New Paradigm Required

Forgive the interruption in service. Regular blogging has resumed.

I've noticed something about the way cities are portrayed in most comic books — and in the superhero movies based on those comics. What I noticed is how old-fashioned the cities are.

Whether you're looking at Batman's decaying Gotham City, Superman's bright and thriving Metropolis, or even the Marvel Universe's New York, all of them seem frozen in time, stuck forever in about 1970.

The City consists of a bunch of big skyscrapers — weird neo-Gothic towers in Gotham, International Style glass boxes in Metropolis, and a mix in Manhattan. Not far from the giant towers are smoky brick factories, surrounded by crime-ridden ethnic neighborhoods. Along the waterfront are warehouses, wharves, and rusty old ships. Beyond the city limits lies the countryside, a quick drive to and from the city center by Batmobile.

I was born in the mid-1960s, and this doesn't match any city I've lived in or visited in half a century.

Sure, cities have skyscrapers. Typically they're clustered in the very heart of town, while the bulk of the city consists of mid-rise buildings (five to ten stories in New York or Tokyo, three to four most other places). A handful of big cities may have a couple of distinct high-rise sections separated by lower buildings — like New York's Midtown cluster and Wall Street. But even the biggest megacities like New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, or London have enormous expanses of ordinary single-family dwellings, possibly in the form of row-houses. Spider-Man or Batman won't do very well perching on those rooftops or trying to get around by rope-swinging.

Those old brick factories are gone, either demolished completely or converted to shopping malls, condos, or office space. Modern factories are out at the edge of town, in bland windowless buildings near the Interstate. Again, the only way a non-flying superhero is going to get to a modern factory is a pretty long drive.

The whole raison d'etre for "street-level" heroes has changed, too. The high-rise parts of cities are terrible places to hang out on a rooftop looking for crimes to interrupt. Most downtowns are pretty dead at night. Now: in the current climate, it might be fun to see Batman or whoever trying to stop looters or organized shoplifting gangs in someplace like San Francisco or Portland, but somehow comics writers are reluctant to turn their heroes into glorified security guards.

Hence the focus on superheroes battling villains with superpowers who advertise their status with their own colorful costumes. Even Batman's vaunted "greatest detective" skills are mostly devoted to figuring out fairly obvious clues left by costumed lunatics, while the poor Gotham City PD has to try to work out who committed a daylight gang shooting in front of witnesses who deny they saw anything.

I think it's time for superheroes to adapt to the new urban environment. Superman, with flight and super-speed, can range across the world in search of perils to thwart, and the same goes for Marvel's heavy hitters like Iron Man.

But the "street-level" heroes like Batman, Spider-Man, the Punisher, and Green Arrow (stop snickering) are still wedded to an old paradigm, in which crime is conveniently concentrated in dense urban settings. Stealth, surprise, and an aura of mystery just don't translate well to suburban sprawl, let alone "exurbs" like most of Connecticut.

The first problem is distance. Having a Batmobile can be a positive disadvantage in big-city traffic, while poor Spider-Man must resort to riding atop trains or buses to reach outlying areas. A modern hero needs the ability to get around instantly, either with rapid flight or actual teleportation.

The second is stealth. Hiding in the shadowy alleys of downtown Chicago at night is all very well, but that doesn't translate to the suburban streets of Schaumburg. Crime-busting superheroes need a way to lurk unseen, or at least un-noticed, even in the daytime. Being a master of disguise is one solution, as is straight-up invisibility. Possibly using inconspicuous drones would give the hero a form of stealth, allowing secret observation of potential villains.

And finally, there's the issue of finding crime. Listening to police scanners or cruising around on patrol won't cut it — that just leads the superhero to the aftermath of most crimes, and by the time the yellow tape and chalk outlines have gone up there isn't much for a vigilante to do. You can just wait around for Lex Luthor or whoever to attack the Daily Planet building in a giant robot, but that's not really going to prevent much wrongdoing.

Obviously the vigilante heroes should be undercover agents — mingling in the underworld as criminals themselves, maybe even pulling off some relatively minor or at least bloodless crimes in order to build a reputation.

Now there's some potential for real suspense! All the dangers of undercover police work, except that the cops are also after you and there's no backup at all. The constant dilemma of how much crime to tolerate in order to bring down the gang leaders. Watching youngsters get drawn in and corrupted. This makes a secret identity and a masked crimefighter identity mandatory: if the other crooks ever realize that a trusted minor lawbreaker is actually the Masked Avenger, he's doomed. That seems like a way forward for superheroes.

If anybody likes to draw crime comics, get in touch.

Comments

[Jeff Harris]

Your New Paradigm is in many old fashioned. Walter Gibson's The Shadow relied on stealth and disguises as old-level criminals to infiltrate and defeat evildoers. The radio version of The Shadow has hypnotic invisibility as crime-fighting accessory.
Thinking about superheroes at the level of Superman are better employed in emergency services (fighting fires, rescuing people from volcanoes & earthquakes or mining disasters. Crime fighting is the least of what they can do. But after a dozen issues of a superhero comic about rescuing people will soon lose readers. Back to fighting super-powered, costumed villainy.
Alan Moore's V was basically a political resistance fighter against an authoritarian dystopian regime. A limited market niche at best.
Yes a new way forward for superheroes is needed. Recognising cities realistically is a first step.

[Jeff Harris]

Sorry. My sentence should read: "Your New Paradigm is in many ways old fashioned." My fault entirely. Must remember to preview before posting.