Dan Hassler-Forest literally wrote a book about this called Capitalist Superheroes: https://www.amazon.com/Capitalist-Superheroes-Caped-Crusaders-Neoliberal/dp/1780991797
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Hang on, maybe I’m missing something as someone who wasn’t into the original bastions of popular superheroes, but why is having superpowers “[being] inherently Better”? How is it any different from other stories about people with powers, whether magical powers (fantasy) or mundane (various real-world talents, whether in physical prowess, artistic genius, etc.)? What’s special about superheroes in this regard?
tbh a big part of why I’ve always appreciated Spiderman is because like three quarters of Spiderman stories are about how he feels completely obligated to try to help people because he can, even though it constantly fucks up his personal life
As a subscriber to Eco’s descriptivist approach to fascism I gotta say that I feel like this is really stretching the definition of the word
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I think you’re gonna be surprised when I inform you the creator of Spider-Man is a hardcore objectivist
I’m aware of that, I just don’t care very much. Superheroes are not their creators, especially because the gestalt of a comic book is the product of so many different writers and artists that generalization is difficult at best.
Much like The Incredibles, Spiderman is apparently the product of an Objectivist who doesn’t really understand their own philosophy, because the best versions of the stories are about self-sacrifice in the service of one’s community as a whole.
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Given enough time - and enough writing credits - I don’t think a character’s creator bears any more significance than any subsequent writer wants to grant them. Some of my favorite superhero books are ones in which the author threw the character’s historical treatment out the window. I’d even go as far as to say that comics may be the first that comes to mind when thinking about mediums in which a creator’s original vision can be totally irrelevant.
I’d normally agree, but the description that have just been given for both Spider-Man and the Incredibles actually do line up with objectivist thought. While many believe it’sa philosophy of greed, that is more a by-product and not valued at all in the core tenants (there’s a reason Rand had so many CEO villains). Rather, the philosophy values “better” people, the sort of people who have skills and knowledge that put them above the common man and best serve society without being restrained by it.
The Incredibles and early Spider-Man, which almost all modern books take from (also I think Dan Slott, one of the more recent writers for web head, is also an objectivist) have this philosophy in motion. Remember, The Incredibles big bad was a normal person trying to make everyone “not special,” and a major point was made regularly on how above these people are over modern society or even government. As for Spider-Man, he gets powers and tries to do with them what no normal person can, and his burden becomes staying that “better” sort of person.
The reason most people don’t pick up on this like they do with Iron Man or Batman is because they don’t have the common signifiers we associate with objectivist work, because the philosophy ended up being adopted in real life by the CEO villains of Rand’s books.
What makes objectivism a garbage philosophy is how easily it’s used to justify horrid behavior or people. Superheroes when written in this framework either come out as the Incredibles or Spider-Man at best, or end up being post Civil War Iron Man at worst (HE FUCKING INFECTED PEOPLE WITH A TECHNO VIRUS AGAINST THEIR WILL DHY8FB852Y83F).
What makes characters like Superman or Captain America read differently is that they have an inherent, obvious set of ideals that represent the characters, because they were made by writers from socialist bents, or at least refined by them (Jack Kirby is pretty hard leftist). Spider-Man and the Incredibles work because despite their origins, they’re relatable and flawed characters who don’t live in million dollar mansions but instead struggle to get by or deal with common personal problems (dead end job, dealing with loss or guilt, basic socialization, ect). Thus, we don’t read them as the objectivist avatars they were written as originally, but as people who happen to have abilities they can use to help others.
This is why the best thing that happened to Ted Kord was getting Booster Gold as a friend, because then he suddenly had a humanizing element to him instead of his old “am rich business man” crap.
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Is this not also part of the Objectivist ideal sort of masked in a relatable veneer? I’m a bit of a newbie when it comes to philosophy, so I’m asking to help my own understanding, but the idea of being the masked crusader, the masked “better”, striking from the same level as all the “normal” people seems like something an Objectivist would dig. Sort of like “I’m here, I’m better, my existence makes your lives better, but you’ll never know who I am even though I’m right next to you on the subway every day.” I can see some horrible investment banker or something getting really into that idea.
Bingo! Alternatively, you could read this as the superhero persona as the real one, which fits better. The secret identity in this train of thought would be the lesser identity and therefore the wrong one.
This is why Ted Kord getting a best friend and finding himself lower on the totem pole made him a better character and no longer an objectivist icon, same for Spider-Man finally making positive steps in his civilian life.
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