100+ Definitions 12

Invincible #12

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL): The all-action issue twelve follows the all rhetoric contents of issue eleven.  Mark Grayson (Invincible) battles his father (Omni-Man) in a super fight that transpires across the globe. 

Invincible #12 (I#12): The fight collapses buildings, destroys subways, demolishes city blocks, and induces avalanches during their familial fight for earth.  The issue ends with Mark admitting he will always have his father and Omni-Man, after battering his son, flies into space in tears.

L-FL:  So how do these events define “superhero”?

I#12: A superhero is an individual who adheres to an ethical philosophy that protects weaker individuals more than family ties, personal safety, or personal gain, yet the ethical creed of the superhero is such that maintaining this code helps vanquish villains when the physical powers are not enough to banish super villains.

L-FL: This connection of the supervillain to the superhero keeps recurring.  Writer Ivory Madison (author of Huntress: Year One) examines this connection in her essay “Superheroes and Supervillains: An Interdependent Relationship.”  She observes of supervillains that: “An ordinary villain is someone who can be stopped by a system that defines his actions as culpable and punishable (the criminal justice system, for example).  By contrast, a supervillain controls the system or creates his own system so powerful it challenges the dominant system.  Supervillains have godlike powers, and in stories without a supernatural or super-scientific element they are able to gain followers for their system, which is so powerful that it makes them into de facto gods, as cult leaders like Jim Jones were able to do….The supervillain sees no difference between what he does and what is right.  Thus narcissism is the defining factor, perhaps even the core of evil.  Despite any similarities between the two archetypes, the superhero will sacrifice himself for others, whereas the supervillain will sacrifice others for himself.”

I#12: Ah yes, Madison states in this work, “We all want to identify with the larger-than-life hero, yet we need the hero to be enough like us that we can imagine ourselves in her combat boots.  The hero is the elevated aspirational fantasy of the reader.  Again the reader needs the hero.  Therefore, the reader also needs the villain.  We need to see the hero face adversity, and the villain supplies it.”

L-FL:  Yes, Madison notes the importance of the supervillain’s presence for the reader when she goes on to write “In fiction, the villain serves as a foil who calls the hero to action, but real life is rarely so neat and tidy.  Without adversity, without moral questions, with nothing to be brave about, you remain untested.  You do not have to answer tough questions or see how good you can really be.  Fiction allows us to imaginatively rise up to our tallest to face the thesis of evil, become the antithesis, and reach the unknown synthesis vicariously.”

I#12: This explanation gives an ethical challenge to readers when Mark voices the final word in the comic with his question of “Dad?”.