Superhero Definition

The following is a compendium of notes created by Pete Coogan for a paper he had wrote and posted to Usenet back in 1999.
It represents some scholars' thinking on the topic but can serve as a rough template for a superhero adventure. The Blythe and Sweet articles were boiled down to their main points. The American Monomyth stuff came from a paper Pete Coogan wrote called, "F For Fascism: the Fascist Underpinnings of Superheroes." Bibliographic references for the three pieces are included and divided each piece into sections for easier reading. Ideas that have been refuted are underlined.
==Six Step Progression==
# Story opens in medias res (in the middle of things). The menace is usually more than a common criminal (supervillain, alien menace). The regular authorities are impotent/overwhelmed by the power of the menace.
# The superhero appears. He may foil the menace temporarily.
# He begins an investigation, the pursuit phase. The investigation is aimed at discovering the menace, not the menace's motive. That is, the socioeconomic forces surrounding the menace (e.g.. poverty, industrial responsibility for waste, etc.) are either non-existent or tangential.
# Confrontation between superhero and supervillain. The plot follows the inevitable cycle of pursuit-capture-escape. The meeting may occur over several mounting stages. The confrontation is primarily physical.
# The final confrontation is basically physical, but the factor that tips the scales in the hero's favor is not. Ultimately the victory over evil is achieved through mental, not physical superiority.
# The final phase of the plot is the restoration of order. With the villain defeated society returns to functioning--until the next menace appears.
==The hero is stereotypic==
# By definition a superhero has superpowers. These may range from the high development of human skills (Batman), to a single superpower (Flash), to many powers (Superman). He uses them in a positive manner-- for good.Ignores anti-heroes like the Punisher
# The superhero is human. Readers find it difficult to identify with robots (Machine Man), aliens (J'onn J'onnzz), animals (Swamp Thing), gods (Adam Warlock). [Secret identities often render these types human-- Thor becomes Don Blake, etc.]
# The secret identity. This everyday persona makes reader identification possible, so when Mr. Commonman is transformed into Captain Superhero the reader can follow right along.
# The superhero's powers are limited. If the hero were omnipotent there would be no possibility for conflict since no one could oppose him.
# The superhero is also an adult,Ignores, Supergirl, the Teen Titans, and Power Pack white maleIgnores Wonder Woman and John Stewart (who appeared December 1971/January 1972) who holds a white-collar job in his secret identity. Black heroes don't seem to appeal to a predominantly white readership; they are not role models.Green Lantern John Stewart refutes this Neither are females for this basically male audience.I guess the author forgot about Wonder Woman, a character created in October 1941
# Just as the superhero is physically strong, he is morally superior.
# The superhero functions amid other conventional comic book types--the limited authorities, the sidekick, the supervillain, the victim, and the supporting cast. The supervillain, for instance, is the antithesis of the superhero, his image reflected in a dark mirror.
===Setting===
The setting is likewise stylized: Contemporary, urban America. Comics treating the past and the future, and those not set in the city, tend not to make it.This doesn't explain why exceptions like the Legion of Superheroes or Judge Dredd have worked.
==American Monomyth==
In The American Monomyth the authors, following Cawelti, set out the idea that the strongly conventionalized narrative formulas are "often linked together in a single recurrent pattern, and that the current pattern [especially in America] differs from traditional ones." (Jewett xix) They quote the plot of the classical monomyth from Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces:
"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won; the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." (Jewett xix)
Then they originate a new, distinctly American monomyth, the plot of which is:
"A community in a harmonious paradise is threatened by evil; normal institutions fail to contend with this threat; a selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptations and carry out the redemptive task; aided by fate, his decisive victory restores the community to its paradisial condition; the superhero then fades into obscurity." (Jewett xx)
The primary difference between the classical and American monomyths is the focus. The classical monomyth is based upon rites of initiation, essentially the child becoming an adult, being initiated into society. The American monomyth is based upon tales of redemption; society is saved from outside evil by a selfless figure. This selfless figure comes out of the Judeo-Christian tradition, being a combination of Christ, who gave his life selflessly, and the crusader, who destroys evil.
The American monomyth has three patterns: saga, in which the hero journey's to unfamiliar and dangerous territory to be tested; sexual renunciation, in which sexual entanglements must be renounced for success in the trials; and redemption, in which the hero selflessly redeems others (Jewett 12-15). These three patterns can be found in abundance in all kinds of popular fiction, but especially in the Western and its hero the cowboy (Shane, and the Virginian are two such heroes). But the superhero more purely expresses monomythic heroism because he more perfectly renounces sexuality.
Jewett and Lawrence trace a honing of the monomyth to the axial decade, starting in 1929 (Jewett 185). In this decade unprecedented economic shocks and foreign threats were "a 'real-life' enactment of the Apocalypse" and the vigilante hero became widely popular in pulp fiction (Hoppenstand 146). The superhero emerged at the end of the axial decade
with the publication of Action #1 and the appearance of Superman in 1938.
Cowboys often ended their adventures with marriage, but the serialization of radio programs, pulps, and comics demanded a permanent sexual renunciation by the hero. The superhero arose to fill this demand; his very nature prohibited a sexual union in a way that the cowboy's nature did not, and his powers elevated his ability to redeem even larger, more threatened, and more helpless populations. "Miraculous redemption thus came to replace the blissful union of
married partners as a fitting expression of Eden's restoration [the paradisal condition]"(Jewett 186). By transcending human abilities and permanently segmenting sexuality the superhero acts as a "secular fulfillment of the religious promise articulate in the endings of The Birth of the Nation and The Virginian"(Jewett 194). So the superhero is the ultimate American monomythic hero, and not coincidentally is unique to America (except for copies of American superheroes in Britain and Japan, which have come about because of American cultural imperialism).Tkis fails to explain superheroes who don't "copy" American superheroes like Astroboy.
Key features of Superman's first story in Action #1:
# Lost parents.
# The man-god.
# Justice: devotion to 'those in need'
# The normal and the superpowered
# The Secret Identity.
# Superheroes and politics: Loyalty and patriotism are above even Superman's devotion to the law.
# Science as magic.
== Working definition ==
# The hero is marked out from society.  He often reaches maturity without having a relationship with his parents.
# At least some of the superheroes will be like earthbound gods in their level of powers.  Other superheroes of lesser powers will consort easily with these earthbound deities.
# The hero's devotion to justice overrides even his devotion to the law.
# The extraordinary nature of the superhero will be contrasted with the ordinariness of his surroundings.
# Likewise, the extraordinary nature of the hero will be contrasted with the mundane nature of his alter-ego.  Certain taboos will govern the actions of these alter-egos.
# Although ultimately above the law, superheroes can be capable of considerable patriotism and moral loyalty to the state, though not necessarily to the letter of its laws.
# The stories  are mythical and use science and magic indiscriminately to create a sense of wonder.
# Turning some of these laws on their head, such  as 3 and 6, would give us a good working definition of a supervillain.
== Types of superheroes ==
There are two types of superheroes: the Solitary but Socialized (Superman and Captain America, who engage in battle from time to time as proxies of US foreign policy) and the Lone Wolf (embodied by the Batman, a hero whose motivations and emotions are turned inward against the evils within society, and even the social and psychological roots of crime itself).This fails to explain Superheroes groups such as the Justice Society of America and Justice League, Legion of Superheroes, and X-Men.
Locus of superhero comics is New York City (Gotham, Metropolis).  This is the city which signifies all cities, especially all modern cities, and the city itself as a sign of modernity since Terence [Roman comedian].
Superhero defends the ordered environment of the city from the disruption of crime, undertaken through the misapprehension of science.
=== Costume ===
The costume functions as the crucial sign of super-heroism. It marks out/separates the costumed from the ordinary and proclaims his individuality. Superhero costumes can be read in a langue and parole system (language and specific speech act): The costume serves as a narrative device (armor gives Iron Man powers); the costume serves as a sign of identity (wear armor=become Iron Man); the stories explore the contrast between the costume as a source of power and the costume as a means of hiding identity, and the contrast between the suit and the man inside the suit.
Costume serves as a sign of for the inward process of character development (for some characters--Wasp, Henry Pym, Hawkeye, but not for others--Batman, Captain America which hold precise iconic configurations). The costume makes a formal statement about the hero's personality and character development. Costume creates a community between its wearers.  The costumed superheroes generate their own particular world.
=== Origin Story ===
Origin ties down an initial, all-important moment of transformation--the cardinal moment of transition when the everyday world is chosen to intersect with the superhero metatext underwrites all of a character's subsequent transformations and adventures. Origin and Costume linked in some way (Superman's costume from blanketsWhy something that was eliminated by Crisis (1986) is provided is unclear, Iron Man's armor saved his heart, Spider-Man's costume externalizes the spider who bit him, etc.).
Most superhero comics are intensely grounded in everyday life. A key ideological myth of the superhero is that the normal and everyday enshrines positive values that must be defended through heroic action--and defended over and over again.  The normal is valuable and is constantly under attack, which means that almost by definition the superhero fights to defend the status quo.  Into this heroic matrix one can insert representatives of any race or creed, but in order to be functioning superheroes they will need to conform to the ideological rules of the game.  The superhero has a mission to preserve society, not to protect it.
Thus no plausible ideology has been inscribed for black superheroes. And superheroines fail to inscribe any specifically female qualities.  They behave in battle just like male superheroes, and in repose are either smugly domestic or brooding and remote--a slightly threatening male fantasy.  Superheroines represent an unearned state of post-feminism: for women: 'you can dress sexy and still be taken seriously and hold a position of power' and for men: 'just because you like her to wear sexy clothes doesn't mean you're degrading her status and equality. They simultaneous offer and deny  sexuality.  Superheroines offer a reconciliation of all the conflicting demands of adolescent male sexuality. Sexuality is domesticated (made safe) and yet remains exceptionally exciting.  Women are visually thrilling, and yet threatening and dangerous only to outsiders.
==Comment Notes==
==References==
===Main text===
* Blythe, Hal and Charlie Sweet. "Formula and the Superhero" Comics Journal 73, July 1982: 82-88
* Blythe, Hal and Charlie Sweet. "Superhero: The Six Step Progression." The Hero in Transition . Ray B. Browne and Marshall Fishwick eds. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 1983. 180-187.
===Setting===
* Jewett, Robert and John Shelton Lawrence. The American Monomyth . Garden City, NJ: Anchor, 1977.
* Hoppenstand, Gary. "Pulp Vigilante Heroes, the Moral Majority, and the Apocalypse." The Hero in Transition. Ray B. Browne and Marshall Fishwick eds. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 1983. 141-150.
Category:Concepts