I'll Get You Next Time.

Good versus Evil is a theme at the heart of a huge amount of stories. Our heroes have been explored—they’ve been around since pre-history, in our myths and legends. Hercules, Jason, Beowulf are important examples of a type of character that we still use in stories today. Heroes have been with us forever. Villains were rarer, until relatively recently. Antagonists were usually quickly and soundly defeated.

At the end of the 19th century, something about the stories we tell changed. Our villains became more clever, more inventive, and more relevant outside of the context of the hero that bested them. French pulp crime fiction birthed Fantomas, a master anarchist who wore a mask—when he wasn’t in an ingenious disguise. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Professor Moriarty, the mastermind of a large network of criminal activity who only personally appeared in one story about the detective Sherlock Holmes, but whose presence was felt or revealed in a handful of others.

Why do we create these supervillains? We write and read stories about their clever and not-so-clever exploits, and how they inevitably fail by the hands of our heroes and superheroes. The bad guys are constantly trying to change the world disastrously—sometimes for more noble goals, but often for selfish reasons—but, in the end, the status quo is defended. I think that we create these characters and these stories as a safer reflection of our world, that the issues we see in our world can be dealt with in bold colors.

The superhero genre of stories also deals with other issues of our world—from homosexual superheroes and the difficulties and prejudices they face, to national identity and immigration, from the equality of the sexes, to issues of personal identity. Superman and Wonder Woman are constantly reminded that they aren't natives to our society. Yet they've in many ways adopted our ways of thinking, our values (which, fortunately, aren't too far from their own). Wonder Woman has had further challenges adjusting from being an Amazon princess to serving justice in a world where men tend to rule, and where in some places women are essentially property, a mere asset. Batman isn't always sure that Bruce Wayne is the real him anymore--the persona of the Batman seems more real, more relevant, and Wayne is just a facade.

The truly evil characters get caught, their plans thwarted. The sociopaths are brought to justice for their crimes. The terrorists and the diabolical world leaders don’t realize their goals. But those villains are still there, waiting for another story—because those issues and those threats are still there in our world. Luckily, our heroes are often merciful.

~j