'It Wasn't So Long Ago. We Had Heroes': Superheroes and Catastrophe in the Early 21St Century

DOI 10.6094/helden.heroes.heros./2017/01/04 Stefanie Lethbridge 31 ‘It wasn’t so long ago. We had heroes’: Superheroes and Catastrophe in the Early 21st Century In the (fictional) prelims to Frank Miller’s Bat- more reliable fighters against impending disaster man: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) an article (e.g. David Ayer’s The Suicide Squad). On the by James Olsen for The Daily Planet describes surface, it appears that a postmodern wobble a meeting of old-timers in a bar in downtown in moral certainties has also caught up with the Metropolis: “They get talking again. About the super hero universe. old days. The glory days. They remember. They This paper will argue that the ambiguities in were right there. In the thick of it. Back then. recent representations of the superhero indicate It wasn’t so long ago. We had heroes.” (Miller a search for (new?) principles of the heroic in [9]) Heroes, it seems, rather like the country- a world where old principles have been (tem- side, home cooking or the weather, were always porarily) displaced by catastrophes. Despite somehow better in the past. In contrast, contem- postmodern influences, the genre does not, in porary heroes are frequently represented as at the end, question either the need for heroes, least partly problematic: The official DC website, the possibility for heroic action or even the exist- for instance, explicitly locates its 2016 release ence of ‘goodness’. The time–space disruptions Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice (dir. of catastrophe include the disruption of ideals, Zack Snyder) in a world that “wrestles with what but they do not allow for stasis. In other words, sort of hero it really needs”, while the would-be whether or not it is clear what really represents saviour Superman and the dark vigilante Bat- ‘truth’, ‘justice’ or ‘goodness’, the hero needs to man fight each other rather than the villain and act, if he wants to prevent (further) disaster. In only at the very last moment avert large-scale the radical dislocations of catastrophic events, catastrophe. recent superhero fictions give more attention Comics have a track record of dealing with to the costs of being ‘good’, but the general pa- catastrophe, both imagined and real: Art Spiegel- rameters of the need for heroic action remain in man’s Maus deals with the Holocaust as much place: there is still a conviction that ‘justice must as the various incarnations of Superman or Bat- be done’. The choices that need to be made are man struggle to prevent catastrophe in their re- harsher than they used to be, but they nonethe- spective universes. Superheroes in mainstream less indicate the cultural ideals of something that comics and in blockbuster cinema are stereotyp- could be described as ‘disaster heroism’. In the ically cast as representatives of positive cultural following I will focus on the recent DC cinematic values and as the ones who ‘save the day’. Even universe, especially on Zack Snyder’s Batman Batman, DC’s darker and more tortured version v Superman (2016), though a similar argument of the long-serving superhero, clearly wishes to could be put forth also for the recent Marvel cine- fight – vigilante-fashion – against crime and for matic universe. justice. Despite such clear alignments of superheroes and culturally accepted values, in the context of the ‘catastrophe boom’ of recent decades, both Catastrophe Boom comics and films foreground the costs of heroic action more than its glories. Recent productions Catastrophes are booming. Not so much be- in the superhero genres circle around questions cause catastrophes seem to happen more fre- of change – both dramatic change caused by quently these days, but because we are attuned catastrophes and more gradual change in the to noticing them as such. In this sense, catastro- role and status of superheroes. Going beyond phe is about perception and cultural ascription the frequently noted similarities between heroes (cf. e.g. Frank 24 or Weber 17), and perceiving and villains, recent productions actually suggest events as catastrophe furnishes a “cultural pat- that it is villains, rather than heroes, that are the tern” for interpretation (Utz 11). Catastrophes helden. heroes. héros. Stefanie Lethbridge 32 are narrated as natural or man-made disruptive of creative destruction that is in fact a neces- events that threaten “the welfare of a substan- sary prerequisite for (capitalist) progress and the tial number of people for an extended period of opening of new markets. Naomi Klein makes the time” (Esnard/Sapat 17).1 A catastrophe is also, connection explicit when she describes the strat- in the literary (Aristotelian) sense, a sudden turn egies for opening new markets by allowing, even of events towards the tragic which initiates an encouraging, large-scale destruction in order to emotional response in the audience and brings sweep away established systems and thus free about catharsis. Our sensitivity to catastrophe assets and provide access to new markets as has been sharpened by the natural sciences, “disaster capitalism” (Klein). that have favoured catastrophe theories since America in particular is considered to be the second half of the twentieth century (cf. Mos- deeply rooted in the (also biblical) idea that de- brugger 58). At the same time, real-time global struction and disaster can become a source of transmission of catastrophic events such as the “moral, political, and economic renewal” (Ro- attacks on the Twin Towers or the 2004 Tsuna- sario 3). “Regeneration through violence” has mi have created worldwide participation, shock, long been considered part of the national my- or even trauma, as François Walter phrased it: thology of the United States (see Slotkin). This “Das Trauma ruht von nun an im Herzen der would suggest that iconic American superheroes abendländischen Kultur.” (Walter 25) In the field not only provide protection during catastrophic of politics and economics as well “the trope of events, but also lead the way in reconstruction revolution has been superseded by the trope of afterwards. The constructive reaction to disas- catastrophe as a primary means for imagining ter is to rebuild and to learn from past mistakes. social change.” (Cintron 231) This ‘catastroph- Bruce Wayne (Batman) says as much to Diana ic turn’ resonates with the much older cultural Prince (Wonder Woman) at the end of Batman pattern in the Judeo-Christian tradition which v Superman: “Men are still good. We fight. We also views the world as a place of catastrophes kill. We betray one another. But we can rebuild. (cf. Moltmann). Noah’s flood, the destruction of We can do better. We will. We have to.” (BvS Sodom and Gomorrah or the Apocalypse pro- 2:13:40) vide, if no longer necessarily models for explain- Paradoxically, catastrophe links chaos and ing otherwise inexplicable events, certainly a extreme change (such as the eruption of a still current iconography to describe them and volcano or large-scale explosions) with a mo- express one’s horror (cf. Walter 23). Critics ment of freezing in time (people caught in mid- have also claimed an inextricable link between action). The experience of catastrophe thus moder nity and catastrophe (cf. Rosario 27). The combines dynamics and stasis. The chronotope radical disruptions and chaos that catastrophes of catastrophe is “in the middle of”: it irretrieva- provoke de stabilise current cultural narratives bly interrupts action and prevents its completion and expose the ideological as well as material (Murray 156). Catastrophe is in this sense “invi- vulnerabilities of societies. Catastrophes “simul- tational” (ibid.), it asks for the completion of in- taneously demand and defy conceptual under- terrupted events and thus demands closure. To standing and cultural representation and thus come to terms with the disruptions that are ex- force our cul tural imagination to invent new con- perienced as catastrophic, cultures create nar- cepts and new modes of understanding.” (Mein- ratives and sites of commemoration that provide er/Veel 1) This would suggest that events which forms of closure. The monument or the repeated are interpreted as catastrophes almost inevitably story about ca tastrophic moments also combine create heroes that act as protagonists, literally the dynamics of extreme change (the catas- as ‘heroes’, of new or at least modified cultural trophic event) with the stasis of the repeate d narratives that seek to come to terms with catas- stor y and the memorial. Catastrophe’s neces- trophe. sary ‘other’ is thus the arrested moment in time While catastrophes are always disruptive, that simultaneously recreates the time–space they are not exclusively destructive. The “dy- disruption of catastrophe through remembering namic system of spatial reorganization and cap- it and at the same time anchors this moment in a ital accumulation” that comes with both moder- fixed space.2 Commemoration on the one hand nity and catastrophe can also be considered as needs distance from the chaotic and inexpress- a chance to rebuild and thus work as a catalyst ible events of catastrophe itself, on the other for creation (Rosario 14). Marx, as much as later hand it remains “infected” by the catastrophic Marxist critics such as David Harvey or Edward moment, keeping it forever present (Klinkert/ Soja, stressed the rhythms of catastrophic de- Oesterle 3). While the stasis of commemoration struction and rebuilding that comes with cap- provides a temporary space of stability in the italist processes of progress (ibid. 3, cf. Harvey; radical “time–space compression” that charac- Soja). Catastrophe thus makes possible the kind terises catastrophic events (Harvey 240), it also helden. heroes. héros. Superheroes and Catastrophe in the Early 21st Century reduces flexibility and limits cultural discourse to few minutes later, Superman replaces Jackson 33 a specific aspect of the catastrophe.

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