State-Sponsored Superheroes
a collection of thoughts on the superhero genre
Everywhere we look, we see superheroes. The MCU pops out new movies and shows like it’s nothing; every famous actor and actress in Hollywood has worn a spandex suit in front of a green screen at this point. The DCU is the same, and even outside the two big rivals, there’s a dozen other superhero franchises going on. The genre dominates the current media landscape, and despite “MCU fatigue”, I don’t think we are seeing an end to this trend anytime soon. I’m not a big comics reader (yet!) so I’m not going to make deep observations on the current state of superhero comics, that simply isn’t my comfort zone, but I do want to share some of my thoughts on the state of superhero movies and TV. Especifically, I want to talk about how the relationship between superheroes and law enforcement has been presented to us in recent years, at least on the screen.
People have been questioning the ethics of vigilantism for a while. “We’ve simply seen too much of what vigilantism means and have a greater understanding of nature of crime to believe that people in spandex can make any marked positive societal change.” (David Dennis, Jr., 2020) We understand, intellectually, that people going out at night to beat up criminals is kind of messed up and ultimately ineffective, but we also understand, on an emotional level, that superheroes make people feel empowered and that they can be a source of inspiration and hope.
So, how do we reconcile our desire to see good guys beat evil villains with our moral qualms about what they are doing? In his article, “It’s Time For Comics to Move Past Vigilantes,” David Dennis, Jr., argues that the next step for the superhero genre is to focus on other ways of fighting crime—through community policing, social programs, and, in the case of the Bruce Waynes and Tony Starks, through actually using their money to help the population.
But before we can get there, I think we need to grow out of the “superpowered cop”: superhero movies and shows that have them work with the police, or be the police, in an attempt to regulate their actions that ends up equating legality with morality.
Let’s start with one of the most popular anime of the last decade: My Hero Academia. The manga it’s based on started serialization in 2014, two years after the first Avengers movie, and the show premiered in 2016, around the time that the MCU’s Phase 3 began. My Hero Academia presents us with a world where 80% of the global population has superpowers, which has led to superheroes and villains becoming a reality. In the case of superheroes, people aren’t just taking up a costume and fighting crime—it's a career that you can pursue just like any other, and heroes are paid by the government based on their heroic performance, how many people they save, how much collateral damage they cause, how many villains they defeat, etc. They have rankings based on popularity and achievements; they are celebrities and idols; and they need a license to use their powers to fight crime, which can be compared to having a gun license. Cops in costume, basically. While normal police still exist in this world, their role in the story is minimal, mostly as helpers to the real heroes.
Morality in My Hero Academia is not that complicated. Being a series for a younger audience, the story is not trying to dismantle the superhero ideal. Heroes are, by and large, genuinely good guys who want to save people. They follow the rules, and when they don’t, they get punished. At several points, the teenage main character acts on his own and gets scolded by the police and by the adult heroes, who drill into him the message that even if you are doing something good, if you don’t follow the law then you are no better than a villain. My Hero Academia lets the reader enjoy the fantasy of a hero society while being a not very subtle piece of copaganda. The story is still not over, and recent arcs have demonstrated a deeper understanding of the dangers of such a society, but it would be a stretch to say that the author will ever condemn the police state that he’s created1.
Let’s turn away from anime. We have all noticed that in the MCU, the Avengers and their friends are tasked with policing the status quo, and any movement that seeks change is villainized, so we are okay with the good guys stopping them. Killmonger makes valid points, but he’s a violent tyrant. The Flag Smashers have good ideas, but they kill civilians. The same goes for the God Butcher, Vulture, Namor, etc. On the other side of the Marvel/DC rivalry, The Dark Knight Trilogy is also heavily focused on Batman cooperating with the “good” cops to oppose social change, as David Graeber (2012) notes:
If there’s supposed to be a take-home message from all of this, it must run something like: “Yes, the system is corrupt, but it’s all we have, and anyway, figures of authority can be trusted if they have first been chastened and endured terrible suffering.” Normal police let children die on bridges, but police who’ve been buried alive for weeks can employ violence legitimately. Charity is much better than addressing structural problems. Any attempt to address structural problems, even through non-violent civil disobedience, really is a form of violence, because that’s all it could possibly be. Imaginative politics are inherently violent, and therefore there’s nothing inappropriate if police respond by smashing protestors’ heads repeatedly against the concrete.
There are many other examples of this. The sequel to The Incredibles revolves around superheroes being legalized again, despite a big theme in the original movie being that sometimes heroes have to break the rules to help others. Invincible, without drawing much attention to it, is also about heroes that are paid by the government. The titular character does fight against his superiors, but it’s never really questioned that heroes and the government should work together. The only hero in that show that acts independently is Eve, and the story goes out of its way to prove her wrong because of it. In the Spider-Verse movies, both Miles and Gwen are looking for acceptance from their police fathers, and even after Gwen’s dad abandons the force, she makes it clear that he will always be “a good cop” in her eyes. Etc. Etc.
The superpowered cop serves a dual purpose: first, obviously, it’s propaganda that makes the police look good; and second, it makes it so readers and viewers never have to question the morality of the heroes’ actions.
In HBO’s 2019 sequel to Watchmen, an older and much more jaded Laurie Jupiter (now going by her father’s surname, Blake) asks the protagonist what is the difference between a masked cop and a vigilante. In the show, the police of Tulsa, Oklahoma, have started wearing masks to protect their identities after a brutal attack that decimated the police force just a couple years prior to the beginning of the story. At the same time that the police hide their faces, vigilantes are still outlawed and are fiercely prosecuted, with Laurie herself being one of the people tasked with hunting them down. After a lifetime of hiding behind a costume to beat up criminals, she seems to believe that she can do more good to society by openly enforcing the law. Or perhaps she’s just tired, it’s hard to tell what exactly her motivations are. Regardless, Laurie follows up on her own question by saying there’s no difference—a masked cop is just as dangerous as a vigilante. To her, a cop who covers his face to protect himself is the same as a vigilante who covers his face to fight for justice.
HBO’s Watchmen is a complex show about systemic racism and generational trauma, as well as about challenging the superhero ideal and our relationship with law enforcement.
The show is interested in how the longing for justice, unfulfilled, can literally break us down: break our families apart, break our bodies apart. It asks impossible questions, like why do people—people of color in particular—sometimes paradoxically long for the heroic validation and redemptive power promised by law enforcement, when their own histories so clearly show that law enforcement has rarely been their friend? (Elaine Castillo, 2022)
Just like the comics, the show does not provide easy answers. The final words of the comics are “I leave it entirely in your hands”, a call to the reader to make their own judgement about the story and the superhero genre as a whole, and the show respects the ambiguous nature of the source material by allowing the viewers to draw their own conclusions about the characters in the story and the ending.
Watchmen, both the comics and the show, are a response to the historical context they were created in and the state of the superhero genre both in the 90s and the late 2010s. We are getting tired of the Marvel content machine, but the superhero genre is not going anywhere, so what comes after the superpowered cop? Take The Boys, which, while still making comparisons between supes and cops, mostly frames heroes as glory-seeking celebrities and focuses on the dangers of capitalist greed. The show embraces the vigilante, this time presented as an underdog fighting to bring down the institutions that allow powerful individuals to abuse others and do whatever they want without consequences. Bringing down the status quo is the goal this time. Perhaps the response to the superpowered cop is a return of the humble vigilante, or perhaps we are going to see heroes face more systemic issues like Dennis Jr. argues for.
Bibliography:
It’s Time For Comics to Move Past Vigilantes, by David Dennis, Jr. (2020).
Super Position, by David Graeber (2012).
The Limits of White Fantasy, essay found on How To Read Now by Elaine Castillo (2022).
Marvel Defenders of the Status Quo, video essay by Pop Culture Detective (2023).
For what it’s worth, the story has been building up to the idea that the common population is too pasive and relies too much on the heroes a.k.a. the police. “Normal” citizens are being empowered to help in the fight against injustice / villainy, and they are being forced to confront their own complacency and the way they treat heroes. This is a nice message, but doesn’t really question the fact that heroes and the police state are the good guys. It’s basically saying “you should work with the police to make a better world and you should feel more empathy for them because they do soooo much for us”.