Whatever Happened to Non-Super Heroes?

Steyn On-line ^ | November 17, 2018 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

On Friday I was back behind the Golden EIB Microphone on America's Number One radio show. (You can find a few moments from my guest-hosting stint here.) We were preoccupied, as apparently we will be well past Thanksgiving, by the third Broward County hand count of the fifth Palm Beach machine count, or whatever rubbish we're up to now. But I also mentioned, towards the end of the show, my ambivalent feelings about Stan Lee, the phenomenally successful Marvel Comics impresario who died a few days ago at the age of 95. Meeting him was one of the great moments of my life. He looked dapper and tanned, fabulous and ageless, as he always did, and it was a delightful and unexpected encounter ...save that I was wandering through the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles.

"You're a Democrat!" I said, aghast.

"Are you kidding?" he beamed.

I should have known. Stan's comic books (The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor) were "inclusive" and "diverse" and "multicultural" long before the terms ever occurred to any politicians. The X-Men were especially ahead of the game: they were mutants, evolutionary quirks who found themselves persecuted because they were "different". Stan had been working at what became Marvel Comics since 1939 but it wasn't till the Sixties that he started creating superheroes tailored for the sensibility of the age.

[YogicCowboy]

Yes: Rules of Non-Engagement.

[YogicCowboy]

Former comic collector here. I see both sides.

Firstly, to the hardcore fan, this is mythology, not merely adventure and action, as it is to the casually-viewing concretist who sees it all as absurd. Lewis and Tolkien would have understood that, whether they liked the medium or not. I started out in Norse Mythology (like Lewis and Tolkien) before I got into comic collecting.

I strongly suspect that Steyn is such a concretist, to whom such a medium holds no personal appeal.

Secondly, Steyn is half-right but half-wrong about real heroes:

Were the two men on the Thalys train really ordinary men? No, they were trained military men in their youthful prime.

Was Sergeant York really an ordinary man? No, he was an experienced hunter and sharpshooter who used his vast skills against the German nests. Further, like Desmond Doss, he was motivated by the spiritual desire to save lives, not end them.

Was Chuck Yeager truly an ordinary man? No, he was gifted with 20-15 eyesight, which made him not only a great hunter, but, as he said, allowed him to see the enemy before the enemy saw him.

Why are Navy Seals so highly extolled? Because they are extraordinary. Can a truly ordinary person become such a potential hero? Not likely.

Was Moses ordinary? No. He was raised in Pharoah’s household, with all the attendant advantages that gave him.

Were Hector and Achilles ordinary? No. Was Odysseus? No.

Speaking of Tolkien, was Aragorn truly ordinary? No, he was descended of Elves, a Maia, and kings, and raised by Elrond. In fact, the only ordinary hero in the central story is Samwise:

Legolas was a prince, son of Thranduil. Gimli was in the royal family. Pippin was son of the Thain. Merry was in line to be Master of Buckland. Frodo was upper class, and independently wealthy. All the four hobbits (including even Sam, thanks to Bilbo) were better educated in language and history than most, and thus were able to deal with Elves and wars better than any ordinary hobbit.

Most people who are successfully - note well: successfully - heroic are usually not really ordinary. They are typically extraordinary in their ordinariness. They are human, not superhuman, but also not ordinary.

Trump connects with ordinary people, but is he ordinary? No, he was raised in wealth, learned how to use it and make, and is highly gifted in that. He is not ordinary.

I really enjoy hearing Mark Steyn, but he is only partly right about this - and is over-reacting to thus cultural phenomenon. Greek and Nordic Myth show that humans historically associate genuine and effective heroism with persons who are, in some way, extraordinary. The comic book medium has simply become a more extreme, modern vehicle for that, fueled by a dearth of mythology coupled with an abundance of technology.

My problem with the medium is not its mythologizing, hut with its propagandizing, a separate issue.

Was Homer a Social Justice Warrior? I think not. Conflating superhuman heroism with the other socio-political factors at play is misleading.