Origin Stories

I have always been fascinated by superheroes, not just the heroes themselves (though I love them too, Doctor Strange is clearly the best), but the way in which they are created and how they are written. There is always an uncomfortable custody agreement between writers and readers. The writer may give birth to the character, but they only continue to live because the reader provides a mental space for the character to live and thrive.

Not all of these agreements are the same; especially not for novelists. Amor Towles (the author of A Gentleman in Moscow) does not give the reader much by way of latitude. He writes with a prose that could only be produced by someone who had spent decades within east coast upper society. The former investment banker notes the display of every fork, just how close each couple is, how many times someone looks away from the movie. The world he creates is the result of painstaking detail and he traps both you and his main character in it. It is not that there is not a cast, but in both of his books there is only one character Towles really, truly loves. He dotes on his main characters; indulges them and then exposes them to the reader. But he is a very jealous writer, that character is his and no one else’s. In legal language the reader only really has visitation rights.

But Yuri Herrera gives the reader nothing but latitude. In his book Kingdom Cons the characters do not even have names. Instead they have roles: King, Artist, Commoner. His prose is fluid and filled with rough images. It reads like the first version of a fairy tale or a ballet with his King and his Artist dancing through set pieces. This is not to say that the work is not deathly serious; the king is a drug lord and if nothing else is, the blood on the floor is very real. But the Herrera requires the reader to work through the haze he creates. As a result he and the reader work alongside to tell his story. This a far more equitable relationship where the writer and the reader gain joint custody and joint responsibility in the raising of their love child. This can be exhausting (a few pages of Herrera’s novels have made me want to just lie down and close my eyes while I devoured Towles’ much longer books in days) but can also be very rewarding. Who doesn’t want to watch their love child grow up?

But the dynamics between the reader and the writers of superheroes are far more complex. For one, there are writers, plural. While in novels different writers can re-imagine previously existing characters, this is less transformation than it is a newly conceived character. There are countless Odysseuses experiencing very similar plots in different ways.

The rules for superheroes are in many ways the reverse. There is only one hero and many plots. When I pick up a Spider-Man comic I expect certain things: I want the web shooters he uses to go thwip-thwip, I would be taken aback if there wasn’t enough guilt to fuel a thousand confessionals, and I hope for at least one doomed romantic interest (I want Peter to be happy, even if it is only fleeting). There is a commercial aspect to this. Readers probably would not respond well to a calm, confident, guilt-free Peter Parker because they come for the chaos, but there is more going on than economics.

The custody agreement is not just flipped here. When it comes to superheroes the readers, the mass, have full ownership of the character. The writers can shift things, make the story darker or refocus on aspects of the character previously ignored, but they can never subvert the readers’ demands because the connection is so much stronger.

The character in a novel, however real, is the creation of a single person. They are a piece in a larger story, birthed to play their role alongside others. But in a comic the superhero is the only thing that matters; the plots, the villains, the love stories only exist to further strengthen the hero. This is because we don’t believe in those things, but we believe in the hero. I believe in Captain America. And I believe in him because I believe in the virtues of dignity and basic decency. And I believe that these are not just ends but means. And when he says to a little girl, “I know you’re scared. I don’t blame you. But if you really feel like you can’t face him alone let me help you,” I feel relief.

But maybe the problem is the superheroes are not characters at all. They’re thin wrappings of origin stories and spandex around something that was already present and already compelling. In this version superheroes are not born and they cannot be owned. Instead they must be collected— found on street corners and in alleyways before they are pieced together. In a novel characters are still real people, or at least as close to real people as the skill of the author will allow. They have hopes and dreams and feel a little shame when they have a dirty thought about the girl behind the counter.

Superheroes may have flaws, but they are not real people. We do not believe in real people, we believe in ideals. And sometimes we dress those ideals up in a suit and have them fly over Manhattan and save us.