Everyone has heard the mythology of the many superheros flying through the pages of our favorite comic books or in modern films, but who's side are they really on. Here are two examples of superheros that display a bourgeois decadence in one way or another.
Tony Stark, the war profiteer with the alias Iron Man, would be penniless without profiting off selling weapons. One would think that a man such as Mr. Stark would be questioned about his incentive to pursue such militaristic inventions. However, these people such as Tony Stark are not questioned about their business, but instead idolized. The fictional character Tony Stark resembles a real life eccentric, by the name Howard Hughes. Similar to Howard Hughes, Tony Stark is not just a name at the end of a companies business report, but is a well known celebrity, sharing headlines with all the famous movie stars. Tony Stark enjoys the spotlight so much that he would be the first to expose himself as the superhero Iron Man as he did in Marvel's - Civil War. It wouldn't be true to say, Tony Stark was the first billionaire to try to help out his not so common man.
Bruce Wayne is a born rich playboy who feels no monetary amount of philanthropy would suffice in cleaning up the world. Batman is defiantly the ideal character to glide around a dark city such as GOTH-am. Maybe if Batman could convince the mayor to change the name to Sunshine Happy-ville things would not be so dark and scary. Of course I am aware it takes more than a name to create a great city, if that was true Winnipeg would be filled with real winners. It is defiantly the climate to blame providing constant stratus clouds that enable the Bat Symbol to be seen even at high noon. Wayne enterprises may have their hands in a lot of different pots, but it is clear that Bruce Wayne (Batman) needs to compensate for something (lack of superhero powers) with his variety of gadgets on his glorified tool belt.
Now I would like to change my focus to actual working superheros who were not placed into a life of luxury. The majority of people in the world have to work and earn a wage in a job that may not be glamorous or even worth while, but nonetheless it's a living.
Wolverine has an anti-authority manner that places him with in conjunction with the far Left. It would go against Wolverine's primal nature to be domesticated and follow orders in any job he would have to hold down in order to survive. Although Wolverine would not necessarily need too much financial support with his primitive nature drawing him towards a hunt rather than a grocery store. Perhaps Wolverine could be a poster child for primitivism, if he would turn vegan of course. Wolverine possesses a healing factor that allows him to recover from virtually any wound, disease or toxin at an accelerated rate. The healing factor also slows down his aging process, enabling him to live beyond a normal human lifespan. It would be hard for Wolverine to collect a pension if he would run it dry four fold. Therefore Wolverine must hold onto a variety of jobs for the extensive remainder of his life.
An adolescent male given super powers would be recipe for disaster, well not entirely. Peter Parker had a good upbringing and knew that "With great power, comes great responsibility". Now if only the people that possess power in the real world realized that. Peter Parker is no stranger to work especially due to his Aunt May, who is not financially secure, he would constantly have to take a job to help out the family. Luckily Peter is able to fool the big shot media representative J. Jonah Jameson that the pictures of himself are actually worth something, when he puts on the Spiderman mask, of course. Whether Peter Parker is a pimple faced pizza boy, or an awkward high school teacher he finds himself in the working class with interest helping or saving his fellow people.
The ultimate what if scenario in Superman-Red Son without a doubt takes the cake for pursuing the interests of the working people. In
Red Son, Superman's rocket ship lands on a Ukrainian collective farm rather than in Kansas, an implied reason being a small time difference (a handful of hours) from the original timeline, meaning Earth's rotation placed the Ukraine in the ship's path instead of Kansas. Instead of fighting for "...truth, justice, and the American Way", Superman is described in Soviet radio broadcasts "...as the Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, Socialism
, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact. With Superman's Big Brother influence on the world he is the Soviet Unions greatest weapon and entirely changes the outcome of the cold war. The United States loose their economic power over the western world as many countries decide to sign the Warsaw Pact and as a result make the United States a third world country.
A conclusion that can be made between these previous examples of superheros and their representation of the proletariat is that a working class superhero cannot be a hero unless they possess some super human or mutant ability. While the rich can use their wealth to create armor or weapons that can be used to help people in immediate danger, they are not there to help everyone survive the real problem that face society. Real problems that include the sustainability of resources on our planet and economic freedom for every individual.
