The Rhetorical Tradition and the Comics Fan

Western culture enjoys, at certain historical moments, a tradition of argumentation which might have begun as long as 2700 or 2800 years ago in Greece, among thinkers sometimes called the Pre-Philosophers.

Thanks to our own Renaissance and post-Renaissance view of the virtues of the Greek intellectual footprint on the cultures that followed the height of Hellenic culture, we generally view seekers after truth as a kind of hero, even if their wars take place in a plane of ideas. Occasionally a real casualty arrives on the martyr list, such as Socrates, who drank hemlock as a death sentence passed on him by people who really just wanted him to shut up and go away.

And with the celebrities of philosophy and truth seeking come the ideas they sought to explore.

What stands as a parallel in the comics fan community? What big issues, what Great Notions populate their rhetoric? What moves them to heroic flights of oratory in order to dispense enlightenment for their fellows? What questions do fans use to evoke the driving principles of the world?

Well...debates do, occasionally, touch on matters of art and storytelling and ethics and the kind of ideas that one might debate amid intelligent Beautiful People who never seem to run out of wine and cheese (but seldom seem to taint themselves with credential-damaging interests like comics). However, another set of debates seems invariably to drag discussion back to the territory of the Lowest Common Denominator. I would observe, with surprise, a fan who hadn't yet encountered one of the earth-shaking Great Debates of Comics which follow. Go to a message board, or to the (Ab)Usenet, or perhaps a comics chat room, and you may encounter their like more often than you would care to.

"Can Superman Beat Thor?"

Step aside, attempts to define the meaning or purpose of life, or campaigns to decide whether the one or the many represents the truer aspect of a thing. When we enter the killing fields of comics fan debates, we begin with a meatier question, like "Can Superman beat Thor?"

Substitute any two heroes for "Superman" and "Thor" in the question above and little will change about the fundamental relevance of the question. Captain Marvel, Orion, the Hulk, or any proxy will do about as well. This kind of question can result in hours of "Yes, he can," "No, he can't" excitement, if interminable and pointless, yet long-winded, contradiction qualifies as excitement.

The question, however, has more meaning for people who meet three conditions: a) they must know and care to whom the name "Superman" refers; b) they must know and care to whom the name "Thor" refers; and c) they must care - even unto believing that it actually matters somehow - how the two relate in some kind of horsepower-based pecking order.

This question tends to come through interested parties, meaning that the bias of the arguer represents a more likely determinant of the answer than the actual merits of theoretical constructs such as "Superman" and "Thor". In a normal scenario, expect one faction - a Thor faction - to both prefer Thor to Superman, and, at the same time, expect that Thor would prevail in whatever pointless conflict might erupt between the two caped heroes. When interested parties engage in such discussions, the argument will not result in a consensus because of the dishonesty of the question; "Can Superman Beat Thor?" conceals "Do you like Superman better than Thor?" and the disputants will tend to answer the latter question, despite any variety of attempts to provide circumstances where Superman might, indeed, inflict upon Thor some kind of truly humiliating setback (or, alternately, where Thor might beat the fear into Superman).

Even where ego-attachment and interested argumentation do not distort the competition of ideas in a question like this, some premises underlie the question that somewhat make it invalid. For example, the question presumes that the ability to prevail in a fight remains roughly constant, like (say) the height of the Eiffel Tower. Those who fight in competition will make no claims that they perform up to their full potential at every match, bout, or exhibition. This means that two perfectly-matched contestants would have a number of wins, losses, and draws, in spite of their equality of prowess. Furthermore, the ability of fictional characters tends to adjust itself to the needs of the story.

The last statement implies the real answer to this question; therefore, I leave these paragraphs here for posterity to consider, consult, and refer to for resolving all versions of this argument in the future. Superman can beat Thor if the logic of the story requires it.

"Does Batman Sleep with Catwoman / Robin?"

Various kinds of human weirdness drive obsessive curiosity and snoopiness about the sex lives of imaginary people. Some fans consider it a blight and abomination that their superheroes do not invest as much time in fornication as they do in crimefighting; and, often, they want to see this activity, luridly and lovingly depicted in four colors, on the page. Sometimes, then, the question serves as an indirect demand to shift superhero comics into a form of highly-specialized erotica (though a fetish for seeing people who wear superhero costumes probably doesn't rate especially high on some kind of empirical scale of kinkiness).

Voyeuristic motivations aside, the question may depend on some readers' desire to have comics validate what they see as appropriate sexual behavior. To do so, for comics, would be to cast its fortunes in a lose-lose scenario, because less and less consensus about what belongs in the realm of appropriate sexual behavior exists as time goes on, and to peddle one sexual ethos necessarily involves alienating readers who subscribe to alternate theories.

If you find yourself in a particularly bull-headed debate of this nature, it might serve well to consider if other, unstated questions haven't come in to shape the responses. In a question like this, I can see the room where a number of others could hide: "Do you want to sleep with Catwoman / Robin?", "Should Batman sleep with Catwoman / Robin?", and "How far should superhero comics explore the sexcapades (or lack thereof) of their principal characters?" If you can achieve consensus on these related points, you might have more of a chance of achieving some kind of agreement on the original, manifest question.

As to the Robin question, this sometimes represents a morbid desire to implicate superheroes in some kind of wrongdoing. I say give the kid a break, at least until he reaches the age of consent.

"Can Batman Do That?"

A generation ago, fans asked if Superman could do this or that, with the question representing a logical outgrowth of the inflation of his powers over the first quarter-century of publication of Superman stories. As late as the sixties, furthermore, Superman spoke considerably to the masculine ambitions of Everylad, combining in his person daydreams both of power and of gallantry.

However, a later generation of fans would occasionally dismiss Superman as "the big, blue Boy Scout" and relegate him to corny old-timers unworthy of emulation. The dumbing down of many aspects of American culture included a dumbing down of the notion of masculinity, replacing a sense of balance and humility - which the Silver Age Superman somewhat represented - with a machismo that glorified posturing and bullying, consistent with interpretations of Batman after Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns.

After Dark Knight Returns, the Batman notion shifted to include a kind of omnipotence (which presumes a certain amount of technical finesse as its driving force rather than raw energy) without the Superman-style gallantry that existed to temper such power. So, having lost the ground of admired hero to Batman, and furthermore having become redundant in the omnipotent-hero game, the question of "Can Batman do that?" became part of the comics fan's rhetorical canon.

"Does Comet the Super-Horse Exist in Current Continuity?"

Asking this question at all implies three fundamental character flaws: a) knowing to what the term "Comet the Super-Horse" refers; b) knowing to what the term "continuity" in the context of comics refers; and c) caring about the relationship between the two. I can confess some guilt about points a) and b), but maintain my ongoing innocence about point c) simply because I hope to retain some tiny piece of self-respect.

If we divest the question of the Comet element and substitute something more meaningful for more serious (or self-identified as serious) comics fans, we lose some of the straw man aspect of picking the question. However, it nonetheless boils down to the question of what it means if someone knows too much comics trivia and actually cares about how it fits together in some kind of linear history of a comics universe (a work of fiction).

Such questions often serve as indirect ways of asking other questions, such as "Does DC Comics' editorial policy currently allow concepts as silly as Comet the Super-Horse?" We can consider this a much more sober query, inasmuch as a Comet-friendly policy can result in things like swarming caped animals like Beppo the Super-Monkey and Ace the Bat-Hound in very short order, with consequences such as people not taking comics any more seriously than they really deserve.

"Connor Hawke...Gay?"

The culture of the west, to my eye, does not currently recognize the right of human beings to abstain from sex. We presume anyone who does either disgusts others so extremely that sex always remains outside the realm of the possible, or that such people actually do engage in lots and lots of sex and just lie about it a lot, or that such people suffer from mental illness, or that such people conceal secret lives of same-sex liaisons.

With these options, when presented with a figure does not announce his sexuality publicly through its constant demonstration, we consider him sexually ambiguous and attempt to categorize him according to the aforementioned schema, and ignore the possibility that he, for whatever reason, has declined to become sexually active.

Muddled thinking can sometimes drive debates of this kind. Although a comics character, as an artificial construct of the human imagination whose movements, history, and definition depend on a mixture of factors, including inherited history, writer's intent, and editor's intent, we have here another case where arguers may intend to mix a stated question with an unstated one."

"Should we describe Connor Hawke as 'gay'?" tends to dovetail into connected questions like "Should comics feature more/less gay superheroes?" and "Should superheroes live out their sexual lives in clear view?" The obstinacy with which someone will pursue an answer to the first question might relate to the importance they feel attaches to the answers to the other two.

"Does Superman Have to Go to the Bathroom?"

I don't know the answer to this one, and I don't want to know. Thinking about the problem - sometimes, late at night, disturbing thoughts come whether one welcomes them or not - suggests some peculiarities might attend the regular exercise of the gastrointestinal tract of a man who can squeeze coal into diamonds. If he does excrete like a human being, he might produce wastes which his super-intestines have already compacted into gemstones.

However...does it matter? We need not fret over laws of physics that Superman would violate if he failed to participate in the same bathroom rituals in which normal humans do. By nineteen forty, Superman's concept had already included a general amnesty from known laws of physics, and no subsequent interpretation has managed to impose anything like a compliance to natural law on the man. Whether we conceal his ability to flout (for instance) the Second Law of Thermodynamics behind pseudoscientific explanations of how he might do things like fly and repel bullets or not, we understand that neither Newton nor Einstein dealt in a physics that would allow Superman's everyday miracles.

Furthermore, where does this question lead? To some pathetic demand that artists and writers portray Superman on the commode in order to placate a misguided demand for "realism" that ignores such unlikely things as the very existence of a man who works dressed the way Superman does? This question does not provide more than a kind of low comedy - literally, bathroom humor - and certainly does not imply stories of substance. Or, if it does imply a story of substance, let us quietly refrain from identifying the precise substance.

"Enough, Already!"

To read the last few sections might have driven some of you to express a wish not to hear these arguments again, either as spontaneously-arising comics discussions or as selectively-observed examples of the kind of argumentation one might expect concerning comics.

Some issues that burn, fortunately, do not do so forever. Consider as examples three typical issues that fans might discuss in 1980. "What makes Superman's hair blue?" has gone to the same place as the dodo, now that the industry standards for comics color no longer use blue highlights to distinguish black hair from brown. "Will Adam Warlock / Phoenix / Elektra come back from the dead?" no longer elicits discussion, either, since all three, as majorities predicted, did come back, as well as almost everyone else who dies in costume. Even "Could you think up a circumstance when Superman would kill someone?" has vanished from the discussions of comics readers in this period. However, these questions all went away because a clear answer appeared, through events in comics themselves. Other ideas, on the other hand, no longer compel discussion because of the cumulative futility of hashing them over. Eventually, people do not want to talk about it any more.

The questions raised in the previous sections serve as excellent candidates for this kind of closure. Though some such questions might have meaningful answers, the energies spent attempting to get to this kernel of (hypothetical) truth outweighs the worth of the answer, once some consensus appears; and the notion of "Enough, already!" seems as satisfying as any yes / no response one could defend for any of them.

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Column 241. Completed 17-MAR-2001.