Superheroes we never dreamed

My friend Eric recently noticed that I have a penchant for using quotes from the British sci-fi series Doctor Who in my “superhero quote of the day” feature. He wondered aloud whether the Doctor, the time-traveling alien hero of that show, qualifies as a superhero under the conventional definition—which quickly led us to wonder what the conventional definition was. While there doesn’t seem to be an iron consensus on what makes a superhero, permit me to list a few common elements of most definitions—and a few surprising characters who make the cut as a result. Please note: a superhero need not have all these characteristics … but anyone who has enough of them might qualify as a superhero. I usually abide by a rule of three—hit a trifecta, and you at least qualify for a cape. Note also that these qualifications are independent of the medium in which a superhero appears. They can show up in novels, plays, movies, TV shows, comics, radio, anything that tells a story. 

1. Superhuman powers. Let’s face it, this one is basic. Although I’m a big fan of low-power and no-power heroes, none of them are actually powerless, at least in my view. Besides the usual assortment of power rings, magic words, and bodies that can soar through the air unaided, there are other powers. In my personal opinion, Batman’s superpower is preparedness—he always has whatever he needs in that belt. Don’t tell me that’s not a superpower! And consider Sherlock Holmes’ one-in-a-million intellect. Is that a superpower, or is it excluded just because it’s (theoretically) possible (at the outer limits of human capability)? There’s a lot of wiggle room here, but if you can do something 99% of the rest of the population can’t do, you just might have a superpower.

2. Codename. This is part of what made superheroes different from the fictional characters who came before them: that colorful name, which is not only trademarkable but intensely memorable, and somehow sums them up. You may not remember Billy Batson, but you sure as hell remember Captain Marvel. On this front, at least, characters like Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel count as superheroes. The essence of a good codename is that it sums up the character in ways that his or her real name does not, and “Fox” sums up a sword-swinging swashbuckler better than Diego de la Vega (James of the Field) ever could. Codenames are often tied into a superhero’s origin story (Spider-Man) or a theme that underlies most of their adventures (The Question). 

3. Distinctive costume. The obvious example here is spandex, but it’s not the only example. Superhero costumes evolved originally because they made comics faster to draw—just sketch a nude human form without obvious genitalia, add a few lines to indicate gloves, boots, and/or trunks, maybe pencil in a cape and it’s on to the next panel without all those tedious wrinkles and lines you find in real clothing. But even when it’s not skintight, a distinctive costume enables artists with wildly different styles to draw the same hero recognizably. I’ve seen hundreds of different faces for my favorite heroes, but the mask is always familiar. In this respect, the Phantom of the Opera might qualify as a superhero—the makeup for the monster changes from film to film, but the mask is always there, and it helps you identify the character as much as it ever conceals him. Ditto the Lone Ranger; I still treasure one 1940s serial whose central conceit was that the audience had to figure out which of six men was the real masked avenger. I peered at every scene, trying to catch minute details that would identify the actor under the mask—until I found out, years later, that all six actors switched off to make it harder to guess. I didn’t even notice when the Ranger suddenly grew three inches between scenes; the human brain sees that mask and gunbelt and makes the connection.

4. Alignment with good. Let’s face it, this goes with the word hero. Of course, there’s some room for wiggling here, especially with the rise of antiheroes (like the 1930s Sub-Mariner, who once tried to destroy New York City when he wasn’t fighting Nazis), but a moral compass that points toward white hats is a helpful indicator that you might be dealing with a superhero. It’s important, though, to note here the difference between what gamers call “lawful good” and what they call “chaotic good.” Your hero can be a straight-arrow, law-abiding type, someone like Will Eisner’s The Spirit, or he can be a wacky or violent force of nature, nominally on the side of the good guys but not averse to wanton destruction and/or absurdity in the pursuit of his goals. See the character of V in Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta.

5. Extranormal opponents. What good is a superhero if he just fights ordinary bank robbers? A hero who’s truly super usually needs larger-than-life opponents. The stories work better if you have a steady supply of bad guys that the regular cops just can’t handle, and they’re always useful for upping the stakes. The villains may have superhuman powers of their own, like the Green Goblin, or they may simply be beyond the reach of conventional authorities, like Professor Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes stories. By this definition, of course, Sherlock Holmes qualifies again as a superhero (note also the superpowers, alignment with good, and distinctive costume), as does James Bond.

6. Extralegal status. Very rarely is a superhero a recognized part of law enforcement, and when he is, the institution of which he is part is usually unrecognizable as a police force. Does anybody’s local PD look like the Green Lantern Corps, or the police force Robocop works for? Being an extralegal vigilante gives the character, and the people writing him, wiggle room. Very commonly, superheroes operate outside the law but parallel to it—though they can find themselves at odds with it too, as the Green Hornet and the Lone Ranger so often do, and even Batman does in his early adventures.

7. Dual identity. This is often credited as the innovation that originally set superheroes apart from the pulp heroes who came before them. Most superheroes live a double life, at least on some level; they’re not super all the time, and the audience couldn’t relate to them very well if they were. No, the best heroes have some element of their identities hidden from at least half the people they know, and sometimes from themselves too. The Incredible Hulk is an extreme example of this, often unable to remember events in one form that happened to him in the other. Jason Bourne of Robert Ludlum’s novels might qualify here, too; his preternatural spy skills come with amnesia, and he must piece together the life he left behind him.

8. Difference. This is a personal requirement of mine, but an important one. If your character is a policeman who can fly and shoot laser beams from his eyes, but he lives in a society where everyone can do that, he is not necessarily a superhero. Ditto a colorful costumed type who lives in a world where everyone has a colorful costume. A superhero has to be different from the world around him. Consequently, a normal man in extranormal circumstances can become a superhero. Flash Gordon was a normal Earthman transported to an alien planet; Tarzan was a human infant raised by apes; both qualify as superheroes under this definition. Heck, setting is what makes Superman a hero—back on Krypton, he’d be just another guy. It’s Earth’s sun that gives him his powers, and his status as an alien that makes him an outsider, an immigrant, to our world. His stories wouldn’t work if he’d just stayed home.

 So what about the Doctor? Well, as an alien from the planet Gallifrey, he has several unique physical characteristics that might qualify as superpowers; he’s got two hearts, he once grew back a hand that had been cut off, and instead of dying, he “regenerates” into another actor, good as new. He has a codename—it’s established in the show that his real name is not “the Doctor,” though his real name has not yet been revealed. He’s got the distinctive costume nailed—every incarnation of the Doctor since 1963 has had a distinctive outfit that he wore in every episode with very little variation, and  you can’t argue those costumes weren’t distinctive when they included things like an 18-foot-long scarf, a brightly colored plaid trenchcoat, or a stick of celery pinned to a lapel. Alignment with good? Yeah, mostly, since he’s all about saving planets and mucking up the plans of people and creatures who harm other life forms. He’s got a strong taboo against killing, too, and considers it morally wrong. Extranormal opponents are a gimme—he fights aliens and killer robots and mad scientists and monsters of all descriptions. While he has occasionally been allied with legal organizations like UNIT, he never seems to get along with them well, and quite often he’s running around mucking up their plans, so “extralegal” seems to fit. And he’s definitely different from those around him; we hardly ever saw him on his home planet or near any other member of his species, even before the show’s writers destroyed that planet and killed the other Time Lords, so he’s always out of place. The dual identity is more in question; while he does clearly have another name and a life back on his homeworld (we know he once had a child, for instance) and while he does conceal his true name even from his friends, we hardly ever see the part of his life that he conceals. No phonebooth for him. But seven out of eight characteristics make for a pretty compelling argument.

And what about my characters, you might ask?

Well, Rae doesn’t have much in the way of superpowers, unless bullheaded stubbornness counts, but I wouldn’t bet on that state of affairs lasting long if I were you, and Trevor’s freaky levels of training and obsession surely count if Batman’s preparedness does. Rae has a codename at the beginning of the story, and Trevor had one in the past and will have one again in the future, if he lives long enough.  They both have distinctive costumes, from Rae’s Peregrine tunic to the uniform jacket Trevor inherited from his mentor (more on that later). Rae’s fully aligned with good, and Trevor tries, though it doesn’t always work out for him. Rae’s extranormal opponents are a little wimpy, unless you count the Masked Rider, but Trevor’s fought mad scientists and evil ninjas and whatall, so I think he counts there. Extralegal status—well, neither one of them’s a cop, and they’re both out fighting bad guys, so I think that’s a gimme. Then there’s difference; Rae has that in spades, what with her society’s prejudice against non-powered humans being heroes, and Trevor qualifies as different just as long as he stays away from the superhero culture in which he was raised. Rae’s stronger on the dual-identity front than Trevor, but Trevor did maintain a secret identity back in Chicago, and went to extreme lengths to protect that secret. So that makes the final score seven out of eight for each of them.

Of course, some real people qualify as superheroes, too. Albert Einstein counts for superpowers, distinctive costume, and difference. You could make an argument for Johnny Cash on the grounds of preternatural talent, costume, and alignment with good. T.E. Lawrence had a codename, a costume, and a fair amount of difference. It’s not exactly a hard and fast set of rules.

Still, I wouldn’t mind meeting a few superheroes in the real world …

Easy targets, but not the targets you think ...

Some days my job is just too easy.

A Maryland state senator named Nancy J. King is running for reelection on the pro-education ballot, promising to reduce cutbacks in education funding. There’s nothing wrong with the principle—indeed, I would happily pay higher taxes if it meant teachers got, say, a pay raise of 50% or more, effective immediately—but the advertisements King has sent out to make her point are ridiculous. Actually, they’re worse than ridiculous, but I don’t say words like those I’d need on a blog that kids may read. You can see the ad in question above, and choose your own vocabulary. If King had anything to do with the content of her message—that laying off teachers will reduce our beloved children to reading (shudder!) comic books—she should have a dunce cap permanently installed over her seat in the Maryland State Senate.

King is playing to the stereotype of comic books as low-quality entertainment for the barely literate, and of comic-book readers as grunting troglodytes unable to get through a 15-minute thriller without pictures to help them along. The idea, of course, is to frighten parents with the specter of their children reading comics, because everyone knows comic books are the mark of an illiterate person.

Fish in a barrel!

I know that most of the people who read this blog are at least open to the idea that comic books have some artistic, literary, and cultural value. You are, after all, reading a blog that frequently focuses on a novel about superheroes, and has a regular feature called “Comic Books You Should Be Reading.” But as I observed in my entry about Dungeons & Dragons a few months ago, I can’t afford to assume that everyone reading this thing is as nerdy as I am, or able to refute the scare tactics sometimes employed against nerd culture. So I’d like to clear up a common misconception about the world of four-color funnies, and the basis of King’s frankly slanderous ad—that comic books are inferior to “real” books, a mark of the functionally illiterate, and that reading them is a sign of a failure on the part of education.

Let’s start by defining our terms here. “Real” books, for the purposes of this argument, are usually defined as full-length novels or nonfiction works with relatively few pictures. They are, ideally, what we want our kids to end up reading. Comic books, by contrast, are traditionally magazines containing up to 32 pages of illustrated stories with words in narration boxes and speech and thought balloons, plus some advertisements. If you’re being generous, you might also include in this category graphic novels and trade collections of comic books—same format, just between better covers, longer and with few to no ads. The two significant differences between comics and “real” books, then, are length (either in page count or in word count) and quantity and quality of illustrations. “Real” books are better because they’re longer and don’t have (as many) pictures. Right?

But right away there’s a problem with these assumptions. Take the idea that “real” books are better because they’re longer. Many acclaimed works of literature are far shorter than the average comic book, and nobody complains that they’re inferior because of their length. The average Shakespearean sonnet has fewer words than an issue of X-Men and is considerably shorter than, say, The Da Vinci Code, but no one claims that Dan Brown is a better author than William Shakespeare. (At least nobody who isn’t soon beaten about the head by an English teacher.) Shorter too are a lot of flash-fiction works and many short stories, and yet nobody tries to ban them from English curricula. Clearly length alone does not disqualify a work of art from consideration.

True enough, you may say, but what about the pictures? Surely pictures are a crutch, there to make up for deficiencies in the text? Well, if images themselves are inherently lowbrow, you’d better toss out the Mona Lisa, stat. Even the combination of words and pictures does not necessarily reduce the value of a work; one need only look at illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells to see how words and images can together create breathtaking works of beauty, greater than the sum of their parts. Comic-book legend Stan Lee used to ask comics’ high-minded detractors whether they’d be interested in a comic book if Shakespeare wrote the words and Leonardo da Vinci drew the pictures. No intellectually honest person could say no to that one, and after that the argument basically boils down to complaints about the quality of particular words and the pictures. And with Pulitzer Prize winners writing comics and painters like Alex Ross illustrating them, this excuse is on shaky ground.

All right, I hear Ms. King saying, maybe comic books aren’t so bad for adults, but do we really want our children reading them? Well, yes, actually. We do. Comic books have an excellent track record in improving the skills of so-called reluctant readers—children and some adults who read below the level normal for their age and educational attainment, and who usually avoid reading by choice. The bright colors, striking visuals, and exciting stories can break through to readers who struggle with language barriers, learning disabilities, and other challenges, and often help them improve their skills. I began working with one reluctant reader two years ago, when reading and writing simple sentences was a struggle for him. Comic books and superhero-style book series like Percy Jackson and the Olympians finally got him into reading; now he’s on the honor roll and talking about going to law school when he’s older. I’m particularly fond of the story about the teacher being interviewed about comics who observed, “I can tell which kids read comics. They’re the ones who not only know how to spell ‘invulnerable,’ they can tell you what it means.” In fact, Maryland itself has an educational comic-book initiative in partnership with Diamond, the major comic-book distributor in the U.S. Oops.

So no, Ms. King, I can’t say I’d be upset to find any school-age child of mine reading comics, unless he or she were neglecting schoolwork to do so (and depending on the schoolwork, I might still be in favor). I can think of worse fates for kids than developing visual imagination and expanding vocabulary. By all means let’s support our teachers—they do a thankless job, for inadequate compensation, and suffer unnecessarily for their desire to help children learn—but let’s not take the kids’ comics away.

We wouldn’t want them to resort to reading your campaign ads, after all.