The Importance of Comics: Part VI - Morality, Social Justice and Real-World Social Issues
- Luke Evans
- Dec 23, 2020
- 17 min read
Updated: Jan 15, 2021
Comics, like all art, spring from the time in which they were written. They consequently reflect the attitudes of the day and when done well ask the same hard-hitting social questions asked in other avenues of popular thought and discussion.
Pic: From Amazing Spider-Man #36 (#477 original numbering). © Marvel Comics, 2001. One of my favourite Marvel Moments - Dr. Doom crying when he surveys the destruction of the World Trade Towers after the 9/11 Attacks.
Comics and comic book characters are widely used as an allegory for the real world. They are intrinsically flamboyant and colourful – the superhero ones at least – and the lives and struggles of the characters have often been used as a veiled metaphor or “coding” for all sorts of minority representation, from civil rights issues to the struggles of the LGBT+ community.
I mean… there is only one man I know of who wears skin-tight yellow spandex out in public and that’s Wolverine… Everywhere else one might see that, it would probably be fair to say there’d be an element of something that might be considered... flamboyant about it… (see how carefully I wrote that and it still sounds rude…sigh…apologies... no offense intended to the creators or miscellaneous wearers of yellow spandex, wherever they might come from).
Oh! And the Sentry wears yellow too! There are more, after all...
Anyway... the X-Men were born in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and so a lot of the stuff that they dealt with had to do with the persecution of a minority group based on something they had no control over – how they were born and how they were different to other people. As a result, their metaphor has been applied to the plight of cultural, religious, and sexuality-based minority groups since that time. Sometimes, the comics show prejudice just through the window of being a superpowered “mutant”. Sometimes, it’s explicit in the books, because the X-Men are people as well as mutants – so they have a race, a gender, a religion, etc, as well as their superpowers.
Some of them - the Alpha, Beta, and Delta Class Mutants - can pretty much pass themselves off as humans most of the time. Others - the Gamma and Epsilon Class Mutants - cannot pass for human. Their mutations are physical and set them apart from humanity. It is easy to see how each of these groups could relate to different minority groups. Some can and do hide and some cannot.
(Clicking on either one of those terms above takes you to an article with more info on what the differences between the mutant designation classes are.)
I will focus a lot on the X-Men here because they lend themselves well to the discussion... and they are unapologetically my favourites - BUT I have thrown some other examples in here too. I have focused on Marvel mostly, because I know most about them. DC Comics definitely have their own versions of important issues reaching the comics as well, as do most comic companies. Producing comics is a form of artistic expression and the artists and writers will reflect things they find and see in the real world, as all artists and writers do. I have a greater familiarity with Marvel, so I'll stick with what I know.
Some examples of the social issues addressed extremely well in comics include:
* Kitty Pryde talks about being Jewish AND a mutant and describes an incident where she confronted casual anti-Semitism in someone she cared about:
Pic: From All-New X-Men #13 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen. © Marvel Comics, 2013
* A lot of the characters are portrayed as being religious and so their stories take different leans due to the prism through which they see the world. Kamala Khan, the new Miss Marvel is Marvel's first Muslim superhero to headline her own book. She is also a teenager living at home, so we get to see a little of her family dynamic as well, which is nice and pretty rare these days (Spider-Man's home life as a teenager reminds me of this). Kamala brings the idealism of a young woman to her role as Miss Marvel, even going so far as to quit the Avengers and re-form the Champions after Civil War II, because she didn't like how the grown-up heroes left such destruction in their wake and didn't do anything to help with the aftermath of their battles. She believed they could do more to help, and so they should:
-Pic: From Champions #1, by Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos. © Marvel Comics, 2016.
Matt Murdock, Daredevil, is a practicing Catholic and while his night-time job puts his faith to the test constantly, his best adventures almost always come back to the way he views the world as a Catholic. Choosing the mantle of the Devil is only one way that his faith is encountered in his stories. Religious imagery is used throughout his stories, as you can see on the cover below. Matt's conversations with priests and nuns are among my favourite parts of the books, film, and TV show. I love the moral discussions and how he justifies what he does through the lens of how he was raised. He was brought up by his father - an old boxer who was killed rather than taking an arranged fall in a match. His mother left when he was young to join a convent and he reconnected with her years later after adopting the persona of Daredevil. He is truly the child of both worlds - both a fighter and a Catholic - and his reconciling of both is fun to watch. A large part of why he does what he does can come down to Catholic Guilt and being raised to believe that if you can help, you are obligated to:
-Pic: Cover Art for Daredevil #3, by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti. © Marvel Comics, 1998.
Like Daredevil, The X-Men's Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) is also a devout Catholic and was even shown as a priest for a time:
-Pic: From Cable #88, by Robert Weinburg and Michael Ryan. © Marvel Comics, 2001
Many of the other characters are shown to be religious or culturally connected to a religion too, such as:
*Magneto and Sabra who are of Jewish descent.
*Dust and M who are Muslim.
*Neal Shaara/Thunderbird III who is Hindu.
*Thunderbird II/Warpath along with his deceased brother the first Thunderbird are Native Americans of Apache descent.
*Karma was portrayed as a devout Catholic from Vietnam.
*Wolfsbane was a devout Scottish Presbyterian.
*Danielle Moonstar is a Native American of Cheyenne descent
*Magma is a devout Greco-Roman classical religionist
... as well as many other characters from other nations whose religion is unspecified. Oh and then there is Dr. Henry McCoy (The Beast) who is a professed atheist, who often has his position put to the test, due to the Sci-fi/Fantasy nature of the X-Men's adventures. Sometimes the characters will reflect on their adventures and challenges through their own religious lens, which deepens the real-world appeal of the stories. Like real people, their personal beliefs influence how they act and how they see the world, sometimes for good and sometimes... not so much.
Magneto is a great example. Much has been made in the comics and the films of the fact that Magneto was raised in a Concentration Camp as a Jewish victim of the Nazis. Consequently, he grows up vowing that he will never see his people mistreated in such a way again. When his powers manifest, "his people" become mutants. He becomes so militant in his stance to protect mutants that for a time, the character adopts the worst traits of his would-be oppressors - he becomes a tyrant, a killer, and a bigot himself. He becomes a mutant supremacist. On a few occasions, he tries to adopt the X-Men's dream of peaceful co-existence, but it never sits quite well with him. In later years, some of the X-Men move more towards his way of thinking - they become more proactive in their defense of mutant rights. Magneto meets them halfway and Cyclops and Magneto start the Mutant Revolution together.
-Pic: From Uncanny X-Men #3, by Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Bachalo. © Marvel Comics, 2013
Eventually, Cyclops and Magneto changed the revolution into one where they stood for mutant peace with humanity - but this time it was on their terms, not dictated by what humanity would define as peace:
-Pic: From Uncanny X-Men #600 (where they jumped back to the original numbering), by Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Bachalo. © Marvel Comics, 2015
More addressed issues:
* The first same-sex marriage in the pages of superhero comics, between Alpha Flight and the X-Men's Northstar (from Canada) and his African-American boyfriend, was shown in Astonishing X-Men #51:
© Marvel Comics, 2004
* From time to time the examples of bringing real-world bigotry and discrimination into the books have been as explicit as public lynchings of mutants, including children, which are a callback to the way that African-Americans were treated by hate-groups such as the Ku Klux Klan in the past:
Pic: From X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson. Marvel Comics, 1982
Pic: From Mutant X #16 by Howard Mackie, Cary Nord, and Andrew Pepoy. © Marvel Comics, 2000
* One of possibly the best X-Men storylines of the past decade involved Henry McCoy, aka The Beast, bringing the younger versions of the original X-Men team to the present to confront Cyclops, who had become somewhat unhinged (according to Beast). Beast hoped that seeing his pure-hearted younger self would spur Cyclops to consider how far he had fallen.
Before he brought the team forward in time, they were shown to be dealing with some discrimination issues in their time:
Pic: From All-New X-Men #1, by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen. © Marvel Comics, 2015
It's always been a part of X-Men that they serve and protect a world that hates and fears them. They are trying to show the world that they are good people who are trying to help, but all too often they are just seen as different or dangerous. They are persecuted just for being who they were born to be. I am sure that there are many people who can relate to that.
Anyway, part of the arc involved the younger version of Bobby Drake, aka The Iceman, being revealed as being gay. The older version from the present had never come out, so this led to an interesting dynamic:
-Above pics: A truncated version of the story from All-New X-Men #40, by Brian Michael Bendis and Mahmud Asrar. © Marvel Comics, 2015
-Above pics: From Uncanny X-Men #600, by Brian Michael Bendis and Mahmud Asrar. © Marvel Comics, 2015
I have included the whole scene here because it is such an interesting take on an established character. Having both versions of Iceman deal with their sexuality AND confront each other about it was interesting. I was unsure how I felt about it when I heard it was happening initially because I don't like revamping a character so drastically after so many years of written history - BUT it was done well and in a way that made sense for him. There's some powerful stuff in there about why a person might feel like they have to hide, and how they can say they are one thing and keep another part of themselves hidden from the world. It's very well handled and - who knows - maybe writing about it in a comic can help someone in their own personal journey. Interestingly, the writer for the Iceman story arc and the Kitty Pyrde story is the same person - Brian Michael Bendis - and he's looking at the same thing in both these tales = "I am a mutant AND... something else as well." I wonder if it was an intentional dynamic?
I don't care - I love it!
All this being said, the X-Men are good allegories for the struggle that people have in being themselves in the world. They are a metaphor that works when you look at how people have been made to feel shame and fear regarding being “outed” as something outside of "the norm" or for being different and also for the more obvious physical differences that people can have from others that cannot be hidden. Some of the mutants in the X-Men can blend in with humans, some cannot. Some can hide and some do not have that luxury. How people treat them and how they respond has always been fascinating to me.
The X-Men have been a diverse mix of characters from many nations and creeds, ever since the founding of the second class of X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #1 from 1975:
-Pic: From the cover for Giant-Size X-Men #1, by Gill Kane, Dave Cockrum, and Danny Crespi.
© Marvel Comics, 1975
-Pic: From Giant-Size X-Men #1, by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. © Marvel Comics, 1975
This second class of X-Men had a Russian (Colossus), a Kenyan-American (Storm), a Native American (Thunderbird), a German (Nightcrawler), an Irishman (Banshee), a Japanese man (Sunfire) and a Canadian (Wolverine) on top of the already established American characters of Cyclops and Professor X. It set a tone for the X-Men that would continue to this day, where diversity is key to the X-Men's team dynamics. It's quite unique in comics, although other teams of mixed individuals do this to a degree. And since they come from everywhere, the X-Men's adventures occur all other the world as well. They've never been good at sticking within one country's borders. This allows the creative teams to tackle some stuff they would not otherwise be able to do, had the stories been set in America alone. Being from Australia myself, that is something I always appreciated.
A great breakdown of how the X-Men comics have often reflected important social issues and diversity can be found on Wikipedia here. Go down the page until you reach the section titled "Reflecting social issues"! It's got a nice summary.
-Pic: from X-Men: Schism #2, by Jason Aaron and Frank Cho. © Marvel Comics, 2011
I know I've focused super-heavily on the X-Men here, because they are my favourite team and include strong examples of everything that I want to talk about, but there are many other comics that do the same thing.
Some great examples include:
*Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow #85:
-Pic: from Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow #85 by Denny O'Neil and Neil Adams
© DC Comics, 1971.
This is where Ollie and Hal discover that Ollie's protege, Roy "Speedy" Harper is a drug addict. It was pretty hard-hitting in its day and got a very mixed reception. It was not normal practice for comics to tackle this sort of hard stuff front-on like this. You have to remember during the Wertham Trial of the 1950s, comics had been accused of corrupting the young. The Comics Code Authority was a self-regulating body that came out of this time where the industry could police itself and tone down any "offensive" material. That they were able to produce this story at this time at all, let alone with that cover and still bearing the seal of the CCA is amazing. And it's a great piece of important social commentary. They made the comic's story - which could have easily become so unreal in a Sci-Fi book - into something that could occur to anyone in the real world - and then they let us watch superheroes struggle with it, just as we would.
-Pic: from Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow #85 by Denny O'Neil and Neil Adams
© DC Comics, 1971.
Here's a good website discussing the comic with artist Neil Adams: https://13thdimension.com/neal-adams-month-of-junkies-and-the-comics-code/ It's where I got the pictures themselves. Neil said they went and spent some time with addicts to research this issue so that they could get it right. An outstanding piece of social commentary.
Other companies have also dedicated comics to addressing important social issues, sometimes at the behest of the federal government, such as Marvel's Fast Lane Story arc, which was a four-part story that was included as in insert in Marvel comics in 1999-2000. This one deals with drug addiction as well, mostly the use of marijuana and the risks that were believed to come from it at that time. I think the official stance on this might've changed a little since then, but at the time it seemed like an important story arc... you could judge that one for yourself.
Pic: Splash Pages from Marvel's Fast Lane #1-4, by Glenn Herdling and Gregg Schigiel.
© Marvel Comics, 2011. Found on Ebay
Here's a great article on the promo from ComicVine: Click Here.
* Justice League: Cry For Justice - where Green Lantern feels like the rest of the group wants a "league" when what he wants is "justice". It's a look at him over-applying his authority and trying to get in some pre-emptive strikes against known threats. An interesting point of discussion for today:
-Above pics: from Justice League: Cry for Justice #1 by James Robinson and Mauro Cascioli.
© DC Comics, 2009
* Next: The Marvel Civil Wars! Marvel released two cross-company promotions called "Civil War" and "Civil War II" that looked at the concepts of how we would respond if superheroes did run around unchecked in the world and something bad happened. As a consequence of just such a horrible incident, the government in the US instituted a Superhero Registration Act and all heroes had to be demasked (privately) before the eyes of the State so they could hold the heroes accountable. This did not go down well, as some heroes refused and went to war with those that agreed. In Civil War II, some of the heroes attempt to use a super-powered individual to predict the future and thus profile people and events before they happen. Iron Man points out the fallibility of such a system, and predictably it all goes to hell when the predictions lead to some horrible consequences:
-Pic: from Civil War II #4, by Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez. © Marvel Comics, 2016
These themes of power, authority, and justice resonate in the world today, when people are discussing the best role for government and leaders in relation to how they treat the people - and which people get treated differently to others. While masked in superhero/sci-fi terms, the Civil War books are about freedom, authority, racial profiling, and government oversight - and these things are topics of discussion in the public eye today.
* At other times hot topics such as terrorism have been tackled:
-Pic: From Secret War #1, by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell'Otto. © Marvel Comics, 2004
This story is fictional, but it is interesting how they looked into the issues relating to terrorism at home and also the repercussions of interfering in the governance of foreign nations.
The next example deals with the real-world events of 9/11, where Marvel released a special issue of the Amazing Spider-Man to pay tribute to the fallen, to praise the real heroes of New York - the emergency response people and all those who served their community at that terrible time and finally to boost the morale of the American people by pointing out their strengths and the willingness of everyday people to step up to become heroes.
Pics to follow are from Amazing Spider-Man #36 (#477 in the original numbering). It was written by J. Michael Straczynski and penciled by John Romita Jr. © Marvel Comics, 2001
This next page shows Spider-Man standing in what is now a familiar shot of the portion of the tower which was remaining at street-level after the building collapsed. In the middleground are the outlines of many emergency services men and women and dotted amongst them are the Marvel Superheroes - notably Thor, Captain America and The Thing. throughout the book, the heroes work alongside examples of real human servicemen and women - drawing the comparison that they are all heroes of equal measure.
Spider-Man's inner turmoil shows through the scenes as his thoughts are revealed to us in narration:
"How do you say we didn't know? We couldn't know... We couldn't imagine."
The next page is an amazing piece of writing and art and possibly one of the most moving scenes I can recall from a Marvel comic. Several of the Marvel supervillains have also come to pay their respects and are visibly moved by the senseless waste they see before them. Unlike the heroes, they are not shown to be helping physically, but they are there to bear witness - as it says - "Because even the worst of us - however scarred - are still human."
"We are here... But with our costumes and our powers we are writ small by the true heroes... Those who face fire without armor... those who step into the darkness without assurances of ever walking out again, because they know there are others waiting in the dark... Awaiting salvation...Awaiting word... Awaiting justice."
What follows is words that I assume were designed to bring heart to the people, to unite them in their shared despair and rage. It does read as very heavy-handed, patriotic rhetoric, but it's perhaps forgivable in the context and for the purpose for which it was written. It did remind me a little of the old propaganda materials you'd see from World War II, where Donald Duck enlists or where comics like Captain America were handed out to troops. Whatever your thoughts on this, they were intended as morale boosters and unifiers. I believe this was too. It's a strong piece of writing:
Pics above are from Amazing Spider-Man #36 (#477 in the original numbering). It was written by J. Michael Straczynski and penciled by John Romita Jr. © Marvel Comics, 2001
Morality In The Real World
I mentioned in Section 3 of this series that a colleague had wondered what the importance of comics were and how people could look to them and pop culture for any real truth, any real teachable moments. I hope the examples above can provide some explanations for it. Being raised Catholic, I got a lot of the same lessons from the Church in regards to morality, to good and evil, and from perhaps one of the greatest lessons from comics:
"With great power comes great responsibility"
-Spider-Man comics... nearly all of them...
Not to tell Stan Lee where he got it, but I believe he mentioned once that it could have come from something in the Bible. It does bear a resemblance to this premise:
"From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more."
I know that in this day and age the moral integrity of the Church has been called into question, and rightly so in a whole range of areas. When I was younger I believed that perhaps they had the right to teach me what was right and what was wrong and I held their position as somewhat close to infallible in some areas. In others, it was always clear that they were behind the times and reluctant to change. In some of the areas listed above, they have been very slow to change and to adopt a modern grasp of morality, particularly in regards to their treatment of the LGBTI+ community. And don't get me started on the widespread child sexual abuse stories that have haunted our society in recent years.
But boiling it down, I have often been able to detach the modern Church from its roots in the words of one man who simply told his followers to treat everyone as they wished to be treated themselves and to accept all people with love. The various churches have fallen far, far away from this position and their hypocrisy is so evident to anyone looking in from outside.
When I look at comics, I take it back to the lessons that I also found in the core of my childhood faith that I have held onto despite my years of drifting away from the Church and what it has come to stand for. I found the premises reflected in comics as well:
- Pic: VBTCafe.com - A quote from Mary Mackillop, Australia's first recognised Catholic Saint.
In superhero comics, there is nearly always a look at the nature of people, of what makes us "good", of what turns us "bad", of redemption, of responsibility, of sacrifice, of being a part of a society when sometimes that society doesn't accept us for who we are. What do we do when we are faced with these questions? How do we respond?
These are important questions to ask and to learn about - and to respond to.
As a teacher, I am often talking to the kids about "bystander behaviour" - where, by doing nothing, we can become complicit in the acts we are watching unfold before us. Many, many things have taught me to stand up for what is right, including the quotes above and those below, including the lessons of my parents and my faith, and including films, literature, and indeed comics:
- Pic: Quotemaster.org
- Pic: Pinterest.com.au
-Pic: Twitter.com
Now, that sort of thing has got me in trouble a few times and I'm cautious about showing it to the kids. I don't want them jumping in and getting knocked out breaking up a fight (as happened to me once... and nearly twice...). That being said, I think it's an important lesson on civic responsibility. I learned it from my parents. I learned it from my faith. I learned it from reading. And I learned it from comics.
- Pic: From Pinterest.com - taken from X-Men 1, © remains with the original owners.
Wrapping it all up:
I hope we can all see the value in comics by this stage, how they can reach out to a person, make them think, feel, and reflect. How they can be one of many ways that we bring about social discussions and debate and, yes, true change, because it's only through facing and discussing the issues that we can move forward together into a brighter future. They have been this for me, for my daughter, and for countless others. I hope they can be this for you too, or in the very least that you can see the value that they can have for others and give them their deserved place as a significant part of modern culture and literature.
"And so I ask you today to dig down deep with me and find that compassion in your hearts. Because it will keep us on the road. And we will walk together and work together. And slowly, slowly, too slowly, things will get better. "
- Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) on "West Wing" - Season 7 Episode 8: Undecideds
Pic: From Amazing Spider-Man #36 (#477 in the original numbering) by J. Michael Straczynski and penciled by John Romita Jr. © Marvel Comics, 2001
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Join me for The Importance of Comics: Part VII: Spin-Off Pop Culture Products
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Previous posts in this series:
NOTE: The pictures used here have been sourced from different internet sites, always linked to under the picture. In the case of comic panels, the original issue numbers and creators are listed, as well as the company that owns them. All rights remain with the original creators and have been used here for entertainment and educational purposes only.
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