Heroes
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Good point.
However, notice the trend in Hollywood to re-write some of these villains as heroes.
For example Marvels Venom, who typically was the antithesis to Spider Man is now reimagined as an anti-hero, who possesses characteristics we are meant to sympathise with. I mean how could anyone warm to Venom with a face like that?!
I feel like it’s an attempt to grey “right” and “wrong”…the type of thinking which filters into the media
ie. person a) murders person b) in cold blood and the media portrays person a) as a taunted soul who couldn’t possibly be accountable for their actions. We are told to forget about the dead person b) because person a) was the true victim.
Kinda messed up.
How about all the moral ambiguity present in everything Star Wars since Disney bought it? Especially the acolyte. Interesting choice of name there.
You can even go back to the 1971 novel “Grendel” trying to make the monster from Beowulf appear sympathetic.
The first superhero in pop culture is said to be McCulley’s Zorro, who appeared in 1926, and is the model for the Lone Ranger, Green Hornet and Batman: no super-powers, but a wealthy talented man working in disguise for law and order but somewhat outside official channels. Zorro fights corrupt officials who don’t respect the order they are supposed to serve. The others support an officialdom besieged or overstretched. None of their villains is anything but a sometimes murderous greed head out for himself, whom no one in the stories feels sorry for, usually outflanked by the smarter hero, assisted by cowardly minions, or police less stupid and townsfolk less cowed than he thought them.
How Hollywood turned Baum’s Wicked Witches into heroines is another story.
Tom Byrne-
Don’t give the Scarlet Pimpernel shower shrift!
Pretty sure that author originated the harmless playboy secret identity trope.
Optomist:
There are probably a number of medieval tales of knights errant who reveal their identities only at the end. The masked hero could not be a classical invention, because ARETE required public acknowledgment. “But do your good deeds in secret, so your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”