Super Privilege?

There's a very good chance that when I first got the computer I'm writing this on that it was some bollocks, possibly about comics. I've used this PC for 11 years and it has felt longer. It's never been anything special, but it has been a faithful old thing and I'm amazed it's been working so... well, since I condemned it last week. The next blog I write will probably be on the new machine - once I get that sorted out.

In many ways, what I've had rattling around the ideas section of my brain for the last few weeks could easily be posted in my politics blog, but only if I really wanted to make a big socio-political statement about something that was invented as a source of pleasure and if there was some hidden agendas in comics then I didn't see it probably because I wasn't taking men in tights too seriously or my keen mind breezed over the stark messages in search of the fantastic. Who can say?

The thing is, I saw a quote once about the Inhumans TV series which made me do one of those penny drop moments but not so much of the bleedin' obvious, more of a key to open a door to a path of looking at something in a different way. The quote was something like, 'how can you feel sympathy for a pampered royal family when the people against them are living in filth?'

Marvel's first generation of superheroes; the ones all in films and TV now, were pretty much all from privilege or were in an environment that was always better than the reality of the time 'origin' stories were set. Even Peter Parker had an upbringing bordering on middle class. The underbelly of society was always from the dregs of society; the other side of the tracks. The world of early Marvel comics was pretty much black and white and in full colour.

There's a list coming:
The Fantastic Four - Marvel's first family - I can't recall where their wealth came from. Or who paid for the rocket experiment that transformed them into superheroes. Flashbacks showed them at top universities; they were clever people, even if Ben Grimm was portrayed as having been from the wrong side but came good. Who paid for all those fantastic toys, research equipment. The FF were privileged.
Iron Man - Tony Stark. Billionaire; inherited a lot of his wealth, very clever. 'Billionaire Playboy'. He is so privileged someone wipes his arse for him.
Thor - a god. A member of the Asgardian royal family. Original human identity was Donald Blake - a doctor. Thor is privileged. And Loki - might be a frost giant elf thing but he's still royalty.
Captain America wasn't a creation of the 1960s; he does have a sense of being from a good family; not poor, but definitely not rich. As a modern superhero I've always wondered how he earned money. Oh and he was chosen to become a superhuman and his life was changed completely, most probably for the better.
Spider-Man. Okay, yeah he's an orphan, but his parents were clearly middle class. Aunt May lived in a house. They never went without. She was originally as old as Methuselah, I think pensions were involved. Parker had a good education; was a 'talented' photographer - at a time when good cameras were expensive. He might not have been privileged but he wasn't the product of poverty.
Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner - I'll give you a clue. It's in his name: Prince. Privileged.
Ant-Man and the Wasp - originally he was rich and she was an heiress. Privileged.
The Hulk - Bruce Banner worked on top secret government bomb experiments dealing with gamma radiation; he had his own private army; just because he chose to live like a hermit in the early comics doesn't mean he didn't have a bulging bank balance. Privileged.
Nick Fury - the comic version was head of a multi-government organisation and a war hero. Nuff said. Privileged.
Doctor Strange - he was a world renowned surgeon; that's got to come with a huge salary. Privileged.
The X-Men - original crew were all loaded. They were being sent to a private school funded by a bald guy who wasn't in the slightest bit creepy in a big mansion that didn't appear to have any staff, at all. Privileged.
The aforementioned Inhumans - a royal family in hiding wanting their throne back from a max brother who has returned it to the oppressed people doesn't sound like much more than an anti-communist, pro-elitist message to me. Privileged as fuck.
And don't get me started on Black Panther. Prince T'Challa? Heir to the throne of Wakanda, a super-advanced African country that chooses to hide itself from the rest of the world. A massive isolationist country that has ignored the famine, poverty and war that raged across their continent, preferring to fuck about in superhero costumes and travel to America. The privilege is dripping off these like they've walked out of the sea - the only positive thing is that they're black Africans, I suppose. Ultra-privileged black Africans...
Is it any wonder why Daredevil wasn't the most engaging superhero? I mean, in real terms he had a shitty upbringing. Orphaned, dumped in an orphanage, blind and with a mop of red hair... The thing is people will point at Ol' Hornhead and say, he wasn't privileged and to that I say, oh yes he was. He managed to become a lawyer, FFS!
Others that popped up in those early days had ambiguous pasts to suit their unknown natures - Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Silver Surfer all acted privileged when they hit the big time.
Even major supervillains were privileged. Your bog standard ones were easy to deal with, but your Doc Dooms (monarch of a European country) of the Marvel Universe were often as ambiguous in their wealth as the heroes. The evil geniuses often had money for their evil schemes; no one wondered who was financing them.
How come we never saw scenes where villains were out at nightclubs like what they do in James Bond films? Originally, Groot said considerably more than just 'I am Groot!' and he wanted to destroy the earth... How is that not an expression of privilege?

Marvel was based on money; despite the origins of the powers, to be a superhero usually meant a wealth of money, even in the 1960s when a Fantastic Quinjet-car could be knocked up for less than it costs for a mobile phone today.

DC wasn't exempt. Bruce Wayne - privileged beyond your wildest dreams.
Superman/Clark Kent - d'oh Superman.
They had scientists, explorers, test pilots, Martian royalty, princesses, industrialists, more billionaires - fuck me, the DC Universe is just as rich as Marvel's with original superheroes that haven't really changed, even today. Origins can be toyed with but Tony Stark has always been one of the richest men in the world; Peter Parker has never known what's it's like to go hungry because he's got no money. There might have been newer heroes, ones that came along from the wrong side of those tracks, but the building blocks that placed us here were all based on privilege, wealth and connections.

How come none of the modern day heroes are as iconic as these rich or privileged ones? I suppose, deep down, to have power is a privilege, so whenever someone, from whatever background they're from becomes powerful, they inherit privilege?

I also know that the Comics Code of Authority prohibited publishers from doing much at all that pushed the envelope, but the bottom line was the superhero of the 1960s - the most diverse of decades for popular culture - must have all been working for the man. Off shot, there were business executives doing multi-billion dollar deals with the government (or maybe even governments) to finance their 'adventures'. How else could you explain not only the mind tom come up with a portal to the Negative Zone, let alone the machinery and skill required to build one. "Reed, you need to come up with a machine that will send this alternative reality Spider-Man back to his own universe and change their history so that coffee becomes the beverage of choice." "Oh okay. It's going to cost about 8 trillion dollars and about 9 months to build. Have you checked the bank account, Sue?" It never happened, did it?

In the films, Stark Industries was, by and large, a massive corporation with directors and executives, all drawing large salaries making money selling Stark's wares to anyone but the military, because Tony was off building an army of different Iron Man costumes, robots, AI supervillains and being a renowned international playboy... Did the man never sleep? The thing is they must have been generating a tremendous profit over and above overheads and he was spaffing it on making toys with more power than small European countries, so he could defend the world from cosmic threats and wankers. What did shareholders think? "I only got a $200 bonus. Stark built a machine that can wank him off while he dreams up new ways of being wanked off..."

I remember the more sophisticated comics fan lauding the 'realism' being introduced into comics - social issues; world issues all being covered in comics and I suppose it was better than it had felt. The thing is superheroes exist in a world with superheroes - it is accepted that because super people exist in this fictional reality, everyone accepts it. The fact we don't actually have superheroes in the real world is easily explained by two things - superpowers don't exist and even in this world of celebrity culture, you'd have to be some special kind of cockwomble to dress up and fight crime.