are typically terrorists or something along those lines in
these movies.

We want to depict a scene shot in Mexico? Change the colors to
yellowish/orangish.

Russians or East European characters? Typically mafia.

As much as many of these celebrities supposedly care about immigrants,
diversity, inclusivity - how often is that shown on film? Oh right - it really
isn’t unless the studios are convinced they can monetize it.

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sethammons
> [Marvel movies are] theme parks. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying
> to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.
> --Martin Scorsese

I find so much wrong with that view. Scorsese thinks they should be "something
other than cinema." Cinema is just movies. There are all kinds of flavors. I
like to just tune out and enjoy the ride on some movies, and some talk to the
depths of the human condition. I find lots of things relatable in the Marvel
movies. Loss of loved ones, awkward social interactions, elbow jabbing at
friends.

When I'm searching for something to watch, I tend to go with Rotten Tomato
scores as a valuable data point. One very valuable data point is high critics
score and low audience score. Critics want everything to be psychological
experiences, but I think a lot of them fail to realize that some movies will
ring closer to home for some vs others.

An example is Joker. Not your typical comic book movie at all. With a very
limited data set, I've seen people who have experienced the kind of life that
Arthur experiences in that movie and it hits too close to home. Meanwhile,
others who can't conceive of that as a reality dismiss the movie. Different
films speak to different people.

