Alan Moore tears into superhero films

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What was the impact of popular heroes comic books in our culture? Why are people fascinated by alternative realities?
I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs. Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum. The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand. I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race. In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.



I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs. Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.
Couldn’t agree more.
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What was the impact of popular heroes comic books in our culture? Why are people fascinated by alternative realities?
I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs. Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum. The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand. I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race. In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.
The dude has some sort of superhero stick stuck up his nose...well not his nose actually What a load of pretentious writing, written to show how smart the writer thinks he is.



Ami-Scythe's Avatar
A bucket of anxiety
Not gonna lie, I have no clue what I just read. It went from "it's the film equivalent of J.O." to which I agree to "THE WHITE PEOPLE NEED TO BE STOPPED" Am I right...?
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I realize he's the author of some very well respected comics, but the guy just strikes me as a holier-than-thou-art douchebag.

People like superhero movies for the same reason they like comic books: Escapism.
Get over it.



While I agree with some things Moore said, I disagree with others - toward the end he starts sounding like Dr. Fredric Wertham (author of Seduction of the Innocent) - the man who changed the face of comics and even helped bring about Congressional hearings in the mid-1950's; looking into a supposed link between comic books and juvenile delinquency among a number of other societal ills.

As an adult who still reads comics, I find I do it mostly out of nostalgia - trying to recreate the feelings I had as a kid, although it doesn't seem to work - I can only stimulate a memory of those feelings rather than the feelings themselves.

I've stopped reading modern comics altogether (for reasons, see below), but have been collecting reprints of Silver & Bronze age books as I feel they were the heyday of comics with the best stories & artwork. I always felt I came in just a few years too late in collecting comics (1975) and missed out on some of the best of the Silver & Bronze age - so now I'm going back and reading the stories I had missed and which provided the foundation and background to all the characters & stories I grew to love.

I think a bigger issue with modern comics that Moore does not address is they've been taken over by the SJW / PC / "Woke" movement where every established character has multiple versions - many of them have had their genders changed or bent, are trans-gendered, been made into homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, have had their ethnicities changed, or have been turned into angry, radical Leftist reactionaries who are no longer trying to combat crime & injustice, but the newly defined "evil" that is conservatism, western religious ideals, and traditional values. Modern comics have become virtually devoid of those values and the pure FUN they used to contain as they've been turned into a form of Progressive indoctrination.

I agree with Moore that comics history (like most western history) was white male dominated - with the majority of characters reflecting that demographic. But the answer to that is to create more new characters who are not part of the majority rather than take long established and beloved characters and change their gender, skin color, country of origin or sexual orientation.



The dude has some sort of superhero stick stuck up his nose...well not his nose actually What a load of pretentious writing, written to show how smart the writer thinks he is.
Ah! So Rules, I see you're familiar with Alan Moore!

(Great comic book writer, but a bit of an... eccentric... to put it mildly!)



I dunno. This "I'm not like the others" stuff has been going on for a hot minute
I know I'm not like others... or even like Alan Moore.
And for the people who are all non-conformist individualist creators just like me, I was different, unique and not like everyone else first, long before they all were.

This is why I have no tattoos. I was not getting tattoos before anyone else was not getting tattoos BEFORE everyone started getting tattoos to be different BEFORE anyone decided to NOT get tattoos to be different from all the other people getting tattoos. So I was different first!



Ami-Scythe's Avatar
A bucket of anxiety
I know I'm not like others... or even like Alan Moore.
And for the people who are all non-conformist individualist creators just like me, I was different, unique and not like everyone else first, long before they all were.

This is why I have no tattoos. I was not getting tattoos before anyone else was not getting tattoos BEFORE everyone started getting tattoos to be different BEFORE anyone decided to NOT get tattoos to be different from all the other people getting tattoos. So I was different first!
No. Folks, you and me (I also have no tattoos) are just different. Everyone else is pretending to be different.



You mean me? Kei's cousin?
The dude has some sort of superhero stick stuck up his nose...well not his nose actually What a load of pretentious writing, written to show how smart the writer thinks he is.
Yeah, that's how I feel about it.
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Welcome to the human race...
I mean, if I wrote the ultimate deconstruction of the superhero genre where the protagonist was a repulsively racist/sexist cryptofascist only to find that people considered him a relatable (even tragic) anti-hero and then saw that story get vacuously adapted into the exact kind of action-packed adventure that it was meant to deconstruct (and was the fourth consecutive example of such a movie being made from something I wrote), I'd probably have a bone to pick with the state of superhero movies as well.
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