You’ve witnessed his origin story a million times and across all mediums; protagonist seems to have potential, but it’s the death of a parental figure that spurs protagonist to becoming the hero that he/she was meant to become.
Comic books in particular seem to make their money off of this trope and honestly, it’s a little perverse when you think about it. After all, what does this motif really mean? On the most basic level, it’s telling us that the only purpose of doing something is because of revenge or to make a dead loved one proud. Essentially, without proper motivation, nothing is worth doing. Very few heroes seek justice just for the sake of being a hero because there is no such thing as an inherently good hero. Even Superman – perennial embodiment of all that is good in the universe – required the deaths of his biological parents as well as his foster father (in some continuities) to become the force of good that he is.
Now, old Joey Campbell (creator of the monomyth and merciless assassin of unique narratives everywhere) would have you believe that the death of a loved one is merely the first step in a path of heroic self-discovery – a narrative technique that empowers readers into believing that they can become the masters of their fate – but my God, what a boring old fart he was. Joey may have been a doctor, but so is Dr. pepper and no one really believes that there are 23 different flavors in his soda, but I digress.
What old Joey Campbell seems to be missing is the darkness that hides beneath the surface of the monomyth origin story.
Parents are representative of a societal constant. They teach children values, social mores, and to a child, the parent is the entire world. Parents provide context to a child’s world. When a parent dies in a monomyth story, it is not merely a representative of a child having to break from the past, but the death of a parent is a manifestation of the chaos that exists in the world. It shows that in the blink of an eye, life can completely change and that the comfort that one gets from a loved one’s affection will be ripped away because everything is meaningless.
I can hear you screaming at your computer screen now. You’re screaming, “But the purpose of monomyth is to show the journey of reconstructing context and meaning when the world is in chaos. It’s a powerful story that shows that identity can change and that it is fluid because a person is not defined by their tragedy, but on how they cope with their tragedies. It’s about hope, not chaos.”
First off, calm down.
Secondly, bear with me.
After the initial shock of the loved one’s death is over, then the hero decides to fight for justice which is meant to be an altruistic and inherently good motivation. Spider-man is presented as a noble hero who fights the good fight because with great power blah blah blah, but in reality, Spider-man fights because he has no control over his life and he is trying to impose order on his universe. Ultimately, no matter how much he fights, chaos will always exist and it’s a futile effort. No matter how many times Spider-man stops the Green Goblin, if the Goblin kills one person close to Spider-man, then his world returns to that chaos first initially caused by the death of his uncle Ben.
And this is why Batman is better.
With Batman, there are no pretentions of the hero doing so because that’s what is right and good. Batman is obsessed with finding that peace he had as a child, but it’s obvious that this will never happen. Batman is surrounded by side-kicks, and friends that form a surrogate family, but because his idea of identity is so connected to his parents that it blinds him to reality. Batman is the manifestation of the nihilist superhero obsessed with a danse macabre.
What does all of this exactly mean?
Inherently, comic books are power fantasies written by miserable women and men who are writing against their parents. Does this mean that every writer? Certainly not. Is this intentional on the part of writers? Not always. But more often than not, comic book writers are writing because they are lonely and without control in their own world.
The reason parents are killed in comic books is because comic book writers are pushing their own nihilist agenda.
Spider-man can fight all he wants, but all of his loved ones will die.
Superman can save billions of lives, but if one person dies then everything is meaningless because even with all his power, he has no control.
Comic book writers are cruel and evil gods that impose their own hateful agenda each time they kill someone close to their protagonists. Each time a minor character close to the protagonist is hurt, the message that should be interpreted is that making connections with others is a pointless task that serves no purpose because everything is just chaos anyway.
Is this so ridiculous of an idea?
No more ridiculous than Women in Refrigerators.
I guess, in short, plot happens.
Isn’t literary criticism fun?
Honestly, this is one of my constant gripes with Spider-man, and this encapsulates one major irritation with comics in general: the lack of real character development. While there are exceptions to the rule, comic book characters see very little development. This isn’t due to the writers, necessarily, but more the companies that own the comics. Peter Parker’s survival guilt is as iconic as his costume, which is quite sad when you think about it. While it does mean that a new reader can pick up an issue of Spider-man and instantly know Peter’s motivations, it also means that true growth and reconstruction can never really happen. When Paul Jenkins ended Spectacular Spider-Man a few years back, I thought he wrote a fitting story in which Peter dealt with this guilt. Sadly, it was a one off, and “One More Day” was on the horizon.
You’re absolutely right! It’s funny how much people attribute to writers when it’s really a publisher that has all the power.
Sometimes I can’t help but feel as if comic books are similar to professional wrestling; the same hooks have to be used in order to keep readers interested and the knowing audience is just critical of how well the hooks have been implemented and built upon. In some cases, this is something that isn’t a big deal because the story isn’t wrapped into the idea of shock value.
Take, for instance, Batman’s “death” in Final Crisis. Everyone knew he wasn’t really dead and that was fine. Captain America’s death, however, was clearly an example of sensationalism used to sell books and it was only a matter of time before he returned. So, with Batman, it was interpretted as the next step in the story while Cap seemed like a shocking end to the story even though everyone knew he would return.
We have to remember that there isn’t anything inherently wrong with “sensationalism” however. Comic books are sensational by nature and therefore, we should just appreciate the shock value of deaths and the competancy of returns for the craft that is involved.
I think there is another blog post in here somewhere.
I have to say that one recent run I loved was the Bendis/Maleev run on Daredevil. I enjoyed the story and the development of Matt Murdock’s character. While Murdock didn’t seem as haunted by his father’s death, he was very tortured by Karen Page’s murder. Bendis explored Murdock’s descent into an emotional hell and his attempt to re-establish order in his world. While the psychological exploration was fun, what I loved about this run was that Bendis didn’t reset the status quo when he left the title. Brubaker and Lark continued the story. Sadly, I didn’t keep up with Daredevil, but I loved that these two writers seemed to be able to do whatever they wished with the character just because Daredevil floats a bit more under the radar than some other titles. I’m sure Marvel editorial had a ton of say in the matter, but I’ve rarely seen that kind of character development in the Marvel titles I have read.
In a round about way this reminds me of the trope “Reed Richards is Useless” from TvTropes. Essentually, the trope says that a ficition character can’t seperate his fictional world too far from the world of reality in which the reader exists. The big example they give is cancer, since having a super scientist just straight up cure cancer would make for a big disconnect.
The reason I bring it up is because I think it would be a funny parody of a monomythic adventure to have a superhero who fights natural forces. When a loved one is killed by man made chaos, be it super villainy or a mugging, a hero tries to stop crime and villainy.
So, where’s the superhero who actively tries to prevent, not just react to, earthquakes or tornados? Or the one trying to kill every single bee in the world because his mother was allergic and died of shock on the family picnic? Granted that the “irrational” nature of these individuals would lend them more towards status as villains but with parody you can get away with that.
Somehow this whole article just kept reminding me of Kick-Ass, who, after losing his mother, did not take that to be his motivation to fight crime. His precise words on the subject of origin were “I was bored.”
Granted, a lot about Kick-Ass was different. Someone made a comic from those old T-Shirts: “I’m a superhero, but with no powers or motivation.” I’m not sure where I was going with the rest of this, but it’s what I thought when I read your article.
Also, if you use the movies as reference material, most of what Superman does is pointless anyway because he just reverses time at the end of the film.
I think this is an interesting argument, but then you have to look at some of the heroes out there that never really suffered a loss of a family member or a loved one and still fight the good fight. My biggest example of this is the current Blue Beetle. He developed his sense of heroism after being thrust into circumstances beyond his control. He, instead of lamenting his family and friends or shunning them from his heroic lifestyle, leans on them for support. He has not suffered any major loss of a family member or friend aside from Nadia (a character he admitted to not really knowing a whole lot about personally) at the end of his solo series run, long after he had cemented himself as a true hero.
Jaime Rayes is a hero because he knows what right and wrong are and because his family raised him to do the right thing if you can. The only people we can say that Jaime tries to “avenge” at all are Ted Kord and his father. In the former case Jaime never knew Ted and wants to “avenge him” in a memorial service to a person that became his idol after he took on the mantle of blue beetle. Jaime also wanted to avenge his father who had become handicapped (though still able to walk) by a family friend and former employee. That issue was resolved through Jaime conversing with the man about why he did it.
Even David Knight was a hero in memory of his father’s tenure as Starman, and not his death. While David’s own career as the legacy character was short lived he still did what he knew was right because he could.
The list of heroes not driven by the deaths of others goes on. Wonder Woman, Ice, Plastic Man, Captain America, Thor, etc.
So, while I do agree that many heroes do find motivation to do what they do based on death to thoroughly define who they are there are still others who have learned what it is to be heroes without death driving them. Even minor deaths were that could drive them were done long after they had cemented their identity as heroes.
Well the point should probably be made that the “death of the parents” archetype for developing a hero goes all the way back to Greek mythology.
Pretty much every “hero” story makes use of this, but the ones that do it well do so because they immediately flip the formula on its head. The hero’s journey BEGINS because of the death of a loved one, but CONTINUES and CLIMAXES because of other problems – FREQUENTLY ones that the Hero himself has caused.
Basically what this implies is that while a FEW comic book authors might be parent-hating evil gods, the majority are just lazy.
Salkovich – You’re thinking too rationally about this! Don’t make references to classic literature because that just destroys the argument. Remember, Women In Refrigerators wants to cherry pick their examples, therefore, we should as well. That means that Thulin’s example of the Blue Beetle is an exception to the rule, but just because there is an exception doesn’t mean that the rule is disproven.
I suppose the Blue Beetle does, however, change our focus to: only popular characters have parent issues.
Lastly, you’re missing the point about writers as well. If they do it, then they are ONLY ever doing so intentionally. If a few writers hate their parents, then ALL writers hate their parents because that is Women In Refrigerators logic.
OH I missed the ironic “fight fire with fire” aspect of this. Makes more sense now.
YEAH those writers are SADISTIC BASTARDS.
Salkovich – It’s okay. I knew as I was writing it that I wasn’t quite ironic enough, but I think it’s the deadly sincerity that makes it so much better than if I was constantly nudging the reader.