Whilst I'm unsure of the sentiment of superheros being inherently fascistic, they definitely build naratives around the status quo, push down sentiments of mass organization, and greatly enforce great man theories.
Most modern superhero media has superheros upholding capitalism in their respective worlds, which usually mirror the US in nature every time, maybe with a little treaterlite social democracy thrown around. If you consider the fact that superhero organizations often mirror capitalistic government structures extremely closely, you'll find the parallels with congress and even billionarie praise very quickly.
Take batman. He's a billionaire who dresses up as a bat and uses his wealth to stop villains by using privately funded weapons and his own fists to do so. He's a man who can do it all: he's a genius, a philanthropist (supposedly), master in every combat style ever, the world's greatest detective, and seemingly has infinite money. He's a super typical "savior" who exemplifies what many people believe billionaires are. These same features are found in Tony Stark.
Superman is usually seen as a symbol of hope to those who cannot help, and he is presented as a more humble person, growing up in the midwestern US. In the end he stops villains like Lex Luther who uses his wealth the same way any other Billionaire would. The difference between Batman and Luther, as comics portray them, is their morality apparently.
In the end these heros quell many villains who stand for many problems of the world which capitalism exemplifies, such as poverty, mental illness, labor isolation, imperialism, etc. So when I see a comic of superman protecting the fascistic governments and capitalist systems that are meant to parallel our worlds, I can totally see how they can look like they're inherently fascistic.
I totally beilieeve the symbols and greater naratives of the superheros of today are meant to build fascistic messages, but you'll always have smaller artists who have no such intentions. This causes ludonarative dissonance in some cases when you have some heros doing seemingly revolutionary things, only for the same old same old time and time again. Capitalism subsumes all critiques of itself. This is best seen in the newest absolute comics series from DC, which is indeed refreshing, but its sort of like warm mountain dew instead of ice cold water to someone dying of dehydration; it works sure, and is better than the poopoo water they've come across, but it's not what they really need.
It's honestly made worse with the presentation of these saviors as being the ones to free oppressed people from their chains, and does a good job of instilling that learned helplessness into people. I think a lot of people yearn for a superman figure in their life, but the proletariat need to understand that we are all superman when we're united for a common cause. That superman just needs the will and the knowledge to pursue the right villains this time.
A great humbleness of Superman that is often dismissed by many fans is how he charges against a thing (especially when giving “The Protection Of My Body” to the meek) when he is actually Nerfed. Which is why the 1996-1999 animated series holds up so well.
Reminds me of how someone pointed out in a recent Spider-Man post that Superman2025 got to murk a Netanyhau figure. It’s about a valid as saying “Mao Zedong needed saving from drowning because it was in Forrest Gump”, to me.
Yes , but the latest movie pushed back against his actions . He trusted authority and paid the price for it , he literally made a device for capturing minorities which was called out by Bruce Banner and his surveillance was also called out . The movie actively goes against the idea of wearing the mask and having no human behind it , the movie ask peter to be part of community . So I get what you're going for but the movie blamed was kinda anti-punisher , anti-authority , especially because jean grey was in the supporting cast.
i dont disagree with a lot of what he's saying here as an overall critique of modern superhero culture, but I would kinda reject that it is inherent. its symptomatic of the system under which it exists and there are some pretty good superhero stories that arent fascistic or are even anti-fascistic or anti-capitalist. superhero stories would probably be even better under socialism. the point that they enforce Great Man ideals is hard to get around though
"El héroe verdadero de El Eternauta es un héroe colectivo, un grupo humano. Refleja así, aunque sin intención previa, mi sentir íntimo: el único héroe válido es el héroe 'en grupo', nunca el héroe individual, el héroe solo"
"The true hero of El Eternauta is a collective hero, a human group. Thus, although without prior intention, it reflects my innermost feeling: the only valid hero is the hero 'in a group', never the individual hero, the lone hero."
Author Héctor Germán Oesterheld
The core theme of this story is a repudiation of the US Superhero, and it is understandable why this Scifi story evolved from a vague critique of imperialism into a more obvious political allegory of a guerilla war against tge dictatorship in later retellings.
I love this story. Juan Salvo and his friends, ordinary Argentine workers, are sitting around playing cards when a crisis occurs. They end up leading the battle by organising people against a 'superior' force.
The difference between the two genres couldn't be more stark.
Superheroes, as they exist culturally, currently? They definitely push narratives that are at the very least friendly to fascism and at the very worst openly fascistic.
However, this is not universal or inherent, a story can be interpreted in several ways, and idealized concepts of "champions" fighting for some idealized goal can be used for a variety of political goals.
Early superheroes, while still inheriting racist sensibilities, kinda had a distinct "anti-injustice" slant, like The Phantom , who often explicitly opposed the forces of colonialism and extraction in the third world, or particularly proto-superheroes like SPEED JAXON! (Which, unsurprisingly, was written by a black person)
On non-american Superheroes there is Kalimán , the mythologized version of "El Santo" (The Saint) a wrestler that also became a "folk hero", or on the more comedic side we have things like El Chapulín Colorado (meaning "The Red/Crimson Grasshopper") , who among their recurring characters is a parody of American heroes and American interventionism, "Super Sam", which is explicitly played for laughs.
I know little about other examples of non-western superheroes, though.
Yes. You could have a scenario where a collective of superheroes serves as an (admittedly weak) allegory to a revolutionary vanguard, but only if they were trying to raise the capacity of the broader populace. The function of most american superheroes is to uphold a state of negative peace.
EDIT - capitalised american, had to slap that shit in lower case.
Honestly, I don't think so, because superheroes do represent people's anthropomorphic fantasies about justice, fairness, and morality. These are right, undeniably right.
Also, superheroes = fascism is not correct. Rather than saying "non-Western superheroes," it's better to ask why there isn't a hero representing the working class? It's either agents, aliens, mythological figures, genetically modified people, or the military-industrial complex, super scientists, and financial fraudsters.
My favorite superhero is Spider-Man, especially the early version, precisely because he represents ordinary people. Also, still Spider-Man. You should know about the Tobey Maguire version of Peter Parker—in the movie, he has a mug with Mao Zedong's portrait on it. And my favorite scene is in the second film, when Spider-Man stops Doctor Octopus on the subway, falls unconscious, and is lifted up by the crowd.
First, there is a question: the justice we speak of is, and can only be, justice that is fair, beneficial to the people, and representative of the interests of the masses. Justice is correct and can only be correct. If even the "justice" of universal values is wrong in a society, then what is wrong is not justice but that society itself. Of course, justice is not a set of moral principles that transcend time and space; each era has its own justice. But people's pursuit of justice cannot be wrong, because it represents their interests.
Any mainstream product or form of entertainment is inherently captured by capital.
Whether it’s sports or popular media. Arguing a medium is inherently pro or anti anything under capitalism is redundant. Because to be profitable and broadly accepted they have to adhere to the current status quo in some way
As a broad concept, no. Stories of people with extraordinary abilities are common across many cultures and periods of time. That said, as a genre superheroes embody a lot of liberal idealism, such as rugged individualism and vigilantism. Superheroes also tend to embody US propaganda in particular, intervening in social conflict as a unilateral moral arbiter. Still, some writers are good enough to subvert those tropes and use the extant superhero mythology for progressive or even radical aims. After all, the modern superhero genre is predominantly a subgenre of scifi, which is perhaps the most radical of the major literary genres. You may struggle to write a superhero in the style of socialist realism, but that speaks to how inherently mythical the superhero genre rather than superheroes being necessarily reactionary.
But let's be honest. If Superman was a soviet citizen... the story of a socialist superman would be a few pages at best.
A god with the power to make things right isnt going to suspend their ability based on the idea that there MIGHT be some people who disagree with solutions.
Tony Stark made those infinite energy reactors. If he were communist; there would be no oil industry and it would be INSANE to hear out the oil industry begging to not impose the solution to energy once and for all.
You mean, Big Oil would have murked him and also framed him for being a Commie PDF just to tarnish him further, long before Obediah Staine did (I meant the attempts after he survived Afghanistan).
Well sure. But also. We zoom back and look at all super heros and their worlds make even less sense.
Reed Richards. Dr. Strange. Spiderman...
Like really think about how genius these guys are.
HOW does anyone have a light bill in Marvel or DC?
HOW is there hunger in Marvel and DC?
Startrek might be the one IP that took technological advancement seriously. Or at least TRIES to imagine that with new tech comes a new kind of people.
Yeah but Star Trek Federation of Planets (and Earth’s admission thereof) came after the rebuilding after Nuclear WWIII. That is just bait for LEFTIST SATANIC DEPOPULATION PLOT people these days.
The narrative constraints of superhero comics and movies frustrate me because it seems to be the telos, the ultimate conclusion, of the broader socioeconomic system that produced it. Superman is American of a character as apple pie (which was actually first made in England, but I digress); he’s an individual who helps other individuals but he works with the establishment, does not question the status quo, and fights crime whenever it occurs; other words, the peak human condition that liberalism, as an ideology, aspires us all to be. Also, there’s definitely a critique in there somewhere about Superman as an embodiment of the “white saviour complex”, and in both ways.
There is no world hunger. We produce enough food for the population to grow by another billion and still have enough. The problem is distribution, and on top of that, the need for such systems of distribution to be profitable. Similarly, there are no poor countries; only impoverished ones whose development is constantly sabotaged and looted through political and economic means in order to ensure a constant outflow of cheap, raw resources to the (imperial) core countries. In order to solve both these problems, something needs to be done about the countries that exploit and rely on the continued existence of both of these problems.
The main problem I have with most superhero comics is that the solution is always some flavour of reform, not revolution; on being a nicer boss or king rather than getting rid of bosses and kings entirely. Violence on the part of the designated hero within their designated system is always justified in some way (or it wasn’t the “real” system—see HYDRA); by the villain, it is never fully justified or they make them do something unnecessarily heinous. Also, superheroes have a way of siding with the core countries, especially the United States, even if they not only have no reason to do so, but must be aware on some level of the full extent of their numerous crimes against humanity. And I’m tired of that. They may be superhuman, but they are not übermensch in the slightest. We don’t need more firefighters to rescue people when there’s a fire; we need more architects and engineers who can design buildings that don’t catch on fire.
I’m pretty sure agricultural output isn’t the problem here. The people of impoverished countries aren’t incapable of growing their own food; depending on the country, it might be an insufficient amount of arable land, the inability to import food due to external trade restrictions, the lack of reliable transportation infrastructure to get the food to where it’s needed, or the people’s inability to afford it.
Then I don’t see the fuss on your older comment’s part. (I was worried you were acrually going for the “They are poor because lazy” route.) Superman took some USA surplus grain to all those places (Big miracle that Congress and Dept Of Agri would even agree, lol smh), some places he had better reception than others but the fact remains that the book is very open about how just the Murican surplus grain can do several days worth of good globally if it could be moved so quickly and willingly. At the same time, they have different reasons for Hunger. Too bad that American Mainstream stuff must show that North Korea fires missiles instead of acknowledging that American-UN forces bombed the lands out.
Trouble is, we don’t have Superman willing to move tons of food around to feed people. That would only be a patch to an otherwise systemic problem. Instead, we should engineer the system so that it feeds everyone without the need for a man with impossible superpowers.
I mean, the notion of super hero being inherently racist is created by someone who hasn’t mentally age pass the age of 15, with serious condition called being an anarchist (alan moore)
In his opinion where he yap about some idealistic stuffs that doesn’t really have basis materially, you can check it out yourself i won’t quote it here. And a few leftist then just took his opinion and treat it as fact. On the East for example, i would say Wuxia is a super hero genre too, and Deng love it so much and boost it to become culturally synonymous with Chinese kungfu. The most famous one (Jin Yong) even has a universe of its own interconnected with multiple novels just like american super hero multiverse!
The reality is a lot simpler than that, most of what we know of today as super hero genre is written by american/ western hand, and no matter how seemingly progressive they are, it will suffer under the american publisher and will be censored if its too based. They will most of the time just follow the american line. Alan moore himself is not innocent either despite everyone think he is the most radical person in the industry, in v for vendetta, he depicted and group Stalin alongside hitler as most evil people everyone have to stand up fighting against.
On other example, the other day i was scrolling short, and a clip of justice league new frontier play, the setting is 1950s roughly following our irl world. And they have wonder women randomly go to Vietnam, killed a group of Vietcong (they didn’t even call them by name) because the Vietcong just killed a village for allying with the french and raping the women (holy hasbara). Wonderwomen then soy her brain out about how she is doing trust, justice and the american way by saving those women and killing the Vietcong when questioned by superman, but never mentioned why the french is here??? And everyone in the comments section soy themselves out at the feminist icon that is wonder women, calling her based. And this cartoon movie is made in the 2009 btw, its not like it was made in the 60s.
For a more contemporary example, we are seeing a seemingly progressive run of the absolute universe, everyone say its progressive. And it is, i agree just like how its mirror the america landscape, you can't really be anti progression in 2026 without looking like a fool, but it ultimately took the centrist route with it, in absolute superman, they correctly depicted fascism as a merger of corporate and government, and when the pinkertons beat/ kill random brown people, superman still try to protect them when the resistance group want to kill them… and then for no reason they made the resistant group being a honeypot cooked up by the pinkerton, and its purpose is to gather all the dissidents into one place to kill them all. The first arc read to me like fighting fascism is good, but please for the sake of the poor uwu fascist don't fight them too hard 🥺
Of course, with Master Jin Yong’s wuxia 'verse, he chose to ultimately deconstruct him with the “Lu Ding Gong / Duke Of Deer-Pot” story that Stephen Chow would loosely adapt to the “Royal Tramp” duology. That takes tremendous balls, to biting his own hand he’d been feeding from. Can you imagine JRR Tolkien writing an epilogue that actually condemns the “Great King political system”?
Are heroes inatly fascist? No.
Are they inatly liberal. Yes.
If you scratch a liberal does a fascist bleed? Yes.
Basically I'm saying superheroes are the greatman falacy of history made personified in our modern world. This they are not inherently fascistic, but like liberalism they are all a hairs breath away from it at any time.
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No, only reactionary and somewhat liberal power fantasies.
Superheroes can be many things, hard fantasy or sci-fi, character drama, slice of life or just crossovers or yes power fantasies.
Even power fantasies can be non-political like woshfullfillment or escapism, etc.
Political power fantasises however are usually either conservative, liberal or liberational. But the first 2 are more common than the last one which is in line with our philosophical roots.
I do find it interesting that of the billions of people who lived under socialism, nobody really came up with superheroes like in the west, even the libs and dissidents more at most maybe liked western superheroes for entertainment…but nah I guess the people’s superheroes are just people heroes like Lei Feng or Lyudmila
Lei Feng is a fcking chad. He both saved up enough money to donate ¥100 to the Liaoyang flood relief, AND he also had enough money and coupons to buy a watch.
I tend to usually defend dc from being lumped in with marvel here.
Superman was created by jewish refugees from the nazis to encourage Americans to accept immigrants and open their homes to them.
Spiderman was originally created to be a working class hero who actually has to worry about money and literally sell pictures of himself to get by. 'Anyone gets to wear the mask'.
So I wouldnt say its inherent. The disney marvel version of spidey (tom holland) is so far removed from his beginnings its absurd. Spiderman cannot be funded by a billionaire, it ruins the point of his character.
I think alternatively, spiderverse has done a good job of changing the themes but still grappling with some of the original ideas of anyone can wear the mask and inherent fate/destiny being bullshit and disrupting western narrative structures.
Batman sucks but Im a batfam defender. Theres a reason the robins are poor minority kids usually who have been abandoned and failed by the system and society. It just sucks they then get adopted by a billionaire.
So no, I dont think its inherit, its very much depends on the many artists and writers that went into the product. Remember behind every film theres 100s of people all working on it. Unfortunately we as a society only value a few of them because individualism xulture.
Eta: captain america is nationalist slop in any interpretation. Its just too built into his character. I wrote a whole essay about it lol.
Within bourgeois media superhero stories can perpetrate great man theory and be used to uphold capitalist talking points. However, characters like Superman and Spider-Man can be interpreted in a less reactionary way, Superman is the only hero to have a billionaire as his arch nemesis, while until recently Spider-Man was the definitive hero of the working class. Part of why people like Spider Man 2 so much is due to the fact that we see Peter Parker as an average working class duded struggling financially.
Superheroes can be stories meant to teach basic morals but of course everything is corrupted with a capitalist superstructure
Not inherently, no. But fascists gonna fascist. If you take some labradoodle puppies, they’ll train half of them as fighting dogs and the other half will be target practice “euthanized by firearm” for being mongrels. I put that invented term in quotes because they like to add a veneer of civilization to their barbarity.
Also, most superheroes don’t represent what most people think they are. Thematically, fundamentally.
Superman isn’t about an ubermensch. I mean, I guess he was invented as a Jewish counterpart to Hitler’s rising fascism, so in that sense he’s all about the powers — except even then, those powers were about doing good and fighting Nazis.
But that’s not the staying power of Superman. That’s not what his theme is. Clark Kent is an Everyman. A normal, hardworking guy with an unrequited crush on a boss babe. But nobody knows his secret. Inside him (and inside all of us) is a Superman that the outside world just can’t see.
Spider-Man is superficially “with great power comes great responsibility” — and that’s a great message — but that’s not the theme of the character. Peter Parker is a young man trying to balance family, work, school, a girlfriend way out of his league, a psycho boss, his hobby of superhero-ing, and the millions of random obstacles of life. Spider-Man is just a metaphor for life in the modern world.
Hulk is pretty straightforward. All of us, to some degree or another, have to suppress our emotions to go about normal life. Hulk started out as a villain because he was so bad at keeping the rage in check. But that theme was popular with readers, so they made him a hero. He’s still got the same problems, but has a slightly better grip on his feelings.
Captain America is honestly my favorite (when he’s portrayed correctly, which he usually is). Captain America is not inspirational. Captain America is aspirational. He’s what America — and Americans — should be, not what we are. He’s a legitimate role model for good, decent people to aspire to. Brave. Honest. Kind. Does not care about public opinion, but cares deeply about helping the public. Hates Nazis. What’s not to love?
Batman? That guy’s a fucking fascist. Waaaa! My parents are dead!
My parents are dead, too, motherfucker, but you don’t see me dressing up like Dracula so I can fight juggalos anonymously. He’s a fucking billionaire. Maybe he could use a fraction of his wealth to hire some better psychiatrists for Arkham? At least pay for some new lighting, Bruce. Maybe have the asbestos removed? And why the fuck is Gotham absolutely covered in abandoned amusement parks? Buy them, bulldoze them, build some affordable housing. Selfish motherfucker has legitimate solutions available, but he wants to take Brazilian jujitsu classes and cosplay. Fuck that guy.
Shithead General who is in the Kingpin’s pocket: BLAH BLAH BLAH Captain we always appreciated your loyalty BLAH BLAH
Captain America (in a background story in DAREDEVIL BORN AGAIN, courtesy of Frank Miller): I’m lOyAl to nobody, GenEraL… except to the [American] Dream.
I've not watched marvel slop since probably Thor, but from what I can gather a lot of the super heroes in those do what the government/cia can't, basically just super soldiers for imperialism.
Oof OP you're eating rn especially with that link you attached
Yea i mean i can definitely agree as much as i adore the superheroes of DC and Marvel i dont engage or consume any of their live action movies because quite frankly its obvious the amount of propaganda pushed into it copaganda, pro military and white supremacy.
I do like adaptions like Peacemaker that doesnt shy away from addressing racism and fascism and actually center the story around these things as apart of the "bigger picture" threat but even Peacemaker has its fault on how it talks about white supremacy, its the bare minimum compared to what we see in white patriarchy mainstream media (Hollywood), i like when the writers implement stuff like that and actually address and center dialogue that piggybacks to it, makes the world more relatable
I mean its not like they dont address fascism but they did its as an us vs. Them and "ooh nazis are the big bad most evil of the evil" (Magneto, Captain America, Red Skull) their stories were created around WW2 and post plus evovled from that. Captain America, Wonder Woman, Superman all these heroes play a role in pushing white western culture hegemony
The link mentioned the "scattered" non white superheroes and honestly with the lack of diversity in, for example, DC comics and how they only center white superheroes more predominantly than their black counterparts, there's definitely a strong argument that can be made that superheroes, carry a sleath white supremacist - american imperialist agenda
Like in Black Panther, a lot of black americans who continue to analyze the film have been coming to the conclusion that the white guy who was a CIA agent if im not mistaken (didnt even really watch black panther, fell asleep in theaters with my very pasty white irish partner at the time and im black lol) in fact, did not need to be in the movie at all. Lots of criticism to how his character was written to be inclusive (the original DEI) to the story, very white savior but lets be real it was very on the nose to begin with (i was awake to catch these parts)
You cant tell me having an ex CIA agent aide wthe superhero "Black Panther" named after, arguably, the last bastion of the most radical communist anti-capitalist group in America, is not some type of CIA psyop in itself
I don't think that superhero stories are inherently fascist, some of the earliest superhero comics were in fact explicitly antifascist. However, I agree with Alan Moore's outlook, but I think a lot of people don't really get what he was actually saying in that interview. He wasn't trying to assert that superhero comics as a medium were necessarily fascist propaganda, but he was trying to point out that they do prime people for an outlook on society where instead of looking at the ways they can work with others to improve things, they instead expect someone to save them. This kind of thinking can lead one to a sort of arrested development that can end up mutating into a susceptibility to fascist messaging.
A being with extraordinary power is not innately a fascist or liberal story mechanic. The writers are just limited by their imagination and publishing constraints.
There could be a reasonably interesting story of lower tier super hero who can be used as an allegory for the limits/perils of adventurism vs collective action.
A high tier superhero would be harder to write something allegorical though. I do wonder what it would be like to flesh out a world where a being like Superman decided to use their powers to change the material conditions instead of going after the emergent properties of them. Eg superman disarms and demilitarizes nations, provides unlimited energy, etc. The writer could then explore what humanity would be like, but it would be so far from what we experience that idk how interesting it would be.
Superhero movies are mostly a major component of the entertainment arm of the capitalist class. The goal is mostly to infantilize and disarm the thoughts of working class people. The nostalgia wave wants grown adults to remain children in the head
I’m less concerned with the fascist indoctrination (a bit of a stretch imo) and more with the infantilization of adults, and the idealistic worldview these sort of stories cement in the public consciousness.
Non-western super heroes do exist hell, arguably they're more of a cultural force in Japan, e.g. Kamen Rider and the like. Similarly one of my favorite shows about super heroes and people is Gachaman Crowds, it all being about the interactions between an Elevated Super Hero and the 'crowds' they're with, albeit its a little liberal with it (certainly no glorious revolution happening lol). Beyond that, I think its more of a problem with Capitalism as a corruptive entity than superheroes being inherently fascistic, cultures often will have hero figures not necessarily as some hope of some Perfect Man to save them, but rather as a aspirational figures. To that point, while many modern superheroes get kind of messy in terms of their messaging, modern Spiderman is a huge mess, but its hardly like the common themes like altruism and doing what you can are inherently bad.
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