Alan Moore made his name writing superheroes, but it’s no secret that the legendary writer has been critical of the genre in recent years. Moore’s contemporary Grant Morrison has weighed in on the debate, and their rebuttal to Moore’s superhero criticisms couldn’t be any more perfect. Both writers certainly know what they are talking about, with superhero masterpieces such as Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke and All-Star Superman between them.
Writing in their newsletter Xanaduum, Morrison points out the recent Screen Rant interview with Alan Moore, where the writer stated that the “superhero dream is essentially fascist.”
“It’s certainly a take worth discussing,” Morrison admits, noting the idea has “been the subject of exhaustive ruminations for decades in fan and academic circles, as well as in the comics themselves.” However, for Morrison, the criticism rings false, when considering the superhero’s origin in the comic industry.
The Superhero Dream is Romantic, According to Grant Morrison
Morrison begins their rebuttal to Moore by pointing out that the largely Jewish comic book creators who inaugurated the superhero phenomenon in the early 20th century would likely balk at his classification of their work’s legacy. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be truly convinced that the young, working class, Jewish creators of superhero comics and characters ‘essentially’ intended their stories and heroes to embody fascism,” Morrison says. They go on to state that, from their perspective at least, “the initial appeal of comic book superheroes had nothing much to do with their power to dominate weaker opponents and win battles unfairly.”
For Morrison, the appeal is something far more simple: “I liked superheroes because they saved people and seemed nice, and because they dressed up in cool costumes to do amazing, impossible things on distant planets or parallel universes.” The power of imagination is a running theme throughout Morrison’s work, and the writer has routinely made it an important part of their superhero stories in particular, adding weight to its importance to their vision of the genre. For Morrison, just because something is imagined doesn’t make it any less “real,” as the author relates how the superhero battles relate to growing up:
“At a time when my mind was at its most receptive to alarming, exciting new input, I imprinted on a kind of Jungian view of superheroes. They were inhabitants of the imagination that could stand in readily for many of the ideas, feelings, and fears I’d come to associate with becoming an adult. Their selfless dedication to others offered a shining example to the young and idealistic.”
Grant Morrison Calls Superheroes “A Shining Example to the Young and Idealistic”
Superhero stories can be so much more than what they’re traditionally presented as, as Grant Morrison and Alan Moore’s work exemplify. The timeless characters are at their best when facing very human troubles in large, colorful settings, whether it’s Superman being forced to deal with his morality in All-Star Superman, or Doctor Manhattan leaving Earth to rediscover who his is in Watchmen. Morrison wraps up their feelings in the perfect rebuttal to Alan Moore’s criticism: “As I see it, the superhero dream is essentially adolescent and Romantic!” It’s interesting to see writers Grant Morrison and Alan Moore display such disparate views on superheroes, as each legend’s take is worthy of further discussion.
