The article I chose was “Who Watches the Watchmen?”: Ideology and “Real World” Superheroes. The article starts by describing what people think of when they imagine a superhero such as Superman flying high above Metropolis or Batman keeping an eye on Gotham. It explains that these superheroes and many others from the years 1938- to 1949 were created in a time when people were trying to find ways to escape reality. These years were filled with worries of a failing economy and war. Jamie Hughes explains in his article that the superheroes of that era were unlike us. They possessed inhuman qualities like being able to fly, swim, and inhuman intelligence and they were often from another galaxy sent here to fight crime to enforce justice. The question the author posed is what attracted people to these comic books and why the people were so addicted to them.
The answer, he says, is that the creators positioned them outside the realm of ideology, or in simpler terms, they were not controlled by the government, military, police, schools, churches, the family unit, or the media. He explains that these superheroes were aware of these forces, but they were not working for any of these forces or influenced by any of them. He explains that in some of these comics such as Superman or Batman, the superhero works in conjunction with the law officials to capture criminals but not out of dependence. He points out that often there are attempts to try the superhero in a court of law for vigilante justice, but it almost never works.
In the next part of the article Jamie Hughes explains that the superhero world is changing and they are now portraying situations that are closer to reality. He explains that the change happened in the mid 1980s. There were three comics that arose: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. The first comic The Dark Knight Returns portrays Batman as a psychopath instead of a superhero. Hughes explains that Maus comes closer to our world by making Jews into mice, Nazis into cats, and Poles into pigs while discussing the holocaust. He says the Watchmen come even closer to reality by putting the crusader into our real world.
Watchmen is set in 1985 in Alan Moore and David Gibbons own version of New York. There are many superheroes there and they have become just another part of society. The superheroes in this comic are not like our traditional heroes because they want to obtain money, power or fame. The desire to obtain these things not only limits their actions but subjects them to realm of ideology which is exactly opposite of what attracted us to our first superheroes like Batman or Superman.
Jamie Hughes describes the comic in great detail from its beginning until now. The characters started out as individuals but became a group known as the Minutemen. The first, Sally Jupiter, names herself Silk Spectre, and hopes to further her own modeling career. Dollar Bill, a popular hero working for a national bank, dies because of the cape he is forced to wear. These are many other characters such as, Nite Owl, Captain Metropolis, Hooded Justice, Mothman, and Silhouette, who comprised the original group of Minutemen. They all had their own motivation for becoming a superhero and not one of them was simply to fight crime in the name of justice. After ten years the group realizes how much of a fad they had become and appear before the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee and disappear by taking off their masks and going back to an average life.
The second generation of heroes becomes known as the Watchmen. They are more than just outcasts who are pursuing their own ideology. It begins with Captain Metropolis trying to unite a group of superheroes, but they do not work well together. Hughes explains that they often work in pairs. New men take on the name of old superheroes such as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. The Comedian also joined the new group and was the only one of the old group known as the Minutemen that remained active. He now works for the government and is capable of greater insights than the regular man. The Comedian and a new member Ozymandias, who claims to be the most intelligent man in the world, become at odds with each other. The comedian burns a map of the United States with the words Promiscuity, Anti-war demos, Drugs, and Black unrest on it. These seem more like things that would be fought by the government agencies than superheroes.
Hughes goes into more detail about the comic and what happens throughout. He introduces Dr. Manhattan who would be the closest to a real Superhero because he perfected the mental and physical abilities of every human being through a nuclear accident. Ozymandias then wants to save society from itself so he develops an “alien life form” that is moved by something Dr Manhattan creates. It is dropped in the middle of New York and kills 3 million people. The rest of the world is terrified of being attacked by aliens and points their nuclear weapons towards the sky instead of each other. The other Watchmen new nothing of the plan until after it happened but all agreed to never speak of it again except Rorschack who was killed. But the fact remains that no matter how he plans Ozymandias cannot change society. Ozymandias also did not know that Rorschack left behind a journal that explained all he knew of the “alien attack.” A new Dr Manhattan arrives when Jon Osterman who has a PhD in atomic physics is killed in a reactor. He places the molecules of his body back together and becomes the first true superhero capable of disassembling matter with his mind and being able to transport himself and others through time. He wins the Vietnam War in two weeks but refuses to be caught in that ideology and burns the symbol for Hydrogen in his forehead. He slowly discards the uniform the government forced him to wear and eventually wears nothing at all. His nakedness represents his freedom from state and his own beliefs. He sees himself as a puppet that can see the strings and becomes detached from society and its concerns.
I think this article was very interesting in how the Watchmen are regular people in our society trying to gain their own fame, money or power. They are nothing like society’s original superheroes that are trying to gain nothing, but simply fighting crime and possess supernatural powers. The original superheroes answer to no one because they are above our society. When you make the superheroes just like us, living among us, who are they to answer too? Everyone in our society is subject to ideology and this includes our superheroes. I think it says a lot about today’s society that we would rather the heroes be someone like us, because it is more rational that we could obtain that superhero status, fame. It is very telling that we want our superheroes to be subject to the same powers of state, government, and society that we are subject to ourselves.
