Comics Tragedy

Is the superhero invulnerable?

Brian Doherty from the May 2001 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

The Enduring Superman

Both Michael Chabon and Chris Ware showcase the image of the superhero falling to his death. Are they wishing for the death of the icon that so dominates the form they clearly love? Or are they infusing the superhero with a new power, to move adult readers’ hearts and minds? At the very least, Chabon has proven that comic books can inspire what virtually anyone would grant is true art, an imaginative reflection of deep human concerns and experiences.

Since its birth, the superhero has been seen as a symbol of America’s innocent vitality, of its barely repressed sexual confusion, and of its incipient fascism. It has been the vehicle for sui generis American geniuses such as Jack "King" Kirby and for numerous anonymous hacks. The superhero comic can be incandescently great and grimily idiotic, but even at its worst, it playfully evokes a wonder-inducing sense of fantastic human invention, of a fertile reworking of eternally appealing myths of beings with powers far beyond those of mortal men.

Chabon’s novel and other works discussed here show that there is a rich vein of pathos and insight to be mined from the gold first discovered by Siegel and Shuster. As an American icon, the comic book superhero shares some of the legendary values of the nation of its birth -- he is brash, energetic, wildly imaginative, unbound by Old World standards of propriety and gentility.

It will probably turn out, to the consternation of McCloud, that comics, even if they are freed from the shackles of superherodom, will remain a niche market, a weird little sub-eddy in the ocean of popular entertainment. As the very necessity of a book called Understanding Comics admits, many perfectly literate adults just can’t grasp comics storytelling -- they literally don’t know how to read them, aren’t versed in the grammar. There may be no explosive renaissance ahead for comics; they are unlikely to dominate cultural production the way the novel did in the 19th century or film did in the 20th. But artists like Ware and Clowes will continue to do fascinating work, and their audiences will find it, even if it doesn’t conquer all. And the caped shadow of the superhero will doubtless, in various ways, continue hanging over comics for a long time to come.