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maybe I didn't articulate well enough:
Fingeroth, speaking in generalities about action heroes, asserts that the Hero emerges when the status quo is threatened, takes necessary action to preserve s/q, then recedes until the next threat. The Action Hero ARCHETYPE (Fingeroth notes that Batman and Punisher are exceptions to this--though Batman and Punisher are part of the CENTRAL Action Hero Archetype of the last, what 35 years? Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Rambo, etc.) is essentially a reactive character, while the villain (in the Lex Luthor/Dr. Doom worldbeater archetype) is the one instigating change/revolution.
In a serial adventure series, the hero has to essentially remain static (though, Spider-Man was a dambuster on this rule), in order to always be there, ready to face the next threat. Therefore the dynamics of the series are provided by the villains. Fingeroth talks about Stan Lee talking about Bullpen sessions and how discussion of villains was always the key thing.
Though, thinking about it (and typing about it), it occurs to me that the change didn't really come from the villains as characters, the change manifested itself in the villains. IE, Doc Ock changes into the Vulture becomes Sandman, etc. The hero is constant, the villains are inconstant.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 02:34 (seventeen years ago) link
and, yeah, Fingeroth totally makes some remarkable leaps of logic, even mentions FASCISM!, which all seems a lot less novel in the post-ILC univorn.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 02:54 (seventeen years ago) link
But when Doc Ock is robbing a bank, that doesn't seem like he's a rebel who's fighting against the status quo to me.Er, "status quo" doesn't necessarily mean oppression/fascism, and fighting against doesn't necessarily mean rebellion in the political sense. Spider-Man tries to uphold the status quo of law and order, and Doc Ock is threatening it by doing crimes, but that doesn't Doc Ock is a revolutionary trying to bring about a better world. Or, take Dark Knight Returns for another example: in it Batman is the rebel fighting against the status quo, but he's also a leader of his own fascist militia - so it's Batman's idea of an order against a different kind of order.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 06:02 (seventeen years ago) link
Also, surely Luthor, as a bloated billionaire plutocrat, is also the status quo?
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 14:23 (seventeen years ago) link
Surely it's anti-rockist as Status Quo were rockin' all over the world, requiring an international coalition of superheroes to stop their nefarious deeds? Much like Millenium but with a pub rock group instead of the Manhunters.
― Vic F (Vic Fluro), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link