Inspiring Superheroes

[Silver Age Fan]

I've said before that the likes of Superman and Spider-Man are inspiring because of their ideals, sense of fair play, etc. And then there's the inspiration you get from characters like Captain America, who have a positive, never-give-up attitude. That is certainly inspiring.

There's also another form of inspiration - from comic book characters with certain disabilities. Take Daredevil, for instance. He's blind, but he's a superhero and a lawyer in his civilian identity. And then you have The Thing who, by human standards, is physically deformed, but he makes the best of his life on a daily basis.

Now, the comic book world and reality are different. I'm sure no blind person is about to put on a costume and go fighting crime atop the rooftops of New York City. And I doubt anyone is going to get bathed in cosmic rays and become something akin to The Thing. However, fiction can be inspiring and the daily difficulties that the likes of Daredevil, The Thing and Jericho (a mute superhero) have to go through can hopefully show that you don't have to be defined by your disability.

We've seen many examples in the real world. Helen Keller was deaf and blind, but she wrote books and campaigned for certain rights; Douglas Bader lost both of his legs, but returned to flying planes during World War II; and Franklin D. Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound, but that didn't stop him from becoming US President in the 1930s/1940s. Those are people we know of, I am sure that in the real world, there are countless disabled people fighting every day to live normal lives and contribute to society - and I am proud of them.

Comics are fictional and the real world is often different. However, there have been quite a few stories in fiction over time showing those with disabilities, but who continue to do good things. Hopefully, it has inspired people in the real world at times.

Any thoughts on this, folks?

[MacNimon]

I think that's possibly one of the reasons that Marvel comics became so popular in the 1960s...the fact that Stan Lee created all these heroes who were flawed in some way. As you say, Daredevil was blind; Don Blake (Thor) was lame and walked with a stick. Then there was Bruce Banner's disability...changing into the Hulk. He created real characters with real problems and what made them so popular was seeing how such real characters dealt with the unreal world of comic book problems (changing into the Hulk/Thing etc). I don't think that Stan Lee deliberately created such characters to be inspirational (it would have been more of a ploy to get more sales!), but it just so happened through time that people with problems could identify with these characters and draw inspiration from them.

Which is the way it should be (ie a natural occurance), because if a character was deliberately created to be inspirational to a certain group it would be written in a certain way and could easily be misread as, and criticised for, being preaching

[Silver Age Fan]

Mar 15, 2012 6:23:42 GMT MacNimon said:

I think that's possibly one of the reasons that Marvel comics became so popular in the 1960s...the fact that Stan Lee created all these heroes who were flawed in some way. As you say, Daredevil was blind; Don Blake (Thor) was lame and walked with a stick. Then there was Bruce Banner's disability...changing into the Hulk. He created real characters with real problems and what made them so popular was seeing how such real characters dealt with the unreal world of comic book problems (changing into the Hulk/Thing etc).

And DC later adopted a similar approach. I love DC, but for decades the likes of Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne were simply there just to change into Superman and Batman. The heroes fought evil and then went home. You never, for example, saw many 50s/60s Batman stories where Bruce Wayne struggled with personal problems or Clark Kent pondering on his place in the universe.

Nowadays, both companies focus on the character development and soap opera in addition to the superhero action.

Mar 15, 2012 6:23:42 GMT MacNimon said:

I don't think that Stan Lee deliberately created such characters to be inspirational (it would have been more of a ploy to get more sales!), but it just so happened through time that people with problems could identify with these characters and draw inspiration from them.

I agree. That's why they are so special. Stan Lee didn't have a message to tell, he's not RTD pushing out an agenda. He simply wanted to tell good and exciting stories.

Mar 15, 2012 6:23:42 GMT MacNimon said:

Which is the way it should be (ie a natural occurance), because if a character was deliberately created to be inspirational to a certain group it would be written in a certain way and could easily be misread as, and criticised for, being preaching

Indeed. It does come across as preachy. I mean, some of RTD's stuff on modern-day Doctor Who is preachy. It felt contrived and didn't spring naturally from the characters.