The Type 2 Superhero Society: Empire
There’s a thing I’ve thought and I’m still not sure how true it is. It started when I saw the movie Akira. In that movie we see that, in an attempt to master human potential and turn people into weapons, the government of Japan succeeds in unlocking human potential and pushing a few young people into the next stage of human evolution.
So they gained power; emmense power. And for one, power so great that his normal human body could no longer contain it. And as that power grew, at first, it became more complex. His powers saw through time and space and flesh. But ultimately, when they reached the threshold of human imagination, instead it became very simple. His body reverted into a seething thing more like an amoeba then a man.
And since then I’ve always thought: As power accumulates it becomes simple.
When we look at societies, as they grow, they inherently become more complex as they accommodate growing populations. But growth of populations, especially in democratic nations, mean a dilution of power. But rarely, in the examples we have of what I’m calling Type 2 superhero society, do we see dilutions of power.
But let's step back and talk about what Type 2 means. Type 0 was sporadic heroes maintaining the status quo. Type 1 is the appearance of minority superhero groups. Type 2 is the appearance of a broad application of powers. Where the majority of the population has access to super powers. And I’m going to say that doesn't necessarily mean the majority of the human population, but the population of the society.
So examples. Genosha, the first mutant nation in the X-Men. Started by Magneto, it was his dream that mutants would segregate themselves from the human race and make a nation of their own. And they succeed, but the result is a dictatorship that ultimately ends in a genocidal war.
Top Ten, one of the lesser known but critically acclaimed series, gives us a city full of super and powerful people. The story focuses on the police force trying to service this city. But the result is normal human corruption but amplified by the nature of the city. But also constantly harried by people trying to make use of their gifts to take power and destiny into their own hands.
The Boys, mostly the comic version, shows a superhero community that lives within the human world, but distinctly apart. It’s a world dominated by people using their power and authority to take every advantage in life, and it results in a society which existed only to satiate the desires of it’s population. Think all the worst parts of the fall of the roman republic.
I’m sure you can see a trend. But let’s look at an example that’s the least bleak but still kind of proves the point of the Type 2 Superhero Society.
Plus Ultra!
My Hero Academia is a Japanese Manga with a fully realized and stable Superhero Society. Purportedly Democratic with a functioning bureaucracy and integrated Hero work with the normal police force. It is perhaps the best example of a fully functional society where the majority of the population possess some kind of special skill. In many cases the abilities are inherently dangerous or difficult to control.
In the beginning, as powers spread across the globe, essentially as the society moved into a Type 1, it totally collapsed. Existing infrastructure, societal constructs and government couldn’t handle a population with infinite variety and dangerous miraculous powers. But from that violent period despots arose. Chief among them the primary villain of My Hero Academia, All For One. A man who rose up through the underworld and fracturing old world and who successfully ruled all of Japan from the shadows as society rebuilt itself to adapt to the appearance of super human abilities.
But in the decades that followed, as stability rose around the despotism of All For One, Heroes united around a counter to All For One known as All Might. After a climactic battle that saw both hero and villain gravely injured, “normal” society appeared to re-assert itself, and in the present day of the manga the world is essentially the same in experience for the average citizen as modern day Japan. The primary difference being that your average citizen is also like a living tree or has the head of bear or something.
But beneath it all everyone knows that the only thing holding back the absolute chaos of the previous generation is the Hero system, and ultimately All Might himself. So even though there’s a democratically elected government and a functioning nation, there’s always a subtext that the Hero system is ultimately what’s maintaining everything, and that system is inherently hierarchical. With a literal ranking system that has consistently had All Might at the top for years. Inherently this is little different from a well run totalitarian state. Much of the drama of the story comes from seeing the cracks in society as All Might is no longer able to maintain his status as the number one hero. Similar to an ailing dictator his absence creates a power vacuum.
So how can we define a Type 2 Superhero Society. It starts as a massive distribution of powers, but that ultimately result in a consolidation of that power that results in a hierarchy structure with the most powerful at the top. Because for whatever reason, and maybe it’s simply the influence of the capitalistic society that spawned the authors, but our heroes need to rank each other, and they tend to organize themselves with the strongest on top. We’ll come back around and take a look at how villains also help shape this, but even heroes look to the top for guidance. They want a King, or perhaps a superman. But the end result is the same for a Type 2 society.
Empire.
I think that Baron Zemo said it best in a recent episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
“The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people. It’s that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, to the Avengers. ...The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals. Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path. She will not stop. She will escalate until you kill her. Or she kills you.”
Superhuman. The very concept is about making being better then human. Is it any wonder that the further we go the more people the concept leaves behind. And because, as with Akira, as power consolidates it’s needs becomes simpler. It serves the one, and not the all.