The kids are heading back to school, traffic is getting worst, and tax holidays are everywhere, it must be fall. I know, you asking yourself how this relates to comics !?! For comic fans, this is an interesting historical moment. After another summer of big live action comic films, the comic media convergence has achieved success, but now must assess the future. This summer, comic inspired movies delivered big box office (Iron Man 2) and critical appeal (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), but not, in the mind of many, both. In many ways a summer with bigger announcements about comic films (Captain America, Thor, The Avengers, and Green Lantern and so many more in development) than films, the comic fan looking for a live action fix might seem out of luck and forced to wait for months. This is not true, the end of summer also marks the beginning of the new fall television season. In years past, we could look forward to many an action adventure television show that might reference comics or comic culture, but the success of NBC’s Heroes in 2006 marked a push for more explicit comic inspired action on the small screen in primetime. With some question about the viability of the comic movie genre coming from critics and fans alike a consideration of the primetime superhero comic experience is worth some careful consideration.
Prime time (7:00-11:00 EST) has always represented the largest part of the viewing audience on U.S. television. In years past, the commercial broadcast networks attracted the largest audience during primetime. According to some figure throughout the 1960s and 1970s it was common for broadcast networks to have 80 to 90 percent of the available audience. Because of the audience, primetime viewership has also allows networks to charge the highest ad rates. In the 1990s, a 30-second prime time television spot costs as much as $100,000 dollars. The same ad space went for as much as $325,000 on a top-rated series with low-rated shows offering ad spots for $50,000. The media environment since 2000-2001 television season has shifted. In 2000-2001, NBC’s ER, the number one rated TV show charged 625,000 dollars for an ad spot. In 2008-2009, the number one rated show Sunday Night Football on NBC charged 434,000. With the audience shrinking for broadcast television the ad rates have followed, making a hit television show even more important. Superheroes in primetime were not new in 2006, but the success of primetime superhero television historically been limited. While kid television relies on superheroes (both live action and animated), primetime is about garnering adult eyes. Even the emphasis on the family hour (8:00pm) advertisers are expecting adult viewers to be there, so even family entertainment should appeal to adults. Given how other genres dominated primetime television (police procedures, sit-coms and family dramas are standard fare), the superhero has had limited exposure as the dynamic of presenting a show that appeals to broad family audience requires broad themes and easily digestible characters.
From the scholarly perspective, comic books and comic culture have garnered increased attention throughout society. Former comic readers, now adults, seeking to contextualize comic characters in American society, drive this attention. As a result in formal and informal venues fans and experts have examined comic books and characters as myth, sought to understand the superhero archetype in social context, and used comic books and characters as markers for twentieth century cultural development. All of theses efforts share is an acknowledgment that comic books and superheroes offer a distinct means to understand the American mind. The comic book genre, especially it most popular aspect the superhero, often reduces individual characters into representations of cultural ideas. This process has allowed characters to become powerful representation of nationalism and family values (Superman), physical and intellectual drive (Batman) and idealized and controlled femininity (Wonder Woman). As a historian, I can see how heroic characterization represented by superheroes informs Americans about collective expectations and behavioral ideas. Superheroes display and distort U.S. ideas about power, identity, and community. Thus, the presence of these characters in primetime offers one way to gauge how the public is dealing with problems and concerns in society.
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there have been few successful live action superhero television shows. The 1950s saw television shows such as The Adventures of Superman and the Lone Ranger. In the 1960s Green Hornet and Batman achieve success. In the 1970s, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man were hits; the 1980s saw the Incredible Hulk and the Greatest American Hero. In the 1990s, The Flash got one full season and the Adventure of Lois and Clark brought Superman back to primetime (as a romantic adventure). Most television pilots are rejected, so airing even for a few episodes or a season represents success—a success heighten by the fact most adults scoff at the superheroes as “kids stuff.”
Because the superhero is distinctly American (and twentieth century) product we can read them as windows into contemporary zeitgeist. Superman in 1950s offered patriotic symbolism in midst of Cold War uncertainty; Batman’s 1960s campy crime fighter was useful distraction in midst of domestic and foreign upheaval. Likewise Spider-Man and Wonder Woman offered 70s audiences reassuring glimpse of American values and ideas. The Incredible Hulk and the Greatest American Hero offered a counter narrative to the frustration associated with U.S. experience in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Efforts in the 1990s actually attempt to incorporate establish heroes into a post-cold war reality where new roles and standards were needed for a United States acting as guiding global superpower.
Since 2006, we have a number of shows that have incorporated elements gleamed from Heroes success. The discovery of powers, the moral dilemma associated with using those powers, and the consequences to society of having people with power are all comic book tropes. What Heroes did effectively was remove costumes from the equation, a move I have discussed before as important step to appeal to the broadest possible audience. The initial success of Heroes was followed by an attempt to incorporate complex mythology, season long arcs, powers (supernatural or scientific) into a number of primetime shows. Most of these shows have avoided, outright superheroics. Like the CW’s Smallville, which promised viewers would never see Clark Kent in the Superman costume. The success of Heroes did not fundamentally change the concerns associated with superhero tropes on television. Despite the willingness to incorporate fantastic elements, the use of costumes has been avoided on the small screen. The reason, producers and writers do not believe they can sell the reality of the superheroic experience on the small screen. For those shows that have a hero in costume, they pushed to move put the focus on the man (or woman) not the costume. Lois and Clark was a romantic adventure, with Clark Kent struggling not with the burden of being a hero, but the burden of being a sensitive guy. Smallville continues that theme by focusing on Clark’s journey into manhood. Since we know he will become Superman, creators have made the series about what it takes to be that person.
Heroes replicated this formula in many ways. Each character’s powers presented analogs to personal concerns that spoke to universal social experience. A young woman who can’t be hurt (physically) struggles with the implication of difference. An office worker wishes for a better life so hard, he discovers he has command over space and time. A younger brother, living in the shadow of older more successful sibling, craves something to make himself standout. These are common concerns and problems and the characters and story in Heroes’ first season makes these strongly personal journeys into massive heroic adventures replete with super-villains obstacles and city saving climax. The success of the Heroes first season owes much to strength of the comic book story elements and styles brought by comic professional on the writing staff brought to episodic television format. Heroes struck a balance between human story and fantastic elements. In addition, the show cultivated comic and non-comic fans with a multimedia blitz that offered the story on multiple platforms. As the series progressed, the comic book elements in the story became more difficult for the audience to follow. Criticism of too many characters, too many powers, and too many stories are all common threads in comics, but not television. Not surprisingly, efforts to replicate Heroes have failed.
No show has balanced the symbolism offered by superheroes with compelling human stories in the same manner. Yet, the success of the superhero genre in film means that producers are looking to bring superheroes to the small screen. The coming television season has several entries. The appeal of the new crop of superhero shows calls into question what producers and writers believed the primetime viewers believe heroes and their powers to represent. In era of government action (or activism), concerns about power shaping destiny has added concerns for many viewers. Whether you believe the government has done too much or not enough, there is widespread exhaustion related to heroic figures. In print, major storylines from Marvel and DC are focus on a new Heroic Age (Marvel) or Brightest Day (DC) allusion to a status quo where people we believe to be heroes are in charge and leading the way. In responsive way, both storyline demonstrate that simply having heroes out-front, does not make problems go away. This revelation (if it is one) is not new. Americans have historical placed their faith in charismatic political and social leaders, only to be disappointed that the system and the people failed to deliver on the promise in the way portrayed in the rhetoric.
With this a backdrop, the new superheroes on Fall TV are less “super” and more everyday hero. ABC has No Ordinary Family, a show about a family that gets super powers while on family trip to “reconnect” as a family. The characters are perfect caricatures: a father disconnected and put upon, an overachieving mom, a slacker son, and quintessential teenage daughter with self esteem issues. No originality in the bunch, but the powers are perfect metaphors. The father gets strength, becoming literally, a strong male power figure, the mother gets speed—making it possible for her do everything a modern wife and mother should do, but logically does have the time to do. Here, I think the continuing problem of gender is made clear, the mother’s power will allow her to be fully functional professional and maternal figure for the family. Thus she will be able to work and take care of the home, solving the tension created by social pressure for women to “do it all.” In a similar vein the kids are made perfect archetypes. The slacker son gets the smarts to achieve and the daughter can read minds. The common refrain associated with so many adolescent young men of, “if only he would apply himself” solved through his powers. For the daughter, the power to reads minds eliminate the angst young women feel about what people feel or think about them—she will know and can act accordingly. The superpower trope allows the family to function. All indication is that the crime fighting in the show will be a fun sideline to the story of the family growing together by sharing their powers. The emphasis on the family as functional unit is the real superpower of the show. With Americans facing constant questions about the definition of family from social activists and real economic pressure undermining the idyllic vision of middle-class family dream—giving powers to a family so they can succeed will provide a compelling narrative for many people.
NBC has The Cape, a classic story about an honest cop fighting crime as masked vigilante after being framed for a crime and believed dead. Inspired to clear his name and redeem his family he pretends to be his son's favorite comic hero. Influence by pulp characters like the Shadow and the Spider, The Cape will be more Batman than Superman. All of his “powers” are based on special training and skills acquired through rigorous training. Much of the early teaser info is about him “becoming” someone who can face the dangers in the fictional city. With colorful criminal and crusading blogger (instead of standard reporter) The Cape will be another fun adventure that promotes the individual hero struggling against a corrupt system. In The Cape, there is a return to classic lone hero image associated with American monomyth—a lone hero on journey accumulating the skills necessary to vanquish a societal problem. Here again, I think we can see deep reference to the suspicion held by Americans about the individual action versus government action. The lone hero battling a corrupt system speaks to U.S. myth of the individual, with solid moral code and strong character facing down a corrupt government. A theme that will resonant with viewing public still unsatisfied with banking scandals, questions about big government, and distrust of politicians.
Whether or not the producers and writers understand the superhero symbolism in their shows in the way I do is an open question. Producers are sensitive to the viewing public and work to cater to the audience’s desire. Right now, that desire seems to be moving away from big complex stories (Heroes) and toward more straightforward narratives with simple messages (The Adventures of Superman), in both cases the superhero and the power they posses give us a sense of the concerns shaping the American mind.
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