Comic Book Foreign Policy

Now that the Spider-Man movie is breaking box-office records, the heavy artillery of political punditry has inevitably trained its guns at this bit of skilled heroic fantasy. Hence, James Pinkerton snags the film in a web of foreign policy significance in a Newsday column. How? By analogizing Peter Parker to the United States.

Here's a brief primer for those who have yet to see the movie–and who never read the comic books. In a pivotal scene, Peter Parker, who only recently has gained his superpowers and become Spider-Man, selfishly refuses to intervene in a robbery. The robber he allows to escape later kills his beloved Uncle Ben. Thus, Peter learns the brutal lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility"-something his Uncle Ben had told him repeatedly.

Pinkerton notes that, at the film's end, "We are left with Spider-Man atop a skyscraper, watching and waiting, powerful and yet also responsible. And so it is for Uncle Sam, the economic and military hyper-power." While one could use this image to say the U.S. has the responsibility to swing its muscle everywhere a wrong is being done, Pinkerton wisely realizes the U.S. needn't be as reckless as Spider-Man. He notes the relevance of another of Uncle Ben's bits of wisdom to the powerful but brash Peter: "Just because you can beat someone up doesn't give you the right to."

That is a more relevant foreign policy message for the U.S. to glean from Spider-Man. Because the U.S. taking its great power to imply responsibility for every wrong in the world has some complications that Peter didn't face in his momentous decision. The decision Uncle Sam faces in spinning its web over the world would be more analogous to Peter's decision if, in stopping the robber, Spider-Man would have had to destroy the entire block where they stood, kill hundreds of innocent bystanders in the process, and then take money from thousands of other people in order to clean up the mess. All while trying to make whole the lives that have been disrupted and destroyed by his initial act of heroism.