Like many things in my life, this philosophical moment is guided by a pro wrestling anecdote.
There’s a wrestler named Aleister Black, once known in the indies as Tommy End. He has one of the best sets of knuckle tattoos I’ve ever seen: Anti hero. Julie and I have a game where we try to figure out the best possible set of 4 letter words/acronyms for the knuckles.
If I could think of the thing to put with RGB, I’d have that and CYMK on my knuckles already.
But as I was thinking through how cool it is that Black has anti hero on his knuckles, I started to think a bit about the archetype and the tropes that surround it. And I realized… most of my heroes are antiheroes.
I grew up with the first iterations of the darker Batman, with Wolverine, with the Punisher. I’ve always thought of myself as a fat native Peter Parker, but I also found myself more drawn to the character in the relatively recent period where his brain was taken over by Dr. Octopus than I did with the cheesy late 90s re-vamp of the early 70s Spider-man.
As I tried to reason this out, I got to the heart of it. It’s very similar to a lecture I give my students about making compelling characters.
There are two sides to the hero coin, best I can tell. There are degrees of each, of course, but at the end of the day I think we could reduce every hero to the core that is represented by the worldview of two characters in the DC Universe: Superman and Batman. Bear in mind I am speaking only of their worldviews; I’m not claiming that every hero is either a super-human white guy or a rich white guy.
But think about how the two work. There’s the “hero,” Superman. He’s an overgrown boy scout. Naive in ways, with every possible physical gift, the ultimate American melting pot immigrant (from space) in the form of a midwestern aww shucks farmboy and star news reporter. It’s easy for Superman to be a hero because only a few things can hurt him. He’s basically a lawful good sun vampire with a weakness for Kryptonite. He does the right thing, and he represents the best and most noble in people.
Then there’s the anti-hero, Batman. He’s an odd take on the anti-hero, because typically the anti-hero is thought to be selfish and Batman doesn’t seem selfish. Until you really look hard at him. He doesn’t fight crime to make the world a better place– I mean he does, but that’s the side effect– Batman wants justice for the death of his parents, and he wants a sense of control. He’s human, in all the best and worst ways. He’s not immortal. He’s not infallible. He’s smart– almost too smart. He has pushed himself to the limits of being as physically fit and trained as he can be. But he doesn’t have blind faith. He plans for contingencies. Other than his at times oddly contradictory “I won’t kill” mantra, he’s not above any dirty trick (including once coating Green Lantern in yellow paint and beating the crap out of him just to prove a point). And the not killing is, of course, entirely selfish. He doesn’t kill because it was murder that turned Bruce Wayne into the Batman. The fact that he won’t kill the Joker actually defies all of the logic that otherwise governs his life.
And that’s where I think the “click” moment is. Anti-heroes are more logical. That’s why they are more appealing to people like me. I can’t deal with Superman, even if on some level I wish I could be like that. He’s too ignorant to what the world actually is. He can make that sacrifice because he won’t die if his faith is misplaced.
But as someone who has had to figure out ways to survive, I get Batman. I always have. Plan. Watch. Study. Have exit strategies.
What we need right now is an anti-hero that can be the hero this world needs, not the hero this world thinks it deserves. This world got what it deserved, and now we’re painted into the corner. Time to show our teeth or cut and run.
It’s time to be a little batty.