I think deconstruction is less a "death throe" and more a response to content in a genre becoming stale, cliche, and increasingly riddled with insultingly obvious plot holes -- case in point, literally every DC-based movie other than Batman Begins and Wonder Woman.
Superhero “Deconstructions” and somehow “superheroes” becoming Hollywood Celebrities
- Thread starter CarlManvers2019
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I think deconstruction is less a "death throe" and more a response to content in a genre becoming stale, cliche, and increasingly riddled with insultingly obvious plot holes -- case in point, literally every DC-based movie other than Batman Begins and Wonder Woman.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Deconstruction can end a genre, Blazing Saddles pretty much ended westerns as a dominant genre in the movie industry. On the other hand Evangelion didn't even blunt the mecha genre in anime. More often a genre's death throes are the studios putting out incredibly poor fair that leaves a lingering "bad taste" in the audience's mouth, or social atmosphere changing so that a given genre isn't viable anymore.
I disagree. Western films were a dominant genre in the movie industry from the 1930s through the 1950s, and were very clearly fading from popularity by the 1960s, although to be fair a number of very good Westerns were still produced in those twilight years. Blazing Saddles was in 1974, and should be regarded as an backhanded epitaph rather than a turning point.
Also, deconstruction doesn't only come at the end of the era; The Paleface is an absolutely prime deconstruction of Westerns, and it was in 1948.
gral
Well-known member
Isn't Blazing Saddles more of a parody than deconstruction?
mesonoxian
Well-known member
Nah, deconstructive works are just what happens when a genre becomes influential enough that people start to interrogate it, question its assumptions, and generally mess around with it.
Superheroes have gone through multiple waves of desconstruction and unironic portrayals. Superheroic fiction probably is starting a get a bit long in the tooth at this point, but there will probably be another wave of it a few decades down the road, just like there was when the superhero fad in the 1970s wound down.
It is also possible that, like high budget fantasy, rather than fade away entirely, it will just become a typical element of the media landscape.
Yeah, in part a deconstruction ending a genre might slightly be confusing cause with similar timing. In order to do a deconstruction, something has to have fairly well established tropes deconstruct.
Generally, it takes a while to establish the norms, and most trends don't last that long. Like, the magic school was popular with Harry Potter, but that genre doesn't really have great legs past the end of those books. If some great deconstruction was written after the last Harry Potter book, it would correspond to the fall of popularity, but not cause.
Generally, it takes a while to establish the norms, and most trends don't last that long. Like, the magic school was popular with Harry Potter, but that genre doesn't really have great legs past the end of those books. If some great deconstruction was written after the last Harry Potter book, it would correspond to the fall of popularity, but not cause.
ShadowLord
Well-known member
Exactly this! I don't have issues with heroes or heroines having flaws, but I like them to be heroic at the end of the day! This whole 'deconstructionist' bullshit has to stop.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Yup
Honestly, I’m thinking of those MaoYuu sort of Deconstructions wherein there tends to be stuff like said “Hero” being possibly insane or with a VERY Black&White perspective with zero mercy towards those they see as “evil”
I think they also have a tendency to go on and say “For Justice!!!” whilst doing so
I’m pretty sure even as early as Bilbo Baggins, they showed mercy towards monsters like Gollum
And that superheroes don’t see the world as completely Black&White, which is part of why they don’t kill and try showing mercy and at times redemption
I feel like this problem is easily fixable if they just moved on from the stale duopoly of Marvel/DC already.
Look, deconstructions can be great. Worm is a deconstruction too, in many senses, and I enjoyed it. Watchmen and The Boys, both deconstructions, were good and enjoyable, although not the kind of material that will leave a lasting impact on me, personally.
But I still have plenty of room for traditional, "standard" superhero play. Just not Marvel or DC. For crying out loud, how many times can you chew through the same characters, reboot exactly the same storylines over and over again... how many, say, Dark Phoenix Sagas did we have by now? Original comics, ultimate Marvel, X-Men 3, the new X-Men, the 90's animated series... I bet everything I have that I've missed a few. I liked Spiderman, I like Iron Man, I like a lot of other characters... I don't like them enough to keep seeing stories and variations on them, by different actors and writers, decade after decade, especially when they rehash the same story slightly differently. No, fuck that. Only in the comic book industry such a thing is even conceivable. It's a dead horse, just shoot it in the head and move the fuck on!
That's why Worm was such an incredible breath of fresh air to me, why I really liked One Punch Man even though it's, at least in part, a satire, that's why I keep looking for books in this genre (so far only Sanderson's Reckoners trilogy has somewhat scratched the itch, although it's definitely a deconstruction rather than a straight example of the genre). Give me new plots! New characters, with their own personal lives, struggles, rogue's galleries! New global threats that these new characters will unite against! I'm ready, come ON!
Sol Zagato
Well-known member
Worm isn't so much a deconstruction as a reconstruction. What baseline assumptions do we need for capeshit* to happen? Wildbow chose the Aberrant setting for the most part.
* the typical nonsense that happens in comic books, like the existence of superheroes and supervillains, and supervillains not all being in prison.
Superhumans as celebrities makes sense. Much more sense than superhumans vs supervillains. Celebrities usurp much of the niche of nobility. Superhumans could easily choose to be celebrities, and it would be a better path to wealth than punching things.
The other logical place for superhumans is president-for-life and the goon squad thereof. Depending on the power level/assumptions, it may not fly in the 1st world, but who is going to stop them in Upper Volta?
* the typical nonsense that happens in comic books, like the existence of superheroes and supervillains, and supervillains not all being in prison.
Superhumans as celebrities makes sense. Much more sense than superhumans vs supervillains. Celebrities usurp much of the niche of nobility. Superhumans could easily choose to be celebrities, and it would be a better path to wealth than punching things.
The other logical place for superhumans is president-for-life and the goon squad thereof. Depending on the power level/assumptions, it may not fly in the 1st world, but who is going to stop them in Upper Volta?
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Don’t forget, the Death Penalty or Life In Prison is more-or-less a thing
Hell, I think most villains are actually Birdcage-worthy, they just break out on the way and there’s less effort in holding them because it’d be too much trouble or outright war to do so
Kill Orders are for the Supervillains that are just way too dangerous and probably not interested in doing things like becoming organized crime and being to a degree “negotiable”
As far as the Wormverse, the fundamental bizarreness is that Protectorate / PRT orders are pretty much that they're not allowed to use lethal force at all unless there's a formal Kill Order, which is absolutely nonsensical for a bona fide law enforcement agency. In real-life terms, law enforcement are broadly empowered to use lethal force any time they feel that a lethal threat may exist.
It's a plausible limit for unofficial vigilantes in order to avoid being arrested themselves, but not anyone with official government sanction.
It's a plausible limit for unofficial vigilantes in order to avoid being arrested themselves, but not anyone with official government sanction.
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You forget that despite the official veneer of the organization, capes are highly feared and distrusted by normals. It makes sense they have hard limits on what they're allowed to do.
Eh, there's a difference between being famous and being a celebrity. Like, George Washington was famous and rich. I would not really describe him as a celebrity. Or someone like Elon Musk: he does public events, people follow him, but excentric billionaire is a different kind of famous than Celebrity.
So, the problem isn't necessary someone being famous, but that they're explicitly put into being famous in an explicitly celebrity way as a movie star. That doesn't necessarily make sense. To take a big example, Superman could support himself quite well just off a stipend to keep him on call to save the world if the US ever needed it.
Nobility fills a very different nitch from celebrity.
This was what I was pointing at with the boys, which is very explict about it: the 7 seems to spend all their time doing movies and being celebrities, but that one guy punching criminals in Baltimore, what, $200 million a year? Just quickly looking things up, Robert Downey Jr apparently has a worth of about $300 million. Looking at some other big actors, a big actor comes out to something like that.
If your in somewhere where super power criminals are a fact of life that you would want to have on hand to deal with such issues like a super SWAT, with Baltimore already having a budget of about $3 billion some $100 million on a super police, especially if they can reduce general crime or more specific crime might not be a bad trade. Say you averaged a $100 dollar fee per person to directly pay the superhero of the town? That's about $50 million in direct pay to the super. Just one super hero per city with a population of 100k in the US can support over 300 supers making some $10 million each. Per year. Celebrities making that much money per year is probably a fairly elite group. New York of course with 1 sup per 100k population would be able to support almost 80 sups making $10 million a year, and probably more given the richness of the town.
So, yeah, its less that them being famous seems weird, but them being famous in the particular way they are shown to be.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
@JagerIV
I recall that the Wards got $50,000 per year, though that may all go into some "college fund" or only be accessed when they're adults
I'm not sure about the wants and needs of the adult superheroes working in the Protectorate, but from what I recall, their lifestyles were mostly decent instead of very expensive or luxurious
And this is with me recalling that there were action figures and merchandise
I recall that the Wards got $50,000 per year, though that may all go into some "college fund" or only be accessed when they're adults
I'm not sure about the wants and needs of the adult superheroes working in the Protectorate, but from what I recall, their lifestyles were mostly decent instead of very expensive or luxurious
And this is with me recalling that there were action figures and merchandise
That *might* apply to the Protectorate, but people justifiably fearing and distrusting capes would lead to less restricted ROE for the PRT, not putting them under largely the same crippling restrictions.
How about this hypothesis?
Restrictions on the Protectorate are due to mistrust of the parahumans.
Restrictions on the PRT are due to fear of the parahumans (and their reaction).
Don't forget that there are a lot more villains capes than heroes on Earth Beta, I would imagine the government would be reluctant to do anything that might push new capes to join the villain side (whether they do that competently is another discussion entirely).
There are also Endbringers running around and wrecking civilization, let's not forget, and the human race is pretty much dependent on capes to drive them off each time. The ROEs are reflecting a delicate social balance in the US, nothing from real life is applicable to the situation they're in.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
I’ve mostly only read Worm and parts of earlier Ward, but generally the Heroes are much nicer people than the Villains
I don’t see the whole “two sides of the same coin” as applying to most of said heroes
Uber & Leet have probably ruined the lives of many in the “games” they livestream.
We see quite a few people going from hero to villain in the work, not least of all Taylor herself, but other examples that were at the very least borderline and could have easily gone over if circumstances were just slightly different are Armsmaster and Shadow Stalker.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
I gotta say, I really liked Armsmaster talking back to Alan Gramme
It was like one of those “You had one REALLY bad day? Lots of people have those and they turn out fine” as I recall
Even got kinda pissed at Mannequin trying to make the comparison
Man, if Sphere could still speak, I swear he’d sound pretty pathetic