They were never thought of as superheroes at the time. Only later, after Superman, did some retroactively go back and pin a superhero label on them. Many people today still wouldn’t call them superheroes. Me, for example. They’re obviously precursors, along with a host of even earlier characters from Tarzan to the Scarlet Pimpernel. (And then earlier to Buffalo Bill and Frank Reade’s Steam Man. Oh, and that other Nemo, who was a captain. Him and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Fu Manchu and ten million others.) But they are not superheroes. None of them.
“Adventurers” might be a better term. Heck, even Marvel (and maybe DC) often labels its superheroes as “adventurers”.
How can one define “superhero” in such a way as to include Batman but exclude Zorro, though? Both are basically ordinary humans, but extremely well-trained. Both are rich aristocrats by day who fight against injustices at night. Both have a stylized costume (including mask and cape) that they wear while crimefighting. Both have secret identities. The only difference is that Batman is routinely called a superhero and Zorro isn’t, but that’s circular: Why is Batman called a superhero but not Zorro?
Heck, look at the Phantom. He has a secret origin and secret identity. He dresses up in spandex tights and a mask. He fights criminals. He could join the Avengers or the JLA tomorrow and nobody would bat an eye at his qualifications.
A huge number of the heroes created in comics in the 1940s had no super powers. I think that fewer were super than not, in fact. The distinction wasn’t between those who had superpowers and those who didn’t, but those who were comic book heroes and those who weren’t. Superman was the most popular comic book character, he was super and he was a hero. Therefore he was a superhero and by extension all the other characters who appeared in comic books like him were also superheroes. It’s not like there’s a official body that sanctions them. (It is true that the term and its variants are jointly trademarked by DC and Marvel and no other company can call its characters superheroes. Ordinary people don’t have to pay any attention to trademarks, of course.)
So if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying a character doesn’t qualify as a superhero unless he’s in a comic book? That seems like a strange qualification to make in a thread about superhero movies.
OOO OOOO I got this one. It’s timing. When was the term coined? Somewhere in the 40s. Heroic cistuned figures after that got under the umbrella of superhero while thos who came before like Zorro, Lone Ranger, Phantom Eagle, Two Gun kid, Gunmaster? Was there a Gunmaster?, were called mysterious masked men. It’s just timing.
It’s like rap music. Country was doing it long before they did but they called it a recitation.
Not at all. I’m saying that superhero characters originated in comic books. We can move them into other media (Superman has been in radio, plays, television, movies, and probably quilts and decoupage) and we can play off them now that we have the idea in our heads of what they are like (the tv show Captain Nice or the movie Mystery Men e.g.) but we decide who gets to be a superhero based on 1930s comic books and what they turned into. Superheroes are Platonic. They have an ideal attribute (Superman) and lots of earthly shadows. Some shadows are more shadowy (proto-superhero The Shadow, second-generation mutant-as-superhero Shadowcat, totally meta Shadow the Hedgehog) but today superhero is just a game that is played with words. It’s pornography-itious: whatever we point to when we say superhero is a superhero. Except the Big Blue Boy Scout. Don’t mess with him or you have me to talk to.
That does seem to be a No True Superman argument. Superheroes originated in comic books because the definition of a superhero is a character who originated in a comic book. Characters with the same attributes, like the Phantom or the Shadow, who originated in other media can’t be counted because you’ve written the media into the definition.
The English language has to be consistent in its definitions and take the logical implications of the source image into account? Since when? Words get defined by the way they are used by good writers, which, as I’ve often posted, are writers and journalists and teachers and other professional wordists. Do they refer to the Phantom or the Shadow as superheroes? Almost always, no. Do they refer to non-superpowered characters like Captain America and Green Arrow as superheroes? Almost always, yes. I’m using superhero the way superhero is normally used, and trying to give you the reason for it. You want to complain that it lacks utterly precise logic? Go stand in line. You have 100,000 words ahead of you.
M-W.com cites 1917 as the first use of “superhero” in print. It wasn’t widely used to describe costumed comic book heroes until the 1960s, though; such characters were called “mystery men” in the 1940s.
That’s clearly not the criterion, since (for instance) Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl didn’t have their origins in comic books, but they’re universally agreed to be superheroes.
That’s a pretty weak argument. Who is a superhero? Whoever gets called a superhero unless it’s somebody you don’t think is a superhero because then it doesn’t count.
But then what do I know about proper vocabulary? I’m not a professional “wordist”.
The hell you are. You’re using the term as it’s used in the extraordinarily narrow strip of academia that’s devoted to studying disposable popular culture of the early 20th century. That’s not the “normal” usage. You ask any man in the street if a guy in a mask and purple tights who fights crime from his secret cave full of high tech gizmos counts as a superhero, he’s going to say, “yes.” That’s the normal usage. If you try to tell him he’s wrong, because the Phantom started out in a comic strip, and superheroes come from comic books, he’s going to look at you like you just grew a third eye.
That’s like saying that Obama loses in a poll to “generic Republican.” Ask if you prefer Obama to Sarah Palin and the reaction is different.
So if you go up to your guy in the street and ask, is The Shadow a superhero, here’s what happens.
“Is The Shadow a superhero?”
“Who?”
“You know, The Shadow. Guy from 30s pulp magazines.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Carried a big gun. Had a weird laugh. Oh, c’mon, Alex Baldwin played him in that awful movie.”
“Yeah, that sucked, didn’t it. What was the question?”
“Is he a superhero?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Is he a superhero? Superman’s a superhero. Spider-man’s a superhero. Is The Shadow a superhero?”
“Don’t be stupid. The guy carries a gun.”
“Batman carried a gun.”
“For about five minutes once. Superheroes don’t use guns.”
“Thanks, buddy. I needed your help.”
“Help? What for?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Yeah, well… Hey, where’d you go? Why is my mind suddenly so cloudy?”
As has been mentioned, it’s the CGI. And the fact that you’ve had a couple of generations raised on superheros who take them sorta seriously.
Back in the 1940s and 1950s they did superhero serials and TV shows and played them straight – but they were definitely for kids. The shows didn’t have big budgets, and effects weren’t particularly convincing. Neither was the writing.
In the 1960s they did superheros for adults, but they had to be “camp” – self-referential and mocking the conventions. I’ve learned that Hefner used to show the 1940s Batman serials at the Playboy Mansion, and they were viewed in a sort of MST3K-esque laugh. The 1960s Batman TV series was intentionally campy (which I found annoying, as a kid). James Bond was called “the adult superhero”, and always had a camp edge to it (the ejector seat from Goldfinger was seen as something ludicrous by its creators when they made the film. As was the character name “Pussy Galore”. But the audiences seemed to take it seriously). Imitatotrs and parodies didn’t try to hide this – look at the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., especially after the first season. Or the James Coburn Derek Flint movies, or (worst of all) the Deam Martin Matt Helm films.
On Broadway, the musical It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Superman! certainly wasn’t trying to play it straight.
In the 1970s they tried to play straight with TV movies of SpiderMan and Wonder Woman (remember the Cathy Lee Crosby version? Then there was the Lynda Carter “straight” version series) and the series The Incredible Hulk. Not to mention The Six Million Dollar Man (and Woman) Superheros were back, but the effects weren’t very convincing. And it was for kids again.
By the late 1970s you could have Richard Donner doing the movie Superman and playing it pretty straight, but they made the sequels progressively more stupid and silly and camp.
By 1989, with Batman, you had big budget superhero back. Even without CGI, you had a non-camp attitude, shaped in no small part by the Frank Miller “Dark Knight Returns” strip (that they were definitely referencing), which the kiddies weren’t reading. I recall when the ads for the film ran – it was immensely popular. Burton did two datk Batman films before the turned the franchise over to other people, and it started getting campy and stuipid again.
But then CGI came in, and you actually could show the incredible things from comic books without it seeming ridiculous. I was disappointed in the Fantastic Four films, but Spiderman hit it big, as did the Hulk (after two tries) and Iron Man. And Batman got re-booted out of the doldrums of dumb he’d been in with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
It’s a profitable venue, and there’s finally an army of fans raised on dark and non-silly comics ready to watch and accept “serious” superhero fantasies, so it will continue for a while. Until it’s not profitable any more.
“Is the Vision a superhero?”
“Who?”
“You know, the Vision. Guy from the Avengers.”
“Never heard of him. Was he in a movie?”
“No, he was in the comic books. But you’re supposed to say the answer is yes.”
“Okay, sure.”
“How about the Shadow. Was he a superhero?”
“Who’s he?”
“Carried a big gun. Had a weird laugh.”
“You mean like the Punisher? I saw that guy in a movie. Yeah definitely.”
“No, the answer’s supposed to be no this time. The Punisher was in a comic book so he can carry a gun and be a superhero. The Shadow wasn’t in a comic book so he can’t be a superhero.”
“Whatever, dude. Can I have my five bucks now?”
Little Nemo took my answer. That is to say I agree completely. But then, we’re off in Exapno world, so this is probably the best we’ll get.
Unless we factor in Zorro. (Who now appears in comic books!)
Another one: Is Thor a superhero? You know, that guy who’s going to be the focus of the next Marvel movie. Clearly, the character originated outside of comic books, and a lot earlier than the 1940s or whenever the cutoff is.