Because literally every person that has been in power is way worse then most super heros. So realistically, most people with super powers would be evil.
@@NihilisticBallman 'Literally every person'? So you're including teachers, doctors, business people, scientists, even some political leaders, every person who has had power over people, EVERY one of them is way worse than superheroes? I don't know which part of the world you live in, but that's just a sad mindset.
There is one story that deconstructs the superhero well. Kingdom come. During the time it was written, superheroes were dark, broody, edgy, and were willing to kill. This was the norm. Mark Waid decided to say, "Hey, this is bad. Let's show why." Thus he created Magog who killed the Joker when Superman refused to. The people decided they liked this and Superman exiled himself. After Magog became a favorite hero of the people, more like him started coming out of the woodwork and were a massive problem, fighting each other more then the villains. Superman comes back and reforms the Justice League as a force that doesn't kill. The story is great, read it if you haven't. But it works because instead of criticizing the genre as a whole, it criticizes the era it's from. Would love to see Linkara cover it if he hasn't already.
He has mentioned it at least once or twice. He even quoted it when he tore apart Future 5, when he responded to one of the comic’s points with Green Arrow’s line “And now for the Democratic response,” then a montage of people who found success without a diploma. I wouldn’t be surprised if he get a recommendation for it someday.
True but it was also a critique of silver heroes too, their uncompromising moral principles may look good on the paper. The inflexibility of their moral compasses lead to a constant tug of war between good or evil. In doing so gives rise to the dark edgy and violent heroes such Magog to be looked up to and relied on as had qualms with killing villians. Overall needs to be a balance and all heroes need come together for the betterment of their soceity if killing is to be considered must be the last resort.
Killing wasn’t the solution in Kingdom Come. Working together and living in equality was the answer to the problems that the heroes and the world were facing. The conflict that ended with half of the world’s metahuman population being killed by a nuclear bomb and Superman almost killing the entirety of the United Nations in response before Norman McKay talked him down all started when Superhumans and ordinary Humans decided they were 2 totally different species. Secretary General Wormwood - “We….we say you as Gods.” Superman/Kal-El/Clark Kent - “As we saw ourselves - we were both wrong.”
I can't even call The Boys a "deconstruction of superheroes" because, with the possible exception of Starlight, none of the characters in The Boys are heroes. They're all villains. Homelander isn't a pastiche of Superman because he is nothing like Superman. In Invincible, people compare Omni-Man to Superman, but honestly Omni-Man feels more in line with someone like General Zod. Mark Grayson, the titular Invincible, is the true pastiche of Superman, and a true deconstruction of the character. Invincible has the same amount of violence but is less gross than The Boys, but it does the whole deconstruction better because the characters in Invicible are actually heroes. And frankly, what bothers me most is that people are buying into these "deconstructions" that The Boys display... Stories written by people who have admitted to HATING SUPERHERO MATERIAL. As good as Punisher Max is, it baffles me that Garth Ennis worked for Marvel. But at least The Punisher is a recognizable character within Marvel's pantheon of characters and was his own character, instead of a mockery of other characters.
Superheroes might be the dominant genre in American comics, but they were NEVER the only one. Even in the silver age, there were non-superhero (or at least, non-typical superhero) comics that were popular (at least for sometime). There were teen comedies (Archie), SF Adventures (Challengers of the unknown, the sea devils), Space Operas (Adam Strange), Sci-Fi/Horror Anthologies (Tales to Astonish, House of Mystery), Westerns (The Lone Ranger, Rawhide Kid) and funny animals (Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes). As Ennis is North Irish and more familiar with the comics of the British Isles, some of his views might seem understandable; but in today's day and age, with Wikipedia and TV Tropes, he could (and perhaps should) change his perspective. Imagine if the Boys was against pastiches of Archie or Mickey instead of superheroes. As for Ennis' Punisher fascination: he considers non-powered heroes like Punisher and Nick Fury in a different light so he's willing to write for them (sometimes, John Constantine is included, even though he's a lot less grounded than those previously mentioned given his magic abilities). Anyway, Warren Ellis' Avatar Superhuman Trilogy are some of the best Modern Superhero Deconstructions I can think of (I know Ellis has been accused of sexual harassment recently, but he's apologised for it and it's not really relevant to how good the stories are). That's because Warren actually likes (or at least respects) the superhero genre and superhero characters. That's why Black Summer, No Hero and Supergod feel like true successors to Moore's classics (Watchmen, Marvelman) instead of pale imitations or immature ripoffs, as Moore respected and understood the genre and so does Ellis.
Oh... I wouldn't mind a Garth Ennies penned Superman story... Since he actually loves Superman and whenever he writes him, he treats him with more respect than some writers who say they love superheroes
@STC Suntzucreed I know Ennis has a few Super-powered heroes he's fond of, like Superman (for being the first), Wonder Woman (or at least the idea behind her), Spider-Man and (as I said before) John Constantine (he considers him more "grounded", even though magic and sorcery is fundamental to the character; maybe it's the lack of tights?). He also worked on Hulk, Ghost Rider and Thor. I'll have to check out his work on Superman sometime.
@@carlosalmonacid8958 I think the only superhero characters I'd entrust to Garth are probably Superman and Spidey... From what I remember about his run on Thor it was a shitshow
Invincible does actually get a direct pastiche of Zod later. But as Omni-Man turns his back on villainy thanks to his time on Earth he's not much an evil Superman as he was a Superman who was born on Krypton. It shaped him into a different man before he came to Earth and was defeated by humanity. Sure he won the fight with Invincible but we can see that his love for his son outweighing his loyalty to his planet meant that Omni-Man actually lost to humanity before the fight even began, he just didn't realize it yet.
It seems like people who write those kind of "deconstructions" miss the point of what a deconstruction should be: despite the name, it is not "tearing it down, knocking the idea down a peg". It should be a diagnostic, taking off the covering that we recognize and closely looking at all the pieces inside it that MAKE IT WORK. It is Deconstruction, not Destruction.
I was always under the impression that Deconstruction was about all the issues showing why it wouldn’t work, but *Reconstruction* is about addressing those issues and showing how it could work.
@@DragonTrainer201 pretty much yeah, a deconstruction is basically 'okay, lets look at this story and see what can go wrong and what problems may exist within it' while a reconstruction is 'lets see what can go RIGHT and see why people love it'
Yup... people get so caught up in tearing everything down that they forget to pull it up.. every good deconstruction story(unless we are talking about deconstruction fleet which is usually used when you are deconstructing and entire genre) usually also reconstructs at least slightly what they deconstructed. Or there is a follow up on that story, whether with the same characters or not that reconstructs it. But destruction is easy, while reconstruction is not. Injustice: gods among us is a better Superman deconstruction than most Supes deconstructions because it compares and contrasts the evil Supes against the actual Supes.
To quote Kurt Busiek: "It strikes me that the only reason to take apart a pocket watch, or a car engine, aside from the simple delight of disassembly, is to find out how it works. To understand it, so you can put it back together again better than before, or build a new one that goes beyond what the old one could do. We've been taking apart the superhero for ten years or more; it's time to put it back together and wind it up, time to take it out on the road and floor it, see what it'll do."
"I cannot, I WILL not accept any responsibility for the Joker... Except that I should have killed him long ago." Truly deep stuff. After all the shit Batman has seen the Joker do, he was now at his breaking point in the Hush storyline, and the fact that Linkara ditched the growly voice for something more straightlaced to deliver it makes it even more impactful.
If anything could drive Batman insane like the Joker wanted, it'd be being able to break the fourth wall. And learn why the Joker will always return. Why Arkham Asylum will always be terrible. Because Batman's greatest villain is his very own writers. At least, that's how it would look from his perspective. On that note I have the theory that The Empty Hand (the villain from Multiversity) is meant to be represent the writers who keep writing crises and refuse to let the heroes have a happy ending because they still want to write them fighting
@@redjirachi1 that's less the writers and more like the nature of the medium like say, the end every single main line of storylines.... and now they keep doing new versions of the original characters always in one shot formats....
Honestly, considering how angry Batman was at that moment during the Hush arc, I’m surprised he didn’t end up attracting a red lantern ring. Then again, if he had, he would have absolutely gone berserk and then incinerated the Joker right then and there.
I agree, Oversaturation of 'deconstructive storytelling' in superhero media is a massive problem. It creates an issue of finding Wheat among Chaffe in my opinion.
I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more reconstruction, getting back to the heart of the hero and understanding his/her motivations so we can better root for them.
@@eamonndeane587 I almost mentioned in one response the Astro City issue where they introduce a group of people who have superpowers and have opted not to use them as they aren't tied with their goals in life, even forming their own space away from others so they don't get dragged into superheroing or supervillany. I'm a fan of Busiek's work.
@@jadenbryant9283 I know Geoff Johns does that, like with his JSA run he has the colorful heroes facing off against ruthless villains like Johnny Sorrow who kills people with but a glance due to working for an eldritch monstrosity.
@@Bolbi145 i actually think kraven last hunt sorta did that with peter still acting like Peter but does not make that many quips which is understandable
@@tylerleach8796 Here's the thing, T'Challa doesn't go by Killmonger's way of removing White power over the rest of Africa. Instead, he uses his wealth to create a use of "humanitarian aid" to keep black people from pulling themselves up as communities, and creates a reversal of the American empire; he creates a Wakandan empire that keeps black communities dependent on his supposed kind hand. Soft power is a mode of power that is a component in neo-colonialism which the US and the European Union use in the real world so as to keep African, South American and Southeast Asian countries dependent on aid throughout the global south.
@@tylerleach8796 But T'Challa's way is wrong, because he's basically doing exactly what the US government does. And Wakanda is in no way progressive as a fictional state, as the white writers at Marve and Disney can't explore an African society without a monarchy as pointed out in Unstable Masks.
Garth Ennis' The Boys doesn't accept the possibility, as even Alan Moore did with Watchmen, that some of these superheroes do have good intentions and do want to help and even can help in ways regular people can't, and there are genuine problems in society that complicates their basic altruism. When the very universes superheroes usually inhabit contain all sorts of dangers neither the police, the army, or even the most determined vigilantes that Garth Ennis idolizes would be able to properly handle by themselves, you NEED superheroes to deal with them... And when the whole point of your deconstruction HINGES on the fact you've set up a universe that does NOT have a need for superpowered beings then you... REALLY DO miss the point of superheroes AND your deconstruction of them ENTIRELY.
Alan Moore created Watchmen to be a piss take on superheroes rather than praise them. He feels that they protect ruling-class ideology. I.e. capitalism.
Either that, or writters like him apply "Muggles Do It Better" solution were the best way to deal with any super is just point a gun at them... Which COMPLETLY ignores the major appeal to superheroes, because if regular firearms and police work were enough to stop any supervillain, then you would not need superheroes in the first place, thus missing the point of the genre.
@@LoboGuara5bruxaria In The Boys, the “superheroes” were all created by a single corporation. Since it’s shown how said corporation corrupt was in the, it makes sense why the vast majority of its products were to (with a few exceptions). I’d honestly say The Boys works much better as a commentary on the corruption of Business, Government, Media, Celebrity Culture, Society, and even people’s own moral standards than it does as a deconstruction of superheroes.
@@louisduarte8763 I’d say it actually surpasses the original in quality. When I said that The Boys works better as a deconstruction of celebrity culture and the like, I was referring to that series.
After hearing his statement regarding Superman; I've just gotta say that while I'm not a comic reader, I HAVE seen many animated incarnations of Superman and...I agree with Linkara's words. He's the one superhero who uses the "powers of a god" (as people like Luthor and Batman would say) for kindness and works with a good heart. So, it often infuriates me whenever stories come along to say that Superman's worldview is wrong
A lot of people like to simplify Superman's image to be that of a demigod-like figure existing in a world of lowly mortals, most exemplified in the Jesus imagery present in films like Man of Steel. The important aspect of Superman people tend to overlook is that Superman at his core is simple. Superman is not the real identity. Clark Kent is. He fell to Earth from Krypton, was raised by two loving parents, and made a life for himself in Metropolis. Not as Superman, but Clark Kent. The ethics Superman follows were instilled in him by his parents. Two average everyday people living on a farm who try to be the best they can be every day. It's not the powers that make Superman a hero. It's his morality, which was taught by a seemingly insignificant farm couple. Their morals were what helped mold Superman into the icon he is. Superman is Clark Kent and he is human at his most basic level.
@@ShanaReviews To be fair to the first Injustice, that one at least had the “good” Superman call him out, even saying “we’re not gods, we don’t decide who lives and dies.”
@@ShanaReviews The 4th Snake made a good rebuttal to the "one bad day" line that people use to excuse poor writing: he pointed out how in the context of the story, the Joker is wrong Of course misunderstanding Alan Moore's work is practically a trope of its own
Superman was raised by humans, ones that knew he was an alien and also believed everyone could potentially be good Omniman was raised by a brutal society that despised weakness and came to earth as an adult with the purpose of conquering the world Homelander was bred to be a hero by a for profit company and raised to be a cruel narcissist The Kid in Brightburn was a parasitic monster infiltrating humanity disguised as a kid They all have very different backgrounds and that matters as to why they’re good or bad.
Exactly - Great Summary of each character (though in Brightburn’s case he was a literal sleeper agent, think Omni-Man if he was literally brainwashed.) I feel like that’s something Linkara is sincerely unaware of, not seeing the forest for the trees. I sincerely hope he sees your comment someday.
Also, Homelander is a deconstruction of Superman as a stand-in for the idealized American president, such as FDR. Homelander represents the behaviour of the American president in reality.
@@Rgoid He’s worse than Homelander, that’s for sure. He’s also probably one of the better written examples of a “Superman gone bad.” Even if he still lives up to the title in end.
I don't think what Garth Ennis writes can even be considered "deconstructions", because he wears his total contempt for superheroes on his sleeve, and makes little to no effort to conceal that viewpoint in most of his works. The goal of his work, for better or worse, is not to "deconstruct" the genre, it's to dismantle it in its entirety; "The Boys" is not a deconstruction, or even satire on the idea, it's an attack on it. On that note, I'd love to see Linkara review "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe", because look no further if you want to see Ennis' tract taken to its not so logical extreme.
and whats werid about it is spider-mman dies in a very not cool way yet when garth wrote spiderman the thousand for the tangled web series it honestly just felt like a dark ditko and lee story
What I got out of the boys: it's about Patriarchy, and that if superheroes existed in the real world, they would create a chauvanistic, misogynist, heterosexist, and cissexist environment, much like the cops, hollywood, and high society.
That's what I dislike about Garth Ennis and writers like him. It's not enough that comics like "The Boys" are just a big, giant middle finger towards superheroes, It's also a middle finger to everyone who actual likes superheroes.
@@coldmaster613 He dislikes superheroes because they have been allowed to flourish for so long at the expense of other comics genres. This has to do with corporate mandates that have lead to there being a lack of genre diversity in UK and North American comics in particular at the time of writing the Boys.
The only "deconstruction" of superheroes I actually like is Watchmen. The Superman analogue isn't evil, he's just out-of-touch with humanity because he doesn't experience fear, pain, or hunger and he can perceive so much beyond humanity. The others (except maybe the Comedian) aren't outright evil, just sad messed up people who feel weak and do what they do to feel strong.
And Doctor Manhattan isn't even a Superman analog, but Captain Atom. The Watchmen are actually variations of the Charlatan characters(Captain Atom/Doctor Manhattan, Blue Beetle/Night Owl, The Question/Rorshack, Peacemaker/The Comedian, Judomaster/Silk Specter).
I'm tempted to patron Linkara for the All Star Superman just to hammer in why characters like Superman don't requiere a cynical deconstruction.. And because in general I'm tired of superhero deconstructions... Why can't we for a change get a movie that is actually a reconstruction of Batman and/or Superman. For all it's flaws Spidey far from home is in a sense a reconstruction of Spidey and I love it for that. Why can't Superman get that.
I'd like to see some more superVILLAIN deconstructions or satires TBH. Sure, we had the Joker movie (which was great) and Mark Millar's Wanted (which Linkara disliked IIRC, but I have no idea of the consensus on that book; I haven't read it myself anyway), but apart from that there's almost nothing.
@@carlosalmonacid8958 from what I remember, the book was basically pure edgelordness... could be wrong though and it improved as it went but I've never finished it... and a supervillain movie would be a nice idea. Wouldn't mind a movie about mr. Freeze or Kraven, etc...
@@carlosalmonacid8958 the only thing that comes to mind as possible villain deconstruction is Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog and maybe Megamind but I dunno on that one.
3:26 You know, personally, the thing I hate the most about superhero deconstructions is that it ends up a case of assuming "everyone would use their powers for evil because men is inheritently evil". And I just think "Nooo. That depends from person to person... and even if they used them for that, that doesn't mean they are gonne be effective at it". As it becomes kinda boring. Some people would get Superman levels of power and they might not even try to be hero or villain. some might be too scared to use their powers, some too lazy and will just use them. Some might try to profit from it. Some might try to use it for evil, but how it would depend. Some might try to use it for good but it would also depend (also, they might suck at using them for good), and etc. Assuming everyone is either "evil" or "good" is both boring if you think about it. especially if not written right or at least making it simple so we focus on something else like "the way they do it". And the most simple example of writing them right in as "unapologetically have heroes who are heroes because they felt like it" and "villains who are villains because they like it". Just because its simple doens't mean it has to be boring.
There's this amazing short film called "One on One" by Jake Thomas that has a line of dialogue that perfectly summarizes why these "deconstructions" are such garbage. "If he just forced you to do whatever he wanted you to do, he wouldn't be much of a Superman would he?" Seriously, watch this short film. It perfectly encapsulates who Superman is in just 10 minutes.
@@josephheiskell3493 Which is based on Geoff Johns' take on the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel. Billy Batson went through hell but before this still maintained a positive outlook on life and strove for better. I like to think of it as him holding on to the one thing the world can't take away from him but has to be given up...at the risk of being cliched, Billy doesn't give up on hope for a better future.
Honestly, I've always preferred Robert Caro's attitude on power. That, whilst it had the potential to corrupt, power ultimately reveals the nature and actions a person would do with that.
@@ianr.navahuber2195 Plus, it has that weird notion of the people saying that making people who have no power fear getting power. Sort of like the whole "he who fights monsters becomes a monster" thing which never made sense unless it is the monster saying that.
Deconstruction, as it suggests, de-construct certain literary tropes by tearing down established concepts and providing alternative outcomes or consequences to certain actions. Deconstruction has its root in modern linguistic studies that claim that languages are arbitrary and there isn't only one meaning to a certain sign. This is why deconstruction involves tearing down old tradition AND providing commentary on why the new meaning is equal to or more relevant than the one it's torn apart. Watchmen are the comic deconstruction in that the characters are the allegories of the superheroes who engage in a war that force people in-universe and readers to reconsider the role of superheroes in modern society. It says that costumed heroes can be corrupted and self-serving in a cynical environment. Doomsday Clock is a deconstruction of said deconstruction: it claims that it's still important to hold onto hope and heroics no matter how depressing things are. It also says that even someone as hopeless as Dr. Manhattan can turn over a new leaf with a few pushes in the right direction. All-Star Batman & Robin is NOT a deconstruction; It's a fanfiction where you glorify certain characters out of a personal bias. It deliberately paints supporting casts as idiots so that the protagonist can be depicted as supreme and almighty despite being a jackass. If All-Star Batman & Robin was made by 13 years old who posted his work on fanfiction.net, nobody would care about it.
Decnstrucotion isn't designed to provide alternatives, it's suppose to point out flaws in works, be they literary, architectural, artistic, scientific, technological, religious, societal, or cultural. In other words, it's really a problem problem-pointing methodology. Now a problem-solving methodology is what a modernist lens is. Some examples, Marxism, Liberalism, Realism, and so on. According to Watchmen and Philosophy, Alan Moore is really just saying that NO one should proclaim themselves as society's savior. With that, the author claims that superheroes protect ruling-class ideology. To give an example, when we see how Night Owl and Comedian mow down protesters in the streets, or how Dr. Manhattan uses his powers against the Viet cong. Plus, Adrian Veitch exemplifies the ruling-class as he profits off his image and technology. It's akin to how Iron Man and Batman are, and the comic book industry. Thus it makes Watchmen anti-capitalist. I absolutely agree with you on ASBR. It's not deconstruction as FM is a lousy deconstructionist.
Watchmen wasn't even a deconstruction of superheros as whole but rather the Objectivist brand of super heros that people like ditko made, so the approach doomsday clock did doesn't even fit because the watchmen are not stand ins for the Justice League
@@williammorahan4907 No the problem with Frank Miller's version of what he considers deconstruction is that, it's really incorporating deconstructionist arguments, and is in fact fascist propaganda; or worse, it's Machivelian passing itself off as deconstructionism. Again, deconstruction isn't in the business of problem solving, it's in the business of pointing out the flaws, problems, and contradictions of a work or text. Even if problem-solving methods such as Marxism and Feminsim could give suggestions, it is impossible to escape deconstructionism, because otherwise, if a work were perfect, then there wouldn't be anything to be critical about.
@@CosmoShidan Has it ever occurred to you that the reason people are sick of deconstructionist stories is because they *don’t* offer solutions to the problems they present to the audience? And if a story technically doesn’t offer a definite answer to the questions it raises, it should allow the audience to come to their own conclusion based upon what they experienced from the story *and* their own ideas and beliefs. That’s why Watchman has gotten so much praise over the years, and why the original comic version of The Boys is little more than mindless and hateful crap. And come to think of it, I think Garth Ennis *dose* offer a solution in his version of The Boy - *Get Rid of Superheroes Permanently* And you should know why I can *never* agree with that answer by now.
I think this argument also applies with Robert Pattinson's "The Batman". Spoilers for the film below. The way it goes about being a deconstruction is through its focus on a younger Bruce Wayne who's still young, somewhat inexperienced, and just a shell of pure rage and anger. He is hyperfocused on punishing the guilty, but he has neglected all other aspects of his life to be Batman. As seen in the films iteration of Riddler, he's inspired copycats who wish to do the same thing, but without any of the moral code and a desire to 'restart from zero' in a sense and wipe the slate clean of a corrupt Gotham, without actually trying to fix the issue and help the innocent in the first place. The entire film has Batman exclusively in darkness and hiding in the shadows, until the end of the film, in which he's seen in the sunlight, helping innocent people after a horrible catastrophe that arguably was caused by his negligence in focusing on the current issue instead of trying to actually fix the issues that cause these horrible events, leaving his own finances from the Wayne trust fund going into the pockets of the various criminals of Gotham. The film is about how Batman goes from a well-intentioned, but still reckless vigilante into someone who can be considered a true hero and protector of the innocent. The deconstruction in my opinion is of the idea of Batman as an idea of vengeance, whilst also establishing the importance of the humanity needed for Batman to be a hero.
Superheroes and villains are ordinary people writ large. They have powers and abilities no human could ever match, but ultimately their personalities and characters are humans scaled up. Therefore just as real humans can use power in the forms of money or influence for good or ill, supers can use superhuman abilities for good or ill. Any good work involving superheroes understands this.
That's the difference between a super hero and a super villain: how they choose to use their incredible power. And I believe this is the only tangible difference between the sides of the Force in Star Wars: Why it is used and how.
This is one of the reasons why I LOVE My Hero Academia so much because it's not a deconstruction of superheroes. It is a superhero story and portrays superheroes as honest-to-god good people.
@Thunder Goku Until you get later into the manga and find out how horrible of a person/father/husband Endeavor is, Dabi's backstory, And The corruption of the hero association being leaked to the public.
Not to offend your or anything but that logic falls flat due to how the heroes in MHA are treated as god like celebrities by the population due to them being Superheroes and how The Stain Arc brings attention to an idea that many of them didn't become heroes for good reasons but entirely for money, fame and the spotlight thanks to how the media portrays the hero work as a super glorious industry and not what it's supposed to be which is a superpower defense force similar to The Avengers in Marvel and Justice League in DC. And what really bothers me is how despite the hero system having similar design to how it treats the superheroes similar to the Supes in The Boys for some baffling, ridiculous reason it's never treated like a fundamental flaw and if anything the narrative actually glorifies many of these fake, selfish heroes because they "still save people and do hero work so who cares" which begs the question as to why introduce this idea of fake heroes if they are gonna be treated no differently to the genuine heroes by the writing? It also doesn't help that we are introduced to people who are so far away from what being a hero is about like Katsuki Bakugo, Minoru Mineta and Endeavor and yet the author doesn't seem to care that these so called "heroes" are completely awful. Look i'm not trying to pick on you and say you can't like the show, if you personally enjoy it then that's fine, i won't hold it to you. I just wanna point out that your reason for liking MHA, that the superheroes are portrayed as honest-to-god good people, doesn't work due to how the heroes are treated as glorified celebrities that makes them becoming heroes in the first place feel not out of genuine goodness in them but out of greed and vanity along with how we never see our main characters question the hero system and actually try to change it for the better and instead just go along with it despite knowing much about Stain, including ideas and speeches supposedly which makes it seem like they actively IGNORE the major flaws of hero society in order to reap benefit of it as well which unintentionally makes them look no different from a fake hero and we are supposed to see them as "real" heroes?
TL;IDR: There's a difference between dark/edgy/gritty and mature. This is why I am so sick and tired of DCEU's "dark and gritty" tone. Whether or not it was intentional to mimic the Dark Knight trilogy's success because it was dark and gritty, it wasn't even done properly. The Dark Knight trilogy was dark and gritty, yes. But above it all, it was mature. While it had dark moments and was clearly aimed at a PG-13 crowd (as the more general Batman comics were anyway), there's heroism, wit, charm, and above all-- _COLOR._ To me, DCEU is just pandering. Not to say that the MCU is pander-free, but at least they have a point. They have a mature sense of heroism and have that tie into other adventures really well. As for DC, it feels more like an indulgence to say that DC heroes are better because there are scenes of graphic violence and other R-rated material. DC heroes are perfectly capable of being non-nihilistic. Making a film based on Superman, let alone a comic that is generally aimed at a wider demographic into a bloodier and more profane-induced adaptation, is not only pretentious but unwarranted. That's why Man of Steel rubbed me the wrong way because Superman is a man who sees the best in humanity. You don't need to have a gritty and murky movie to understand him, let alone _any_ DC heroes. You don't need to make the Toy Story movies bloody or sexual to make it more thought-provoking. It accomplished its goal and it had a mature approach to what the films were trying to say. Now, I'm not saying dark makes it worse. There are plenty of mediums that are dark and rightfully so. But when it contradicts what the original source material did to make it well-known to begin with under the guise of enhancing it, I suggest a re-write.
It's why not everything should be Warhammer 40K. That's *intended* to be dark and gritty through and through, and any light in that universe has long since gone. Stuff like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. are fighting not just to uphold and protect what's good, but also *represent* what's good themselves. Like you said, just because something's dark doesn't mean it's automatically mature. It's just meant for an older audience, and more than likely the mindless variety of older audience.
As much as I agree, at the same time, the DCEU’s dark and grittiness was nearly all the fault of Zack Snyder. He doesn’t believe in a comic accurate Superman but a more “realistic” one as he says. Which I agree, is fucking stupid. Trust me, the DCEU has gotten SO much better since Zack Snyder was booted out. And they’re WAY better off without him, TBH.
@@yourcollegedebt8384 Batman works well dark, after all most of his best storylines are dark, you just gotta do it in a way that doesn’t turn him into a monster as well like in All Star Batman and Robin
Don't forget that movie 1 of the MCU had the hero as a weapon salesman captured by terrorists, and only survived by killing his way out. Wandavision was all about a grieving hero taking over and torturing an entire town. Winter Soldier is all about the hero trying to solve one friend's murder, while his whole agency turns out to be full of genocidal maniacs, and whose best friend was being tortured into being a murderer for decades. The DCEU is not "more willing to touch on dark themes". It's just BAD.
Batman lives in a universe where magic. Time travel, psychics, alternate dimensions and several other forms of advanced technology exist. There is no reason for him to kill the joker. He could get a bunch of psychics and magicians together to cure joker,he could create a subatomic prison staffed by robots who will treat joker humanely and stick that subatomic prison on pluto. There are tons of solutions for this that don't require violence. Hell Paul dini's solution for batman beyond was going to be that batman took joker prisoner himself and locked him in the batcave. To me when people day "batman should kill joker" they are displaying a lack of imagination, and betraying the fact that they desire retribilutive justice. Even though the truth is that if batman did murder the joker, joker would just come right back because this is a comic and we need a new story.
I think if they want to write a "Batman the Early Years" story they could have Bruce try to use his financial influence to improve the legal system, and his failure to do so plays into why he dedicates himself to his Batman ways
I want a deconstraction of the type of characters the edgy superhero deconstructions usually use: Snide, homicidal, mean spirited thugs who put down anyone who don't agree with them. Maybe the story had some heroes who went bad in the past, so some guys armed with guns who believed they knew better began to "fight crime" and actually try and kill supers. Expect there are plenty actual superheroes (DC and Marvel had tons of heroes who went bad too) and even neutral ones who never commited felonies. When they're called out, they give out the usual "superheroes are dumb and evil/real word doesn't work that way" speech. And I hope someone will point out to them that there are actual supervillians/alien invasions/monster attacks every other Tuesday -because y'know, comics - and superheroes are absoluetly necessary in those senarios. It ends with them fighting a hero(es) expy, thinking they're dump and too relient on their powers, only to get their asses kicked. They are trialed for murder, assault, domestic terrorism and generally being assholes. They're not even sent to a super prison or anything.
In my story a group like that would also start having contempt for citizens and start openly attacking heroes with heavier means and stop caring that normal people are around and begin justifying it in their heads as necessary sacrifices
This group also begins to brutalize small time villains who at most were robbing banks and were not even that violent and ignore the fact that some of them are mentally ill while painting everyone with a broad black and white brush
@@garretstevens742 something like The Boys going after the Silver Age Polka Dot Man? Yeah, I can see it. I'm really invested in your story ideas. I wanted to read an "edgelord deconstruction" for ages now
@@billuraral1870 thanks 😊 I tend to think in real life without the author twisting things in the favor of the edgelord they would be completely psychotic and not in a charming way
Honestly, is the boys even a deconstruction of comic books? I always saw it as "What if Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers came first?" A group of supervillains who were pretending to be superheroes.
It's basically saying that superheroes safeguard capitalist interests, and that they have fascist undertones built into them. Note that Compound V, which is a metaphor for wealth and privilege, was created from a Nazi eugenics program; this implies the fascistic undertones. Also, The Boys comments on how superheroes are very hypermasculine, being that they all have idealized masculine builds, and are misogynist. Hence, it's basically pointing out the short comings of superheroes.
@@CosmoShidan Problem is none of the characters in the Boys, with the possible exception of Starlight, are actual heroes. It is a team of supervillains taking on a group of anti-villains. So it isn't really much of a deconstruction.
@@jacobwilliams1223 It's deconstructing the crime-fightin' superhero as superpowered cops as well as the Boys themselves. In fact, the way the Supes behave, misogynist, hyper-masculine and heterosexist/homophobic, it's the same behaviour as police officers in real life. This is especially as the Supes and the Boys treat their careers not as a job, but a way of life, much like real police officers. This is one of the reasons why you simply can't truly "reform" the police and make them anymore humane, given the toxically masculine culture prevalent in the institution of the police; so the Boys is spot on with its "superheroes as police" allegory, not to mention the titular characters. Also, from a criminologist standpoint between the contractarian model, the police as upholders of disputes between citizens, and the conflict model, the police are protectors of the ruling classes and private property in the means of production, the Supes and the Boys are in the latter category.
@@CosmoShidan Yeah no. There is a big difference between cops on a power trip vs. unarmed civilians vs. superheroes who go out of their way to risk body and limp to protect even the most less fortunate citizens. Going "fuck superheroes" and writing a bunch of supervillains pretending they are superheroes is no equal to a deconstruction of them. It's bad Dark Avengers fanfiction. That allegory is as best cynical and more often than not unfounded. Even Alan Moore, the guy who I am sure the Boys creator took "inspiration" from accounted for the possibility of actual decent people both with and without powers existing. The Boys author by contrast holds his contempt for superheroes on a sleeve which is about as subtle as a brick to the face.
@@jacobwilliams1223 You're talking past me, so I will explain what I'm talking about. My analysis comes from my course in sociology, in particular, the branch of criminology, which is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. What I was explaining to you, is that criminology has two specific lenses; the first one is the social contract model, which is the lens that views police and justice departments exist to keep society from crumbling, while the social conflict model is the lens that views police as a force of oppression and defends the ruling classes, i.e. the rich, the politicians and property as opposed to working peoples. The former being a more traditional, liberal stance, while the latter is a more radical, socialist stance. Personally, when it comes to superheroes, I take the social conflict model, and use that when it comes to examining the crime fighting superheroes such as Batman, Superman, Spider-man and Captain America, who are very liberal in the sense that they are tough on crime and tend to throw criminals into prison or asylums. Their approach is that of either retributive justice and rehabilitative justice, as oppose to restorative justice. Now when it comes to the Boys, I read it with the same lens, albeit, it actually enhances the social conflict lens. You on the other hand, appear to view it from the social contract lens. And consider this, police in America murder 1000 people of color, and sexuality per year. That's 3 persons of color and trans folk a day. This isn't police brutality, it's straight white, cis male supremacy, and the cops in real life are KKK just like the supes and the boys in The Boys.
I wonder if there's a story where Bruce revitalizes the security and methods of Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison. He doesn't need to kill, he needs to show the system how to do its job properly
I know in some continuities he regularly donates to arkham but I think specifically upgrading the security would still be his idea of tampering too much with the system
Exactly. This is a big thing always thought about Batman was that he lived by the rule of once I hand them over to the proper authorities they are not my problem unless you all don't do your job. Bruce is just trying to get the system to do it flipping job.
The thing is, nothing matters. I've watched Jason Todd rail about how Batman should kill the Joker 'because he killed me'. That Jason is standing there, alive and saying this shows it makes NO SENSE as an arguement. They live in a world of resurections and deals with the devil. If anything, Batman doesn't kill the Joker because letting him meet Satan, who exists, is probably not smart.
@@keirgomcginlay2044 you're kinda missing the point. Jason may of come back but that doesn't mean he still didn't die. Look at who is is there as the red hood, joker did that too him. He still beat him with a crowbar and blew him up. Also I understand that death isn't always permanent in comics but it still can be
5:00 - Invincible gets a pass here even though it's classified as a deconstruction, because at least in that, the main characters for the most part, are still trying to do the right thing with their powers and abilities.
Oh who are we kidding? They'll see this and still claim that we "don't get it," or "it's too smart for us," or we're "living in a fucking dream world." There's no arguing with these people.
My favorite superhero deconstructions are the ones that ask logical questions about the genre. Like Watchmen, Kingdom Come, the Venture Bros, or Astro City. (Sometimes) Watchmen asks “what kind of people would actually do this?” Or “what would they logically achieve?” Or “what would it do to geopolitics if the US had Superman and Russia didn’t?” And I have to concede that yeah, these are fair questions.
The thing is, if your point is "X is bad", then you have to show X being bad. When you say "Superheroes are bad", it can't be because they are all, 100%, no exceptions, evil individuals, you gotta show a reason why the superhero system is bad for their stated mission of protecting people. It's the same in the other direction, if you wanna say "heroes don't kill" then you can't turn the killer heroes into violent psychopaths or pedophiles or anything like that, you gotta show why a killer hero is wrong, where is the damage that a killer hero does. If you make a straw man of the opposing proposition, you are not proving anything.
There's an avenue of superhero deconstruction that's criminal underused-a deconstruction of the status quo. The reason Reed Richards can't just turn Earth into a futuristic society is because the writers won't let the Marvel Universe be too different from the real world. The reason the Joker doesn't stay locked up in a maximum security jail is because the writers need him to show up in a later story. Maybe tackle the frustration people in-universe would inevitably have? Imagine if there's mass civil unrest in Gotham because the people are done with the bullshit of those in charge? They're the real problem, not Batman's no-kill rule! On that note, a good Deadpool deconstruction would be him making war against the writers in order to ensure the Marvel Universe has a happy ending
All this talk about Superhero Deconstructions has got me thinking about the Wild Cards series of Mosaic Novels. They're dark, gritty and often sexual, but there is a sense of idealism and compassion in many of the heroic characters (e.g. Dr Tachyon, Fortunato, The Turtle etc). I'd love to see Linkara review one of the books (or even just a story or two) or the comic adaptations. Heck, he could even do the TV Show adaptation if it ever gets out of development hell.
“I don’t know Garth, wouldn’t they’re be good heroes in your story?” “Oh they act like they’re gods all the time.” “That’s not what I-“ “Shut up and draw Homelander throwing that bag of puppies into a wood chipper.”
That's not what Garth Ennis is saying. First, he's saying that superheroes as a genre have been allowed to flourish at the expense of other genres due to corporate mandates. Second, he's saying that superheroes are fascistic in a 21st century context. Third, I suggest you take a good look and acknowledge that superheroes come from the literature of the KKK as told by Dr. Chris Galaver: ua-cam.com/video/5kHtI3OgWWc/v-deo.html
@@carbootstudios2459 Dude, Gavaler's done actual research on the subject, whereas Wertham was trying to sell a book, so that's an apples to oranges comparison. Plus, Gavaler isn't advocating for censorship, he's merely pointing out the problematic elements of superheroes in their costume design and how it's no mere coincidence that SIegel and Shuster took inspiration from real life costumed vigilantes in the 1920s and 30s prohibition era, and tried to subvert it to a degree. But is no longer the case, and it's critical to dig deeper into the media we consume. Also, the Comics Code did little to damage to superheroes, as they were already censored by the editors of comics publishers in the early 1940s, such as Batman not being allowed to carry guns, or Supes not being able to use rough and aggressive tactics like a Klansman vigalante. Otherwise, the CCA gave us supervillains, of who were an othered minoritized group, such as the cognitively disabled (Green Goblin having anti-social disorder, in which is is inappropriately called a "psychopath" by Spidey in issue #39, and is an ableist moment), to fat shaming, such as the Kingpin being an obese villain. Bottom line, nice try, but keep exposing yourself as one of the far-right ya prude.
@@carbootstudios2459 Don't confuse scholarship with censorship; Gavaler's work is actual problem pointing, while Wertham was advocating censorship to sell a book.
The best case for Batman and the whole killing the Joker thing was the ANIMATED adaptation of Under the Red Hood. In the comic, he just shouts "NO DON'T!" To Jason and PROTECTS the Joker from him - making him come off as even more unhinged than Batman usually is, while in the animated adaptation he more or less just - walks away. He accepts in that moment that Jason WAS right. If Jason had shot Joker right then and there - Batman would have let it happen. But Jason wanted to hear Batman SAY it himself, overlooking the fact that he got an answer when Batman walked away. He was giving Jason permission in that moment.
6:14 There's a musical edutainment short film on economics called Scrooge McDuck and Money where it's revealed *_Scrooge McDuck actually circulates his money,_* something billionaires don't do.
5:32 I agree with linkara so much. I never want Batman to willingly kill a villain without him facing consequences and him not liking it. When you have Batman actually kill his villains, at that point he’s not Batman but red hood wearing a bat mask
Before anyone say “but flashpoint Batman kills!” That is not the real Batman we all know, that is Thomas Wayne who is very different Batman who’s history is corrupted
@@lucaschannel726 If Batman isn't a killer, wouldn't he be a hypocrite and a sadist since he tortures perpetrators and homeless people when interrogating them?
I despise deconstructions for three reasons. 1) it's the easiest and quickest way any author can fool the audience into thinking their work is 'mature' and 'deep' even though the audience knows everything he's going to invert. No one watches a Jackie Chan film thinking that a real fight will go down like that so when someone makes a film with it's deconstructionist Jackie Chan ladder fight, it's redundant. 2. No one's ever deconstructed Noir or cyberpunk before. Every single work that's been deconstructed has been material seen as 'juvenile' or 'immature'; essentially fiction people somehow are insecure in enjoying, specifically entertainment for young men. It's why when someone uses the terms 'power fantasy' or 'self insert' I start walking away because it comes off as some sort of intellectual kicking sand on a skinny guy at the beach and these terms are never used on fiction like breaking bad, sopranos and empire. The idea that people watch tony soprano wanting to be tony soprano is ludicrous but everyone would want to be frodo for some reason. And 3) no one's ever deconstructed a superhero being depressed or suicidal or trying to balance a married life. It's always some hyper violent sociopath with his ensemble of trench coat mafia chain smokers who drink Jack Daniels like it's water. It's like something a friend said when I was talking to him about comics: 'Id love it if comic books were as varied and creator driven as manga but the Indies have proved that there's mostly only two stories American comic creators will make: coming of age college stories and hardboiled detective stories. Webtoons and the floppy's are filled to the brim with both."
For what it’s worth, I’m doing a story about teenagers with superpowers, in a 90s high school setting a la Buffy. Not really a “deconstruction” per se, but one of the characters is a suicidal goth girl with depression…and a healing factor that makes her immortal.
@@tolchok89 there's a deconstruction and just doing a story you wanted to tell. People tend to confuse the two. Gundam was heralded as a deconstruction of super robot anime when it was just the story that Tomino wanted to tell. Likewise Evangelion is heralded as a deconstruction of Gundam when its influences have little to do with it. Also, I've been working on a project that sounds similar to yours, though mines an outright comedy(an homage to both Battle shonen as well as the Simpsons) set in 2009 and my rocker girls trying to heal from traumatic experiences. Not the place to swap stories but I'd like to check it out
You know, in this day an age where a lot of people want superheroes to be dark and gritty and "realistic", and trying to come up with "plausible reasonable realisitic explanations" for why some of their powers work in "real life", not only seen in official work but even some fanfics and fanarts try to go above and beyond to come up with stuff like that. ESPECIALLY with Tokusatsu heroes like Power Rangers / Super Sentai who are just pure unapologetic superheroics. I am starting to get the feeling that, an actual subversive deconstruction these days would be showcasing the weird insanity of a superhero universe without actually even trying to explain what some of those oddities are. They are just what they are because they are. Maybe a quick explanation but the explanatio still makes you say "that just raises more questions" but in a good way. Something like what DOOM PATROL is doing that manages to go brutally dark and emotional while still being just so bizarre to contrast it is just beautiful to watch. Just in season 3 we hve in one episode a very heartfelt goodbye between 2 characters with a very complicated pseudo father-daughter like relationship, in the context on the pseudo father figure being a barely alive head that talks through a mechanical speaker and said daughter figure and her friends, being currently a zombie. and said hearfelt apology also involving the father figure letting her daughter figure to eat him (in the show's universe, zombies get cured by eating brains, hence why they want to eat them).
Same thing with modern art "Oh this piece is deconstructing the concept of traditional art... Again" it kind of lost its impact when you do it for the 300th time
Zambot 3 is a deconstruction of super sentai and super robots. It's basically saying that superheroics against alien races is a glorification of genocide. Meanwhile, super robots are treated by the series as child soldiering.
I like to share my take on superhero medium with an analogy I’ve found in Whispers of the Heart. The real world is like a geode, it’s rough and tough and will hurt you all the time. But inside, there are treasures that are worth protecting. And they’re called compassion
There have been soo much instances of "deconstruction" that makes everything soo mean spirited that when you see Super Heroes do and be super heroes it's refreshing.
I have an idea for a deconstruction of such deconstruction heroes. Let’s call it “Villain Hunter”. The basic concept is that a lot of superheroes (not all of them, but a large number of) would die while either saving the world/people or just fighting their villains. That would result in a high raging of villainy and crime, and so the protagonist of the story would become a new hero, a titularly Villain Hunter. Before becoming a hero they were a regular person who loved superheroes and admired them, who was always inspired by them to do good deeds. And now that most of them are gone, they must also become a hero, to protect the innocent. The villains would be massive jerks, mocking the heroes, either saying that they were naive idiots and mocking their moralities or accusing them of being frauds who were secretly evil bastards, because “anyone with superpowers would be a bastard”. The protagonist in turn would mock the villains and their cynical views, saying something along the lines “just because YOU would be a villain if you got superpowers, doesn’t mean OTHERS would be too”. They’d be fighting villains with the attitude similar to Punisher or Red Hood, except they wouldn’t kill the villains, but rather handle them to authorities. Because they’re still inspired by heroes and share their beliefs that “you can solve your problems without senseless killing”.
Now that's seem like an good superhero deconstruction story and i wish it was real. If it was real, it would be everyone's favorite superheroes comics in history of favorite superheroes comics.
@@williammorahan4907 plus, there is a reason these deconstructions like “The Boys” or “Marshal Law” exist. And I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t really like a comic that makes fun of things they enjoy, similar to how superhero fans don’t really enjoy their favourite characters and comic books being ridiculed.
I savored Travis Langley, a psychologist, taking Arkham to task in his analysis of Batman and his world in his book. Great White Shark is the best symbol of the damage that place does.
I like City if Heroes’ answer to the Superhero lethal force dilemma - Statesman refuses to let any of his teammates kill, it’s not just morality, it’s P.R., no one would trust them if they knew they casually used lethal force, Manticore is eager to kill criminals but doesn’t due to party cohesion, and Sister Psyche’ doesn’t kill humans, but she does kill Nazis because she doesn’t consider them human. Look superhero deconstruction can work, as shown above, but not when it is solely to be edgy. If you are not willing to entertain existentialism, philosophy or pragmatism, then don’t bother trying to take apart previous characterization. No one wants to see their favorite paragons go psycho just cause you want to get a rise out of people. (cough), (cough), Frank Miller, (cough), (cough).
As much as I like deconstructions, I'm sick of them in comic books. Especially when it makes me feel guilty for enjoying them. I just want my escapism, damnit!
@@williammorahan4907 Then explain why Flash Gordon is an Aryan superman leading a race war against Asian tyrants who are out to takeover the white man's world? Sorry there bucko, but evil races are quite prevalent in escapist media. A la vampires are all evil fits this trope. But then again, Dracula is a racist depiction of Romani and Eastern Europeans, as Angelo-Saxxon peoples had thought of themselves as superior to them at the time of the book's writing. Not to mention it is a fear of queerphobia or to use the umbrella term for it, Heterosexist.
ASBaR could have worked if the pitch was of a "gretty" Batman learning that acting like a violent loon makes his job worse so he acts kinder and finds he's now effective.
@@DinoDave150 new frontier probably came up with some of the best explanations for why batman has robin as a protege without making it look too "child soldier" The animated series young justice too and even LEGO Batman movie (at first a selfish reason, but learns to love robin as his son)
It's weird how Wonder Woman 1984 isn't even a "deconstruction" but it suffers from the same flaws as some of the stuff mentioned here like superheroes not doing anything heroic.
Man of Steel isn't even close to a deconstruction, but a reinforcement of Superman. Deconstructionism in superheroism is designed to point out the many problematic elements in superheroes. For example, if you trace their origins back to Tarzan and John Carter, who were by design in favour of Social Darwinism and white supremacy. Now they aren't saying that one should enjoy superheroes, they are saying that one should address and acknowledge the background behind the works. Case in point, it's about point out the problem and not finding a resolution.
@@CosmoShidan Honestly, I don't really care about this stuff anymore. To me, deconstructions are just a way for pretentious overthinkers to sound way smarter than they actually are. Deconstructions can still be good but like any good story, they need to stand on their own first. For example Die Hard can be a considered a deconstruction of stuff like Commando and the Rambo sequels but Die Hard is an actual good movie first and foremost. Predator can be considered a deconstruction of maculinity but Predator is actually a good movie first and foremost.
@@civilwarfare101 Die Hard is a straight up action flick; it goes against its original source material, in which it has an anti-corporate message. Plus Rambo, or First Blood in particular, is suppose to be anti-war film, but toward the end, it ends up contradicting its source material as well. It does this by blaming hippies implicitly for losing the Vietnam war. While Predator is metaphorical, insofar as it points to Dutch having killed more people that the alien, it's nothing but a paper-thin plot which glorifies military machismo, and possible xenophobia. BTW, deconstructions are suppose to point out the problem, not give a resolution.
I been known to dislike and even in many cases disagree with Linkara a lot on his views but holy hell do these clips actually prove he can be right on the money sometimes, I am sick of deconstructionism in comics.
I think the problem is less the concept - it’s more that people keep doing the same thing over and over - I’d love a series that both deconstructions and reconstructions varies tropes while also serving as a meta commentary on both mainstream comics and stories like Watchman and The Boys, (Among others).
@@williammorahan4907 It has come to my sudden attention that upon writing this midway through that I sound standoffish in this response, keep in mind that is it not my intent first and foremost so please do not read it as such: For me, it literally is the concept. Not because it is annoying per-se but because it's overuse has lead to constant deconstruction that ultimately is lazy and has lead to it going from meta commentary; to blatant laziness as it is the modern comic writers' go to for creating "artistic and intellectual" stories, and the best way to let the concept be fresh again is to stop doing it; it has gotten so bad that some people refuse to believe that even the actual Superman cannot be written well any other way, otherwise he is boring! What makes it worse is that in modern comics; deconstruction happens before we even get the chance to see it get built up from the get go! I just want deconstructionism and subversion to just take a break in comics at this point; it's why Man of Steel for instance did not work as a deconstruction because it wasn't built up to begin with! (Yes, I know Linkara doesn't like it either, and I will get to that.) As for Linkara; well there is no better way tp explain it than I simply disagree with his criticism philosophy; take for example about how I feel he is harsh on Rob Liefeld; I don't like the guy personally (I wanna make that clear, I got blocked by him on all social media for calling out his BS) but the man has wrote some decent and entertaining comics at the very least; they are dumb but fun and that's really all there is to it. Truth is; he never really needed to devote an entire longform multipart series trying to review the comic as it was ultimately just a dumb story that basically is about "Superheroes as celebrities!" as admitted by himself. Let me put it to you this way; if I judged Robert E. Howard's Conan stories; pulp adventure stories that ultimately are just that, but unapologetic about it; the same way I judged the Illiad: a story with a lot of metaphorical subtext in nearly every line of text and said something like: "Robert E. Howard's Conan is a shallow and dumb story that doesn't do the concept and idea of a less than altruistic hero in a savage warlike world justice, at least not as solidly as say The Illiad which is a much better story I would say." How much of a prudish snob would I sound like? In fact I would go as far to say how much of a jerk would I sound like? He has a habit of constantly not judging art for what it is which is interesting considering many of his Channel Awesome comrades back in the day such as Nostalgia Critic and even Spoony did so too; but in Linkara's case he doesn't judge it like that! n the past.
What makes it worse is this extends into his need to judge every piece of work including golden age comics which were set for the standards of the time for example is all sorts of wrong as many of that is suspect to his own work too; which only then would he dare suggest you judge work for the time for when they are, which begs the question; does Frank Miller deserve similar leeway for Holy Terror, a comic he himself has largely disowned!?
I think the different approaches for Marvel and DC vary but what makes both their heroes appealing. DC is the paragons, they're meant to be better and show us the way. Marvel is meant to be the heroes are like us, they aren't perfect and they will fuck up but they'll always try to be better. Of course bad writing can fuck this up badly (DC's new 52 and Marvel's love of hero vs hero) but at the core this is what makes them heroes. They want to do good and even if they fail, at least they'll try and keep trying to be better
Heck, if i was in-charge of Marvel Comics, i would ended the whole obsession of hero vs. hero story and not doing massive crossovers and just simply tell good stories for new generation readers and, for the big one, i would possibly forced the staff at Marvel to reboot their mainstream universe so writers can tell fresh new stories for classic characters and maybe an another imprint universe similar to Ultimate Marvel, but minus the edgy outlook, and made it for teens and preteens fans.
7:25 - The thing about the 'one bad day' line that makes it truly ominous is that even though Batman hasn't had that bad day yet it doesn't guarantee that he won't. It's a lingering possibility that always exists with a character like Batman, because it's the truth. One bad day can change everything about his character. But something like that happening would have to be a major climactic point in a character's journey. You couldn't just have that happen for shock value and then have the character's story go on for another twenty years. If it happened, it has to mean the story is coming close to a final conclusion. If the story keeps going after that, then of course you're going to have people call it out, and rightly so.
@@ajdynon I'm talking about the One Bad Day that either makes an otherwise good person into a villain, or makes them do things they would normally be dead set against.
The Batman Who Laughs origin actually gave a good reason for why Batman killing Joker is a bad idea regardless as the death of the Joker in the universe that The Batman Who Laughs originated in produced a chemical that essentially turned Batman into an even more dangerous version of the Joker. Its actually a good explanation against killing Joker for people who are for or okay with Batman killing the Joker. Additionally some people fail to realize what killing the Joker would mean as if he does it once, he could do it again as killing someone who has hurt your friends and family is easy, the fact that Batman has the mental fortitude to avoid killing the Joker especially after all he's done is amazing and is an admirable trait for a hero (sure it may not be realistic, but so is the idea of a rich businessman wearing a bat costume to fight crime as a vigilante in a world where aliens, magic, gods, and Amazons exist).
There are multiple stories in which someone kills the Joker, and he gets the last laugh by either corrupting them, or ruining their life via his death. “Batman Dracula”, “Injustice Year One”, “The Nail”, all of these are stories are instances where the Joker’s death marks the turning point where everything goes from bad, to total s***storm. I’d like to give a special mention to “The Nail”, since, in this world where Superman was late in answering the call to heroism, Batman didn’t go bad from killing the Joker, but the act in question ruined the Justice League, and caused a domino effect that ended with Jimmy Olsen dead, and Batman quitting the JL by the time the story ends. All of that, caused by killing that clown in an act of vigilantism.
@@Nameless-ln5mr Let’s not forget that in Kingdom Come, Joker’s summary execution results in a series of events that lead to the death of 1 million people in Kansas, and eventually a battle that results in approximately more than half of the world’s current metahuman population being killed as well. Even if it was all indirectly. Case in point - The Joker is actually *FAR* more dangerous dead then he is alive.
I think if villains like the Joker existed IRL, they'd have been shot by the cops a long time ago, or been executed. Most of his crimes are enough to qualify as terrorism!
He'd only have been shot if he were a POC. If he were white (which I presume he is in most if not all incarnations - even Joaquin Phoenix, a latino, is presented as white -), he'd have a Burger King, then a slap on the wrist or two years with a year parole. Because MuriKKKa.
supervillains were created to be opposites of superheroes. Deconstructing them to the extreme or reversing the roles undoes all of that. Not saying everything should be so black and white. But why try so hard to undo what works?
Supervillains deconstruction doesn't necessarily mean turning them good. It means that there are hidden meanings in their villainy as to why their evil plans do not work. Megamind deconstructs the titular villain by showing that he does whatever he does because he's obsessed with fighting the Superman analogue. When the superhero's declared dead, he no longer has a purpose in life. He's so desperate that he tries to create a new nemesis out of a random delivery guy to fight with. While Megamind eventually becomes a "hero" by stopping the said delivery guy, It's not exactly reversing the role because it's damage limitation rather than a genuine heroic. Deconstruction only expanded the supervillain concept into places people did not expect it to be.
@@manat31790 in fact Megamind is a deconstruction of the supervillain as a whole, as well as the fine line between hero and villain without going overly edgy with it. We see that while Megamind enjoys being a supervillain for the msot part, it leaves him unfulfilled and lonely, and he finds happiness when he becomes a hero, because really that's the kind of life he really always wanted but society denied him for the longest time. Meanwhile we get Tighten, who findds villainy more fulfilliling because he's ultimately a simple minded, selfish person who cares more instant gratification and personal enjoyment over anything deeper. And then there's Metro man, a man who was the hero of the city who got everything (popularity, good looks, a well paying job, rich parents etc) an was given special treatment by everyone, but the deconstruction comes when it turns out none of that made him happy or fulfilled, and while he wasn't a HERO deep down (as that was a role put upon him by others' expectations), he wasn't EVIL, just aLITTLE bit selfish, but was the only one who saw Megamind's potential for good due to fighting him so long. went ona tangent there sorry.
Everyone in this comment section: *talks about the video as well as mentioning their own personal feelings of the subject* Me: … Why hasn’t Linkara done a review of Squadron Supreme yet?
Because he's declared legally insane in which by law doesn't consider him a true criminal for not being responsible for his actions due to his mental state. That's why he's always sent to a mental asylum instead of a state prison.
@@SHINOBI-03 Which is weird since he doesn't meet the legal definition of insanity. Then again, comic book law is totally different from the real world and needs to suit the needs of a wider narrative and plot.
I've never put the blame on Batman for not killing the Joker. I've ALWAYS put the blame on "random cop no 84" for not putting three rounds between the Joker's eyes mid transport to Arkham.
The problem with these “deconstructions” is that they don’t have a clue what the word means. They think deconstruction is the same as taking a recking ball to a building but in reality it’s a soldier taking apart his weapon to know how it works & then rebuild it (one is just destroying something the other is actual analysis of the parts of a whole)
Deconstruction is about pointing out the problem and not necessarily resolving it. It's a method of weeding out flaws in a work, while problem-solving is a methodology for fixing the problems.
I do really hate the “Batman should kill the Joker or he’s an awful person” he’s not judge jury and executioner, nor should he be, now why aren’t the judges doing execution? (I know in reality they’ve tried to and it never stuck but I’m making a point cause that’s never factored into the argument)
I never understood why people are calling Batman a bad person for no killing the joker. I've seen one loser say that he should be in prison for not wanting to kill the Joker, sure the guy who stops crime at all corners should be in prison, what is gonna stop the Joker then if Batman is behind bars for not wanting to kill someone.
Funny thing, Robot Chicken made a parody of the Green Mile, where Batman decided that he wanted the Joker gone, but he refused to break his no killing rule. So, he vouched for the Joker to get the death penalty. There’s your win-win solution! The Joker is dead, and Batman doesn’t betray his oath! And if the madman tries to get away via insanity pleas, he was once called “super-sane,” so there’s your counter argument.
because its easier to forget the court justice system exists and jsut blame batman for everything, becaus eit doesn't require actually thinking about the story or character and just think in terms of brutal simplicity
Linkara fails to see that his view of superbeings is that it is binary, and that superheroes are like the KKK, in that they are vigilantes who practice extrajudicial punishment without limit, making them a lynch mob.
@@tylerleach8796 Once again, you prove how anti-intellectual by not actually reading what I mean. All I'm pointing out is how superheroes tend to resemble lynch mobs like the KKK.
To be fair to the Batman theme, it wasn't previously thought about because the Joker wasn't this genuinely scary destructive monster, he was just another villain, a good one, but one more. Right now, thanks to the damn wave of edgy writers, Joker is too dangerous to be left alive, the death penalty would be appropriate, and regarding Batman, they also changed it because previously his reasons were "I don't kill because I think people is capable of changing, and I believe in second chances. Now, they turned Batman into a closet sociopath saying "If I kill, I'll kill again because I know myself." Dude, wtf? THAT'S NOT BATMAN! IT'S GARTH ENNIS MAKING A CHEAP COSPLAY!
If you look back to Watchmen, Rorschach is literally Batman if he existed in the real world; a sociopathic, monomaniacal, vigilante who resorts to whatever means to take down "crime".
@@tylerleach8796 I meant that to literally point out that Alan Moore is an example of "edgy" writing. Then again, Mark Millar is more of an edgelord. At least Garth Ennis has a point in that he comments on how shitty the Bush administration was, and predated the Jan. 6 coup attempt at the end of the Boys.
Everything about this video is honestly great. The ability to still be good even with incredible power. That having a little power fantasy isn't that bad. Cynical comic writers ignoring the fact that characters with superpowers doing abominable things are *Super-villains.* The well explained reason why Batman doesn't kill and the fact that Joker is a fictional character that writers keep giving a higher and higher body count with more and more gruesome acts leading to people calling out Batman's rule. I know that Louis isn't an entirely perfect person. Not taking Oneyplays impressions well and having lots of cringe jokes and bits in his videos, but it's his understanding and respect for this craft that's still enduring all these years later.
But what of supervillains we can admire because they are fighting for actual change? Say we take Flag-Smasher, an anarchist who is trying to eliminate nationalism and government? Or even the Batman villain Anarky? The latter of whom is devoted to saving the environment and challenging the conditions of the poor and destitute? Supervillains can have a cause worth fighting for. Hence we have noble villains or rather, called villains because society has deemed them such despite their cause. But then you have Magneto, who's probably right that humans and mutantkind will not mesh well together?
@@CosmoShidan or you know…they’re called villains because they’re willing to kill innocent people and commit horrid actions to achieve those goals? Just a thought…
@@tylerleach8796 That's another thing, Marvel's ULTIMATUM red-baited the Black Panther Party for self-defense if you look closely at their uniforms or how Flag-smasher has red eyes which is to indicate he's a far-leftist, which is coding all anarchists as evil, which is far from the truth, as most are pacifist. Also, Batman sure has a great track record of decreasing the criminal population in Blackgate and Arkham.
@@CosmoShidan um...what? On both those points. Batman DOES try to reform criminals...all the time. And in the case of basic henchmen, he DOES reform them and get them on track for a better life ALL THE TIME. Bruce Wayne constantly uses his money to help Gotham City, even establishing an entire section of the city to help those without homes and have nowhere else to go, run by his own childhood therapist.
There's a difference between analyzing and questioning the symbols, icons, heroes, and whatever else in culture we enjoy to gain a better understanding, and then there's throwing a temper tantrum about having to write superhero comics for years because you're a loser nerd with the charisma of a misanthrope. While I'm not a big comic guy, I do agree with Linkara's take on this sorta thing. Would honestly take a thousand MCU movies than hear these kinds of writers complain about their jobs.
0:00 "No one wants to read that story here." The common nature of superhero deconstructions and how they can be good and bad (All-Star Batman And Robin issue 7) 1:43 "...in a world made of cardboard..." The misconception about Superman and Linkara's deconstruction of superheroes (Action Comics issue 775) 3:35 "Dude, can you tone it down a bit?" A rant about the repeated qualities of superhero "deconstructions" (Pinhead vs Marshall Law) 4:59 "The unbreakable man" A discussion about why Batman's morality matters to both us and to himself (Batman: Hush)
According to Chris Gavaler, superheroes with their costume designs, including the secret identiy, vow to protect the "innocent", the symbols on their chests, and vigalante actions that go above the law originate from the novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon.
@@CosmoShidan Oh please, his claims are fucking moronic. The concept of a superhero having colorful costumes, protecting innocent people, and having symbols on their chest was inspired by stories of old westerns and characters like Zorro as well as ancient stories about Demigods like Heracles, Persues, and many more characters from old mythology who stand up against evil and protected innocent people. Some would say that they were also based on the Bald Knobbers. Just because one idiot looked at a terrible novel written by the KKK and used buzzwords to make themselves look like the good guys does not mean that superheroes were inspired by the KKK.
@@HenryLouis21 Those characters of Greek mythology though, they are proto-fascist in that they would eventually become kings or gods, in how they are more dominating and were warriors, especially Hercules in how he killed a farmer for beating him at gathering the most shrubs. In fact, those stories were about why the rulers should have power. Old westerns btw, are stories that reinforce white supremacy in how the white man tamed a "wild land" that was uninhabited and "civilized". This dehumanizes the inhabitants who already tamed and civilized the land to begin with, and that is the native Americans. And I'm sorry, but the fact that the KKK wear emblems on their chests, wear costumes to conceal their identities, and participated in vigilante activities during prohibition, (such as beating bootlegers, adulterers, and raiding saloons) and well into the depression era is quite telling. Especially as prohibition and the great depression had much to do with the superhero's development. They did this in the name of "saving" protestant America. Another analog is how according to Galaver, the fictional suphero registration acts in superhero stories are actually based on the anti-KKK registration acts.
@@CosmoShidan So I’m guessing you’d support Tony’s side in Civil War. The side that would have people arrested if they don’t tow the line and even got Goliath (a black superhero, mind you) killed by a clone of Thor. Do you have self-awareness?
A detail Linkara didn't include in the "deconstructions" like Marshal Law so I'm guessing he didn't think of it at the time. Those kinds of stories make supervillains who supposedly more realistic takes on superheroes into conservative Christians, or Christians for the sake of making them hypocrites. Or both in Marshal Law's case. These says nothing about the superhero genre since superheroes who are religious in any shape or form are the exception rather than the rule. The only reason these comics include it is because the writers have a low opinion of religion so it's a power fantasy for the writers to have their self insert characters kill Christians. This is especially laughable with Marshal Law since it's supposedly a deconstruction of power fantasies but the more the comic goes on the more it's clear it's a blatant power fantasy for Pat Mills. If you actually do some research on the iconic comic creators you realize a number of them were Jews. So that just make satirizing Superman or Captain America by making stand ins for them Christians, while making being Christian a negative trait, just shows that the people working on said satires aren't qualified to write about the superhero genre in the first place.
What makes it even sadder is that Captain America is actually a Christian in the books, same for Nightcrawler and Daredevil. I actually am a huge fan of Nightcrawler for that reason; as a young Christian growing up watching superhero cartoons, the X-Men episode featuring him made me happy to see a superhero who had the same faith I do.
If you were to look at Rick Veitch's Maximortal, he retells the creation of Superman by Siegel and Shuster, and how originally the character was an anti-establishment hero. But then he ended up getting sucked up by corporate mandates to keep the character the same, while cranking out the same story again and again, while frustrating the creative duo to never allow them to write the stories they wanted. This is especially when WWII broke out, and Superman was reduced to a mere wartime propaganda cartoon, encouraging youngsters to buy warbonds and stamps and recycle paper. Hence, whereas Superman once stood against the establishment, he ended up playing its fiddle.
@@CosmoShidan That is an interesting look at the character's history but I don't see why it's relevant to anything I just said. Especially since superheroes aren't the only genre that suffers from that so I don't see why they get singled out for it. Judge Dredd started off as an anti-authoritarian satire that frequently plays itself completely seriously with Dredd saving his city from much worse threats. The character likely wouldn't have last as long otherwise. The Boys' TV series is loaded with product placement despite its anti-capitalism satire. Marshal Law threw its anti-military satire out the window a few stories in to make fun of WWII comics, and eventually even discarded its "superheroes are bad" message because the Mills and O'Neil had a comic that made money and were coming up with more ways to keep it going. Really dark cynical characters are just as prone to being milked for cash as superheroes, because writers need to make money. People just pick on the superhero genre for jokes about sell outs because they are obvious targets given they are heroes. It's the same reason why Mickey Mouse gets mocked as a metaphor for Disney's unethical policies, because he's supposed to be a cute innocent character, but Bugs Bunny doesn't get used a metaphor for amoral actions by Warner Bros.
@@dragonstormx "That is an interesting look at the character's history but I don't see why it's relevant to anything I just said. Especially since superheroes aren't the only genre that suffers from that so I don't see why they get singled out for it." Superheroes get called out because their opponents, when they are non-supervillains, are usually bank robbers or muggers, but the thing about taking on such enemies, is that it doesn't take into account that in the real world, such people commit such crimes out of desperation caused by poverty. Even when it comes to fighting local gangs, the same thing applies. So what it boils down to is, that superheroes are defenders of the status quo and private property in the means of production much like police. "The Boys' TV series is loaded with product placement despite its anti-capitalism satire." The thing about anti-capitalism satire is that, sponsors don't realize that they are ones being called out on, and assume it's parody, which they confuse the two. Take MS Gundam 0079, it was a superhero robot satire, with an anti-capitalist message, which the sponsors didn't catch, and still haven't after over 40 years. "Judge Dredd started off as an anti-authoritarian satire that frequently plays itself completely seriously with Dredd saving his city from much worse threats. The character likely wouldn't have last as long otherwise." That's half right. Dredd is anti-authoritarian, but the threats, such as the robot tyrant Call-Me-Kenneth, in the first story arc, where millions Megacity-01 die happened because of Judge Dredd and the Judges themselves. I.e. the Judges are the cause of the threats. "Marshal Law threw its anti-military satire out the window a few stories in to make fun of WWII comics, and eventually even discarded its "superheroes are bad" message because the Mills and O'Neil had a comic that made money and were coming up with more ways to keep it going." Mills satirized WWII comics for their casual racism and jingoism. All the while, WWII comics made the war look like it was good vs evil, when that wasn't the case. The allies were fascistic as they were colonialist, such as how they turned a blind eye to the Holocaust by not bombing the gas chambers because they wanted the Nazis to destroy their own labor force to slow them down. "Really dark cynical characters are just as prone to being milked for cash as superheroes, because writers need to make money. People just pick on the superhero genre for jokes about sell outs because they are obvious targets given they are heroes. It's the same reason why Mickey Mouse gets mocked as a metaphor for Disney's unethical policies, because he's supposed to be a cute innocent character, but Bugs Bunny doesn't get used a metaphor for amoral actions by Warner Bros." They get milked because of copyright, and the sponsors who own the Intellectual Property, have no idea of the meanings behind the satirical characters, such as Watchmen. The creators are attacking superheroes because they accuse them of being fascist because when they fight "criminals" per se, it's because they are fighting the symptoms of crime and not the cause of the disease of crime. Hence, as I said above, they are fascistic in this sense. BTW, Micky Mouse and Bugs Bunny are minstrels or that they are a form of cultural appropriation of the image of African-Americans, and being made into stereotypes. E. g. the exggerated eyes and mouths are akin to blackface.
@CosmoShidan "Superheroes get called out because their opponents, when they are non-supervillains, are usually bank robbers or muggers, but the thing about taking on such enemies, is that it doesn't take into account that in the real world, such people commit such crimes out of desperation caused by poverty. Even when it comes to fighting local gangs, the same thing applies. So what it boils down to is, that superheroes are defenders of the status quo and private property in the means of production much like police." That is why we have writers trying to focus on them doing more than that. It's not universal since not every writer is able to handle those issues, just like not every writer who tries to satirize the comment on the genre is qualified, mainly Garth Ennis. "The thing about anti-capitalism satire is that, sponsors don't realize that they are ones being called out on, and assume it's parody, which they confuse the two. Take MS Gundam 0079, it was a superhero robot satire, with an anti-capitalist message, which the sponsors didn't catch, and still haven't after over 40 years." The Boys was green light by Amazon for the purpose of making money. They don't care what the show is about as long as it makes money. They have merchandise based on the show's protagonists. This and you statements about Superman just go to show that anything can adopted to make money. The same applies to Gundam. The franchise, which is NOT a satire of the super robot genre by the way since it presents giant robots as awesome. It depicted piloting giant robots are a harsh experience which was actually nothing new for the genre, Mazinger Z, the series the popularized the genre also did that, but I digress. Gundam has survived far longer than it looked like it was going to do when it first aired due to corporate sponsors, which allowed its creator to make a sequel that is widely regarded by fans and critics to be superior to the original series. In any case The Boys only throws its criticism of capitalism at stand ins for superheroes who are antagonists. The comic and show have a stand in for the Punisher who is sparred from those criticisms despite also being a character Marvel uses to make money. Replace Billy's line about what Vought uses to sell superheroes when he talks about "amusement parks" with "video games" and you have a summery of what Marvel has used the Punisher to sell. Back on the subject of Gundam, much as I like Gundam I do also have to point out that it is one of the worst cases of franchise commenting on the horrors of war while still making war look cool thanks to all of its flashy battle scenes. It's an almost unavoidable issue when it comes to making a war story. "That's half right. Dredd is anti-authoritarian, but the threats, such as the robot tyrant Call-Me-Kenneth, in the first story arc, where millions Megacity-01 die happened because of Judge Dredd and the Judges themselves. I.e. the Judges are the cause of the threats." That still undermines the message when Megacity was been saved dozens of times by a man who was created to be a perfect Judge. Plus Pat Mills stated that Judge Dredd is supposed to be a villain. Now creators aren't always the be all and end all of what direction to take their creations. All the same, Dredd was created to be a thug who enforced the will of a fascist regime. Unless he's going to overthrow the regime in question he hardly sounds like the type of character who writers should be having save the day or saying he has a compassionate side. "Mills satirized WWII comics for their casual racism and jingoism. All the while, WWII comics made the war look like it was good vs evil, when that wasn't the case. The allies were fascistic as they were colonialist, such as how they turned a blind eye to the Holocaust by not bombing the gas chambers because they wanted the Nazis to destroy their own labor force to slow them down." Mills acted like he was commenting on something shocking. Almost anybody who is aware of popular culture from the 1940s, or any kind of older story, is going to be aware of the racism or sexism from that era or past eras. Mills was commenting on something that wasn't relevant. Most characters created in that era are C-listers at best, the ones who did survive have had their values updated to reflect the times so again what the comic was commenting on wasn't relevant. If we took this attitude of condemning everything that has some values that haven't aged well then we would condemn everything, including Watchmen. The comic's only confirmed homosexuals die and we have a woman in a romantic relationship with a man who raped her. The latter would definitely not fly today. Marshal Law is even worse. The comic's desire to shock audiences means it relies heavily on Women In Refrigerators, often with them getting raped or killed in a manner that is sexualized. Our opening story had Public Spirit try to kill his wife, and what she went through is presented as less important than Marshal Law's vendetta with him. On top of her getting murdered we also saw Law's girlfriend killed, and in later brought back in a fanservice style outfit where her cheating on her boyfriend with another man is used as a sign of her being evil. The comic's desire to shock the audience results in a ton of immature and super sexist moments. And Mills did throw his anti-army satire out the window. We saw the Jesus Society of America attacked by WWII veterans who despised them with the comic framing WWII comic superheroes as a disgrace to the people who fought and died in the war. Except superhero comics were actually popular with the US army servicemen so he didn't know he was talking about. Hell Mills even threw undermined Marshal Law's own anti-superhero satire when he made a comic that had Law on the side of the superheroes against Xenomorph stand ins. Then in the final comic he threw the satire out the window altogether in a crossover with Savage Dragon. This was just a full blown superhero comic that said Marshal Law is a good person at heart. Not that I fault Mills as a person for this. It was just a comic and this wasn't a good time in the comic industry. He did need to make money. I pointed out before how depicting superheroes as fundamentalist Christians isn't relevant to the genre. Since you ignored it, I will point that again. Superheroes who are religious in any shape or form are the exception tot he rule, even back in the 1940s. Recall that Watchmen depict any of its villains as fundamentalist Christians because Alan Moore knew that had nothing to do with the genre. Mills didn't know that and didn't care. Depicting superheroes as Christians was just something Mills did as a power fantasy where he had his atheist protagonist killing them. It was dumb when Mills depicted his Superman stand in as a Christian for the purpose of being a hypocrite and it was dumb when he did with Golden Age characters since it creates an undertone that being religious makes someone a villain. Marshal Law's satire of Golden Age comics also wrote the characters as homophobic despite also depicting homosexuals as rapists.
@@williammorahan4907 That's not how I would read Animorphs, since the story is about a group of kids who have been thrust into a gurrilla war with an alien invasion by infiltration. Probably the best comparison is Earth: Final Conflict (at least as far as its first season is concerned). Not to mention that the kids have to face the horrors of war...
The idea that our heroes and protectors should forego due process and be allowed to kill the bad guys when they personally judge it to be a necessity is how we in the United States got to the point where police officers can shoot unarmed civilians with disgustingly little (if any) consequences.
Those can still be used as tools to gain power. We call that soft power in international relations, and it's what is safe to say, that superheroes use them.
People always talk about the show as if it's the second coming, like "THIS'll put the MCU in its place!" But honestly? It isn’t any less capitalistic or cynical than the things it claims to satirise.
@@tolchok89 Here's the thing, it's either the studio fails to take notice of the anti-capitalist themes or that they don't care. I will have to point out that claiming hypocrisy can also fall into the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. It's related to the ad hominen fallacy, which is a personal attack on the character of the arguer, rather than the argument. In the case of the Boys, it's an attack on the integrity of the creators, rather than dealing with the argument. In any case, to remedy the problem with superheroes as fascists/cops, you have to make the cops, landlords, billionaires, military brass, and politicians the bad guys. In other words, reverse the narrative.
@@CosmoShidan And I’m willing to bet that said millionaires, landlords, cops, would have to be exclusively white. Also, aren’t you strawmanning here now too?
@@carbootstudios2459Because the oppressors are always white people. I wonder what CosmoShidan would think of Hotel Rwanda and Last King of Scotland - assuming he doesn’t just flat out refuse to acknowledge their existence because he knows they would put huge holes in his arguments about tyranny and fascism always being Caucasian…..
This is one of the things I love about Linkara. Even though the character is presented as a bit of an asshole sometimes or a know-it-all, he absolutely believes that people are naturally good. That's why he loves comics and superheroes. It is shown in his line "People can be and *are* kind. So why wouldn't someone with incredible abilities be kind too?"
To answer the question, because people with power are always the bad guys; kind-hearted people with power exist only in fantasy and divorces the reality of what people with power are actually like. In fact, that's the point Alan Moore's been arguing for 40 years in Watchmen. Now the question to ask is, if people are "naturally good" then whence commeth evil? Also, it turns out that the design of superhero costumes comes from the KKK, and were an attempt by comics creators in the 1930s to subvert the symbolism they represented according to superhero scholar Chris Gavaler. Though it was more of a liberal, social crusade representing the New Deal, which takes a welfare stance, but anti-communist one.
@@tylerleach8796 You still can't read? Here's a quote by comics historian Michael Chabon in the 2003 documentary, Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked, which summarizes what I just said earlier: "There was a sort of irony in the fact that these [superhero] characters - many of whom in that period, the Golden Age, had been evolved to fight the Nazis - were themselves very much in the Nazi ideal. The idea that you can solve problems through physical strength, by being stronger and more dominant and more powerful - that is fascism. I mean, that's it, that's the essence of fascism. I don't think the creators of the superheroes or the kids who were reading them at the time were the slightest bit aware of it." -Michael Chabon
I gotta say I enjoy seeing these moments showing how hard it is for the paragons to keep their morals like how Batman was tempted to kill Joker. A Superman line I don't completely remember exactly when it was said (I think it was when Manchester Black faked killing Lois Lane) encapsulates that thought, going something like, "I'm not that man. God I wish I was now, but I'm not."
Even though it’s not comicbook-based or even really about a true superhero debatably, the best hero deconstruction I’ve ever seen in media is in the Matrix franchise especially in Matrix Reloaded during the Architect scene when Neo finds out the true purpose of “The One” and he realizes the difference between what he’s supposed to do as The One vs what he needs to do with his abilities that no previous “One” has done before.
@@williammorahan4907 The hero's journey is also a sexist, racist, and classist work of douche baggery. This is especially when Joe Campbell claims in the book, The Hero with A Thousand Faces that if a hero fears death, then they are doomed to failure. That sounds more like fear of making mistakes and not wanting to learn from them and being very fascist as well.
@@CosmoShidan None off that makes as any sort of sense *at all.* And The Matrix is more of deconstruction of The Hero’s Journey than a “reinforcement” of it.
@@williammorahan4907 Oh? I won't spell everything out to you when I already have. I will suggest that you check out my playlist here on why the hero's journey has its limits: ua-cam.com/video/5nOE7tBnYaU/v-deo.html
@@tylerleach8796 Actually at the end of the series, once the 7 have been defeated and Billy Butcher's plans go up in smoke, the 7's replacements resemble the KKK, which inspired the design for superheroes in the 1930s.
I don't the idea of batman killing is necessarily a bad thing, if you acknowledge that in doing so it would be pretty much a AU and not the 'prime batman'. I also just think it kind of....makes things too easy, maybe....from a story structure perspective? Like if you have a batman who kills, then i'm pretty much going to be wondering why he hasn't killed the villain already in almost like every panel unless you write out a very convincing situation.
precisely why most writers give superheroes a code against wanton murder usually. In universe its because they're paragons who must not cross a line if they don't want all humanity to turn against them and distrust them, out of universe its so the writer doesn't just make it easy and lose all suspene (as well as lose out on reusing a popular or potentially popular character)
I think I heard of a comic where the straight up Silver Age Righteous Hero called out his writer trying to make him "dark, edgy and more realistic" by saying he actually LIKES being a straight forward goody-two shoes as one would put it and pretty much "deconstructed" the concept of making characters "the bad kind of deconstruction!" Truthfully I enjoyed that as not everything has to be dark and edgy (As a batman fan, and Shadow the Hedgehog fan as well; I'm getting tired of the mindset that both characters are edge lords, just cause EDGE LORDS pushed stereotyping these's character's as such or made their own characters "too similar to them!" And idiots went with the simple "guess their edge lords cause Edge Lords love em!). There must be balance, or you'll get "too dark/bleak, stopped caring!" (this is why COMEDY and/or ROMANCE exist in dark stories! If you keep scaring your audience 24/7 throughout the horror movie without a break in the horror, they're minds will catch on to what your doing and they'll be on guard, ruining the horror and experience as they've become ACCEPTING of what comes next! You can indeed BORE someone if your story doesn't know when to pace out it's main attraction and put other attraction around it! Like if you have an amusement park with nothing but roller coasters! the first three will be fun, but then a customer will want to do something different then roller coaster and if you don't have it, they'll become bored with the place and go elsewhere). Someone said it best that people need to read stories like All-Star Superman to see that having straight up "Light Heroes" can be just as good as "dark ones!" (I think the reason they hate straight up heroes like Supes is because they think "nice guy=Bad/Naive Idiot" who is too ineffective at doing what needs to be done! Compassion as stated "is not a weakness!" I find those who are wise in knowing this WAY more interesting then those who think their smart, but just edgy edge lords who need to get over their middle school syndrome and grow up! I like Punisher like the next person. But I do pay attention to the details in his story and what is shown is Frank is not a good person, nor someone to emulate, his humanity is what I like about him, especially the part that makes him good is that he has standards even in his insanity and that . What I liked about the movie War Zone was Frank ending up breaking his rule against killing innocence with the fact he killed an uncover detective in his crusade, something that was realistic seeing how he has a shot first ask questions later approach which takes a stab at the concept murdering anti-heroes with such rules against innocent getting hurt are fooling themselves if they think they'll always know who's innocent and who's guilty! Punisher's issue is what I see in a lot of stories like "Law Abiding Citizen" and "Kingdom Come" where everyone roots for the murdering Hero finally putting criminals to justice.....and then regretting it later and of course taking no responsibility for enabling said heroes in the first place...just deciding it's ALL HEROES fault rather then themselves having any hand in what spawned them)
While I agree with most of what you said. Law abiding citizen was a story about a supervillain... Clay had sympathetic backstory, and you kind of understand where he's coming from but he's the villain protagonist of that movie.
@@stcsuntzucreed That's why I called him "murdering hero!" It was one thing to kill the man who raped and murdered his family! But then he killed tha man's lawyer, the judge and oh yes Jamie Foxx fellow lawyers including his protege who had nothing to do with that case just the hurt Foxx character! I actually didn't like Clay when he horribly murdered the other robber at his death sentence! Yeah he never should have been there or aiding the POS. But he didn't deserve to die horribly like what happened simply because he was an accomplice (Still found it weird and off-putting that one screw up in evidence allowed the POS not only to get away with the rape and murder but even get a deal to push the blame on his partner!) Yeah Clay was a Villain in that he was a man lashing out at everyone for not only what happened to his family, but the fact those who should have avenged them instead let the real killer go because of "circumstances" and got told to "let it go! At least one of them was going to pay with his life! (The one who was only interested in robbing Clay and getting the fuck out that is! How the fuck was that even a consolation prize?) ....and my point was you have to remember that people WITHIN the movie (that's who I was mostly referring to then those outside it LOL) were sympathizing with him, to the point they handwaved or ignored the countless innocents he killed (including them had Foxx not moved the bombs into his cell). And the best irony was He lost because he did to another man what was done to him (I'm suspecting Foxx Protege "contact" was a lover or old boyfriend of hers that was pissed off at her death and investigated him harder than everyone else! Giving Foxx the lead he needed that lead to Clay defeat). Clay is in no way ANYWHERE near Frank Castle in ever being an Anti-Hero! (Frank for all his flaws, at least keeps to a code he'll never cross....a code many writers forget about "thank you very much Secret Empire! Seriously I know they hate the Right and the fact many like Frank, but making a character act out of character is fucking retarded and idiotic! It's right up there with an alternative universe Frank Castle who became extremely anti-mutant as in CLOSE TO THE PURIFIERS/FRIENDS OF HUMANITY/REAVERS level anti-mutant cause in that universe, his family instead of being murdered by mobsters, were killed by a mutant's who's powers emerged and they were accidently killed! Seriously what is with Marvel and making every non-mutant antagonist to the Xmen be some pleb who went all Nazi on Mutant kind because an innocent mutant accidently killed their family! They forgot that Frank has a moral fiber in his body before and AFTER his family's death. He wouldn't go kill all mutants since it's an ACCIDENT! Yeah he'd not like em. But deciding their the ultimate evil like MOBSTERS! It's right up there with Bruce hating rock and roll since his dad disliked it and made it clear he didn't want it heard in the mansion right before the family left to their future death! We know Bruce is heavily scared by Thomas and Martha's deaths especially as he witnessed it first hand as a kid, but that was just stupid and I'm happy next to "Bees my God" Linkara mocked them both!) What is annoying is the idiots who supported such villainous actions never learning and making the same mistake again in the future!
@@paulman34340 Yeah, I'm not a fan of the punisher. He's fine as a character and I did enjoy Ennies' run on him, mostly because I like most Ennies' work outside superheroes. Punisher is an interesting character but something about him rubs me the wrong way and even I get what punisher is about. That's why I ocasionally say that batman killing is just a punisher in a silly hat. Punisher has a moral code, true, twisted though it may be, but there is consistency there. He creates kill zones so that innocent people don't get hurt, and he almost killed himself when he though that he did. And that's why I only consider him an interesting character not a favorite or anything similar. He's what most likely would've happened if someone saw his family gunned down in cold blood, and I like my heroes to take the higher road honestly
@@stcsuntzucreed True that! And yeah, I loved Ennies run on Punisher. But so many writers have made him about as edgelord as they made Shadow the Hedgehog (who I also love! Sad he spawned that funny but still cringe "nothing personal kid" mindset and saying LOL). I enjoyed the games....but if I wanted gruff edgelords in Marvel, I'll go with Blade!
I will say that Batman refusing to kill the Joker because of his morals does ring a little hollow for me now just because, to me, it kinda feels like Batman is putting his own bleeding conscience above doing the right thing and just ending the Joker already (someone who really does kinda deserve it in my opinion). But like Linkara said, maybe it's not Batman who should be blamed, but the systems in place that refuse to put Joker on death row for his many many crimes against humanity.
I'm genuinely shocked The Boys comic is held in such reverence as it is. It's just shock value superhero bullshit written by an angry edgelord whining about how popular superheroes are. It shocks me even moreso however that from the absolutely terrible comic we got a genuinely really good show. The Boys tv show is actually a way more interesting look at corruption of superheroes and misuse of power, and the modern day superhero culture at large with things like the MCU being a main point of parody within the show. They even give the characters actual depth and interesting plots that aren't 'OMG HE'S A RAPIST'. If you just changed the names of the main characters, the show wouldn't even resemble the comic because it's A: Better written (though implying Ennis is a writer is like implying a monkey is a scientist) and B: It actually has things to say about our culture. It's not just rape and violence in every other scene.
That's not the way I interpret the comics though. It's pretty much about how power can be patriarchal. This is especially when you look at how in the comics, Starlight's goes through a hazing ritual, which illustrates how even if women enter into power, they are still met with misogyny and sexual violence. Even Billy Butcher in the comics I see as Ennis saying that those in positions of power such as law enforcement and espionage, are no different from the corporate types the 7 represent. Another thing I can say about the comic is that, it's generally about toxic masculinity that creeps in superheroes.
@@CosmoShidan In some ways I can see where you're coming from. The messages about the misogyny and patriarchal power slant would be an interesting exploration of these issues, if Ennis hadn't also drenched his entire comic in rape and needless shock value content. I'll state right now that I think using rape is tasteless if you are just using it for a plot point, which The Boys comic does a lot. This is a topic that should be handled with care by a competent writer, preferably one who has done actual research on the psychological effects on the victim. Ennis more or less uses rape just to make a point that 'All superheroes are corrupt and evil'. Not even taking in to account that The Boys was written decades after actually competent deconstructions of comic book heroes like Kingdom Come and Watchmen were written, setting a standard for how good these kinds of stories can be, The Boys is just a bad deconstruction because it fails to say much of anything interesting. Ennis has stated his outright distaste for superhero comics, and it's so evident in The Boys. He simply takes every hero he can think of and just goes 'Well what if they were disgusting human beings?' Case and point his pastiche of X-men and Xavier in particular. If you wanted to parody X-men, there are ways to make it work. The most obvious being that despite the team supposed to be representing minorities, and hatred of mutant kind is supposed to be an allegory for discrimination, the people who are afraid of mutants kind of have a point. A bunch of people with incredible powers, a lot of them kids who don't have full control of their powers and pose a threat to themselves and the people around them, is not the same as someone hating someone because of their skin color or sexual orientation. Alternatively, and something that could be played for laughs, you could use the medium to parody the fact that, despite supposedly representing minorities, the main cast of the original X-men were all straight white men (ok Iceman did come out as gay but I don't think that was the original idea when he was created) save for Jean Grey. Instead of doing any of that, Ennis just makes the Xavier stand-in a pedophile.
@@AnkoTime He's not really against superheroes per se; Ennis was confounded at the time that superheroes were oversaturated in the medium. Plus, it could also be argued that by making superheroes an extension of power itself in the real world. Or to simply put it, they are cops with capes, and all cops are bastards in this way. BTW, doesn't Kingdom Come actually reinforce superheroes, instead of critiquing them as cops in capes? Because I think it's important to really be critical of superheroes as inherently law and order types, which entails fascism. Besides, the marvel movies and dceu don't really deconstruct superheroes, they merely reinforce them. Other than that, the way police behave in the real world, they do not see their profession as a job, but as a way of life, with conflicting duties to respect the rights of citizens such as free assembly, and to keep the peace, which entails trampling on the rights of citizens such as free assembly. As someone who's taken criminology, I can tell you that cops aren't heroes in any way; they are conflicted individuals who work a 24 hour shift, and hold a code of silence as to never sell out their own if even if they are in the wrong. Case in point, what this boils down to is, all cops are bastards, in which we can see superheroes in this way. But if Ennis is not to your liking, I recommend googling a few articles on the matter of superheroes as cops with capes: Why they won't save us: Political dispositions in the conflicts of superheroes by Woody Evens, The Avengers: The Avengers: How Superhero Comics Preserve Ruling Class Ideology by Wendy Huang, and Justice League? Depictions of Justice in Children’s Superhero Cartoons and Rotten, Vile, and Depraved! Depictions of Criminality in Superhero Cartoons both by Lisa A. Kort-Butler.
@@tylerleach8796 You know, since superheroes act above the law, they would fit Niccolo Machievalli's ideal prince or cadre of princes who rule their cities by using brute force to keep the poor from dethroning the local politicians and elites, and to keep the local politicians and elites from harming the poor, all in the name of "restoring order" much like cops. Meanwhile, the acts of "kindness" such as saving people from burning buildings, planes, saving cats from trees, and walking elderly to cross the roads, is to give the impression that they can be depended upon, so that the public doesn't have to depend on each other in solidarity, hence another method of restoring order. That's a view from the book Politics in Gotham. Also, that same book argues that superheroes like Batman, who are driven by judgicial, rather than by any form of restorative justice, is basically one of appeal to passion, and desire, rather than by reason to balance this out. It's a recommended read. Also, in a recent review by Amanja reads, about The Boys graphic novels, it notes that the "whole series is a commentary on a dense web of corruption that we can see paralleled in our own societies. Commentaries on the military industrial complex, the corruption of power and fame, and the true price of capitalism." It's also worth noting that in the same review Starlight for Starlight, "[h]er story is tragic and, although extreme, unfortunately relatable for any woman who’s ever been in a male dominated field."
Now I’m remembering an argument I got into with someone on the internet (I know, shocker), where they just spat at me every stupid bad “hot take” arguments I’ve heard before and wouldn’t accept that I didn’t agree with them and had reasons I don’t, going so far as to say it wasn’t fair I didn’t let them continue when I told them I’ve heard their arguments time and time again and was no longer interested in giving it energy
In a world of sense and logic, Joker (as well as a lot of villains the JLA arrest on a weekly basis) would have been either locked up in the deepest depths of the worst prisons imaginable, or put to death by the government with little debate. But you can't have stories like that because you need the conflict and continued battles, there needs to always be more stories to write. You can throw away some expendable characters every so often to move a point or add false tension, but you can't end big deal characters like they realistically would be, because there will always be that wall of understanding that it just can't be done.
Funny thing about the logic of just putting supervillains in prison, only for them to escape and the chase starting all over again, Bill Finger hated this formula, especially when writing Batman. He thought the formula made Batman look inept. This is true if you look at how many times he has put the Joker in prison, and has killed so many people every time Batman has captured and locked him up. That is why questions such as the Bat simply killing the Joker get raised and leads to deconstruction. After all, deconstruction is about finding contradictions in text, imagery or any works of art, just as much as its about examining them.
Imagine if someone wrote A 'deconstruction' of politicians, journalists, or tabloid talk show hosts, and made them 'what they're suppose to be' instead of what they really are. The idiots who worship them would be just as mad as we are when writers try to 'deconstruct' super heroes.
Here's a deconstruction: Supervillains are the real heroes and superheroes are the real villains. Why? Because superheroes defend the status quo of capitalism, which makes them fascists.
@@CosmoShidan Actually, it's the other way around. The REAL fascists control the media. They preach socialism, and identity politics to the masses, and they will crush anyone who opposes their ideology.
@@Launchpad05 From the wiki article on the economics of fascism: "Fascism had a complex relationship with capitalism, both supporting and opposing different aspects of it at different times and in different countries. In general, fascists held an instrumental view of capitalism, regarding it as a tool that may be useful or not, depending on circumstances.[9][10] Fascists aimed to promote what they considered the national interests of their countries; they supported the right to own private property and the profit motive because they believed that they were beneficial to the economic development of a nation,but they commonly sought to eliminate the autonomy of large-scale capitalism from the state.However, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry during the same period, Nazi Germany transferred public ownership into the private sector and handed over some public services to private organizations, mostly affiliated with the Nazi Party. According to historian Richard Overy, the Nazi war economy was a mixed economy that combined free markets with central planning and described the economy as being somewhere in between the command economy of the Soviet Union and the capitalist system of the United States. Others have described Nazi Germany as being corporatist, authoritarian capitalist, or totalitarian capitalist.Fascist Italy has been described as corporatist."
I find a lot of people misunderstand what deconstruction is. A deconstruction shouldn't just be 'oh man, what if *insert genre or trope here* is different' it should explore and challenge the foundations of said genre or trope. The best deconstructions are the ones that still have that appreciation for the genre, even though they may be critiquing or subverting it. Hell, Alan Moore understood this even when writing Watchmen. Watchmen isn't just tearing down superheroes, it's offering a different view on the genre, while appreciating what makes it work. It's the same thing with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, even if I don't hold it in the same esteem as Moore and Gibbons' seminal work. As for Ennis, I find a lot of people who say he hates superheroes is overblown. He just doesn't care for them, I don't know if that amounts to hate. Sure, you can nitpick the double standard that he doesn't like superheroes but he'll write for Marvel and DC, I won't argue with that. But hate...even he's said he doesn't hate superheroes, he just finds them silly. I'll even say that The Boys isn't even his best work, but I still enjoy it because there's an interesting view that I hadn't considered before. I don't agree with his view of superheroes, but he makes a lot of salient points about corporate America's soullessness, the vapidity of celebrity culture, and the idea of a superhero arms race. I think The Boys is worth reading for those reasons. That said, I think Preacher and Punisher MAX are far stronger works from Ennis.
@@CosmoShidan Or maybe he lets the Joker live because he is above killing people and believes that even the worst of the worst could maybe be rehabilitated, and since when did Batman demonize environmentalists, anarchists, and foreigners. And don't tell me that Batman's villains are all that because his villains being foreign has nothing to do with them being evil or why he wants to put them behind bars or why he stops Poison Ivy from turning Gotham into her little greenhouse and killing innocent. It's because his villains are people who hurt innocent people. Not because he is a machiavellian. Sure, the guy who stops crime is more evil than the guys who actively kill innocent people for their own gain.
@@HenryLouis21 His "villains" are what we also call a strawman fallacy. Or that they are overexaggerated and distorted caricatures of what anarchists, environmentalist, and foreigners are to a bigot compared to what the latter two groups are fighting for, as they are more complex and there are many variations of their schools of thought, while the latter are marginalized who are having their voices silenced, families separated, and lives taken by cops in the real world. So that is why it's better to make the cops businesspersons, politicians, and bougouisie the villains.
@@CosmoShidan What strawman fallacy? They are not overexaggerated caricatures of foreigners or environmentalists. Also, Mr. Freeze being German has nothing to do with him being evil, he is just German. I guess a villain can't just happen to be from another country I guess or else they are just caricatures of what a foreigner is to a bigot. My god, your amount of reaching and stretching is so far that it makes Mr Fantastic impressed. I guess a character in your eyes just can't have nice motives or whatever, because I guess Poison Ivy having a love for plants, makes her a caricature of environmentalists. Also, you are pretending like there aren't cops and businessmen and politicians in comic books that are already the villains. Lex Luthor is a billionaire and a bad guy. Some of the cops in most Batman stories are corrupt and it shows Batman taking them down and bringing them to justice. But of course, you ignore that because it ignores your narrative and you spin around Lex Luthor as a victim and a strawman of bald scrawny people and Superman is a tall, muscular guy. Also, it's funny to me that you will claim that villains in the likes of the Penguin, Lex Luthor, and many more are caricatures of marginalized groups and buff muscular superheroes are inspired by the KKK and are fascistic defenders of the status quo yet somehow you prompt up Beef Bros as the second coming of christ by the fact that the two MUSCULAR superpowered dudes who are the main characters fight against cops and landlords. I checked that comic out and the one page I saw was the landlord character who apparently is bald. Double standards much?
I definitely don't agree with the notion that superhero writing "evolved." If anything, I think it has devolved. I don't see anything from the latter day, supposedly sophisticated and superhero writers that matches an ASM 33, a Detective Comics 500 or something like Roy Thomas-era Conan the Barbarian. But, that's just my take.
The few changes we've seen with superhero writing is how they went from willing to kill between 1938-42, to simply just capturing "felons". Yet when the comics code was put in place, that did not have any effect on superhero conduct, as the "no-kill" rule was already put into place. But then again in the 90s, the supes went back to killing felons and by the 2000s, it was simply capturing them. As such, if superheroes really have changed, they would be attempting to question the causes of crime, such as poverty inspiring desparation, or police brutality inspiring serial killers.
The problem with all star Batman is that it misses a piece. Deconstruction also needs reconstruction to work. This is why I love BvS. Because even though the story deconstructs the idea of both Batman and Superman, it also reconstructs it in the final act, and there's even a whole other movie(ZSJL) continuing said reconstruction All Star Batman doesn't have any reconstruction in it, and that makes it empty
@@williammorahan4907 I've honestly gone back and forth on this. Sometimes I think he was genuinely trying to deconstruct the image of Gary stu Batman fanboys have in their mind, and others I just conclude he went insane
@@ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣΛΑΧΑΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ Deconstruction isn't about rebuilding at all though, or else that is reversing or revising the opposing view. That is why it's a problem pointing method, rather than a problem-solving one.
ua-cam.com/video/-JUCHijxKMM/v-deo.html Sometimes, *how* you kill an enemy is what matters. 😊There’s also a difference between an *enemy* and an *opponent*.
What makes The Boys show work is that it’s not as much a destruction of superheroes so much as it is a critique of shitty celebrity. Aside from Starlight, the other members of the Seven are just shitty people with powers. It’s not “what if Superman ate babies?” but, rather, “what if Logan Paul had Superman’s powers?”
Pat Mills, creator of Marshal Law, is one of the creators of Judge Dredd ironically. And he's right about the superheroes pertaining to fascism. Like the Justice League and the Avengers are practically vigilantes who exercise community condoned extrajudicial punishment. Thereby, they are both lynch mobs.
"Why won't someone with incredible abilities be kind, too?" is quite likely the best thing Linkara has ever said.
Because literally every person that has been in power is way worse then most super heros. So realistically, most people with super powers would be evil.
@@NihilisticBallman There’s a difference between having powers and being in power.
@@Logan912 That difference is?
@@NihilisticBallman 'Literally every person'? So you're including teachers, doctors, business people, scientists, even some political leaders, every person who has had power over people, EVERY one of them is way worse than superheroes?
I don't know which part of the world you live in, but that's just a sad mindset.
@@Vesperitis Yes. Everyone has been like that.
There is one story that deconstructs the superhero well. Kingdom come. During the time it was written, superheroes were dark, broody, edgy, and were willing to kill. This was the norm. Mark Waid decided to say, "Hey, this is bad. Let's show why." Thus he created Magog who killed the Joker when Superman refused to. The people decided they liked this and Superman exiled himself. After Magog became a favorite hero of the people, more like him started coming out of the woodwork and were a massive problem, fighting each other more then the villains. Superman comes back and reforms the Justice League as a force that doesn't kill. The story is great, read it if you haven't. But it works because instead of criticizing the genre as a whole, it criticizes the era it's from. Would love to see Linkara cover it if he hasn't already.
He has mentioned it at least once or twice. He even quoted it when he tore apart Future 5, when he responded to one of the comic’s points with Green Arrow’s line “And now for the Democratic response,” then a montage of people who found success without a diploma. I wouldn’t be surprised if he get a recommendation for it someday.
True but it was also a critique of silver heroes too, their uncompromising moral principles may look good on the paper.
The inflexibility of their moral compasses lead to a constant tug of war between good or evil. In doing so gives rise to the dark edgy and violent heroes such Magog to be looked up to and relied on as had qualms with killing villians.
Overall needs to be a balance and all heroes need come together for the betterment of their soceity if killing is to be considered must be the last resort.
Killing wasn’t the solution in Kingdom Come.
Working together and living in equality was the answer to the problems that the heroes and the world were facing.
The conflict that ended with half of the world’s metahuman population being killed by a nuclear bomb and Superman almost killing the entirety of the United Nations in response before Norman McKay talked him down all started when Superhumans and ordinary Humans decided they were 2 totally different species.
Secretary General Wormwood - “We….we say you as Gods.”
Superman/Kal-El/Clark Kent - “As we saw ourselves - we were both wrong.”
KINGDOM COME is the RE-construction superhero comics needed after most other writers and illustrators missed the point of WATCHMEN's DE-construction.
I can't even call The Boys a "deconstruction of superheroes" because, with the possible exception of Starlight, none of the characters in The Boys are heroes. They're all villains. Homelander isn't a pastiche of Superman because he is nothing like Superman.
In Invincible, people compare Omni-Man to Superman, but honestly Omni-Man feels more in line with someone like General Zod. Mark Grayson, the titular Invincible, is the true pastiche of Superman, and a true deconstruction of the character.
Invincible has the same amount of violence but is less gross than The Boys, but it does the whole deconstruction better because the characters in Invicible are actually heroes.
And frankly, what bothers me most is that people are buying into these "deconstructions" that The Boys display... Stories written by people who have admitted to HATING SUPERHERO MATERIAL.
As good as Punisher Max is, it baffles me that Garth Ennis worked for Marvel. But at least The Punisher is a recognizable character within Marvel's pantheon of characters and was his own character, instead of a mockery of other characters.
Superheroes might be the dominant genre in American comics, but they were NEVER the only one. Even in the silver age, there were non-superhero (or at least, non-typical superhero) comics that were popular (at least for sometime). There were teen comedies (Archie), SF Adventures (Challengers of the unknown, the sea devils), Space Operas (Adam Strange), Sci-Fi/Horror Anthologies (Tales to Astonish, House of Mystery), Westerns (The Lone Ranger, Rawhide Kid) and funny animals (Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes). As Ennis is North Irish and more familiar with the comics of the British Isles, some of his views might seem understandable; but in today's day and age, with Wikipedia and TV Tropes, he could (and perhaps should) change his perspective. Imagine if the Boys was against pastiches of Archie or Mickey instead of superheroes.
As for Ennis' Punisher fascination: he considers non-powered heroes like Punisher and Nick Fury in a different light so he's willing to write for them (sometimes, John Constantine is included, even though he's a lot less grounded than those previously mentioned given his magic abilities).
Anyway, Warren Ellis' Avatar Superhuman Trilogy are some of the best Modern Superhero Deconstructions I can think of (I know Ellis has been accused of sexual harassment recently, but he's apologised for it and it's not really relevant to how good the stories are). That's because Warren actually likes (or at least respects) the superhero genre and superhero characters. That's why Black Summer, No Hero and Supergod feel like true successors to Moore's classics (Watchmen, Marvelman) instead of pale imitations or immature ripoffs, as Moore respected and understood the genre and so does Ellis.
Oh... I wouldn't mind a Garth Ennies penned Superman story... Since he actually loves Superman and whenever he writes him, he treats him with more respect than some writers who say they love superheroes
@STC Suntzucreed I know Ennis has a few Super-powered heroes he's fond of, like Superman (for being the first), Wonder Woman (or at least the idea behind her), Spider-Man and (as I said before) John Constantine (he considers him more "grounded", even though magic and sorcery is fundamental to the character; maybe it's the lack of tights?). He also worked on Hulk, Ghost Rider and Thor. I'll have to check out his work on Superman sometime.
@@carlosalmonacid8958 I think the only superhero characters I'd entrust to Garth are probably Superman and Spidey... From what I remember about his run on Thor it was a shitshow
Invincible does actually get a direct pastiche of Zod later. But as Omni-Man turns his back on villainy thanks to his time on Earth he's not much an evil Superman as he was a Superman who was born on Krypton. It shaped him into a different man before he came to Earth and was defeated by humanity. Sure he won the fight with Invincible but we can see that his love for his son outweighing his loyalty to his planet meant that Omni-Man actually lost to humanity before the fight even began, he just didn't realize it yet.
It seems like people who write those kind of "deconstructions" miss the point of what a deconstruction should be: despite the name, it is not "tearing it down, knocking the idea down a peg". It should be a diagnostic, taking off the covering that we recognize and closely looking at all the pieces inside it that MAKE IT WORK. It is Deconstruction, not Destruction.
I was always under the impression that Deconstruction was about all the issues showing why it wouldn’t work, but *Reconstruction* is about addressing those issues and showing how it could work.
@@DragonTrainer201 pretty much yeah, a deconstruction is basically 'okay, lets look at this story and see what can go wrong and what problems may exist within it' while a reconstruction is 'lets see what can go RIGHT and see why people love it'
Yup... people get so caught up in tearing everything down that they forget to pull it up.. every good deconstruction story(unless we are talking about deconstruction fleet which is usually used when you are deconstructing and entire genre) usually also reconstructs at least slightly what they deconstructed. Or there is a follow up on that story, whether with the same characters or not that reconstructs it. But destruction is easy, while reconstruction is not. Injustice: gods among us is a better Superman deconstruction than most Supes deconstructions because it compares and contrasts the evil Supes against the actual Supes.
Deconstruction is about problem pointing, not problem solving.
To quote Kurt Busiek:
"It strikes me that the only reason to take apart a pocket watch, or a car engine, aside from the simple delight of disassembly, is to find out how it works. To understand it, so you can put it back together again better than before, or build a new one that goes beyond what the old one could do. We've been taking apart the superhero for ten years or more; it's time to put it back together and wind it up, time to take it out on the road and floor it, see what it'll do."
"I cannot, I WILL not accept any responsibility for the Joker... Except that I should have killed him long ago."
Truly deep stuff. After all the shit Batman has seen the Joker do, he was now at his breaking point in the Hush storyline, and the fact that Linkara ditched the growly voice for something more straightlaced to deliver it makes it even more impactful.
If anything could drive Batman insane like the Joker wanted, it'd be being able to break the fourth wall. And learn why the Joker will always return. Why Arkham Asylum will always be terrible. Because Batman's greatest villain is his very own writers. At least, that's how it would look from his perspective.
On that note I have the theory that The Empty Hand (the villain from Multiversity) is meant to be represent the writers who keep writing crises and refuse to let the heroes have a happy ending because they still want to write them fighting
@@redjirachi1 that's less the writers and more like the nature of the medium
like say, the end every single main line of storylines....
and now they keep doing new versions of the original characters always in one shot formats....
Honestly, considering how angry Batman was at that moment during the Hush arc, I’m surprised he didn’t end up attracting a red lantern ring. Then again, if he had, he would have absolutely gone berserk and then incinerated the Joker right then and there.
Pros and Cons of deconstructions aside, they are FAR too frequent, in the superhero genre in particular. They're going to burn out their welcome
I agree, Oversaturation of 'deconstructive storytelling' in superhero media is a massive problem.
It creates an issue of finding Wheat among Chaffe in my opinion.
I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more reconstruction, getting back to the heart of the hero and understanding his/her motivations so we can better root for them.
@@ShadowWingTronix I recommend that you read some of Kurt Busiek's work. He's one of the Best Writers of Superhero Reconstruction in my opinion.
@@eamonndeane587 I almost mentioned in one response the Astro City issue where they introduce a group of people who have superpowers and have opted not to use them as they aren't tied with their goals in life, even forming their own space away from others so they don't get dragged into superheroing or supervillany. I'm a fan of Busiek's work.
I’d say they burned out their welcome back in the 90s.
Darker stories can work well in superhero comics (Blackest Night, Infinity Gauntlet, Invincible, etc) as long as the heroes still act like heroes
heck how about we have the villains be dark while the heroes stay light hearted it would be a cool contrast
@@jadenbryant9283 Some writers do that
@@Bolbi145 soem examples
@@jadenbryant9283 I know Geoff Johns does that, like with his JSA run he has the colorful heroes facing off against ruthless villains like Johnny Sorrow who kills people with but a glance due to working for an eldritch monstrosity.
@@Bolbi145 i actually think kraven last hunt sorta did that with peter still acting like Peter but does not make that many quips which is understandable
"There's already a term for characters who use extraordinary powers to commit horrible crimes: *"Super-Villains."*
THANK YOU!
Kill-Monger was right.
@@CosmoShidan Kill-Monger wanted to and DID murder innocent people. Kindly shut up, putz.
@@tylerleach8796 Here's the thing, T'Challa doesn't go by Killmonger's way of removing White power over the rest of Africa. Instead, he uses his wealth to create a use of "humanitarian aid" to keep black people from pulling themselves up as communities, and creates a reversal of the American empire; he creates a Wakandan empire that keeps black communities dependent on his supposed kind hand. Soft power is a mode of power that is a component in neo-colonialism which the US and the European Union use in the real world so as to keep African, South American and Southeast Asian countries dependent on aid throughout the global south.
@@CosmoShidan ...no shit he doesn't use Kill-Monger's way, you dumbass. Becuase Kill-Monger's way was WRONG.
@@tylerleach8796 But T'Challa's way is wrong, because he's basically doing exactly what the US government does.
And Wakanda is in no way progressive as a fictional state, as the white writers at Marve and Disney can't explore an African society without a monarchy as pointed out in Unstable Masks.
Garth Ennis' The Boys doesn't accept the possibility, as even Alan Moore did with Watchmen, that some of these superheroes do have good intentions and do want to help and even can help in ways regular people can't, and there are genuine problems in society that complicates their basic altruism. When the very universes superheroes usually inhabit contain all sorts of dangers neither the police, the army, or even the most determined vigilantes that Garth Ennis idolizes would be able to properly handle by themselves, you NEED superheroes to deal with them... And when the whole point of your deconstruction HINGES on the fact you've set up a universe that does NOT have a need for superpowered beings then you... REALLY DO miss the point of superheroes AND your deconstruction of them ENTIRELY.
Alan Moore created Watchmen to be a piss take on superheroes rather than praise them. He feels that they protect ruling-class ideology. I.e. capitalism.
Either that, or writters like him apply "Muggles Do It Better" solution were the best way to deal with any super is just point a gun at them... Which COMPLETLY ignores the major appeal to superheroes, because if regular firearms and police work were enough to stop any supervillain, then you would not need superheroes in the first place, thus missing the point of the genre.
@@LoboGuara5bruxaria In The Boys, the “superheroes” were all created by a single corporation. Since it’s shown how said corporation corrupt was in the, it makes sense why the vast majority of its products were to (with a few exceptions).
I’d honestly say The Boys works much better as a commentary on the corruption of Business, Government, Media, Celebrity Culture, Society, and even people’s own moral standards than it does as a deconstruction of superheroes.
@@williammorahan4907 Which makes the live action version playing on Amazon Prime, of all places, all the more laughable.
@@louisduarte8763 I’d say it actually surpasses the original in quality.
When I said that The Boys works better as a deconstruction of celebrity culture and the like, I was referring to that series.
After hearing his statement regarding Superman; I've just gotta say that while I'm not a comic reader, I HAVE seen many animated incarnations of Superman and...I agree with Linkara's words.
He's the one superhero who uses the "powers of a god" (as people like Luthor and Batman would say) for kindness and works with a good heart. So, it often infuriates me whenever stories come along to say that Superman's worldview is wrong
A lot of people like to simplify Superman's image to be that of a demigod-like figure existing in a world of lowly mortals, most exemplified in the Jesus imagery present in films like Man of Steel. The important aspect of Superman people tend to overlook is that Superman at his core is simple. Superman is not the real identity. Clark Kent is. He fell to Earth from Krypton, was raised by two loving parents, and made a life for himself in Metropolis. Not as Superman, but Clark Kent. The ethics Superman follows were instilled in him by his parents. Two average everyday people living on a farm who try to be the best they can be every day. It's not the powers that make Superman a hero. It's his morality, which was taught by a seemingly insignificant farm couple. Their morals were what helped mold Superman into the icon he is. Superman is Clark Kent and he is human at his most basic level.
@@ShanaReviews To be fair to the first Injustice, that one at least had the “good” Superman call him out, even saying “we’re not gods, we don’t decide who lives and dies.”
@@AluminumFusion22 Any good "Superman gets depowered" story has him do everything he can to fight for his ideals as an ordinary man.
@@ShanaReviews The 4th Snake made a good rebuttal to the "one bad day" line that people use to excuse poor writing: he pointed out how in the context of the story, the Joker is wrong
Of course misunderstanding Alan Moore's work is practically a trope of its own
@@redjirachi1
*COUGH* WatchMen *COUGH*
Superman was raised by humans, ones that knew he was an alien and also believed everyone could potentially be good
Omniman was raised by a brutal society that despised weakness and came to earth as an adult with the purpose of conquering the world
Homelander was bred to be a hero by a for profit company and raised to be a cruel narcissist
The Kid in Brightburn was a parasitic monster infiltrating humanity disguised as a kid
They all have very different backgrounds and that matters as to why they’re good or bad.
Exactly - Great Summary of each character (though in Brightburn’s case he was a literal sleeper agent, think Omni-Man if he was literally brainwashed.)
I feel like that’s something Linkara is sincerely unaware of, not seeing the forest for the trees.
I sincerely hope he sees your comment someday.
Also, Homelander is a deconstruction of Superman as a stand-in for the idealized American president, such as FDR. Homelander represents the behaviour of the American president in reality.
@Camnarok So . . . what would you consider the Plutonian from Mark Waid’s Irredeemable?
@@Rgoid He’s worse than Homelander, that’s for sure.
He’s also probably one of the better written examples of a “Superman gone bad.” Even if he still lives up to the title in end.
@@Rgoid I haven't read it yet. But from what I gather from interviews with Waid, he deconstructs superheroes in a very adult manner.
I don't think what Garth Ennis writes can even be considered "deconstructions", because he wears his total contempt for superheroes on his sleeve, and makes little to no effort to conceal that viewpoint in most of his works. The goal of his work, for better or worse, is not to "deconstruct" the genre, it's to dismantle it in its entirety; "The Boys" is not a deconstruction, or even satire on the idea, it's an attack on it.
On that note, I'd love to see Linkara review "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe", because look no further if you want to see Ennis' tract taken to its not so logical extreme.
and whats werid about it is spider-mman dies in a very not cool way yet when garth wrote spiderman the thousand for the tangled web series it honestly just felt like a dark ditko and lee story
What I got out of the boys: it's about Patriarchy, and that if superheroes existed in the real world, they would create a chauvanistic, misogynist, heterosexist, and cissexist environment, much like the cops, hollywood, and high society.
That's what I dislike about Garth Ennis and writers like him. It's not enough that comics like "The Boys" are just a big, giant middle finger towards superheroes, It's also a middle finger to everyone who actual likes superheroes.
@@coldmaster613 He dislikes superheroes because they have been allowed to flourish for so long at the expense of other comics genres. This has to do with corporate mandates that have lead to there being a lack of genre diversity in UK and North American comics in particular at the time of writing the Boys.
@@CosmoShidan Now I *know* that isn’t true.
The only "deconstruction" of superheroes I actually like is Watchmen. The Superman analogue isn't evil, he's just out-of-touch with humanity because he doesn't experience fear, pain, or hunger and he can perceive so much beyond humanity. The others (except maybe the Comedian) aren't outright evil, just sad messed up people who feel weak and do what they do to feel strong.
And Doctor Manhattan isn't even a Superman analog, but Captain Atom. The Watchmen are actually variations of the Charlatan characters(Captain Atom/Doctor Manhattan, Blue Beetle/Night Owl, The Question/Rorshack, Peacemaker/The Comedian, Judomaster/Silk Specter).
I recommend Rick Vietch's Maximortal, which retells the creation of Superman and how DC exploited and tossed out Siegel and Shuster like trash.
And the villain? He's anything BUT evil, he wants world peace and he succeeds in his goals.
hell even the comedian isn't that evil as he shows SOME humanity and horror when learnign what the actual villain's been up to
@@NebLleb There's no single villain in Watchmen, since Alan Moore sees all superheroes as villains in the first place.
I'm tempted to patron Linkara for the All Star Superman just to hammer in why characters like Superman don't requiere a cynical deconstruction.. And because in general I'm tired of superhero deconstructions... Why can't we for a change get a movie that is actually a reconstruction of Batman and/or Superman. For all it's flaws Spidey far from home is in a sense a reconstruction of Spidey and I love it for that. Why can't Superman get that.
I'd like to see some more superVILLAIN deconstructions or satires TBH. Sure, we had the Joker movie (which was great) and Mark Millar's Wanted (which Linkara disliked IIRC, but I have no idea of the consensus on that book; I haven't read it myself anyway), but apart from that there's almost nothing.
@@carlosalmonacid8958 from what I remember, the book was basically pure edgelordness... could be wrong though and it improved as it went but I've never finished it... and a supervillain movie would be a nice idea. Wouldn't mind a movie about mr. Freeze or Kraven, etc...
@@stcsuntzucreed I'm willing to write a Cronenbergian Poison Ivy movie.
Hell, the MCU could easily do a Doctor Doom series on Disney+.
@@carlosalmonacid8958 the only thing that comes to mind as possible villain deconstruction is Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog and maybe Megamind but I dunno on that one.
Awsomeness103 AFAIK, they were more parodies or spoofs than deconstructions and/or satires.
3:26 You know, personally, the thing I hate the most about superhero deconstructions is that it ends up a case of assuming "everyone would use their powers for evil because men is inheritently evil".
And I just think "Nooo. That depends from person to person... and even if they used them for that, that doesn't mean they are gonne be effective at it". As it becomes kinda boring.
Some people would get Superman levels of power and they might not even try to be hero or villain. some might be too scared to use their powers, some too lazy and will just use them. Some might try to profit from it. Some might try to use it for evil, but how it would depend. Some might try to use it for good but it would also depend (also, they might suck at using them for good), and etc.
Assuming everyone is either "evil" or "good" is both boring if you think about it. especially if not written right or at least making it simple so we focus on something else like "the way they do it".
And the most simple example of writing them right in as "unapologetically have heroes who are heroes because they felt like it" and "villains who are villains because they like it". Just because its simple doens't mean it has to be boring.
There's this amazing short film called "One on One" by Jake Thomas that has a line of dialogue that perfectly summarizes why these "deconstructions" are such garbage.
"If he just forced you to do whatever he wanted you to do, he wouldn't be much of a Superman would he?"
Seriously, watch this short film. It perfectly encapsulates who Superman is in just 10 minutes.
@@josephheiskell3493 Which is based on Geoff Johns' take on the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel. Billy Batson went through hell but before this still maintained a positive outlook on life and strove for better. I like to think of it as him holding on to the one thing the world can't take away from him but has to be given up...at the risk of being cliched, Billy doesn't give up on hope for a better future.
Honestly, I've always preferred Robert Caro's attitude on power. That, whilst it had the potential to corrupt, power ultimately reveals the nature and actions a person would do with that.
@@christopherbennett5858 yeah. Saying "Power isthe one true Evil" is like saying "Fire is inheritently Evil" which it isn't.
@@ianr.navahuber2195 Plus, it has that weird notion of the people saying that making people who have no power fear getting power. Sort of like the whole "he who fights monsters becomes a monster" thing which never made sense unless it is the monster saying that.
Deconstruction, as it suggests, de-construct certain literary tropes by tearing down established concepts and providing alternative outcomes or consequences to certain actions. Deconstruction has its root in modern linguistic studies that claim that languages are arbitrary and there isn't only one meaning to a certain sign. This is why deconstruction involves tearing down old tradition AND providing commentary on why the new meaning is equal to or more relevant than the one it's torn apart.
Watchmen are the comic deconstruction in that the characters are the allegories of the superheroes who engage in a war that force people in-universe and readers to reconsider the role of superheroes in modern society. It says that costumed heroes can be corrupted and self-serving in a cynical environment. Doomsday Clock is a deconstruction of said deconstruction: it claims that it's still important to hold onto hope and heroics no matter how depressing things are. It also says that even someone as hopeless as Dr. Manhattan can turn over a new leaf with a few pushes in the right direction.
All-Star Batman & Robin is NOT a deconstruction; It's a fanfiction where you glorify certain characters out of a personal bias. It deliberately paints supporting casts as idiots so that the protagonist can be depicted as supreme and almighty despite being a jackass. If All-Star Batman & Robin was made by 13 years old who posted his work on fanfiction.net, nobody would care about it.
Decnstrucotion isn't designed to provide alternatives, it's suppose to point out flaws in works, be they literary, architectural, artistic, scientific, technological, religious, societal, or cultural. In other words, it's really a problem problem-pointing methodology. Now a problem-solving methodology is what a modernist lens is. Some examples, Marxism, Liberalism, Realism, and so on.
According to Watchmen and Philosophy, Alan Moore is really just saying that NO one should proclaim themselves as society's savior. With that, the author claims that superheroes protect ruling-class ideology. To give an example, when we see how Night Owl and Comedian mow down protesters in the streets, or how Dr. Manhattan uses his powers against the Viet cong. Plus, Adrian Veitch exemplifies the ruling-class as he profits off his image and technology. It's akin to how Iron Man and Batman are, and the comic book industry. Thus it makes Watchmen anti-capitalist.
I absolutely agree with you on ASBR. It's not deconstruction as FM is a lousy deconstructionist.
Watchmen wasn't even a deconstruction of superheros as whole but rather the Objectivist brand of super heros that people like ditko made, so the approach doomsday clock did doesn't even fit because the watchmen are not stand ins for the Justice League
@@CosmoShidan Maybe that’s a major flaw in deconstructive stories.
@@williammorahan4907 No the problem with Frank Miller's version of what he considers deconstruction is that, it's really incorporating deconstructionist arguments, and is in fact fascist propaganda; or worse, it's Machivelian passing itself off as deconstructionism.
Again, deconstruction isn't in the business of problem solving, it's in the business of pointing out the flaws, problems, and contradictions of a work or text. Even if problem-solving methods such as Marxism and Feminsim could give suggestions, it is impossible to escape deconstructionism, because otherwise, if a work were perfect, then there wouldn't be anything to be critical about.
@@CosmoShidan Has it ever occurred to you that the reason people are sick of deconstructionist stories is because they *don’t* offer solutions to the problems they present to the audience?
And if a story technically doesn’t offer a definite answer to the questions it raises, it should allow the audience to come to their own conclusion based upon what they experienced from the story *and* their own ideas and beliefs.
That’s why Watchman has gotten so much praise over the years, and why the original comic version of The Boys is little more than mindless and hateful crap.
And come to think of it, I think Garth Ennis *dose* offer a solution in his version of The Boy - *Get Rid of Superheroes Permanently*
And you should know why I can *never* agree with that answer by now.
I think this argument also applies with Robert Pattinson's "The Batman". Spoilers for the film below.
The way it goes about being a deconstruction is through its focus on a younger Bruce Wayne who's still young, somewhat inexperienced, and just a shell of pure rage and anger. He is hyperfocused on punishing the guilty, but he has neglected all other aspects of his life to be Batman. As seen in the films iteration of Riddler, he's inspired copycats who wish to do the same thing, but without any of the moral code and a desire to 'restart from zero' in a sense and wipe the slate clean of a corrupt Gotham, without actually trying to fix the issue and help the innocent in the first place. The entire film has Batman exclusively in darkness and hiding in the shadows, until the end of the film, in which he's seen in the sunlight, helping innocent people after a horrible catastrophe that arguably was caused by his negligence in focusing on the current issue instead of trying to actually fix the issues that cause these horrible events, leaving his own finances from the Wayne trust fund going into the pockets of the various criminals of Gotham.
The film is about how Batman goes from a well-intentioned, but still reckless vigilante into someone who can be considered a true hero and protector of the innocent. The deconstruction in my opinion is of the idea of Batman as an idea of vengeance, whilst also establishing the importance of the humanity needed for Batman to be a hero.
Superheroes and villains are ordinary people writ large. They have powers and abilities no human could ever match, but ultimately their personalities and characters are humans scaled up. Therefore just as real humans can use power in the forms of money or influence for good or ill, supers can use superhuman abilities for good or ill. Any good work involving superheroes understands this.
That's the difference between a super hero and a super villain: how they choose to use their incredible power. And I believe this is the only tangible difference between the sides of the Force in Star Wars: Why it is used and how.
This is one of the reasons why I LOVE My Hero Academia so much because it's not a deconstruction of superheroes. It is a superhero story and portrays superheroes as honest-to-god good people.
@Thunder Goku
Until you get later into the manga and find out how horrible of a person/father/husband Endeavor is, Dabi's backstory,
And The corruption of the hero association being leaked to the public.
@@naquingreen1603 Then it reconstructs with the fact Dabi is nothing more than a monster using that as a excuse.
@@leighbelk769
Yep Dabi is a hypocrite and was only using the corruption of UA as an excuse to get back at Endeavor.
@@naquingreen1603 I already know that.
Not to offend your or anything but that logic falls flat due to how the heroes in MHA are treated as god like celebrities by the population due to them being Superheroes and how The Stain Arc brings attention to an idea that many of them didn't become heroes for good reasons but entirely for money, fame and the spotlight thanks to how the media portrays the hero work as a super glorious industry and not what it's supposed to be which is a superpower defense force similar to The Avengers in Marvel and Justice League in DC.
And what really bothers me is how despite the hero system having similar design to how it treats the superheroes similar to the Supes in The Boys for some baffling, ridiculous reason it's never treated like a fundamental flaw and if anything the narrative actually glorifies many of these fake, selfish heroes because they "still save people and do hero work so who cares" which begs the question as to why introduce this idea of fake heroes if they are gonna be treated no differently to the genuine heroes by the writing? It also doesn't help that we are introduced to people who are so far away from what being a hero is about like Katsuki Bakugo, Minoru Mineta and Endeavor and yet the author doesn't seem to care that these so called "heroes" are completely awful.
Look i'm not trying to pick on you and say you can't like the show, if you personally enjoy it then that's fine, i won't hold it to you. I just wanna point out that your reason for liking MHA, that the superheroes are portrayed as honest-to-god good people, doesn't work due to how the heroes are treated as glorified celebrities that makes them becoming heroes in the first place feel not out of genuine goodness in them but out of greed and vanity along with how we never see our main characters question the hero system and actually try to change it for the better and instead just go along with it despite knowing much about Stain, including ideas and speeches supposedly which makes it seem like they actively IGNORE the major flaws of hero society in order to reap benefit of it as well which unintentionally makes them look no different from a fake hero and we are supposed to see them as "real" heroes?
TL;IDR: There's a difference between dark/edgy/gritty and mature.
This is why I am so sick and tired of DCEU's "dark and gritty" tone. Whether or not it was intentional to mimic the Dark Knight trilogy's success because it was dark and gritty, it wasn't even done properly. The Dark Knight trilogy was dark and gritty, yes. But above it all, it was mature. While it had dark moments and was clearly aimed at a PG-13 crowd (as the more general Batman comics were anyway), there's heroism, wit, charm, and above all-- _COLOR._ To me, DCEU is just pandering. Not to say that the MCU is pander-free, but at least they have a point. They have a mature sense of heroism and have that tie into other adventures really well. As for DC, it feels more like an indulgence to say that DC heroes are better because there are scenes of graphic violence and other R-rated material. DC heroes are perfectly capable of being non-nihilistic. Making a film based on Superman, let alone a comic that is generally aimed at a wider demographic into a bloodier and more profane-induced adaptation, is not only pretentious but unwarranted. That's why Man of Steel rubbed me the wrong way because Superman is a man who sees the best in humanity. You don't need to have a gritty and murky movie to understand him, let alone _any_ DC heroes. You don't need to make the Toy Story movies bloody or sexual to make it more thought-provoking. It accomplished its goal and it had a mature approach to what the films were trying to say.
Now, I'm not saying dark makes it worse. There are plenty of mediums that are dark and rightfully so. But when it contradicts what the original source material did to make it well-known to begin with under the guise of enhancing it, I suggest a re-write.
Couldn't have said it better myself 👏👏👏👏
It's why not everything should be Warhammer 40K. That's *intended* to be dark and gritty through and through, and any light in that universe has long since gone. Stuff like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. are fighting not just to uphold and protect what's good, but also *represent* what's good themselves.
Like you said, just because something's dark doesn't mean it's automatically mature. It's just meant for an older audience, and more than likely the mindless variety of older audience.
As much as I agree, at the same time, the DCEU’s dark and grittiness was nearly all the fault of Zack Snyder. He doesn’t believe in a comic accurate Superman but a more “realistic” one as he says. Which I agree, is fucking stupid. Trust me, the DCEU has gotten SO much better since Zack Snyder was booted out. And they’re WAY better off without him, TBH.
@@yourcollegedebt8384 Batman works well dark, after all most of his best storylines are dark, you just gotta do it in a way that doesn’t turn him into a monster as well like in All Star Batman and Robin
Don't forget that movie 1 of the MCU had the hero as a weapon salesman captured by terrorists, and only survived by killing his way out. Wandavision was all about a grieving hero taking over and torturing an entire town. Winter Soldier is all about the hero trying to solve one friend's murder, while his whole agency turns out to be full of genocidal maniacs, and whose best friend was being tortured into being a murderer for decades. The DCEU is not "more willing to touch on dark themes". It's just BAD.
The legal system of Gotham is the o e that should have taken care of joker, not Batman
Batman lives in a universe where magic. Time travel, psychics, alternate dimensions and several other forms of advanced technology exist. There is no reason for him to kill the joker. He could get a bunch of psychics and magicians together to cure joker,he could create a subatomic prison staffed by robots who will treat joker humanely and stick that subatomic prison on pluto. There are tons of solutions for this that don't require violence. Hell Paul dini's solution for batman beyond was going to be that batman took joker prisoner himself and locked him in the batcave. To me when people day "batman should kill joker" they are displaying a lack of imagination, and betraying the fact that they desire retribilutive justice. Even though the truth is that if batman did murder the joker, joker would just come right back because this is a comic and we need a new story.
I think if they want to write a "Batman the Early Years" story they could have Bruce try to use his financial influence to improve the legal system, and his failure to do so plays into why he dedicates himself to his Batman ways
When a kind man becomes more fictional than a flying one we are all dead
I want a deconstraction of the type of characters the edgy superhero deconstructions usually use: Snide, homicidal, mean spirited thugs who put down anyone who don't agree with them. Maybe the story had some heroes who went bad in the past, so some guys armed with guns who believed they knew better began to "fight crime" and actually try and kill supers. Expect there are plenty actual superheroes (DC and Marvel had tons of heroes who went bad too) and even neutral ones who never commited felonies. When they're called out, they give out the usual "superheroes are dumb and evil/real word doesn't work that way" speech. And I hope someone will point out to them that there are actual supervillians/alien invasions/monster attacks every other Tuesday -because y'know, comics - and superheroes are absoluetly necessary in those senarios. It ends with them fighting a hero(es) expy, thinking they're dump and too relient on their powers, only to get their asses kicked. They are trialed for murder, assault, domestic terrorism and generally being assholes. They're not even sent to a super prison or anything.
You give me some ideas
In my story a group like that would also start having contempt for citizens and start openly attacking heroes with heavier means and stop caring that normal people are around and begin justifying it in their heads as necessary sacrifices
This group also begins to brutalize small time villains who at most were robbing banks and were not even that violent and ignore the fact that some of them are mentally ill while painting everyone with a broad black and white brush
@@garretstevens742 something like The Boys going after the Silver Age Polka Dot Man? Yeah, I can see it.
I'm really invested in your story ideas. I wanted to read an "edgelord deconstruction" for ages now
@@billuraral1870 thanks 😊 I tend to think in real life without the author twisting things in the favor of the edgelord they would be completely psychotic and not in a charming way
Honestly, is the boys even a deconstruction of comic books? I always saw it as "What if Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers came first?" A group of supervillains who were pretending to be superheroes.
It's basically saying that superheroes safeguard capitalist interests, and that they have fascist undertones built into them. Note that Compound V, which is a metaphor for wealth and privilege, was created from a Nazi eugenics program; this implies the fascistic undertones. Also, The Boys comments on how superheroes are very hypermasculine, being that they all have idealized masculine builds, and are misogynist. Hence, it's basically pointing out the short comings of superheroes.
@@CosmoShidan Problem is none of the characters in the Boys, with the possible exception of Starlight, are actual heroes. It is a team of supervillains taking on a group of anti-villains. So it isn't really much of a deconstruction.
@@jacobwilliams1223 It's deconstructing the crime-fightin' superhero as superpowered cops as well as the Boys themselves. In fact, the way the Supes behave, misogynist, hyper-masculine and heterosexist/homophobic, it's the same behaviour as police officers in real life. This is especially as the Supes and the Boys treat their careers not as a job, but a way of life, much like real police officers. This is one of the reasons why you simply can't truly "reform" the police and make them anymore humane, given the toxically masculine culture prevalent in the institution of the police; so the Boys is spot on with its "superheroes as police" allegory, not to mention the titular characters. Also, from a criminologist standpoint between the contractarian model, the police as upholders of disputes between citizens, and the conflict model, the police are protectors of the ruling classes and private property in the means of production, the Supes and the Boys are in the latter category.
@@CosmoShidan Yeah no. There is a big difference between cops on a power trip vs. unarmed civilians vs. superheroes who go out of their way to risk body and limp to protect even the most less fortunate citizens. Going "fuck superheroes" and writing a bunch of supervillains pretending they are superheroes is no equal to a deconstruction of them. It's bad Dark Avengers fanfiction. That allegory is as best cynical and more often than not unfounded.
Even Alan Moore, the guy who I am sure the Boys creator took "inspiration" from accounted for the possibility of actual decent people both with and without powers existing.
The Boys author by contrast holds his contempt for superheroes on a sleeve which is about as subtle as a brick to the face.
@@jacobwilliams1223 You're talking past me, so I will explain what I'm talking about. My analysis comes from my course in sociology, in particular, the branch of criminology, which is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. What I was explaining to you, is that criminology has two specific lenses; the first one is the social contract model, which is the lens that views police and justice departments exist to keep society from crumbling, while the social conflict model is the lens that views police as a force of oppression and defends the ruling classes, i.e. the rich, the politicians and property as opposed to working peoples. The former being a more traditional, liberal stance, while the latter is a more radical, socialist stance. Personally, when it comes to superheroes, I take the social conflict model, and use that when it comes to examining the crime fighting superheroes such as Batman, Superman, Spider-man and Captain America, who are very liberal in the sense that they are tough on crime and tend to throw criminals into prison or asylums. Their approach is that of either retributive justice and rehabilitative justice, as oppose to restorative justice.
Now when it comes to the Boys, I read it with the same lens, albeit, it actually enhances the social conflict lens. You on the other hand, appear to view it from the social contract lens.
And consider this, police in America murder 1000 people of color, and sexuality per year. That's 3 persons of color and trans folk a day. This isn't police brutality, it's straight white, cis male supremacy, and the cops in real life are KKK just like the supes and the boys in The Boys.
I wonder if there's a story where Bruce revitalizes the security and methods of Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison. He doesn't need to kill, he needs to show the system how to do its job properly
I know in some continuities he regularly donates to arkham but I think specifically upgrading the security would still be his idea of tampering too much with the system
Exactly. This is a big thing always thought about Batman was that he lived by the rule of once I hand them over to the proper authorities they are not my problem unless you all don't do your job. Bruce is just trying to get the system to do it flipping job.
The thing is, nothing matters. I've watched Jason Todd rail about how Batman should kill the Joker 'because he killed me'. That Jason is standing there, alive and saying this shows it makes NO SENSE as an arguement. They live in a world of resurections and deals with the devil. If anything, Batman doesn't kill the Joker because letting him meet Satan, who exists, is probably not smart.
@@keirgomcginlay2044 you're kinda missing the point. Jason may of come back but that doesn't mean he still didn't die. Look at who is is there as the red hood, joker did that too him. He still beat him with a crowbar and blew him up. Also I understand that death isn't always permanent in comics but it still can be
@@keirgomcginlay2044 Lucifer Morningstar will despise the joker
5:00 - Invincible gets a pass here even though it's classified as a deconstruction, because at least in that, the main characters for the most part, are still trying to do the right thing with their powers and abilities.
Someone should show these to Snyder and Goyer and tell them this is why people love superheroes.
Oh who are we kidding? They'll see this and still claim that we "don't get it," or "it's too smart for us," or we're "living in a fucking dream world."
There's no arguing with these people.
@Erik Kemeey Yeah, when they're so different they barely recognize the characters they're supposed to be adapting, I have a problem with that.
@@DinoDave150 a dream world huh? Well to to quote Superman, “good. Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better”
@@DinoDave150 You're probably right.
@@autobotproductions1244 I love this quote
It is just ….so superman
It one of the best thing that represents superman
My favorite superhero deconstructions are the ones that ask logical questions about the genre. Like Watchmen, Kingdom Come, the Venture Bros, or Astro City. (Sometimes) Watchmen asks “what kind of people would actually do this?” Or “what would they logically achieve?” Or “what would it do to geopolitics if the US had Superman and Russia didn’t?” And I have to concede that yeah, these are fair questions.
Speeches like this are why I became a Linkara fan.
Same here.
Please make a clip of Linkara's speech about Fan Backlash from Part 3 of his Cassandra Caintrospective.
The thing is, if your point is "X is bad", then you have to show X being bad. When you say "Superheroes are bad", it can't be because they are all, 100%, no exceptions, evil individuals, you gotta show a reason why the superhero system is bad for their stated mission of protecting people. It's the same in the other direction, if you wanna say "heroes don't kill" then you can't turn the killer heroes into violent psychopaths or pedophiles or anything like that, you gotta show why a killer hero is wrong, where is the damage that a killer hero does. If you make a straw man of the opposing proposition, you are not proving anything.
There's an avenue of superhero deconstruction that's criminal underused-a deconstruction of the status quo. The reason Reed Richards can't just turn Earth into a futuristic society is because the writers won't let the Marvel Universe be too different from the real world. The reason the Joker doesn't stay locked up in a maximum security jail is because the writers need him to show up in a later story. Maybe tackle the frustration people in-universe would inevitably have? Imagine if there's mass civil unrest in Gotham because the people are done with the bullshit of those in charge? They're the real problem, not Batman's no-kill rule!
On that note, a good Deadpool deconstruction would be him making war against the writers in order to ensure the Marvel Universe has a happy ending
All this talk about Superhero Deconstructions has got me thinking about the Wild Cards series of Mosaic Novels. They're dark, gritty and often sexual, but there is a sense of idealism and compassion in many of the heroic characters (e.g. Dr Tachyon, Fortunato, The Turtle etc). I'd love to see Linkara review one of the books (or even just a story or two) or the comic adaptations. Heck, he could even do the TV Show adaptation if it ever gets out of development hell.
“I don’t know Garth, wouldn’t they’re be good heroes in your story?”
“Oh they act like they’re gods all the time.”
“That’s not what I-“
“Shut up and draw Homelander throwing that bag of puppies into a wood chipper.”
That's not what Garth Ennis is saying. First, he's saying that superheroes as a genre have been allowed to flourish at the expense of other genres due to corporate mandates. Second, he's saying that superheroes are fascistic in a 21st century context. Third, I suggest you take a good look and acknowledge that superheroes come from the literature of the KKK as told by Dr. Chris Galaver: ua-cam.com/video/5kHtI3OgWWc/v-deo.html
@@CosmoShidan
Or it could be because of Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent, and the Comics Code Authority.
Just saying, dude
@@CosmoShidan
What?
@@carbootstudios2459 Dude, Gavaler's done actual research on the subject, whereas Wertham was trying to sell a book, so that's an apples to oranges comparison. Plus, Gavaler isn't advocating for censorship, he's merely pointing out the problematic elements of superheroes in their costume design and how it's no mere coincidence that SIegel and Shuster took inspiration from real life costumed vigilantes in the 1920s and 30s prohibition era, and tried to subvert it to a degree. But is no longer the case, and it's critical to dig deeper into the media we consume.
Also, the Comics Code did little to damage to superheroes, as they were already censored by the editors of comics publishers in the early 1940s, such as Batman not being allowed to carry guns, or Supes not being able to use rough and aggressive tactics like a Klansman vigalante. Otherwise, the CCA gave us supervillains, of who were an othered minoritized group, such as the cognitively disabled (Green Goblin having anti-social disorder, in which is is inappropriately called a "psychopath" by Spidey in issue #39, and is an ableist moment), to fat shaming, such as the Kingpin being an obese villain.
Bottom line, nice try, but keep exposing yourself as one of the far-right ya prude.
@@carbootstudios2459 Don't confuse scholarship with censorship; Gavaler's work is actual problem pointing, while Wertham was advocating censorship to sell a book.
The best case for Batman and the whole killing the Joker thing was the ANIMATED adaptation of Under the Red Hood. In the comic, he just shouts "NO DON'T!" To Jason and PROTECTS the Joker from him - making him come off as even more unhinged than Batman usually is, while in the animated adaptation he more or less just - walks away. He accepts in that moment that Jason WAS right. If Jason had shot Joker right then and there - Batman would have let it happen. But Jason wanted to hear Batman SAY it himself, overlooking the fact that he got an answer when Batman walked away. He was giving Jason permission in that moment.
6:14 There's a musical edutainment short film on economics called Scrooge McDuck and Money where it's revealed *_Scrooge McDuck actually circulates his money,_* something billionaires don't do.
5:32 I agree with linkara so much. I never want Batman to willingly kill a villain without him facing consequences and him not liking it. When you have Batman actually kill his villains, at that point he’s not Batman but red hood wearing a bat mask
Before anyone say “but flashpoint Batman kills!” That is not the real Batman we all know, that is Thomas Wayne who is very different Batman who’s history is corrupted
@@lucaschannel726 If Batman isn't a killer, wouldn't he be a hypocrite and a sadist since he tortures perpetrators and homeless people when interrogating them?
@@CosmoShidanstop being as big an idiot as Garth Ennis
I despise deconstructions for three reasons.
1) it's the easiest and quickest way any author can fool the audience into thinking their work is 'mature' and 'deep' even though the audience knows everything he's going to invert. No one watches a Jackie Chan film thinking that a real fight will go down like that so when someone makes a film with it's deconstructionist Jackie Chan ladder fight, it's redundant.
2. No one's ever deconstructed Noir or cyberpunk before. Every single work that's been deconstructed has been material seen as 'juvenile' or 'immature'; essentially fiction people somehow are insecure in enjoying, specifically entertainment for young men. It's why when someone uses the terms 'power fantasy' or 'self insert' I start walking away because it comes off as some sort of intellectual kicking sand on a skinny guy at the beach and these terms are never used on fiction like breaking bad, sopranos and empire. The idea that people watch tony soprano wanting to be tony soprano is ludicrous but everyone would want to be frodo for some reason.
And 3) no one's ever deconstructed a superhero being depressed or suicidal or trying to balance a married life. It's always some hyper violent sociopath with his ensemble of trench coat mafia chain smokers who drink Jack Daniels like it's water.
It's like something a friend said when I was talking to him about comics: 'Id love it if comic books were as varied and creator driven as manga but the Indies have proved that there's mostly only two stories American comic creators will make: coming of age college stories and hardboiled detective stories. Webtoons and the floppy's are filled to the brim with both."
For what it’s worth, I’m doing a story about teenagers with superpowers, in a 90s high school setting a la Buffy.
Not really a “deconstruction” per se, but one of the characters is a suicidal goth girl with depression…and a healing factor that makes her immortal.
@@tolchok89 there's a deconstruction and just doing a story you wanted to tell. People tend to confuse the two. Gundam was heralded as a deconstruction of super robot anime when it was just the story that Tomino wanted to tell. Likewise Evangelion is heralded as a deconstruction of Gundam when its influences have little to do with it.
Also, I've been working on a project that sounds similar to yours, though mines an outright comedy(an homage to both Battle shonen as well as the Simpsons) set in 2009 and my rocker girls trying to heal from traumatic experiences. Not the place to swap stories but I'd like to check it out
@@tolchok89What’s the name of this story?
You know, in this day an age where a lot of people want superheroes to be dark and gritty and "realistic", and trying to come up with "plausible reasonable realisitic explanations" for why some of their powers work in "real life", not only seen in official work but even some fanfics and fanarts try to go above and beyond to come up with stuff like that. ESPECIALLY with Tokusatsu heroes like Power Rangers / Super Sentai who are just pure unapologetic superheroics.
I am starting to get the feeling that, an actual subversive deconstruction these days would be showcasing the weird insanity of a superhero universe without actually even trying to explain what some of those oddities are. They are just what they are because they are.
Maybe a quick explanation but the explanatio still makes you say "that just raises more questions" but in a good way.
Something like what DOOM PATROL is doing that manages to go brutally dark and emotional while still being just so bizarre to contrast it is just beautiful to watch.
Just in season 3 we hve in one episode a very heartfelt goodbye between 2 characters with a very complicated pseudo father-daughter like relationship, in the context on the pseudo father figure being a barely alive head that talks through a mechanical speaker and said daughter figure and her friends, being currently a zombie. and said hearfelt apology also involving the father figure letting her daughter figure to eat him (in the show's universe, zombies get cured by eating brains, hence why they want to eat them).
Same thing with modern art "Oh this piece is deconstructing the concept of traditional art... Again"
it kind of lost its impact when you do it for the 300th time
Zambot 3 is a deconstruction of super sentai and super robots. It's basically saying that superheroics against alien races is a glorification of genocide. Meanwhile, super robots are treated by the series as child soldiering.
@@CosmoShidan Seriously?
I think you’re confusing it with some other shows.
Ultraman, Godzilla, Gamera and even Kamen Rider have “anatomies” for their heroes and monsters.
You wanna have a “rule system” like in Avatar and Babel 2 for how the powers of your fictional universe’s inhabitants work.
I like to share my take on superhero medium with an analogy I’ve found in Whispers of the Heart. The real world is like a geode, it’s rough and tough and will hurt you all the time. But inside, there are treasures that are worth protecting. And they’re called compassion
RIP Yoshifumi Kondō. A deeply perceptive Filmmaker taken away from us far too Soon.
There have been soo much instances of "deconstruction" that makes everything soo mean spirited that when you see Super Heroes do and be super heroes it's refreshing.
I have an idea for a deconstruction of such deconstruction heroes. Let’s call it “Villain Hunter”. The basic concept is that a lot of superheroes (not all of them, but a large number of) would die while either saving the world/people or just fighting their villains. That would result in a high raging of villainy and crime, and so the protagonist of the story would become a new hero, a titularly Villain Hunter. Before becoming a hero they were a regular person who loved superheroes and admired them, who was always inspired by them to do good deeds. And now that most of them are gone, they must also become a hero, to protect the innocent. The villains would be massive jerks, mocking the heroes, either saying that they were naive idiots and mocking their moralities or accusing them of being frauds who were secretly evil bastards, because “anyone with superpowers would be a bastard”. The protagonist in turn would mock the villains and their cynical views, saying something along the lines “just because YOU would be a villain if you got superpowers, doesn’t mean OTHERS would be too”. They’d be fighting villains with the attitude similar to Punisher or Red Hood, except they wouldn’t kill the villains, but rather handle them to authorities. Because they’re still inspired by heroes and share their beliefs that “you can solve your problems without senseless killing”.
Now that's seem like an good superhero deconstruction story and i wish it was real.
If it was real, it would be everyone's favorite superheroes comics in history of favorite superheroes comics.
@@billymccrary2246 I wouldn’t go that far. I doubt it would be EVERYONE’S favourite. I’m sure there would be some who wouldn’t really like it.
@@NurniyazKazaliyevCare to elaborate?
@@williammorahan4907 there are as many opinions as there are people. There is bound to be at minimum ONE person who wouldn’t like this concept.
@@williammorahan4907 plus, there is a reason these deconstructions like “The Boys” or “Marshal Law” exist. And I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t really like a comic that makes fun of things they enjoy, similar to how superhero fans don’t really enjoy their favourite characters and comic books being ridiculed.
Yes, Arkham is the biggest super villain in Gotham.
Just as Mega-City One is Judge Dredd’s greatest enemy.
I savored Travis Langley, a psychologist, taking Arkham to task in his analysis of Batman and his world in his book. Great White Shark is the best symbol of the damage that place does.
I like City if Heroes’ answer to the Superhero lethal force dilemma - Statesman refuses to let any of his teammates kill, it’s not just morality, it’s P.R., no one would trust them if they knew they casually used lethal force, Manticore is eager to kill criminals but doesn’t due to party cohesion, and Sister Psyche’ doesn’t kill humans, but she does kill Nazis because she doesn’t consider them human.
Look superhero deconstruction can work, as shown above, but not when it is solely to be edgy. If you are not willing to entertain existentialism, philosophy or pragmatism, then don’t bother trying to take apart previous characterization. No one wants to see their favorite paragons go psycho just cause you want to get a rise out of people. (cough), (cough), Frank Miller, (cough), (cough).
Thank you it's like these artist and writers of today can't understand why we like these characters.
As much as I like deconstructions, I'm sick of them in comic books.
Especially when it makes me feel guilty for enjoying them.
I just want my escapism, damnit!
Escapism is usually the most bigoted though.
@@CosmoShidan No it isn’t, CosmoFraud, go to Heaven.
@@williammorahan4907 Then explain why Flash Gordon is an Aryan superman leading a race war against Asian tyrants who are out to takeover the white man's world?
Sorry there bucko, but evil races are quite prevalent in escapist media. A la vampires are all evil fits this trope. But then again, Dracula is a racist depiction of Romani and Eastern Europeans, as Angelo-Saxxon peoples had thought of themselves as superior to them at the time of the book's writing. Not to mention it is a fear of queerphobia or to use the umbrella term for it, Heterosexist.
@@CosmoShidan
Are they prevalent now?
@@carbootstudios2459 What does that mean?
ASBaR could have worked if the pitch was of a "gretty" Batman learning that acting like a violent loon makes his job worse so he acts kinder and finds he's now effective.
Darwyn Cooke did just that in The New Frontier.
@@DinoDave150 new frontier probably came up with some of the best explanations for why batman has robin as a protege without making it look too "child soldier"
The animated series young justice too and even LEGO Batman movie (at first a selfish reason, but learns to love robin as his son)
The Batman (2022), sorta
The batman 2022 : hello
It's weird how Wonder Woman 1984 isn't even a "deconstruction" but it suffers from the same flaws as some of the stuff mentioned here like superheroes not doing anything heroic.
I wouldn't consider the wide majority of the movie versions "heroic"
Man of Steel isn't even close to a deconstruction, but a reinforcement of Superman. Deconstructionism in superheroism is designed to point out the many problematic elements in superheroes. For example, if you trace their origins back to Tarzan and John Carter, who were by design in favour of Social Darwinism and white supremacy. Now they aren't saying that one should enjoy superheroes, they are saying that one should address and acknowledge the background behind the works. Case in point, it's about point out the problem and not finding a resolution.
@@CosmoShidan
Honestly, I don't really care about this stuff anymore. To me, deconstructions are just a way for pretentious overthinkers to sound way smarter than they actually are.
Deconstructions can still be good but like any good story, they need to stand on their own first. For example Die Hard can be a considered a deconstruction of stuff like Commando and the Rambo sequels but Die Hard is an actual good movie first and foremost.
Predator can be considered a deconstruction of maculinity but Predator is actually a good movie first and foremost.
@@civilwarfare101 Die Hard is a straight up action flick; it goes against its original source material, in which it has an anti-corporate message. Plus Rambo, or First Blood in particular, is suppose to be anti-war film, but toward the end, it ends up contradicting its source material as well. It does this by blaming hippies implicitly for losing the Vietnam war. While Predator is metaphorical, insofar as it points to Dutch having killed more people that the alien, it's nothing but a paper-thin plot which glorifies military machismo, and possible xenophobia.
BTW, deconstructions are suppose to point out the problem, not give a resolution.
At least wonder woman saves a few kids in that movie. It would be nice if we got more of a focus on that in future superhero movies.
I been known to dislike and even in many cases disagree with Linkara a lot on his views but holy hell do these clips actually prove he can be right on the money sometimes, I am sick of deconstructionism in comics.
I think the problem is less the concept - it’s more that people keep doing the same thing over and over - I’d love a series that both deconstructions and reconstructions varies tropes while also serving as a meta commentary on both mainstream comics and stories like Watchman and The Boys, (Among others).
Also what do you disagree on with Linkara exactly?
@@williammorahan4907
It has come to my sudden attention that upon writing this midway through that I sound standoffish in this response, keep in mind that is it not my intent first and foremost so please do not read it as such:
For me, it literally is the concept. Not because it is annoying per-se but because it's overuse has lead to constant deconstruction that ultimately is lazy and has lead to it going from meta commentary; to blatant laziness as it is the modern comic writers' go to for creating "artistic and intellectual" stories, and the best way to let the concept be fresh again is to stop doing it; it has gotten so bad that some people refuse to believe that even the actual Superman cannot be written well any other way, otherwise he is boring! What makes it worse is that in modern comics; deconstruction happens before we even get the chance to see it get built up from the get go! I just want deconstructionism and subversion to just take a break in comics at this point; it's why Man of Steel for instance did not work as a deconstruction because it wasn't built up to begin with! (Yes, I know Linkara doesn't like it either, and I will get to that.)
As for Linkara; well there is no better way tp explain it than I simply disagree with his criticism philosophy; take for example about how I feel he is harsh on Rob Liefeld; I don't like the guy personally (I wanna make that clear, I got blocked by him on all social media for calling out his BS) but the man has wrote some decent and entertaining comics at the very least; they are dumb but fun and that's really all there is to it.
Truth is; he never really needed to devote an entire longform multipart series trying to review the comic as it was ultimately just a dumb story that basically is about "Superheroes as celebrities!" as admitted by himself. Let me put it to you this way; if I judged Robert E. Howard's Conan stories; pulp adventure stories that ultimately are just that, but unapologetic about it; the same way I judged the Illiad: a story with a lot of metaphorical subtext in nearly every line of text and said something like: "Robert E. Howard's Conan is a shallow and dumb story that doesn't do the concept and idea of a less than altruistic hero in a savage warlike world justice, at least not as solidly as say The Illiad which is a much better story I would say." How much of a prudish snob would I sound like? In fact I would go as far to say how much of a jerk would I sound like? He has a habit of constantly not judging art for what it is which is interesting considering many of his Channel Awesome comrades back in the day such as Nostalgia Critic and even Spoony did so too; but in Linkara's case he doesn't judge it like that! n the past.
What makes it worse is this extends into his need to judge every piece of work including golden age comics which were set for the standards of the time for example is all sorts of wrong as many of that is suspect to his own work too; which only then would he dare suggest you judge work for the time for when they are, which begs the question; does Frank Miller deserve similar leeway for Holy Terror, a comic he himself has largely disowned!?
@@randyrhoades8751 Why don’t you ask Lewis yourself?
I think the different approaches for Marvel and DC vary but what makes both their heroes appealing. DC is the paragons, they're meant to be better and show us the way. Marvel is meant to be the heroes are like us, they aren't perfect and they will fuck up but they'll always try to be better. Of course bad writing can fuck this up badly (DC's new 52 and Marvel's love of hero vs hero) but at the core this is what makes them heroes. They want to do good and even if they fail, at least they'll try and keep trying to be better
Heck, if i was in-charge of Marvel Comics, i would ended the whole obsession of hero vs. hero story and not doing massive crossovers and just simply tell good stories for new generation readers and, for the big one, i would possibly forced the staff at Marvel to reboot their mainstream universe so writers can tell fresh new stories for classic characters and maybe an another imprint universe similar to Ultimate Marvel, but minus the edgy outlook, and made it for teens and preteens fans.
7:25 - The thing about the 'one bad day' line that makes it truly ominous is that even though Batman hasn't had that bad day yet it doesn't guarantee that he won't. It's a lingering possibility that always exists with a character like Batman, because it's the truth. One bad day can change everything about his character.
But something like that happening would have to be a major climactic point in a character's journey. You couldn't just have that happen for shock value and then have the character's story go on for another twenty years. If it happened, it has to mean the story is coming close to a final conclusion. If the story keeps going after that, then of course you're going to have people call it out, and rightly so.
Bruce Wayne DID have One Bad Day. Specifically, the day that made him into Batman.
@@ajdynon I'm talking about the One Bad Day that either makes an otherwise good person into a villain, or makes them do things they would normally be dead set against.
@@SBaby Moore's point in The Killing Joke is that Batman and the Joker both became what they did because of One Bad Day, and how they responded to it.
@@ajdynon True, but also it could've just as easily been the other way around for Batman, and he probably knows it.
I can imagine the Joker's henchmen having enough and killing him.
The Batman Who Laughs origin actually gave a good reason for why Batman killing Joker is a bad idea regardless as the death of the Joker in the universe that The Batman Who Laughs originated in produced a chemical that essentially turned Batman into an even more dangerous version of the Joker.
Its actually a good explanation against killing Joker for people who are for or okay with Batman killing the Joker. Additionally some people fail to realize what killing the Joker would mean as if he does it once, he could do it again as killing someone who has hurt your friends and family is easy, the fact that Batman has the mental fortitude to avoid killing the Joker especially after all he's done is amazing and is an admirable trait for a hero (sure it may not be realistic, but so is the idea of a rich businessman wearing a bat costume to fight crime as a vigilante in a world where aliens, magic, gods, and Amazons exist).
There are multiple stories in which someone kills the Joker, and he gets the last laugh by either corrupting them, or ruining their life via his death. “Batman Dracula”, “Injustice Year One”, “The Nail”, all of these are stories are instances where the Joker’s death marks the turning point where everything goes from bad, to total s***storm.
I’d like to give a special mention to “The Nail”, since, in this world where Superman was late in answering the call to heroism, Batman didn’t go bad from killing the Joker, but the act in question ruined the Justice League, and caused a domino effect that ended with Jimmy Olsen dead, and Batman quitting the JL by the time the story ends. All of that, caused by killing that clown in an act of vigilantism.
@@Nameless-ln5mr Let’s not forget that in Kingdom Come, Joker’s summary execution results in a series of events that lead to the death of 1 million people in Kansas, and eventually a battle that results in approximately more than half of the world’s current metahuman population being killed as well. Even if it was all indirectly.
Case in point - The Joker is actually *FAR* more dangerous dead then he is alive.
I think if villains like the Joker existed IRL, they'd have been shot by the cops a long time ago, or been executed. Most of his crimes are enough to qualify as terrorism!
He'd only have been shot if he were a POC.
If he were white (which I presume he is in most if not all incarnations - even Joaquin Phoenix, a latino, is presented as white -), he'd have a Burger King, then a slap on the wrist or two years with a year parole.
Because MuriKKKa.
supervillains were created to be opposites of superheroes. Deconstructing them to the extreme or reversing the roles undoes all of that. Not saying everything should be so black and white. But why try so hard to undo what works?
Supervillains deconstruction doesn't necessarily mean turning them good. It means that there are hidden meanings in their villainy as to why their evil plans do not work. Megamind deconstructs the titular villain by showing that he does whatever he does because he's obsessed with fighting the Superman analogue. When the superhero's declared dead, he no longer has a purpose in life. He's so desperate that he tries to create a new nemesis out of a random delivery guy to fight with.
While Megamind eventually becomes a "hero" by stopping the said delivery guy, It's not exactly reversing the role because it's damage limitation rather than a genuine heroic. Deconstruction only expanded the supervillain concept into places people did not expect it to be.
@@manat31790 in fact Megamind is a deconstruction of the supervillain as a whole, as well as the fine line between hero and villain without going overly edgy with it.
We see that while Megamind enjoys being a supervillain for the msot part, it leaves him unfulfilled and lonely, and he finds happiness when he becomes a hero, because really that's the kind of life he really always wanted but society denied him for the longest time.
Meanwhile we get Tighten, who findds villainy more fulfilliling because he's ultimately a simple minded, selfish person who cares more instant gratification and personal enjoyment over anything deeper.
And then there's Metro man, a man who was the hero of the city who got everything (popularity, good looks, a well paying job, rich parents etc) an was given special treatment by everyone, but the deconstruction comes when it turns out none of that made him happy or fulfilled, and while he wasn't a HERO deep down (as that was a role put upon him by others' expectations), he wasn't EVIL, just aLITTLE bit selfish, but was the only one who saw Megamind's potential for good due to fighting him so long.
went ona tangent there sorry.
Everyone in this comment section: *talks about the video as well as mentioning their own personal feelings of the subject*
Me: … Why hasn’t Linkara done a review of Squadron Supreme yet?
Not to mention Kingdom Come and Superman: Red Son.
Why doesn't Gotham just execute the Joker?
Theres no death penauty in the DcUniverse
Joker wouldn't be executed by plea of insanity.
Because he's declared legally insane in which by law doesn't consider him a true criminal for not being responsible for his actions due to his mental state. That's why he's always sent to a mental asylum instead of a state prison.
@@SHINOBI-03
Which is weird since he doesn't meet the legal definition of insanity.
Then again, comic book law is totally different from the real world and needs to suit the needs of a wider narrative and plot.
I don't think Gotham has the death sentence. Execution only ever comes up as an option for things on a federal scale.
I've never put the blame on Batman for not killing the Joker. I've ALWAYS put the blame on "random cop no 84" for not putting three rounds between the Joker's eyes mid transport to Arkham.
The problem with these “deconstructions” is that they don’t have a clue what the word means. They think deconstruction is the same as taking a recking ball to a building but in reality it’s a soldier taking apart his weapon to know how it works & then rebuild it (one is just destroying something the other is actual analysis of the parts of a whole)
Deconstruction is about pointing out the problem and not necessarily resolving it. It's a method of weeding out flaws in a work, while problem-solving is a methodology for fixing the problems.
I do really hate the “Batman should kill the Joker or he’s an awful person” he’s not judge jury and executioner, nor should he be, now why aren’t the judges doing execution? (I know in reality they’ve tried to and it never stuck but I’m making a point cause that’s never factored into the argument)
I never understood why people are calling Batman a bad person for no killing the joker. I've seen one loser say that he should be in prison for not wanting to kill the Joker, sure the guy who stops crime at all corners should be in prison, what is gonna stop the Joker then if Batman is behind bars for not wanting to kill someone.
Why should Batman have to kill the Joker? Why don't we as a society do it instead?
Funny thing, Robot Chicken made a parody of the Green Mile, where Batman decided that he wanted the Joker gone, but he refused to break his no killing rule. So, he vouched for the Joker to get the death penalty. There’s your win-win solution! The Joker is dead, and Batman doesn’t betray his oath! And if the madman tries to get away via insanity pleas, he was once called “super-sane,” so there’s your counter argument.
because its easier to forget the court justice system exists and jsut blame batman for everything, becaus eit doesn't require actually thinking about the story or character and just think in terms of brutal simplicity
5:22 *flashbacks of The Batman Who Laughs origin story intensifies*.
Damn you were ahead of your time with this video. Definitely deserves more views!
Linkara fails to see that his view of superbeings is that it is binary, and that superheroes are like the KKK, in that they are vigilantes who practice extrajudicial punishment without limit, making them a lynch mob.
@@CosmoShidanstill spreading idiocy I see.
@@tylerleach8796 Once again, you prove how anti-intellectual by not actually reading what I mean. All I'm pointing out is how superheroes tend to resemble lynch mobs like the KKK.
Thank you for doing this video. I too love superheroes and I am tired of trying to justify them to people.
To be fair to the Batman theme, it wasn't previously thought about because the Joker wasn't this genuinely scary destructive monster, he was just another villain, a good one, but one more. Right now, thanks to the damn wave of edgy writers, Joker is too dangerous to be left alive, the death penalty would be appropriate, and regarding Batman, they also changed it because previously his reasons were "I don't kill because I think people is capable of changing, and I believe in second chances. Now, they turned Batman into a closet sociopath saying "If I kill, I'll kill again because I know myself." Dude, wtf? THAT'S NOT BATMAN! IT'S GARTH ENNIS MAKING A CHEAP COSPLAY!
If you look back to Watchmen, Rorschach is literally Batman if he existed in the real world; a sociopathic, monomaniacal, vigilante who resorts to whatever means to take down "crime".
@@CosmoShidanthat has nothing to do with the original comment. Sit the fuck down.
@@tylerleach8796 I meant that to literally point out that Alan Moore is an example of "edgy" writing. Then again, Mark Millar is more of an edgelord. At least Garth Ennis has a point in that he comments on how shitty the Bush administration was, and predated the Jan. 6 coup attempt at the end of the Boys.
Everything about this video is honestly great.
The ability to still be good even with incredible power.
That having a little power fantasy isn't that bad.
Cynical comic writers ignoring the fact that characters with superpowers doing abominable things are *Super-villains.*
The well explained reason why Batman doesn't kill and the fact that Joker is a fictional character that writers keep giving a higher and higher body count with more and more gruesome acts leading to people calling out Batman's rule.
I know that Louis isn't an entirely perfect person. Not taking Oneyplays impressions well and having lots of cringe jokes and bits in his videos, but it's his understanding and respect for this craft that's still enduring all these years later.
But what of supervillains we can admire because they are fighting for actual change? Say we take Flag-Smasher, an anarchist who is trying to eliminate nationalism and government? Or even the Batman villain Anarky? The latter of whom is devoted to saving the environment and challenging the conditions of the poor and destitute? Supervillains can have a cause worth fighting for. Hence we have noble villains or rather, called villains because society has deemed them such despite their cause. But then you have Magneto, who's probably right that humans and mutantkind will not mesh well together?
Heck, even Dr. Doom sees his attempts to rule the world as a form of altruism.
@@CosmoShidan or you know…they’re called villains because they’re willing to kill innocent people and commit horrid actions to achieve those goals? Just a thought…
@@tylerleach8796 That's another thing, Marvel's ULTIMATUM red-baited the Black Panther Party for self-defense if you look closely at their uniforms or how Flag-smasher has red eyes which is to indicate he's a far-leftist, which is coding all anarchists as evil, which is far from the truth, as most are pacifist.
Also, Batman sure has a great track record of decreasing the criminal population in Blackgate and Arkham.
@@CosmoShidan um...what? On both those points. Batman DOES try to reform criminals...all the time. And in the case of basic henchmen, he DOES reform them and get them on track for a better life ALL THE TIME. Bruce Wayne constantly uses his money to help Gotham City, even establishing an entire section of the city to help those without homes and have nowhere else to go, run by his own childhood therapist.
There's a difference between analyzing and questioning the symbols, icons, heroes, and whatever else in culture we enjoy to gain a better understanding, and then there's throwing a temper tantrum about having to write superhero comics for years because you're a loser nerd with the charisma of a misanthrope.
While I'm not a big comic guy, I do agree with Linkara's take on this sorta thing. Would honestly take a thousand MCU movies than hear these kinds of writers complain about their jobs.
Nice. This has some insight and greater meme potential
0:00 "No one wants to read that story here." The common nature of superhero deconstructions and how they can be good and bad (All-Star Batman And Robin issue 7)
1:43 "...in a world made of cardboard..." The misconception about Superman and Linkara's deconstruction of superheroes (Action Comics issue 775)
3:35 "Dude, can you tone it down a bit?" A rant about the repeated qualities of superhero "deconstructions" (Pinhead vs Marshall Law)
4:59 "The unbreakable man" A discussion about why Batman's morality matters to both us and to himself (Batman: Hush)
According to Chris Gavaler, superheroes with their costume designs, including the secret identiy, vow to protect the "innocent", the symbols on their chests, and vigalante actions that go above the law originate from the novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon.
@@CosmoShidan Oh please, his claims are fucking moronic. The concept of a superhero having colorful costumes, protecting innocent people, and having symbols on their chest was inspired by stories of old westerns and characters like Zorro as well as ancient stories about Demigods like Heracles, Persues, and many more characters from old mythology who stand up against evil and protected innocent people. Some would say that they were also based on the Bald Knobbers. Just because one idiot looked at a terrible novel written by the KKK and used buzzwords to make themselves look like the good guys does not mean that superheroes were inspired by the KKK.
@@HenryLouis21 Those characters of Greek mythology though, they are proto-fascist in that they would eventually become kings or gods, in how they are more dominating and were warriors, especially Hercules in how he killed a farmer for beating him at gathering the most shrubs. In fact, those stories were about why the rulers should have power.
Old westerns btw, are stories that reinforce white supremacy in how the white man tamed a "wild land" that was uninhabited and "civilized". This dehumanizes the inhabitants who already tamed and civilized the land to begin with, and that is the native Americans.
And I'm sorry, but the fact that the KKK wear emblems on their chests, wear costumes to conceal their identities, and participated in vigilante activities during prohibition, (such as beating bootlegers, adulterers, and raiding saloons) and well into the depression era is quite telling. Especially as prohibition and the great depression had much to do with the superhero's development. They did this in the name of "saving" protestant America.
Another analog is how according to Galaver, the fictional suphero registration acts in superhero stories are actually based on the anti-KKK registration acts.
@@CosmoShidan Isn’t Gavaler a white dude?
@@CosmoShidan
So I’m guessing you’d support Tony’s side in Civil War. The side that would have people arrested if they don’t tow the line and even got Goliath (a black superhero, mind you) killed by a clone of Thor.
Do you have self-awareness?
A detail Linkara didn't include in the "deconstructions" like Marshal Law so I'm guessing he didn't think of it at the time. Those kinds of stories make supervillains who supposedly more realistic takes on superheroes into conservative Christians, or Christians for the sake of making them hypocrites. Or both in Marshal Law's case.
These says nothing about the superhero genre since superheroes who are religious in any shape or form are the exception rather than the rule. The only reason these comics include it is because the writers have a low opinion of religion so it's a power fantasy for the writers to have their self insert characters kill Christians. This is especially laughable with Marshal Law since it's supposedly a deconstruction of power fantasies but the more the comic goes on the more it's clear it's a blatant power fantasy for Pat Mills.
If you actually do some research on the iconic comic creators you realize a number of them were Jews. So that just make satirizing Superman or Captain America by making stand ins for them Christians, while making being Christian a negative trait, just shows that the people working on said satires aren't qualified to write about the superhero genre in the first place.
What makes it even sadder is that Captain America is actually a Christian in the books, same for Nightcrawler and Daredevil. I actually am a huge fan of Nightcrawler for that reason; as a young Christian growing up watching superhero cartoons, the X-Men episode featuring him made me happy to see a superhero who had the same faith I do.
If you were to look at Rick Veitch's Maximortal, he retells the creation of Superman by Siegel and Shuster, and how originally the character was an anti-establishment hero. But then he ended up getting sucked up by corporate mandates to keep the character the same, while cranking out the same story again and again, while frustrating the creative duo to never allow them to write the stories they wanted. This is especially when WWII broke out, and Superman was reduced to a mere wartime propaganda cartoon, encouraging youngsters to buy warbonds and stamps and recycle paper. Hence, whereas Superman once stood against the establishment, he ended up playing its fiddle.
@@CosmoShidan That is an interesting look at the character's history but I don't see why it's relevant to anything I just said. Especially since superheroes aren't the only genre that suffers from that so I don't see why they get singled out for it.
Judge Dredd started off as an anti-authoritarian satire that frequently plays itself completely seriously with Dredd saving his city from much worse threats. The character likely wouldn't have last as long otherwise.
The Boys' TV series is loaded with product placement despite its anti-capitalism satire.
Marshal Law threw its anti-military satire out the window a few stories in to make fun of WWII comics, and eventually even discarded its "superheroes are bad" message because the Mills and O'Neil had a comic that made money and were coming up with more ways to keep it going.
Really dark cynical characters are just as prone to being milked for cash as superheroes, because writers need to make money. People just pick on the superhero genre for jokes about sell outs because they are obvious targets given they are heroes. It's the same reason why Mickey Mouse gets mocked as a metaphor for Disney's unethical policies, because he's supposed to be a cute innocent character, but Bugs Bunny doesn't get used a metaphor for amoral actions by Warner Bros.
@@dragonstormx "That is an interesting look at the character's history but I don't see why it's relevant to anything I just said. Especially since superheroes aren't the only genre that suffers from that so I don't see why they get singled out for it."
Superheroes get called out because their opponents, when they are non-supervillains, are usually bank robbers or muggers, but the thing about taking on such enemies, is that it doesn't take into account that in the real world, such people commit such crimes out of desperation caused by poverty. Even when it comes to fighting local gangs, the same thing applies. So what it boils down to is, that superheroes are defenders of the status quo and private property in the means of production much like police.
"The Boys' TV series is loaded with product placement despite its anti-capitalism satire."
The thing about anti-capitalism satire is that, sponsors don't realize that they are ones being called out on, and assume it's parody, which they confuse the two. Take MS Gundam 0079, it was a superhero robot satire, with an anti-capitalist message, which the sponsors didn't catch, and still haven't after over 40 years.
"Judge Dredd started off as an anti-authoritarian satire that frequently plays itself completely seriously with Dredd saving his city from much worse threats. The character likely wouldn't have last as long otherwise."
That's half right. Dredd is anti-authoritarian, but the threats, such as the robot tyrant Call-Me-Kenneth, in the first story arc, where millions Megacity-01 die happened because of Judge Dredd and the Judges themselves. I.e. the Judges are the cause of the threats.
"Marshal Law threw its anti-military satire out the window a few stories in to make fun of WWII comics, and eventually even discarded its "superheroes are bad" message because the Mills and O'Neil had a comic that made money and were coming up with more ways to keep it going."
Mills satirized WWII comics for their casual racism and jingoism. All the while, WWII comics made the war look like it was good vs evil, when that wasn't the case. The allies were fascistic as they were colonialist, such as how they turned a blind eye to the Holocaust by not bombing the gas chambers because they wanted the Nazis to destroy their own labor force to slow them down.
"Really dark cynical characters are just as prone to being milked for cash as superheroes, because writers need to make money. People just pick on the superhero genre for jokes about sell outs because they are obvious targets given they are heroes. It's the same reason why Mickey Mouse gets mocked as a metaphor for Disney's unethical policies, because he's supposed to be a cute innocent character, but Bugs Bunny doesn't get used a metaphor for amoral actions by Warner Bros."
They get milked because of copyright, and the sponsors who own the Intellectual Property, have no idea of the meanings behind the satirical characters, such as Watchmen. The creators are attacking superheroes because they accuse them of being fascist because when they fight "criminals" per se, it's because they are fighting the symptoms of crime and not the cause of the disease of crime. Hence, as I said above, they are fascistic in this sense. BTW, Micky Mouse and Bugs Bunny are minstrels or that they are a form of cultural appropriation of the image of African-Americans, and being made into stereotypes. E. g. the exggerated eyes and mouths are akin to blackface.
@CosmoShidan "Superheroes get called out because their opponents, when they are non-supervillains, are usually bank robbers or muggers, but the thing about taking on such enemies, is that it doesn't take into account that in the real world, such people commit such crimes out of desperation caused by poverty. Even when it comes to fighting local gangs, the same thing applies. So what it boils down to is, that superheroes are defenders of the status quo and private property in the means of production much like police."
That is why we have writers trying to focus on them doing more than that. It's not universal since not every writer is able to handle those issues, just like not every writer who tries to satirize the comment on the genre is qualified, mainly Garth Ennis.
"The thing about anti-capitalism satire is that, sponsors don't realize that they are ones being called out on, and assume it's parody, which they confuse the two. Take MS Gundam 0079, it was a superhero robot satire, with an anti-capitalist message, which the sponsors didn't catch, and still haven't after over 40 years."
The Boys was green light by Amazon for the purpose of making money. They don't care what the show is about as long as it makes money. They have merchandise based on the show's protagonists. This and you statements about Superman just go to show that anything can adopted to make money.
The same applies to Gundam. The franchise, which is NOT a satire of the super robot genre by the way since it presents giant robots as awesome. It depicted piloting giant robots are a harsh experience which was actually nothing new for the genre, Mazinger Z, the series the popularized the genre also did that, but I digress. Gundam has survived far longer than it looked like it was going to do when it first aired due to corporate sponsors, which allowed its creator to make a sequel that is widely regarded by fans and critics to be superior to the original series.
In any case The Boys only throws its criticism of capitalism at stand ins for superheroes who are antagonists. The comic and show have a stand in for the Punisher who is sparred from those criticisms despite also being a character Marvel uses to make money. Replace Billy's line about what Vought uses to sell superheroes when he talks about "amusement parks" with "video games" and you have a summery of what Marvel has used the Punisher to sell.
Back on the subject of Gundam, much as I like Gundam I do also have to point out that it is one of the worst cases of franchise commenting on the horrors of war while still making war look cool thanks to all of its flashy battle scenes. It's an almost unavoidable issue when it comes to making a war story.
"That's half right. Dredd is anti-authoritarian, but the threats, such as the robot tyrant Call-Me-Kenneth, in the first story arc, where millions Megacity-01 die happened because of Judge Dredd and the Judges themselves. I.e. the Judges are the cause of the threats."
That still undermines the message when Megacity was been saved dozens of times by a man who was created to be a perfect Judge. Plus Pat Mills stated that Judge Dredd is supposed to be a villain. Now creators aren't always the be all and end all of what direction to take their creations. All the same, Dredd was created to be a thug who enforced the will of a fascist regime. Unless he's going to overthrow the regime in question he hardly sounds like the type of character who writers should be having save the day or saying he has a compassionate side.
"Mills satirized WWII comics for their casual racism and jingoism. All the while, WWII comics made the war look like it was good vs evil, when that wasn't the case. The allies were fascistic as they were colonialist, such as how they turned a blind eye to the Holocaust by not bombing the gas chambers because they wanted the Nazis to destroy their own labor force to slow them down."
Mills acted like he was commenting on something shocking. Almost anybody who is aware of popular culture from the 1940s, or any kind of older story, is going to be aware of the racism or sexism from that era or past eras. Mills was commenting on something that wasn't relevant. Most characters created in that era are C-listers at best, the ones who did survive have had their values updated to reflect the times so again what the comic was commenting on wasn't relevant.
If we took this attitude of condemning everything that has some values that haven't aged well then we would condemn everything, including Watchmen. The comic's only confirmed homosexuals die and we have a woman in a romantic relationship with a man who raped her. The latter would definitely not fly today.
Marshal Law is even worse. The comic's desire to shock audiences means it relies heavily on Women In Refrigerators, often with them getting raped or killed in a manner that is sexualized. Our opening story had Public Spirit try to kill his wife, and what she went through is presented as less important than Marshal Law's vendetta with him. On top of her getting murdered we also saw Law's girlfriend killed, and in later brought back in a fanservice style outfit where her cheating on her boyfriend with another man is used as a sign of her being evil. The comic's desire to shock the audience results in a ton of immature and super sexist moments.
And Mills did throw his anti-army satire out the window. We saw the Jesus Society of America attacked by WWII veterans who despised them with the comic framing WWII comic superheroes as a disgrace to the people who fought and died in the war. Except superhero comics were actually popular with the US army servicemen so he didn't know he was talking about.
Hell Mills even threw undermined Marshal Law's own anti-superhero satire when he made a comic that had Law on the side of the superheroes against Xenomorph stand ins. Then in the final comic he threw the satire out the window altogether in a crossover with Savage Dragon. This was just a full blown superhero comic that said Marshal Law is a good person at heart.
Not that I fault Mills as a person for this. It was just a comic and this wasn't a good time in the comic industry. He did need to make money.
I pointed out before how depicting superheroes as fundamentalist Christians isn't relevant to the genre. Since you ignored it, I will point that again. Superheroes who are religious in any shape or form are the exception tot he rule, even back in the 1940s. Recall that Watchmen depict any of its villains as fundamentalist Christians because Alan Moore knew that had nothing to do with the genre. Mills didn't know that and didn't care. Depicting superheroes as Christians was just something Mills did as a power fantasy where he had his atheist protagonist killing them.
It was dumb when Mills depicted his Superman stand in as a Christian for the purpose of being a hypocrite and it was dumb when he did with Golden Age characters since it creates an undertone that being religious makes someone a villain.
Marshal Law's satire of Golden Age comics also wrote the characters as homophobic despite also depicting homosexuals as rapists.
Ya know another good superhero deconstruction? Animoprhs.
That's an alien invasion series, not superheroes.
@@CosmoShidan Doesn’t it have *some* superhero tropes?
@@williammorahan4907 That's not how I would read Animorphs, since the story is about a group of kids who have been thrust into a gurrilla war with an alien invasion by infiltration. Probably the best comparison is Earth: Final Conflict (at least as far as its first season is concerned). Not to mention that the kids have to face the horrors of war...
@@CosmoShidan
A lot of superhero stories involve alien invasions anyway.
The idea that our heroes and protectors should forego due process and be allowed to kill the bad guys when they personally judge it to be a necessity is how we in the United States got to the point where police officers can shoot unarmed civilians with disgustingly little (if any) consequences.
3:16 Is compassion newsworthy? Is decency newsworthy? Is kindness newsworthy?
You tell me.
Yeah because the media and the world is so reoccupied with covering everything that is dark, cynical and depressing.
Those can still be used as tools to gain power. We call that soft power in international relations, and it's what is safe to say, that superheroes use them.
The fact that linkara hates the boys bring me so much joy knowing if he reviews I will enjoy him ripping it apart to my happiness :3
People always talk about the show as if it's the second coming, like "THIS'll put the MCU in its place!"
But honestly? It isn’t any less capitalistic or cynical than the things it claims to satirise.
@@tolchok89 Here's the thing, it's either the studio fails to take notice of the anti-capitalist themes or that they don't care. I will have to point out that claiming hypocrisy can also fall into the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. It's related to the ad hominen fallacy, which is a personal attack on the character of the arguer, rather than the argument. In the case of the Boys, it's an attack on the integrity of the creators, rather than dealing with the argument. In any case, to remedy the problem with superheroes as fascists/cops, you have to make the cops, landlords, billionaires, military brass, and politicians the bad guys. In other words, reverse the narrative.
@@CosmoShidan
And I’m willing to bet that said millionaires, landlords, cops, would have to be exclusively white.
Also, aren’t you strawmanning here now too?
@@carbootstudios2459Because the oppressors are always white people.
I wonder what CosmoShidan would think of Hotel Rwanda and Last King of Scotland - assuming he doesn’t just flat out refuse to acknowledge their existence because he knows they would put huge holes in his arguments about tyranny and fascism always being Caucasian…..
@@williammorahan4907
And are all white people automatically oppressive?
This is one of the things I love about Linkara. Even though the character is presented as a bit of an asshole sometimes or a know-it-all, he absolutely believes that people are naturally good. That's why he loves comics and superheroes. It is shown in his line "People can be and *are* kind. So why wouldn't someone with incredible abilities be kind too?"
To answer the question, because people with power are always the bad guys; kind-hearted people with power exist only in fantasy and divorces the reality of what people with power are actually like. In fact, that's the point Alan Moore's been arguing for 40 years in Watchmen. Now the question to ask is, if people are "naturally good" then whence commeth evil?
Also, it turns out that the design of superhero costumes comes from the KKK, and were an attempt by comics creators in the 1930s to subvert the symbolism they represented according to superhero scholar Chris Gavaler. Though it was more of a liberal, social crusade representing the New Deal, which takes a welfare stance, but anti-communist one.
@@CosmoShidanJesus Christ, dude. You’re STILL here spewing this shit?!
@@CosmoShidan
People are more naturally neutral by birth and design, good and evil are more choices as a result of a mix of nature and nurture.
@@tylerleach8796
Ikr
@@tylerleach8796 You still can't read? Here's a quote by comics historian Michael Chabon in the 2003 documentary, Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked, which summarizes what I just said earlier:
"There was a sort of irony in the fact that these [superhero] characters - many of whom in that period, the Golden Age, had been evolved to fight the Nazis - were themselves very much in the Nazi ideal. The idea that you can solve problems through physical strength, by being stronger and more dominant and more powerful - that is fascism. I mean, that's it, that's the essence of fascism. I don't think the creators of the superheroes or the kids who were reading them at the time were the slightest bit aware of it."
-Michael Chabon
3:02 “Reality is pain, bile and darkness. Reality rules.”
-Manchester Black
I gotta say I enjoy seeing these moments showing how hard it is for the paragons to keep their morals like how Batman was tempted to kill Joker. A Superman line I don't completely remember exactly when it was said (I think it was when Manchester Black faked killing Lois Lane) encapsulates that thought, going something like, "I'm not that man. God I wish I was now, but I'm not."
Even though it’s not comicbook-based or even really about a true superhero debatably, the best hero deconstruction I’ve ever seen in media is in the Matrix franchise especially in Matrix Reloaded during the Architect scene when Neo finds out the true purpose of “The One” and he realizes the difference between what he’s supposed to do as The One vs what he needs to do with his abilities that no previous “One” has done before.
The Matrix films I would say, are a reinforcement of the hero's journey imo.
@@CosmoShidan Finally something we agree on.
@@williammorahan4907 The hero's journey is also a sexist, racist, and classist work of douche baggery. This is especially when Joe Campbell claims in the book, The Hero with A Thousand Faces that if a hero fears death, then they are doomed to failure. That sounds more like fear of making mistakes and not wanting to learn from them and being very fascist as well.
@@CosmoShidan None off that makes as any sort of sense *at all.*
And The Matrix is more of deconstruction of The Hero’s Journey than a “reinforcement” of it.
@@williammorahan4907 Oh? I won't spell everything out to you when I already have. I will suggest that you check out my playlist here on why the hero's journey has its limits:
ua-cam.com/video/5nOE7tBnYaU/v-deo.html
What do you think Linkara thinks of Invincible? I should ask him next time he does a livestream.
He said somewhere he not interested at this and the Boys.
@@Gerik75 Why do I have the feeling that people will want him to review it? And that they'll use Patreon sponsoring in order to make it happen?
This video is a blessing.
Garth ennis been really quiet since this drop
not the same ball park since he hates the concept of super heroes as a whole
@@zello4075 Yeah, especially at the end of the Boys, he points out how they're related to the KKK.
@@CosmoShidanhe doesn’t “point out” Jack shit.
@@tylerleach8796 Actually at the end of the series, once the 7 have been defeated and Billy Butcher's plans go up in smoke, the 7's replacements resemble the KKK, which inspired the design for superheroes in the 1930s.
@@CosmoShidan I know, I sadly read the garbage fire, and Garth Ennis wasn’t pointing out Jack shit.
Personally I like to think that first Batman story was always supposed to be a comedy
8:56 Still mourning the death of his son I believe. More the reason companies shouldn't have drug him back in at the time.
What?
@@williammorahan4907 Oh you didn't know? His son died at the time. Really sad.
@@Falcovsleon21 ok
The more you know I guess.
I don't the idea of batman killing is necessarily a bad thing, if you acknowledge that in doing so it would be pretty much a AU and not the 'prime batman'. I also just think it kind of....makes things too easy, maybe....from a story structure perspective? Like if you have a batman who kills, then i'm pretty much going to be wondering why he hasn't killed the villain already in almost like every panel unless you write out a very convincing situation.
precisely why most writers give superheroes a code against wanton murder usually. In universe its because they're paragons who must not cross a line if they don't want all humanity to turn against them and distrust them, out of universe its so the writer doesn't just make it easy and lose all suspene (as well as lose out on reusing a popular or potentially popular character)
I think I heard of a comic where the straight up Silver Age Righteous Hero called out his writer trying to make him "dark, edgy and more realistic" by saying he actually LIKES being a straight forward goody-two shoes as one would put it and pretty much "deconstructed" the concept of making characters "the bad kind of deconstruction!"
Truthfully I enjoyed that as not everything has to be dark and edgy (As a batman fan, and Shadow the Hedgehog fan as well; I'm getting tired of the mindset that both characters are edge lords, just cause EDGE LORDS pushed stereotyping these's character's as such or made their own characters "too similar to them!" And idiots went with the simple "guess their edge lords cause Edge Lords love em!). There must be balance, or you'll get "too dark/bleak, stopped caring!" (this is why COMEDY and/or ROMANCE exist in dark stories! If you keep scaring your audience 24/7 throughout the horror movie without a break in the horror, they're minds will catch on to what your doing and they'll be on guard, ruining the horror and experience as they've become ACCEPTING of what comes next! You can indeed BORE someone if your story doesn't know when to pace out it's main attraction and put other attraction around it! Like if you have an amusement park with nothing but roller coasters! the first three will be fun, but then a customer will want to do something different then roller coaster and if you don't have it, they'll become bored with the place and go elsewhere).
Someone said it best that people need to read stories like All-Star Superman to see that having straight up "Light Heroes" can be just as good as "dark ones!" (I think the reason they hate straight up heroes like Supes is because they think "nice guy=Bad/Naive Idiot" who is too ineffective at doing what needs to be done! Compassion as stated "is not a weakness!" I find those who are wise in knowing this WAY more interesting then those who think their smart, but just edgy edge lords who need to get over their middle school syndrome and grow up! I like Punisher like the next person. But I do pay attention to the details in his story and what is shown is Frank is not a good person, nor someone to emulate, his humanity is what I like about him, especially the part that makes him good is that he has standards even in his insanity and that . What I liked about the movie War Zone was Frank ending up breaking his rule against killing innocence with the fact he killed an uncover detective in his crusade, something that was realistic seeing how he has a shot first ask questions later approach which takes a stab at the concept murdering anti-heroes with such rules against innocent getting hurt are fooling themselves if they think they'll always know who's innocent and who's guilty! Punisher's issue is what I see in a lot of stories like "Law Abiding Citizen" and "Kingdom Come" where everyone roots for the murdering Hero finally putting criminals to justice.....and then regretting it later and of course taking no responsibility for enabling said heroes in the first place...just deciding it's ALL HEROES fault rather then themselves having any hand in what spawned them)
While I agree with most of what you said. Law abiding citizen was a story about a supervillain... Clay had sympathetic backstory, and you kind of understand where he's coming from but he's the villain protagonist of that movie.
@@stcsuntzucreed That's why I called him "murdering hero!" It was one thing to kill the man who raped and murdered his family! But then he killed tha man's lawyer, the judge and oh yes Jamie Foxx fellow lawyers including his protege who had nothing to do with that case just the hurt Foxx character! I actually didn't like Clay when he horribly murdered the other robber at his death sentence! Yeah he never should have been there or aiding the POS. But he didn't deserve to die horribly like what happened simply because he was an accomplice (Still found it weird and off-putting that one screw up in evidence allowed the POS not only to get away with the rape and murder but even get a deal to push the blame on his partner!)
Yeah Clay was a Villain in that he was a man lashing out at everyone for not only what happened to his family, but the fact those who should have avenged them instead let the real killer go because of "circumstances" and got told to "let it go! At least one of them was going to pay with his life! (The one who was only interested in robbing Clay and getting the fuck out that is! How the fuck was that even a consolation prize?) ....and my point was you have to remember that people WITHIN the movie (that's who I was mostly referring to then those outside it LOL) were sympathizing with him, to the point they handwaved or ignored the countless innocents he killed (including them had Foxx not moved the bombs into his cell). And the best irony was He lost because he did to another man what was done to him (I'm suspecting Foxx Protege "contact" was a lover or old boyfriend of hers that was pissed off at her death and investigated him harder than everyone else! Giving Foxx the lead he needed that lead to Clay defeat). Clay is in no way ANYWHERE near Frank Castle in ever being an Anti-Hero! (Frank for all his flaws, at least keeps to a code he'll never cross....a code many writers forget about "thank you very much Secret Empire! Seriously I know they hate the Right and the fact many like Frank, but making a character act out of character is fucking retarded and idiotic! It's right up there with an alternative universe Frank Castle who became extremely anti-mutant as in CLOSE TO THE PURIFIERS/FRIENDS OF HUMANITY/REAVERS level anti-mutant cause in that universe, his family instead of being murdered by mobsters, were killed by a mutant's who's powers emerged and they were accidently killed! Seriously what is with Marvel and making every non-mutant antagonist to the Xmen be some pleb who went all Nazi on Mutant kind because an innocent mutant accidently killed their family! They forgot that Frank has a moral fiber in his body before and AFTER his family's death. He wouldn't go kill all mutants since it's an ACCIDENT! Yeah he'd not like em. But deciding their the ultimate evil like MOBSTERS! It's right up there with Bruce hating rock and roll since his dad disliked it and made it clear he didn't want it heard in the mansion right before the family left to their future death! We know Bruce is heavily scared by Thomas and Martha's deaths especially as he witnessed it first hand as a kid, but that was just stupid and I'm happy next to "Bees my God" Linkara mocked them both!)
What is annoying is the idiots who supported such villainous actions never learning and making the same mistake again in the future!
@@paulman34340 Yeah, I'm not a fan of the punisher. He's fine as a character and I did enjoy Ennies' run on him, mostly because I like most Ennies' work outside superheroes. Punisher is an interesting character but something about him rubs me the wrong way and even I get what punisher is about. That's why I ocasionally say that batman killing is just a punisher in a silly hat. Punisher has a moral code, true, twisted though it may be, but there is consistency there. He creates kill zones so that innocent people don't get hurt, and he almost killed himself when he though that he did. And that's why I only consider him an interesting character not a favorite or anything similar. He's what most likely would've happened if someone saw his family gunned down in cold blood, and I like my heroes to take the higher road honestly
@@stcsuntzucreed True that! And yeah, I loved Ennies run on Punisher. But so many writers have made him about as edgelord as they made Shadow the Hedgehog (who I also love! Sad he spawned that funny but still cringe "nothing personal kid" mindset and saying LOL). I enjoyed the games....but if I wanted gruff edgelords in Marvel, I'll go with Blade!
I will say that Batman refusing to kill the Joker because of his morals does ring a little hollow for me now just because, to me, it kinda feels like Batman is putting his own bleeding conscience above doing the right thing and just ending the Joker already (someone who really does kinda deserve it in my opinion). But like Linkara said, maybe it's not Batman who should be blamed, but the systems in place that refuse to put Joker on death row for his many many crimes against humanity.
I don't like linkara in general, but I can't help but agree with him here.
Why don’t you like him?
@@frogurtcremebrulee5252 Yeah Why?
I'm genuinely shocked The Boys comic is held in such reverence as it is. It's just shock value superhero bullshit written by an angry edgelord whining about how popular superheroes are. It shocks me even moreso however that from the absolutely terrible comic we got a genuinely really good show. The Boys tv show is actually a way more interesting look at corruption of superheroes and misuse of power, and the modern day superhero culture at large with things like the MCU being a main point of parody within the show. They even give the characters actual depth and interesting plots that aren't 'OMG HE'S A RAPIST'. If you just changed the names of the main characters, the show wouldn't even resemble the comic because it's A: Better written (though implying Ennis is a writer is like implying a monkey is a scientist) and B: It actually has things to say about our culture. It's not just rape and violence in every other scene.
That's not the way I interpret the comics though. It's pretty much about how power can be patriarchal. This is especially when you look at how in the comics, Starlight's goes through a hazing ritual, which illustrates how even if women enter into power, they are still met with misogyny and sexual violence. Even Billy Butcher in the comics I see as Ennis saying that those in positions of power such as law enforcement and espionage, are no different from the corporate types the 7 represent. Another thing I can say about the comic is that, it's generally about toxic masculinity that creeps in superheroes.
@@CosmoShidan In some ways I can see where you're coming from. The messages about the misogyny and patriarchal power slant would be an interesting exploration of these issues, if Ennis hadn't also drenched his entire comic in rape and needless shock value content. I'll state right now that I think using rape is tasteless if you are just using it for a plot point, which The Boys comic does a lot. This is a topic that should be handled with care by a competent writer, preferably one who has done actual research on the psychological effects on the victim. Ennis more or less uses rape just to make a point that 'All superheroes are corrupt and evil'.
Not even taking in to account that The Boys was written decades after actually competent deconstructions of comic book heroes like Kingdom Come and Watchmen were written, setting a standard for how good these kinds of stories can be, The Boys is just a bad deconstruction because it fails to say much of anything interesting. Ennis has stated his outright distaste for superhero comics, and it's so evident in The Boys. He simply takes every hero he can think of and just goes 'Well what if they were disgusting human beings?' Case and point his pastiche of X-men and Xavier in particular. If you wanted to parody X-men, there are ways to make it work.
The most obvious being that despite the team supposed to be representing minorities, and hatred of mutant kind is supposed to be an allegory for discrimination, the people who are afraid of mutants kind of have a point. A bunch of people with incredible powers, a lot of them kids who don't have full control of their powers and pose a threat to themselves and the people around them, is not the same as someone hating someone because of their skin color or sexual orientation. Alternatively, and something that could be played for laughs, you could use the medium to parody the fact that, despite supposedly representing minorities, the main cast of the original X-men were all straight white men (ok Iceman did come out as gay but I don't think that was the original idea when he was created) save for Jean Grey.
Instead of doing any of that, Ennis just makes the Xavier stand-in a pedophile.
@@AnkoTime He's not really against superheroes per se; Ennis was confounded at the time that superheroes were oversaturated in the medium. Plus, it could also be argued that by making superheroes an extension of power itself in the real world. Or to simply put it, they are cops with capes, and all cops are bastards in this way.
BTW, doesn't Kingdom Come actually reinforce superheroes, instead of critiquing them as cops in capes? Because I think it's important to really be critical of superheroes as inherently law and order types, which entails fascism. Besides, the marvel movies and dceu don't really deconstruct superheroes, they merely reinforce them. Other than that, the way police behave in the real world, they do not see their profession as a job, but as a way of life, with conflicting duties to respect the rights of citizens such as free assembly, and to keep the peace, which entails trampling on the rights of citizens such as free assembly. As someone who's taken criminology, I can tell you that cops aren't heroes in any way; they are conflicted individuals who work a 24 hour shift, and hold a code of silence as to never sell out their own if even if they are in the wrong. Case in point, what this boils down to is, all cops are bastards, in which we can see superheroes in this way.
But if Ennis is not to your liking, I recommend googling a few articles on the matter of superheroes as cops with capes:
Why they won't save us: Political dispositions in the conflicts of superheroes by Woody Evens, The Avengers: The Avengers: How Superhero Comics Preserve Ruling Class
Ideology by Wendy Huang, and Justice League? Depictions of Justice in Children’s Superhero Cartoons and Rotten, Vile, and Depraved! Depictions of Criminality in Superhero
Cartoons both by Lisa A. Kort-Butler.
Well I’ll take your word for it. I haven’t watched the show nor will I ever because I refuse to support the “The Boys” IP in any way.
@@tylerleach8796 You know, since superheroes act above the law, they would fit Niccolo Machievalli's ideal prince or cadre of princes who rule their cities by using brute force to keep the poor from dethroning the local politicians and elites, and to keep the local politicians and elites from harming the poor, all in the name of "restoring order" much like cops. Meanwhile, the acts of "kindness" such as saving people from burning buildings, planes, saving cats from trees, and walking elderly to cross the roads, is to give the impression that they can be depended upon, so that the public doesn't have to depend on each other in solidarity, hence another method of restoring order. That's a view from the book Politics in Gotham. Also, that same book argues that superheroes like Batman, who are driven by judgicial, rather than by any form of restorative justice, is basically one of appeal to passion, and desire, rather than by reason to balance this out. It's a recommended read.
Also, in a recent review by Amanja reads, about The Boys graphic novels, it notes that the "whole series is a commentary on a dense web of corruption that we can see paralleled in our own societies. Commentaries on the military industrial complex, the corruption of power and fame, and the true price of capitalism."
It's also worth noting that in the same review Starlight for Starlight, "[h]er story is tragic and, although extreme, unfortunately relatable for any woman who’s ever been in a male dominated field."
0:30 Garth Ennis would and has.
Now I’m remembering an argument I got into with someone on the internet (I know, shocker), where they just spat at me every stupid bad “hot take” arguments I’ve heard before and wouldn’t accept that I didn’t agree with them and had reasons I don’t, going so far as to say it wasn’t fair I didn’t let them continue when I told them I’ve heard their arguments time and time again and was no longer interested in giving it energy
In a world of sense and logic, Joker (as well as a lot of villains the JLA arrest on a weekly basis) would have been either locked up in the deepest depths of the worst prisons imaginable, or put to death by the government with little debate. But you can't have stories like that because you need the conflict and continued battles, there needs to always be more stories to write. You can throw away some expendable characters every so often to move a point or add false tension, but you can't end big deal characters like they realistically would be, because there will always be that wall of understanding that it just can't be done.
Funny thing about the logic of just putting supervillains in prison, only for them to escape and the chase starting all over again, Bill Finger hated this formula, especially when writing Batman. He thought the formula made Batman look inept. This is true if you look at how many times he has put the Joker in prison, and has killed so many people every time Batman has captured and locked him up. That is why questions such as the Bat simply killing the Joker get raised and leads to deconstruction. After all, deconstruction is about finding contradictions in text, imagery or any works of art, just as much as its about examining them.
@@CosmoShidan
Sources?
Killing The Villains Doesn't Make Someone One.
Thinking otherwise Make You Thichheaded.
5:37 TIL Batman's left hand has an extra knuckle and finger segment
Imagine if someone wrote A 'deconstruction' of politicians, journalists, or tabloid talk show hosts, and made them 'what they're suppose to be' instead of what they really are. The idiots who worship them would be just as mad as we are when writers try to 'deconstruct' super heroes.
Here's a deconstruction: Supervillains are the real heroes and superheroes are the real villains. Why? Because superheroes defend the status quo of capitalism, which makes them fascists.
@@CosmoShidan Actually, it's the other way around. The REAL fascists control the media. They preach socialism, and identity politics to the masses, and they will crush anyone who opposes their ideology.
@@Launchpad05 That's not fascism. Fascism is capitalism, which superheroes defend according to Watchmen and The Boys.
@@CosmoShidan Fascism is also socialism.
@@Launchpad05 From the wiki article on the economics of fascism: "Fascism had a complex relationship with capitalism, both supporting and opposing different aspects of it at different times and in different countries. In general, fascists held an instrumental view of capitalism, regarding it as a tool that may be useful or not, depending on circumstances.[9][10] Fascists aimed to promote what they considered the national interests of their countries; they supported the right to own private property and the profit motive because they believed that they were beneficial to the economic development of a nation,but they commonly sought to eliminate the autonomy of large-scale capitalism from the state.However, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry during the same period, Nazi Germany transferred public ownership into the private sector and handed over some public services to private organizations, mostly affiliated with the Nazi Party. According to historian Richard Overy, the Nazi war economy was a mixed economy that combined free markets with central planning and described the economy as being somewhere in between the command economy of the Soviet Union and the capitalist system of the United States. Others have described Nazi Germany as being corporatist, authoritarian capitalist, or totalitarian capitalist.Fascist Italy has been described as corporatist."
I find a lot of people misunderstand what deconstruction is. A deconstruction shouldn't just be 'oh man, what if *insert genre or trope here* is different' it should explore and challenge the foundations of said genre or trope. The best deconstructions are the ones that still have that appreciation for the genre, even though they may be critiquing or subverting it. Hell, Alan Moore understood this even when writing Watchmen. Watchmen isn't just tearing down superheroes, it's offering a different view on the genre, while appreciating what makes it work. It's the same thing with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, even if I don't hold it in the same esteem as Moore and Gibbons' seminal work.
As for Ennis, I find a lot of people who say he hates superheroes is overblown. He just doesn't care for them, I don't know if that amounts to hate. Sure, you can nitpick the double standard that he doesn't like superheroes but he'll write for Marvel and DC, I won't argue with that. But hate...even he's said he doesn't hate superheroes, he just finds them silly. I'll even say that The Boys isn't even his best work, but I still enjoy it because there's an interesting view that I hadn't considered before. I don't agree with his view of superheroes, but he makes a lot of salient points about corporate America's soullessness, the vapidity of celebrity culture, and the idea of a superhero arms race. I think The Boys is worth reading for those reasons.
That said, I think Preacher and Punisher MAX are far stronger works from Ennis.
Maybe they (DC) just want to turn Batman into a Punisher wannabe? Which is never a good idea. 😂
Batman is a Machiavellian for letting the Joker live, or for demonizing environmentalists, anarchists, and foreigners.
@@CosmoShidan
I don’t recall someone like Penguin or Scarecrow or Mr Freeze being either of those.
@@CosmoShidan Or maybe he lets the Joker live because he is above killing people and believes that even the worst of the worst could maybe be rehabilitated, and since when did Batman demonize environmentalists, anarchists, and foreigners. And don't tell me that Batman's villains are all that because his villains being foreign has nothing to do with them being evil or why he wants to put them behind bars or why he stops Poison Ivy from turning Gotham into her little greenhouse and killing innocent. It's because his villains are people who hurt innocent people. Not because he is a machiavellian. Sure, the guy who stops crime is more evil than the guys who actively kill innocent people for their own gain.
@@HenryLouis21 His "villains" are what we also call a strawman fallacy. Or that they are overexaggerated and distorted caricatures of what anarchists, environmentalist, and foreigners are to a bigot compared to what the latter two groups are fighting for, as they are more complex and there are many variations of their schools of thought, while the latter are marginalized who are having their voices silenced, families separated, and lives taken by cops in the real world. So that is why it's better to make the cops businesspersons, politicians, and bougouisie the villains.
@@CosmoShidan What strawman fallacy? They are not overexaggerated caricatures of foreigners or environmentalists. Also, Mr. Freeze being German has nothing to do with him being evil, he is just German. I guess a villain can't just happen to be from another country I guess or else they are just caricatures of what a foreigner is to a bigot. My god, your amount of reaching and stretching is so far that it makes Mr Fantastic impressed. I guess a character in your eyes just can't have nice motives or whatever, because I guess Poison Ivy having a love for plants, makes her a caricature of environmentalists. Also, you are pretending like there aren't cops and businessmen and politicians in comic books that are already the villains. Lex Luthor is a billionaire and a bad guy. Some of the cops in most Batman stories are corrupt and it shows Batman taking them down and bringing them to justice. But of course, you ignore that because it ignores your narrative and you spin around Lex Luthor as a victim and a strawman of bald scrawny people and Superman is a tall, muscular guy.
Also, it's funny to me that you will claim that villains in the likes of the Penguin, Lex Luthor, and many more are caricatures of marginalized groups and buff muscular superheroes are inspired by the KKK and are fascistic defenders of the status quo yet somehow you prompt up Beef Bros as the second coming of christ by the fact that the two MUSCULAR superpowered dudes who are the main characters fight against cops and landlords. I checked that comic out and the one page I saw was the landlord character who apparently is bald. Double standards much?
I definitely don't agree with the notion that superhero writing "evolved." If anything, I think it has devolved. I don't see anything from the latter day, supposedly sophisticated and superhero writers that matches an ASM 33, a Detective Comics 500 or something like Roy Thomas-era Conan the Barbarian. But, that's just my take.
The few changes we've seen with superhero writing is how they went from willing to kill between 1938-42, to simply just capturing "felons". Yet when the comics code was put in place, that did not have any effect on superhero conduct, as the "no-kill" rule was already put into place. But then again in the 90s, the supes went back to killing felons and by the 2000s, it was simply capturing them. As such, if superheroes really have changed, they would be attempting to question the causes of crime, such as poverty inspiring desparation, or police brutality inspiring serial killers.
The problem with all star Batman is that it misses a piece. Deconstruction also needs reconstruction to work.
This is why I love BvS. Because even though the story deconstructs the idea of both Batman and Superman, it also reconstructs it in the final act, and there's even a whole other movie(ZSJL) continuing said reconstruction
All Star Batman doesn't have any reconstruction in it, and that makes it empty
The worst part is that Frank Miller wasn’t even trying to write a deconstruction - except for every other hero BESIDES Batman. Or rather Crazy Steve.
@@williammorahan4907 I've honestly gone back and forth on this.
Sometimes I think he was genuinely trying to deconstruct the image of Gary stu Batman fanboys have in their mind, and others I just conclude he went insane
@@ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣΛΑΧΑΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ definitely the latter - 🤪
@@ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣΛΑΧΑΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ Deconstruction isn't about rebuilding at all though, or else that is reversing or revising the opposing view. That is why it's a problem pointing method, rather than a problem-solving one.
@@CosmoShidan And in this day and age the world needs problem pointers to start offering solutions.
It doesn’t make you a killer to kill criminals and villains I think heroes should kill if needed just not as a first resort.
ua-cam.com/video/-JUCHijxKMM/v-deo.html
Sometimes, *how* you kill an enemy is what matters.
😊There’s also a difference between an *enemy* and an *opponent*.
What makes The Boys show work is that it’s not as much a destruction of superheroes so much as it is a critique of shitty celebrity. Aside from Starlight, the other members of the Seven are just shitty people with powers.
It’s not “what if Superman ate babies?” but, rather, “what if Logan Paul had Superman’s powers?”
More like Jake Paul since that guy literally sexually assaulted a woman.
4:28 Is it just me, or does Marshall Law look like the TEMU or Wish version of Judge Dredd?
Pat Mills, creator of Marshal Law, is one of the creators of Judge Dredd ironically. And he's right about the superheroes pertaining to fascism. Like the Justice League and the Avengers are practically vigilantes who exercise community condoned extrajudicial punishment. Thereby, they are both lynch mobs.
No it’s not just you, as a matter of fact Marshall Law is a parody of Judge Dredd but if he existed in The Boys universe 😂
@@keeganpayne I guess that's the charm of the humor behind Marshal Law! He rips supers to the point of absurdity.