FRESHMAN PRESS The New Superhero

Superman: “Truth, justice, and the American Way.” Batman: The modern Odysseus, a master tactician who uses his financial success to battle the scum crawling on his streets. Hancock: A super-strong drunk who breaks everything in his path, liquor bottle in hand. One of these things is not like the other…

The concept of the superhero has radically changed as of late. This summer alone has seen three examples: “Hancock,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” and “The Dark Knight” (don’t worry, I’ll explain). Allow me to preface by saying that I liked all of these movies.

The primary character of Peter Berg’s Hancock is an “asshole” hero by the name of John Hancock, played by Will Smith. Due to Hancock’s amnesia, and the fact that he is immortal, he is very lonely, and thus turns to alcohol, just like every honorable, well-adjusted hero of American culture should. At the opening of the film, Hancock is awakened from a well-deserved sleep on a street bench by a young kid warning him of “bad guys.” This respectable man, always a friend of the children, responds, quite politely, “What do you want, a cookie? Get out of my face.” So admirable and worthy of respect. If only I had such skills with my younger siblings. Situations like this occur throughout the movie, such as tossing a young boy a mile in the air, impaling a car, full of criminals, on top of city monument (personally, I see no problem with this). Everyone in his city ends up hating Hancock, yet he is the protagonist; the modern American superhero.

This is the new face of superheroes. We used to rely on figures such as Captain America, who often fought our country’s World War II enemies. Even he is dead. Literally. At the end of the comic series, Captain America was killed. So, we are, without any form of exaggeration, killing off our heroes. Spiderman certainly is no longer what he was. He used to be a shy high school student who put evil in its place. Now, the comics have made him a college student who is married to one of the teachers, and the movies depict him as a gothic character who has evil spouting forth from within him. Gone are the days of honesty and truth. Gone are the days when the superhero would do everything he could to save lives, even those of his enemies. The American Way is still alive and kicking, but it’s very different from the way that Superman or Captain America symbolized; it is now about selfishness, sarcasm, and sadism.

“Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” directed by Guillermo del Toro, director of “Pan’s Labyrinth,” was another of this summer’s deconstructions of the concept of the superhero. The main character, Hellboy, known as ‘Red’, is a lover of loud music, large-caliber firearms, and cats (at least he has a gentle side). One the first times Hellboy is seen in this movie, he is blasted out of his bedroom by his pyrokinetic girlfriend, Liz: hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn, eh? Quite soon, we discover that Liz is actually pregnant. Gasp! A superhero getting his girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock! Later in the movie, Red, the understanding boyfriend that he is, is found remarkably drunk with his friend, Abe Sapien. Once again, this sarcastic, irresponsible figure is the protagonist, ethical fault in tow.
When Batman is distraught, he dives into the Bat Cave and attempts to find a solution to his problem; Red gets drunk.

Finally comes the recent favorite, “The Dark Knight,” directed by Christopher Nolan. But wait, Batman is just as moral: he does not kill without having to, he still defends the public, regardless of the sacrifice. It would seem that this movie is still completely in line with previous superhero films. Ah, but here’s the caveat: people did not see the movie for Batman’s actions of justice, but rather for the Joker, the villain. Heath Ledger gave an incredible performance, one for which he will be remembered, but he was still the bad guy. It’s simple enough to determine why The Dark Knight was popular: walk into Hot Topic and take a look at the shirts. You won’t see one of Batman taking down a wrongdoer or saving the day, but rather you will see Joker smearing blood into a macabre smile and asking, “Why so serious?” Even better, spoiler alert, Batman ends the movie as a bad guy. Well, that’s just great. Batman, originally loved for its heroic caped-crusader, is now at its most popular because of the villains.

This trend is not ending, either. In 2009, the movie “Watchmen,” directed by Zack Snyder, is set to come out. One of the main characters, The Comedian, ironically named, is cynical and nihilistic, believing that the average man is powerless to impact anything in a significant fashion. He is even hesitant to team up with anyone else unless it provides an extreme personal benefit. One of The Comedian’s fellow vigilantes calls himself Rorschach, who believes that the world is black and white, as comes through clearly in his actions. Though Rorschach believes that crime is insufferable, he also lacks any sympathy for criminals, to the point of considering them to be below human, thus justifying his use of torture and execution-style killings on his captives. These two guys sound like the kind of gents that Superman would have spent half the movie locking up.

Oh, let’s not forget the upcoming “Punisher: War Zone.” The Punisher, whose name sums it up, has no qualms about using extortion, blackmail, torture, kidnapping, and murder to achieve his goals. The worst torture that a villain in the old-school Batman show had to deal with was Robin’s incredible exclamations, such as “Holy haberdashery, Batman!”

Superheroes are gone, my friends. The old superheroes had consistent standards used as a model for how one should live one’s life: truth, justice, sympathy, empathy, selflessness, tight spandex suits. Superman was the hero of the the mid-twentieth century, during the time that America was fighting a man who idolized the concept of an “Uber Mann.” In response to that, we idolized our own Super Man. Now, times have changed, and perhaps people have realized that there are no Super Men: there are only men (I say that not out of sexism, but because every movie ever made centered on a female superhero has sucked). So now we have given up our fantasy that some one from far above us, such as Krypton, will come down and save us, and we have instead turned our hopes to the thought that some one will step up from our ranks and do the job, much like Hancock, a drunken jerk, and Red, a sarcastic dad, both did.

I am willing to propose that both Hancock and Hellboy cannot even be known as superheroes, but rather random people with powers. Perhaps this is the new direction that America needs from its heroes: an Average Joe who steps up to save us, despite his faults. Regardless of why, we must accept that things have changed for superheroes, and very soon we might read this listing in the classifieds: MORAL SUPERHERO, LOOKING FOR WORK.