Superhero Psychology

I'm almost certain I've written something like the following elsewhere, but I don't think it's ever been on the blog. Basically, I'll be listing my favorite superhero characters and speculating about what it means that they're my favorites. If that sounds interesting to you, then the note should be enjoyable. If you're balking at the word superhero...run. Run fast.

He-Man:

The earliest superhero I became enamored with, He-Man represents a profound innocence. Morality is very black and white in He-Man's world. Prince Adam is only a 16-year-old son of a monarch, but when he becomes He-Man, he's got the wisdom and experience to solve just about any crisis that could ever happen. Becoming the most powerful man in the universe and getting to ride a big green tiger as his mount was nothing compared to this superpower. Don't get me wrong, his power and equipment were very key to his appeal as a superhero, but other things were key to his appeal as a character. As Adam, he was considered virtually useless by his family and an unworthy inheritor of a long legacy of great and accomplished men. Boy do I know what that feels like. Of course, Adam can't tell his family of his accomplishments and contributions to the kingdom because he must maintain his secret identity. In my case, my family was always well aware of my activities and concluded that they were worthless. Every loser little kid wants to feel like they're more important and accomplished than anybody's giving them credit for, and that's the fantasy here. It's comprehensively about validation. Getting power, wielding it effectively, and being a better man than anybody's guessed at. Really, it's hard to have the same experience watching it as I did as a kid, precisely because I know the idealized notions in it aren't even possible. Naive young men are as useless as they seem, getting the power you want tends to have unintended consequences, and your parents are right about you for their purposes. Still, it's a beautiful dream.

Batman:

Bruce Wayne represents a mental victory over the harsh circumstances of one's life. The world is a dark place quite capable of hurting a child to their core in Gotham, but one can outtrain, outthink, and outperform the darkness. Yes, it's about fighting back, but, crucially, it's about fighting back with intelligence, discipline, and the maintenance of one's basic humanity. Wayne's public persona is similar to Prince Adam's, but, unlike Adam, he doesn't care what people think of him. It's all about being beyond that sort of thing. There is a particular moment in Batman stories when the thing you're supposed to be afraid of is suddenly afraid, the tables turn, and everything that ever hurt somebody will be hurt in turn. In most Batman stories though, he retains control and does not cross the line. Not only do you get the sense of getting justice for sleights, but a sense of humanity retained and moral high ground not conceded. Yes, he is vengeance, yes, he is the night, but he is not the opposite number of what he hunts. He is better than that. He is Batman.

The Hulk:

Bruce Banner represents something simpler than Batman. Most fantasies about getting back at bullies care about consequences. You want to be lauded for standing up to the bully, or at least be better off somehow for it. The Hulk has no time for such considerations, though the story may deal with the consequences later in the whole sad walking away music way that it does. We've all been backed up against a wall or at the tender mercies of someone who, in some respect, was bigger than us, stronger than us, and whom we could not stop. We are held back in dealing with these people in a way, because we have to consider all the variables when confronting them. Maybe it is impolitic to deal with them, maybe they wield professional or academic power over us, or maybe we're just afraid we'll get thrashed for our insolence. So it is a fantasy to completely forget all of that, essentially to go completely insane, and just fire at them with everything we've got. You wouldn't actually want to turn green and simply thoughtlessly hurt your enemies as badly as your capacity to do so allows, but that doesn't mean you don't fantasize about it. There is an underlying sadness, almost nihilism, to the character and the basic setup of his situation. Great power that can never be so cleverly wielded as He-Man and Batman do their own. I relate to that in that I have good skills, like writing, that have never done me any good. Power that is great, but also virtually useless, for improving one's life, is the central theme of any Hulk story.

The Punisher:

Frank Castle is not unthinking like The Hulk, has no interest in maintaining his humanity like Batman, and is not preternaturally wise like He-Man. For him, it's just about merciless, pitiless, and downright barbaric extermination of evil men and women. Essentially, he's had it with compromise and negotiation with his enemies and simply ends their lives as a living manifestation of his inconsolable rage. To him, every monster gone is one less family that will have to endure a loss like he did when the mob executed his family. For someone as fundamentally unassertive as me, this is pure wish fulfillment. Whether it's the guy throwing me out of my chair at Comic-Con or the bullies I grew up with, my instinct is to escape, not make them pay for the hell they make my life. Truthfully, I have spent a life lived in fear of those capable of doing me harm because my mother drilled it into me that I was not allowed to defend myself, and I can't completely escape that mentality to this day. Batman turns the fear back onto evil men and women, and I love him for it, but that doesn't sate the revenge in my heart. The Punisher makes sure they'll never hurt anyone again. No incarceration, no rehabilitation, just a permanent end to their contributions to the surplus of human misery. As a civilized man, that's not a place I could ever go in real life, but I think we all want our enemies to suffer and die, whether we admit it or not. Reading The Punisher comics is probably a healthy way to express that desire.

-Frank