I Need A(n Anti)Hero
Last week, the lovely Ali gave us an article talking about her love affair with the more noble members of the superhero world. While I respect her view, I personally feel that a world full of this kind of hero would be a bit beige, and that a particular balance is required to bring colour back. To this end, I’m going to represent the other side of the coin and talk about my favourite type of hero: the antihero.
Now, when I talk about the antihero, I don’t mean the emo slacker or Omega Male type of protagonist. My love is reserved for the imperfect protagonist, for whom, the end justifies the means. This type of antihero covers a wide range of characters — from the dark, brooding menace of Batman to the lightly roguish Captain Mal Reynolds — and, although there are a broad spectrum of personalities and motivators behind these characters, there is a common set of three traits that define them.
The road to becoming an antihero typically involves a significant and usually abrupt life-changing event. While this doesn’t sound like a major factor in light of how many heroes are made this way, it is the manner in which the event happens to the protagonist which is significant. Bruce Wayne and Frank Castle both experienced the brutal murder of their respective families, V suffered torture and experimentation, and both Parker and Al Simmons were betrayed by those they trusted.
Again, this doesn’t sound much like a major characterising moment in becoming an antihero (although it is enough for some). Peter Parker lost his male role model and father-figure, Uncle Ben, to a murder, yet he turned out to be a well-rounded and “good” kind of hero. Likewise, Dick Grayson witnessed his family being killed by a mafia boss, but unlike his mentor, Bruce Wayne, he retained his humour and ability to take the higher path in his dealings with villains. So, what is the difference here?
The best kind of antihero are those that tend to have some form of imperfection, whether it is something deeply rooted in their psyche, or something developed in the way they’re brought up as a child. This “nature versus nurture” factor is part of what defines them, bringing an element of darkness or anarchism to their personality. This gives them the ability to skirt the laws of the land; to achieve their goals, no matter how they do it.
But what is it that makes them choose the hero’s path? They clearly have a great deal in common with their villainous counterparts, sharing a number of the same defining traits, so why do they choose a separate path? They each have their own overriding sense of nobility and honour that guides them.
Each antihero has their own particular moral compass, providing them with a sense of what is right and wrong (according to their own standards). While villains may have their own sense of honour, committing small acts of good amongst their crimes, the antihero does what is right at a more holistic level. In similar fashion to the Chaotic Good alignment of role-playing games (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons), the antihero may do bad things to people who are, in their opinion, bad people, if it benefits the greater good. Batman will hospitalise a gang of armed thugs to rescue a hostage, but will go out of his way to avoid killing any of them; Spider Jerusalem will unleash all kinds of anarchy in order to reveal injustice and corruption in his city.
So why is the antihero character so appealing to myself and others? It’s really quite simple… they’re more relatable to us. Their lack of perfection and more grounded personalities ring more true with the average audience member than the unobtainable ideal of the likes of Superman. We feel their pain more when they suffer — both physically, and when they struggle to make the right moral decision. We better understand their sense of honour, feeling it to be more recognisably human than the lofty (and sometimes snobby) nobility of the avatars of good. We put our trust in these dark knights, relying on them to find the chinks in the armour of seemingly-unbeatable enemies, and to have the courage to take the right steps to defeat them.
We need antiheroes in our lives. In a world that seems to be increasingly divided along the lines of black and white, we need the grey to offset the extremes. Even if it’s only a fictional antihero, we still get the reassurance that there are those that will do what’s right, even if a few rules are broken along the way.
Their lack of perfection and more grounded personalities ring more true with the average audience member than the unobtainable ideal of the likes of Superman.
I have to disagree with the idea of Superman as an “unobtainable ideal,” unless we’re talking about the superpowers. One must remember that he was raised by two sets of decent parents – at least in the comics, where Jor-El wasn’t presented as a flaky git – with a moral code that is attainable. No matter what Quentin Tarantino and Grant Morrison try to sell us, the fact is that Clark/Kal was raised to be a good person, and if we start thinking that’s a pie-in-the-sky goal, then I worry about us – as geeks, and as members of our own communities.
Very interesting point. I think that the generalization of Hero and Anti-hero are almost too simple. Superman doesn’t make easy choices. It may seem that doing the right thing is an easy choice, but it’s not. The same with an anti-heros, the choices they face aren’t easy to make either.
I honestly think that the morality of Superman is obtainable as well. To say that simply it’s impossible to do the right thing even when it’s not the easy thing is incredibly cynical and incorrect. That is not to say life is black and white, but there’s always a choice no matter how grey and one of them is always a little lighter than the other.
I think for me, at a base level, Superman’s morals are obtainable and admirable – the Kents did a good job of instilling their values on him as he grew in their care. However, with the demigod powers his alien heritage provides and the way he keeps himself somewhat separate from the people of Earth, he becomes more of a paragon than a relatable figure… he becomes the perfect embodiment of a concept that we stick on a pedestal and can only hope to emulate.
Actually, “the way he keeps himself separate,” as you describe it, isn’t that much of a stretch – it’s not only a safety mechanism, as he ably explained in JLU, but it does call to mind a part of the immigrant experience: the subtle reminders here and there that, as much as one might blend into their newfound home, part of them will always be an Other. In his case, it never seems to take much for the people of Earth to slam him as being a “Strange Visitor” or somesuch. I think even Kal realizes he has an advantage in his day-to-day Earthly business that, say, J’onn J’onnz or M’Gann do not.
I think J. Michael Straczynski summarised the perception of Superman best in a Newsarama interview about “Grounded”: He stands for what we believe is the best within us: limitless strength tempered by compassion, that can bear adversity and emerge stronger on the other side. He stands for what we all feel we would like to be able to stand for, when standing is hardest.
Although I haven’t yet read the arc, I do like the way that JMS decided to take Superman on a walkabout across America, reconnecting with the common people he protects. This to me was a great step forward in making him more relevant and reconnecting with the reader as well, hopefully bringing him down from that high pedestal. Oddly, the most I’ve ever related to him was in All-Star Superman, but only because of his emotional vulnerability created from his impending death.
At the end of the day, he’ll always be the Big Blue Boy Scout to most readers, and that’s just the way they like him. There’s plenty of room in the comics world for those who prefer to follow his beacon of hope, and those who follow the darker realism of the antihero.
Even as a longtime JMS fan, though, I’m one of the fans who was let down both by his characterization of Superman, and his work on “Grounded.” The qualities he cites in that Newsarama interview, for example, are so vague they could apply to any hero. And, under JMS’ pen, Kal’s efforts to reconnect with the common man led to some unfortunately-rendered moments.
For my money, as much justifiable crap as Geoff Johns has gotten for his Silver Age fetish, I actually preferred his take on Superman: the man who remembers he’s a Kansan, while genuinely enjoying the chance to help others.
Great article! I love the idea that we find anti-heroes appealing because of their “struggle to make the right moral decision.” A good anti-hero leaves the reader questioning whether or not they’ll make the morally correct choice in the end, which for me at least is a really compelling device. Superman is boring because he always makes the right choice!