::...while it breaks some bars, [INVINCIBLE]’s still boxed in by the genre’s reliance on vast power differentials and singular invincible heroes.::
Except that's not a bug, it's a feature of superhero comics—even superhero comics that try to interrogate what it means to be a superhero. Every superhero or supervillain is an extraordinary being in one fashion or another, which means that it's incapable of speaking to ordinary prisons and prisoners.
You COULD use people with superpowers as a metaphor for a minority who's a victim of prejudice—that's what The X-Men became beginning with Chris Claremont, and Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS has the U.S. Government outlawing superheroes except for Superman and a handful of others they use surreptitiously as "secret weapons". But even there you run into extraordinary beings who are going to be treated differently than somebody whose socioeconomically disadvantaged.
yep. though there are approaches that deal with this in one way or the other; Watchmen for example was very deliberate in focusing on a lot of non super protagonists. There are also things like N.K. Jemisin's the Broken Earth...though that starts to not be in the superhero genre obviously...
Most of the heroes in the WATCHMEN graphic novel were more on the order of Batman or Iron Man—non-super persons who nonetheless seemed extraordinary because they had access to certain devices (like Nite Owl's Owlship or Rorschach's inkblot mask that changes with his mood) or had qualities that made them seem superhuman (The Comedian's sociopathic sense of humor and apathy for his personal safety, Ozymandias's genius, Hooded Justice's intransigent brutality).
Nite Owl II is the closest to a regular person because he questions the validity of what The Watchmen are doing and who they're doing it for—nobody else thinks in those terms until Silk Spectre II becomes intimate with him and starts to see things his way as well.
As for the film version? It's kind of amazing how Zack Snyder can perfectly capture the letter of the graphic novel while completely missing its spirit. UK film critic Mark Kermode has the right of it when he says of Snyder that all he sees is "Rubber! More Rubber! They'll wear rubber costumes!", and is incapable of seeing past the surface of things:
the heroes in watchmen are presented as superpowered semi gods, even if they don't have actual superpowers. but there's a lot of focus on street level new yorkers —the magazine vendor and the kid reading at his stand, the psychiatrist and his wife, etc. that's what I was referring to.
::...while it breaks some bars, [INVINCIBLE]’s still boxed in by the genre’s reliance on vast power differentials and singular invincible heroes.::
Except that's not a bug, it's a feature of superhero comics—even superhero comics that try to interrogate what it means to be a superhero. Every superhero or supervillain is an extraordinary being in one fashion or another, which means that it's incapable of speaking to ordinary prisons and prisoners.
You COULD use people with superpowers as a metaphor for a minority who's a victim of prejudice—that's what The X-Men became beginning with Chris Claremont, and Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS has the U.S. Government outlawing superheroes except for Superman and a handful of others they use surreptitiously as "secret weapons". But even there you run into extraordinary beings who are going to be treated differently than somebody whose socioeconomically disadvantaged.
yep. though there are approaches that deal with this in one way or the other; Watchmen for example was very deliberate in focusing on a lot of non super protagonists. There are also things like N.K. Jemisin's the Broken Earth...though that starts to not be in the superhero genre obviously...
Most of the heroes in the WATCHMEN graphic novel were more on the order of Batman or Iron Man—non-super persons who nonetheless seemed extraordinary because they had access to certain devices (like Nite Owl's Owlship or Rorschach's inkblot mask that changes with his mood) or had qualities that made them seem superhuman (The Comedian's sociopathic sense of humor and apathy for his personal safety, Ozymandias's genius, Hooded Justice's intransigent brutality).
Nite Owl II is the closest to a regular person because he questions the validity of what The Watchmen are doing and who they're doing it for—nobody else thinks in those terms until Silk Spectre II becomes intimate with him and starts to see things his way as well.
As for the film version? It's kind of amazing how Zack Snyder can perfectly capture the letter of the graphic novel while completely missing its spirit. UK film critic Mark Kermode has the right of it when he says of Snyder that all he sees is "Rubber! More Rubber! They'll wear rubber costumes!", and is incapable of seeing past the surface of things:
https://youtu.be/MKQKGoJjghc?si=GYN40zC8wXfYPqpC
the heroes in watchmen are presented as superpowered semi gods, even if they don't have actual superpowers. but there's a lot of focus on street level new yorkers —the magazine vendor and the kid reading at his stand, the psychiatrist and his wife, etc. that's what I was referring to.
Unqualified to respond on so many levels but fascinated by the mirror this holds up to the dynamics of who we are.