Bane is probably one of those characters whom I believe deserves attention in the Dark Knight trilogy. I’m not discrediting the Joker’s epic performance in the Dark Knight and I think the Dark Knight Rises had a lot to live up to as the close to the Dark Knight trilogy.

The problem comes in comparing the clown prince of chaos, the Joker with the malevolent authoritarian presence, Bane. And that’s what I’ll be talking about in this character study, what makes Bane such an interesting character to look at in this film.

In comparing Batman and Bane, here are some of the obvious facts about these two:

1. Both wear masks

2. Both were trained by Ra’s Al Ghul to join the League of Shadows (but Bruce later refuses to join them)

3. Both have almost inaudible voices, Batman’s more husky and Bane’s needs subtitles

But these are the ones I found interesting:

1. Both of these characters fight for what they believe is true justice

2. Both are characters whose identities are shrouded in mystery of legend

3. Both were saved by their fathers; Bruce was saved by his father Thomas Wayne and Bane by Ra’s al Ghul (more of a father-figure).

Both are characters whose identities are shrouded in mystery of legend

Just as Gotham is Batman’s, the Pit where Bruce is thrown into belongs to Bane. The prison doctor even mentions this to Bruce, when he’s told about the child, who is supposedly Bane (but later turns out to be Talia) who escaped the Pit.

As the people of Gotham have stories about Batman, so do the prisoners have the same about Bane.

Both were saved by their fathers; Bruce was saved by his father Thomas Wayne and Bane by Ra’s al Ghul

When young Bruce in Batman Begins, falls into a well and gets attacked by bats, his father, Thomas Wayne saves him. His words are what guide Bruce, “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up”.

For Bane, Ra’s al Ghul saves him after being badly injured while helping young Talia to escape the pit. Ra’s al Ghul trains him in the League of Shadows but later excommunicates him for his extremity.

It’s the people who save these people that changed their lives.

Both of these characters fight for what they believe is true justice

This is what makes Bane the perfect counterpart to Batman. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not discrediting the Joker’s role in Batman’s Hero’s Journey in The Dark Knight.

The Joker is the plan. His role is to make the society that sees itself as moral crumble when pushed to the limit. He has control of what to do in Gotham. He’s an anarchist.

Bane believes that he’s a liberator and the saviour of Gotham City. Before looking at his corrupt means of achieving this, you might almost see a similarity of this with Bruce.

Bane’s ideologies would be viewed as a corrupted version of what true justice is. In the Dark Knight Rises, which takes place 8 years after the events of the Dark Knight, Bruce has retired as Batman and demonized the hero he once was through a lie, that he killed Harvey Dent in order for the city of Gotham to thrive against crime and corruption.

And through the Dent Act, the criminals don’t have parole and Gotham has a low record of crime. This is working, until Bane shows up, knowing fully what has been happening (after getting Commissioner Gordon’s speech about the ugly truth of Harvey Dent).

Bane believes that handing over Gotham from the corrupt to the people (the poorest in society and criminals) is serving them true justice. This is something that appears as foreshadow when Selina Kyle mentions this to Bruce Wayne. She is against the aristocratic state of Gotham.

Of course we later see that from Selina Kyle’s point of view, this is not what she wanted. Gotham being ruled by the insane, in a totalitarian way is not what true justice is.

Apart from acting as Gotham’s liberator and Messiah, he has one mission, that of fulfilling Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny, the destruction of Gotham. He follows the belief of Ra’s al Ghul, a person who isn’t motivated by morality but what he subjectively deems as right for the world. It doesn’t matter if there was some good remaining in Gotham, if the means were necessary, the city had to be destroyed.

Bane is more than just a physical threat to Batman. According to director Christopher Nolan, in a commentary on the Dark Knight Rises, he mentions that Bane is a threat to Bruce’s own philosophy.

In conclusion, Bane is an impactful villain in Bruce’s final journey as the Dark Knight. And every villain that Bruce has faced, has a certain impact in his hero’s journey, throughout the Dark Knight trilogy.

Ra’s al Ghul, in Batman Begins provides Bruce the path to cross into the League of Shadows, which he refuses.

Joker in the Dark Knight, tests Bruce’s moral code, even if the tests result to severe consequences.

As for Bane in the Dark Knight Rises, both Bane and Batman share a goal in fighting for justice, only that Bane’s vision for justice is corrupted and that he wants to fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny by destroying Gotham and Batman with it by breaking him.

The only thing that Bane did not know was that Batman is a symbol that represents the fight for justice, even though he knew Batman‘s secret identity and he broke him.

He destroyed the physical embodiment of Batman in the form of Bruce, but when Bruce returns to Gotham and lights up the Gotham bridge with the Bat symbol, he’s telling the GCPD that if you have a duty, you know what to do, it’s time to fight.

Sources:

1. Defending The Dark Knight Rises — Better Than You Remember

2. Understanding Bane — The Dark Knight Rises (2012) — Character Analysis

DC Villains: Bane was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I am Iron Man”, is the iconic quote from Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man, the first movie in the MCU, and in last year’s Avengers Endgame. Tony Stark has gone through several character arcs through most of the films in the MCU, and there’s a lot to mention about his journey across the films.

But in this article, my main focus will be on the first Iron Man movie, which is part of the Iron Man trilogy. To give a broad overview of Tony’s journey across the Iron Man trilogy, this is how it looks like, visually:

Let’s look at Tony’s hero’s journey in the first Iron Man film.

Tony starts off as the villain in this movie.

This is because of the following reasons:

1. He’s a cold-blooded arms-dealer who profits from the sufferings of others. He unapologetically accepts being called the Merchant of Death by a Vanity Fair reporter.

2. He is a heartless narcissist who only cares about himself.

3. He is an arrogant guy who doesn’t care about the consequences of those around him.

That looks like a very bad resume for a protagonist. But why does the audience get to care such a character? That’s because of what happens to him at the beginning of the film, which is the beginning of his call to adventure.

Tony lives like a celebrity and he is adored by the community that protects him (the US Military convoy in Afghanistan). But all this changes when this community is taken away from him. He gets ambushed by his own weapons by the terror organization called the Ten Rings leaving him vulnerable.

He goes through some form of penance for his mistakes and here’s a list of what he goes through:

1. During the attack when he gets knocked out, Yinsen saves his life by using an electromagnet put in Tony’s chest, powered by a car battery to keep the shrapnel from the explosion from reaching his heart.

2. He’s in constant pain after gaining consciousness he is shocked to see the electromagnet in his chest.

3. Being called, “the greatest mass murderer in the history of America” by one of the terrorists, and been shown all his weapons.

4. He has to walk around with a car battery that powers the one thing that keeps him alive.

5. He gets tortured when he refused the demands of the Ten Rings group for building the Jericho missile.

Through this punishment, the negative image of Tony Stark which is what we see in the beginning of the movie begins to fade away. We start to care about this character than to loathe what he had done in his old life.

Yinsen, who is like the mentor to Tony in his hero’s journey, gives Tony a wake-up call telling him that he has to do something.

What we also learn about Tony is that, during this traumatic event in his life, he doesn’t crack. His personality is resilient enough not to. Instead, he absorbs the puncture by adapting his life around this event. He uses this traumatic event as an opportunity to adapt his own identity into a new narrative.

After his escape from the cave in the Mark, and being rescued by Rhodey and the military, the first thing he does when he gets back to civilization is to set things right.

One would have thought that it would be prudent for him to go the hospital after 3 months of torture, trauma and possibly malnutrition, but he doesn’t do that.

He tells Pepper that he wants an American cheeseburger and a press meeting where he announced the shutting down of the weapons division in Stark Industries. This builds up another positive layer of change in the movie. He realizes his flaw; that of building weapons that the leader of the Ten Rings, “Whoever holds the latest Stark weapons, rules these lands”.

He believes that he has more to offer to the world than just, “making things to blow up”. From the cave, he gets a perspective of what he was doing was wrong. But this isn’t going to be easy, as just giving a statement to the media like he did during the press conference.

He takes action by building the Mark 2 Iron Man suit, tests it, crashes it, builds another one and goes to destroy his weapons in Afghanistan. He is doing all he can to fix his mistakes. This is the manifestation of his imagination repairing the damage done to his narrative.

Tony’s hero’s journey isn’t one that changes his personality completely, i.e. changing from the narcissist character to an absolute self-righteous person. His foundational self-image is what changes.

His attitude and convictions don’t, as seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron where he is convinced that the Avengers themselves aren’t enough to protect the world from other greater threats and with that in mind he creates Ultron, “the suit of armor around the world”.

As for his attitude, he is still narcissistic but this can be backed up. If he walks into a room and acts like the smartest person in the room, it’s because he is. And he puts this into good use to come up with solutions. This is not something that he overcomes and shouldn’t be seen as a flaw, but rather it’s the essence of who Tony is.

But even though Tony is the stereotypical billionaire playboy with narcissistic tendencies, he still has a heart. When Yinsen was threatened by Raza the leader of the Ten Rings, he risks his life to defend him. He refuses Yinsen to go fight alone and after Tony manages to use the Mark 1 suit, he shares an emotional moment with Yinsen before he dies from the bullet wounds.

When he gets back to civilization, we might think that he has to change completely but his personality doesn’t. This is until we realize, as the film progresses that it’s all an act. It’s all flashy show and no truth. This is something that becomes more prevalent in Iron Man 2.

In Iron Man 2, Tony leads the spectacular flashy expo that pays homage to his father. It’s all spectacle at the front but this symbolically hides the resentment that Tony has with his father. It may also be because of keeping up with his father’s legacy.

But despite all this flashy appearances that Tony displays to the public, we know that he’s more than that. When he’s confronted by Christine Everheart, the Vanity Fair reporter about the Stark Industries weapons in Gulmira, he refuses to take accountability for this but we know that as Iron Man, he will go and do something about it, by blowing up those weapons and punching the terrorists. In reality, he takes responsibility for this.

When he was pursued by two pilots in jet fighter planes and one of the planes got hit by Tony (while in his Iron Man suit), he saves that pilot’s life before he plunged to his death. This shows that Tony still cares about others than himself. He came out of the cave a different person. We see him act as an obnoxious billionaire but deep down he has a heart.

And that’s why the audience cares about Tony Stark.

The first Iron Man film is Tony’s redemption story, and a hero’s journey, a journey of a man whose story started as a villain and ends as a man whose foundational self-image changes.

Sources:

1. Iron Man — How to Turn a Villain Into the Hero | Film Perfection
2. The Iron Man Trilogy is Deceivingly Beautiful

Marvel Heroes: Iron Man was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I watched Captain America: The First Avenger recently, this time, trying to notice the nuances of the character of Steve Rodgers. And with that in mind, while watching it, I started to realize this movie’s subtle differences from the other MCU films.

The very first time I watched it as a young teen, I didn’t like it as much as the first Iron Man movie.

But after watching it with fresh eyes, I’ve started to like it.

Captain America is well-known for his self-righteous way of doing things. He’s a man out of time who has always lived by his principles of doing the right thing. But what other thing makes him stand out from the other characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in the likes of Tony Stark/Iron Man, Thor or Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow?

This article will basically be about Captain America’s unique hero’s journey.

So, we start off with this point:

He’s not a brash or flawed character in the beginning

If we look at the beginning of the stories of Iron Man, Thor or Black Widow, we get to see their dynamic growth, from being people who are broken, brash or flawed, to being better versions of themselves. This takes place in a steady manner through their stories.

For example, Thor is a brash character in the first Thor film, he goes to seek war with another kingdom, gets stripped of his power and ability to wield Mjolnir and gets cast to earth, becomes humbled, sacrifices his life in the process and becomes worthy to wield Mjolnir again.

This isn’t necessarily the exact same way with the other characters but you can get to see their arches and an almost similar pattern in their journeys.

So, what about Steve Rodgers? Well, in Captain America: The First Avenger, the film focused on the character’s qualities of being good-hearted and idealistic from the beginning. From the get-go, it’s easy to tell that Steve is the boy-scout and an untarnished protagonist compared to someone like Tony Stark.

But the movie shows that he isn’t, before and after he gets the super-soldier serum. This is something his mentor-figure, Dr. Erskine tells him,

A humble origin

Something else to point out is Steve’s humble background, something probably most of us can relate with. Not all of us are endowed with the wealth of billionaires like Tony or macho brashness like Thor.

Despite his humble background, we see Steve’s determination to join the army to serve his country, something he’s always wanted to do all his life, but he’s setback is his physical frailty.

He’s always wanted to join the army to fight for his country; his willingness to do the right thing. Here’s something that we can relate with, the desire to do the right thing but also being unable to do it. We can be held back from who we want to be and where we want to go.

A not-obvious hero transformation

After Steve receives the super-soldier serum, he doesn’t immediately become an un-relatable character. This is what Dr. Abraham told him before he volunteered for the test. But that’s not just the reason for his not-obvious hero transformation.

One would expect that after receiving these super-soldier abilities and transforming from the frail Steve Rodgers to Captain America, he would go straight to war and save the day like other superhero cliché situations like Iron Man who after building his first suit fights terrorists.

After Dr. Abraham gets killed, being the only one who could create the serum, Steve is the only super-soldier. Colonel Chester Phillips sees Steve as just an experiment and being the only super-soldier isn’t enough.

Instead, he becomes a campaign symbol, something he volunteers to do as he’s always wanted to serve his country. But this isn’t enough.

But with some encouragement from Peggy, he takes the opportunity to use these abilities to save his friend Buck Barnes and 400 men who were held hostage in a Hydra base.

Tragic sacrifice

Another contrast between Steve’s origin story and that of Iron Man and Thor are their sacrifices.

Iron Man and Thor are ready to sacrifice everything for the greater good and later come out alive and get their rewards.

Steve’s sacrificial acts, however, take a tragic route, in that he makes a permanent sacrifice. This is because of the flaw within himself which is his actions entangled in his virtues.

Let me explain this. Steve wants to stand up for the little guy and do the right thing, because he wants to prove himself, to himself. He wants to prove a point that he can make a difference, even when everyone tells him otherwise. This is where Dr. Erskine and Peggy Carter (especially Peggy) come in.

Erskine believes Steve will save America, and chose him for the super-soldier program:

Peggy, as the other breath of fresh air for Steve, tells him that he’s already a hero and he doesn’t need to prove anything. Steve can’t accept this, not yet, because he hasn’t proven himself, which he does in saving New York from being bombed by crashing the Red Skull’s bomb-laden plane into the Arctic.

Captain America: The First Avenger chooses to sticks to the simple pure ideas that Steve Rodgers portrays. It doesn’t have as many quip one-liners or modernize its tone in comparison to other MCU films.

But it rather embraces the good-nurtured character of Captain America completely. Captain America, isn’t just about him standing up for the sake but recognizing what’s right and doing so, inspiring us to do the same.

Source:

Why Captain America: The First Avenger is Great

Marvel Heroes: Captain America was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Batman is my favorite superhero. I mean, Batman, the world’s greatest detective, despite being a human being, has been able to fight villains more powerful than him and he has contingency plans for every situation, including those against the members of the Justice League, if they go rogue.

I took some time to look at DC’s first superhero (and the first superhero in the world of comics) who I think I really overlook when it comes to DC heroes, the Man of Steel, Superman.

You might think that Superman is overpowered, which is true or that he’s a pretty bland hero and not as layered as Batman. I thought so, and with that vivid profile of Superman in mind, I took time to research on what makes Superman an interesting superhero in DC comics.

But first, a quick history of the character’s creation.

Superman was created by Joe Schuster and Jerry Seigel. He was initially portrayed as a bald-headed villain in a comic strip named Reign of Superman.

He was later revamped to become a hero and made his first debut in Action Comics #1 in the year 1938. This was during the Golden Age of comics that introduced other heroes such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (later named Shazam!) and Marvel’s Captain America.

From his first appearance in the comics through the years, his powers have evolved but his obvious ones are super-strength, flight and super-speed.

With that brief history about Superman, this article will revolve on the animated film, Superman vs The Elite, which was based on the comic book What’s so funny about truth, justice and the American Way.

In the film, Superman believes that:

He speaks about this at the UN when he was questioned about not ending the criminal career of the Atomic Skull, a supervillain who wreaked havoc in Metropolis and killed people. Instead of just locking up this criminal, who might escape again and do the same damage (which he does, later in the movie), Professor Baxter, who led the meeting asked him:

“Aren’t you the Superman that the 21st century needs? Why not use your power to fix the world?”

Superman answers this by saying that his powers don’t make him the judge of who lives or who dies and that he’s not above the law.

Then come the Elite, a group of super-powered antiheroes, who come to help Superman in destroying a bio-weapon that was wreaking havoc in Bialya. The Elite consisted of 4 guys:

1. Manchester Black: the leader of the squad, a British telepath with immense mental power

2. Coldcast: this guy emits tremendous amounts of energy

3. Hat: a magician, whose magical powers come from his fedora hat

4. Menagerie: a woman who is symbiotically bonded with demonic-looking creatures covering her body

This group comes to this world with a new way of doing things, “fixing the world”. Superman doesn’t agree with their way of saving the world by killing criminals and tells them that as heroes, they don’t have to kill.

After Manchester Black does an international broadcast, telling the world that the Elite will take care of the world by killing all criminals, which they do, they get all the praise for being ‘progressive’.

In the film, there’s a brief montage of citizens being interviewed after Manchester Black killed the Atomic Skull, most of them saying that Superman’s way doesn’t work or seem relevant anymore, compared to that of the Elite. One said something like:

“Superman has always been there for us, but so are those criminals that he’s put away so many times. Maybe his way doesn’t work”

What the Elite had done was in line with the philosophy called the ubermensch, which was coined by a man named Friedrich Nietzsche.

Ubermensch is German for, Superman (I won’t dive in the connection between this philosophy and the character of Superman. That’s a whole other article on its own).

According to Britannica.com, this philosophy, ubermensch, states that “the superior man would not be a product of long evolution; rather he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian “herd morality” to create his own values”.

This is what Manchester Black clearly states when he and his squad fight Superman on the moon:

So what does Superman do, when pushed to the edge by these antiheroes?

Well, he snaps, taking out the members of the Elite, one after the other and lastly, almost finishes off Manchester Black, at the cost of “killing” other civilians (we later realize, he had a contingency plan by using his robots from the Fortress of Solitude to save the civilians).

Manchester wanted Superman to join their way of doing things, by pushing him to the edge. When he snaps and takes out all of Manchester’s friends, thus showing how he would be when he crosses his line, Manchester admits that Superman isn’t himself and we can see Manchester’s cowardice self unfold. This was contrary to the brash proud character trait we saw in Manchester.

Manchester sees the ugliness of violence that frightened him, and with his cameras that were recording the entire event, he broadcasts to the whole world that there’s nothing special about Superman.

Superman proves him wrong after explaining his elaborate plan and that it’s so easy to cross that line out of anger and vengeance, but he’s not like the Elite.

I think with Superman, being this overpowered superhero, with an uncanny disguise as Clark Kent (just glasses, his hairstyle, voice, and walking posture), he does his best to hold back not to let his power corrupt him (except when he was under mind-control in Batman Hush under the influence of Poison Ivy).

He doesn’t decide who lives and who dies. He doesn’t let his powers make him above the law but rather lets the law of the land to deal with the criminals or villains.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln:

“Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you want to test man’s character, give him power”.

DC Heroes: Superman was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dr. Strange was one of my favorite movies back in 2016, primarily because of its mind-bending visual effects. I mean, that one opening scene where the Ancient One uses the mirror dimension and fights Kaecilius and his followers was literally mind-bending, considering that I watched this in 3D Imax.

The movie also has a unique take in exploring the trippy realm of the multi-verse, Dormammu and the mystic arts. Then there’s Dr. Steven Strange’s hero’s journey, from the arrogant neurosurgeon to a humbled man and later, the Sorcerer Supreme.

I watched Dr. Strange again, this time after watching the epic Avengers: Endgame and kinda realized the reason as to why the Ancient One saw great potential in him, as part of his hero’s journey.

So how did he get to be the Sorcerer Supreme? Let’s begin with the first stage of the hero’s journey, applying this to his story.

Side Note: Dr. Strange was created by the legendary Stan Lee and Steve Ditko back in 1963.

His origin story in the comics, which is similar to that of the movie.

In the film, we begin to see how he perceives himself as better than all his peers at work by showing off his trivial knowledge on obscure songs, while doing brain surgery and telling off Dr. Nichodemus how wrong he is about the critical health a patient that he thought was caput and later after that, demeans his love interest, Dr. Palmer and invites her to a “date” which is a talk that he’s giving and that he would be receiving an award.

Not to mention also another scene where we see his accolade of awards, his expensive watches, and his awesome Lamborghini. In short his opulent and comfortable lifestyle.

This first scene of the film just portrays what Dr.Strange is all about, his self-image and self-centeredness. He wants to prove to everyone around him how brilliant he is. In the first stage of the hero’s journey, this would be his initial ordinary life.

It’s only until his road accident that destroys his hands. This when he was driving his Lamborghini, faster and overtaking those who weren’t driving fast enough, representing how he sees himself as more important than those around him. And the cause of the accident in the first place was because he was driving recklessly while looking at potential patients on his tablet.

In addition to that, he doesn’t want to cure those patients, not because they are beneath him but because those cases are not “…worth his time” and he doesn’t want to “screw his perfect record”, which is something I’ll mention later in this article.

The tragic accident, changes his life for the worse, in his perspective, because of the fear of the loss of his reputation as the neurosurgeon. This is his call to adventure. Still arrogant, he tries all sorts of medical means to fasten the healing process of his hands but to no avail. Christine tries to give him hope by saying, that there’s still more to his life, (something that the Ancient One will later tell him), but he rebukes her.

At his lowest point, he goes to Kathmandu after being directed to see the Ancient One, who healed one of the patients that he didn’t attend to. Here, his physical appearance is completely different, unshaven and unkempt hair, compared to the neat dapper person he was in his previous life.

One might think that at this point he was humbled, but when he finally meets the Ancient One after being directed by Baron Mordo, he starts showing off his medical jargon prowess as every answer to what she was saying about healing. When she talks about chakras and mysticism, Dr. Strange belittles her, showing his massive disappointment. This was his refusal to the call.

Of course, we know what happens next, the Ancient One punches the astro-form out of him and sends him to a mind-bending trip of the multiverse, showing him how much he doesn’t know. At this point, Dr. Strange is humbled.

He realizes his arrogance, begging to learn from her. He transforms from the arrogant self-centered genius to what we see he really was, a desperate man with no idea of what to do.

He feared the loss of his self-image and what other people would think of him. That’s why, in an argument with Christine, he scoffed her about the idea of a ‘Fundraiser for Poor Dr. Strange’.

And with that, he says these words, “Teach Me!” He doesn’t receive the lessons of the mystic arts immediately. He gets kicked out of Kar-Ma-Taj but doesn’t leave, something the Ancient One knew. The fact that she gives him extra attention in teaching him the Mystic Arts proves that she knew he would be the Sorcerer Supreme, even though she never told him directly. He receives teachings from the Ancient One, his mentor.

But after getting teachings of the mystic arts, he’s still egotistical. Before he got the accident, he mentioned that he didn’t want to attend a patient who had a complicated medical malady because he didn’t want to “screw up his perfect record”, probably out of fear of failure. But this fear of failure is a form of pride, something that the Ancient One tells him after him and Baron Mordo were attacked by Kaecilius and the Zealots at the Sanctum Sanctorum:

His life was all about his successes as the doctor, it was all about him. Towards the end of the movie, in the last moments between the Ancient One and Dr. Strange, in their astral-projection forms, the Ancient One says,

“You always excelled, but not because you crave success, but because of your fear of failure.”

Dr. Strange admits that this is what made him a better doctor, after which the Ancient One tells him,

Personally, this struck me in that, in my experience, I focused on the number of readers who have clapped an article that I have posted on Medium and used this as my main measure for success. This backfires on me if I didn’t get any of that and I end up thinking of not doing this stuff anymore, even though I’m passionate about comic book characters.

Life doesn’t have to be viewed from that self-centered perspective. But rather, ask yourself, whose life can I change for the better or whom can I motivate, even if it’s just one person. No matter how minuscule that difference that is, it’s still a difference you have made to someone’s life. It shouldn’t be about you.

Having learned that there is a wider universe around Dr. Strange, and that he is/could be a major player in it, “failing” takes on a much deeper meaning than just being unable to perform surgery.

He could still get back that his old life after healing his hands, but the Ancient One tells him:

“…the world would be all lesser for it”

This signifies that there’s more that he could do, even after he healing his hands. This is the potential of goodness that the Ancient One saw in Dr. Strange. She knew the potential that lies in Dr. Strange ahead of time. This shows his almost indispensable importance in Avengers Infinity War and Endgame in defeating Thanos.

I think Dr. Strange is one character who has an interesting hero’s journey, from the arrogant neurosurgeon to one desperately wanting to learn about the Mystic Arts but later questions things, getting thrown into the battle with Kaecilius and his followers and later, Dormammu.

We get to see him sacrifice himself by dying in a time-loop that he created with the Time Stone, so that everyone on earth could live, when he confronted Dormammu in the Dark Dimension, keeping in mind that this guy was a self-centered jerk.

Marvel Heroes: Dr. Strange was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This year, DC celebrates 80 years of the caped crusader's existence from his first appearance in comic strips to his transcendence into modern pop-culture.

He’s considered as one of the greatest comic book superheroes and in my opinion, a hero with the best rogues gallery (the Joker, Bane, Ra’s al Ghul, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Penguin, Ridler, Poison Ivy, etc).

There’s just so much to talk about Gotham’s hero, when it comes to his amazing ninja-fighting and detective skills, etc, etc. In short, he’s Batman.

Here, I’ll focus on things that I found intriguing about the caped-crusader which are the three hero archetypes with a couple of examples of other heroes and names from classical literature.

But first, a brief history of the creation of the Batman.

The Creation of the Character

Back in 1939, with the success of Superman in Action Comics, the editors at National Comics Publication (which is known as DC Comics) were prompted to request for more superheroes. Bob Kane responded to this with the creation of “the Bat-Man”.

As part of the costume, the bat-wing like cape was suggested by Bob Kane and interestingly, the inspiration behind this was Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketch of an ornithopter flying device.

Bob Kane’s collaborator, Bill Finger, devised the name Bruce Wayne, for the character’s secret identity.

Bill Finger later said that his suggestions for the character were influenced by Lee Folk’s The Phantom, a syndicated newspaper comic-strip character that Kane was also familiar with.

As an aristocratic hero with a double identity, Batman has predecessors in Zorro (created by Jonathan McCulley in 1919), who, like Batman, performed his heroic deeds in secret, averted suspicion by playing aloof in public and marked his work with a signature symbol.

Now with that mention about the character’s introduction into the comic book universe, let’s look into the heroic archetypes, starting with this one….

This is the type of hero who is known for their strengths and abilities to do great deeds.

A superhero like Superman is an extension of the classic heroes such as Hercules and Samson, who were among the inspirations behind the creation of the Man of Steel, according to the creator Jerry Schuster.

The key feature of the classical hero is that they are flawed and sometimes foolish.

For example, Samson is overly-trusting to tell Delilah of the source of his strength which in the end, leads to his demise.

Batman is no exception from this. He isn’t perfect, but his flaws as shown in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, are aligned to another type of hero…….

Some superheroes have tragic backstories.

In the case of Batman, young Bruce Wayne witnesses the cold-blooded death of his parents at Crime Alley.

Other examples heroes known for their tragic backstories are Spiderman/Peter Parker who loses his uncle Ben after being shot and Superman, whose home planet, Krypton is destroyed, together with his parents Jor-El and Lara.

Even though Batman has faced other devastating events in his life such as the death of Jason Todd, the first Robin in the Death in the Family or the death of Rachel Dowes in the Dark Knight movie, to mention a few, this doesn’t single-handedly make him a tragic hero.

According to philosopher Aristotle in defining what makes a character tragic:

“It should, moreover imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation.”

The essence of what makes a character tragic is that it makes us feel pity for them and fear for ourselves.

To understand how this works, we need to first eliminate the things that make one, not fit to be a tragic hero:

i. If we see a perfect man fail, it merely shocks us and therefore, this isn’t a tragedy

ii. If we see an evil man succeed, nothing is more alien to the spirit of tragedy

iii. If we watch an evil man fall, we will feel morally satisfied but not pity or fear

The key thing here is that pity is as a result of misfortune on someone that wasn’t meant to be and fear is by the misfortune of a man like us.

A tragic hero isn’t perfect, otherwise, we couldn’t relate to that hero but the hero should be better than most men, i.e. he should be more capable and more moral.

The tragedy only happens because of their “error of frailty”, i.e. actions that they thought were morally correct, as opposed to vices, and the punishment, as a result, must be worse than the crime.

This can be clearly seen in the Dark Knight, where, Batman’s refusal to kill the Joker, his fatal flaw, results to the death of Rachel, the half-scarred-faced Harvey Dent (and later his death) and the death of the persona of Batman.

In the Dark Knight Rises, after the tragic events of the Dark Knight, we see Bruce Wayne as a broken man. Throughout the movie, there’s a theme of rising up, from a hermit to the hero that Gotham needed.

This reminds me of what Alfred Pennyworth tells Bruce in Batman Begins:

Then there’s this other archetype….

To get this clear, this isn’t to be confused with a hero in a romance story.

The term romantic, in this context, is derived from romanticism, a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that emphasized subjective emotional qualities.

The romantic hero is a rebel who is against the systems of society, its systems of justice and its hypocrisy. Such a character is a reflection of the disintegration and violence in society.

They are introspective, melancholic and wanderers. They have intense psychological struggles, centers of intense mental activity and they are visionaries.

From that, you can see a vivid outline of Batman’s character.

In Batman Begins, Bruce is shown by Rachel Dowes, the other side of Gotham City, an impoverished side that doesn’t incorporate his ideas of a great city.

He isn’t satisfied with the systems of justice, and he wanders away from the world to endure the intense training montage to become Batman, later in the movie.

From the introspective point of view, Batman has diagnosed Gotham as lacking and he uses his skills, intellect and resources to build his gear to fight crime.

Another interesting thing about romantic heroes is that their ability to recognize the damage of their actions, particularly those that involve the pursuit of revenge.

Bruce Wayne was about to kill Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents until someone else did that. Dante from the Count of Monte Cristo seeks revenge for the injustice that was done to him.

Later these two characters recognize this; Dante regrets his actions of revenge and redeems himself by helping others and Bruce Wayne regrets nearly killing Joe Chill. Their redemption isn’t just recognizing the potential for good between themselves and the rest of society but also the potential for evil that they are capable of as well. They examine themselves first.

This is what sets Batman apart from Ra’s al Ghul, who believes that Gotham is so corrupt, that it doesn’t need salvation from its damnation, without analyzing himself, and with that, he can act in an immoral manner, by using the fear gas to terrorize the people of Gotham.

Batman believes that there’s good in Gotham. Despite the evil that’s in that city, he has people of goodwill he can trust: Commissioner Gordon, Lucius Fox, Rachel, Alfred Pennyworth, the Bat Family, among others.

Batman is my favorite superhero. He isn’t perfect, but he’s willing to do all he can to getting rid of the evil that took his parents lives by ensuring justice is served, which is his sole duty to Gotham and he believes that even the worst of criminals (I mean the Joker for example) can be rehabilitated to be better versions of themselves.

And a quote from the graphic novel Batman: The Long Halloween, my favorite comic book, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale:

Source:

What kind of hero is Batman?

DC’s Heroes: Batman was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thanos, the Mad Titan who made his major debut in the MCUs Infinity War film last year was probably the most talked about villain over the Internet.

As we wait for the Avengers Endgame, which is set for release on April, after the SNAP cliffhanger ending, I thought of starting off this year with writing about the Mad Titan, starting off with his comic book origin…..

The creation of the character

Thanos was created by a comic book writer called Jim Starlin and he made his first appearance in the comics in 1973.

Jim Starlin originally came up with the idea of Thanos during a college psychology class. The original appearance of Thanos was that of a thinner one but was later beefed up.

The character was influenced by DC’s Darkseid (one of the New Gods characters created by a former Marvel comic book artist called Jack Kirby).

But Jim Starlin said that Thanos wasn’t influenced by Darkseid but in his first illustrations of the character, he looked like Metron, who wasn’t as beefed up as Darkseid.

His biography in the comics

Thanos was born on Titan, the moon of planet Saturn, to his mother Sui-San and his father Mentor (A’Lars) and he had a brother named Eros (also known as Starfox).

When he was born, his mother was shocked to see his misshapen appearance, that was a result of the Deviants (a fictional race of humanoids) gene. This gene gave him a rugged purple skin.

Initially, Sui-San wanted to call him Dione but she ‘heard a cold whisper’ say a name that she had never heard and as soon as she said “Thanos”, she went mad. Looking at the child’s eyes was like looking at the eyes of death. Driven by fear, she attempted to kill the baby but A’Lars stopped her and had her sedated.

As she calmed down she ended up saying, “We’re going to die. Just look at that thing. That isn’t my son”.

Unfortunately, the tables turned on her when later, young Thanos remembered this when he was 12 years old when he killed her.

As for his brother Eros, who was more handsome than him, he was jealous of him because he was surrounded by friends and family and was favored more than him.

Being seen as an outcast in Titan, he found comfort in other venues such as nihilism and death, which really fascinated him and while in his youth, later found companionship in the physical form of Mistress Death.

The Etymology of his Name

The name ‘Thanos’ comes from the Greek word Thanatos, which means death. In Greek mythology, Thanos is the personification of death.

Thanos is an Eternal, a type of superhuman, with an array of powers such as superhuman strength, superhuman durability and psychic abilities.

He is immensely strong and resistant to injury, invulnerable to almost all types of poison, diseases and telepathic attacks. Very few heroes have managed to beat him single-handedly such as Adam Warlock (where he beat him by turning him to stone) and Nebula (in the Infinity Gauntlet saga, where she managed to get the Infinity Gauntlet and wish him to disappear into space).

In terms of psychic abilities, Thanos has the ability to control the minds of others, such as The Hulk which is super impressive, because the Hulk’s mind is resistant to telepathic attacks due to his raging anger.

He’s a super-genius in virtually all the fields of advanced science and he has created tech that exceeds that which is on Earth. He’s also a master strategist as he demonstrated this skill in acquiring the Infinity Gems in the Silver Surfer comics.

Thanos’ motives here will be derived from the both the Infinity War movie and two comic books, the Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos and Infinity Gauntlet.

His first motive is to impress Mistress Death.

After Thanos was defeated and turned to stone by Adam Warlock, Mistress Death sought to raise him up from the dead, giving him the task of wiping out half of the universe’s living beings. Mistress Death was convinced that there was a severe imbalance in the universe that if left unchecked, it would lead to an impending peril.

Thanos gets the Infinity Gems (as they are called in the comics) and gets carried away by the unlimited power of the Gems in his Gauntlet. To impress her, he builds massive shrines for her and presents to her a mangled half-dead body of Nebula, his supposedly grand-daughter, showing off his bravado and prowess.

Mistress Death doesn’t show any reaction of surprise or astonishment but merely scolds him. This pisses of Thanos and later he remembers his task of wiping out half the universe and he does this, by using the power of the Infinity Gems in his Gauntlet by snapping his fingers. That led to death on a grand scale.

But despite that grand act, Mistress Death didn’t show any expression of surprise.

His second motive is to restore balance to the universe, for the greater good

In Infinity War, we see Thanos’ justification for wiping out half the universe. His philosophy is that to ensure there’s sustainable life, the solution is genocide, as he explained this to Doctor Strange on Titan. This is the same extreme solution he offered to his home planet that was at the face of extinction.

Due to overpopulation and “Too many mouths to go around”, he suggested genocide at random to both the poor and rich, which to be honest, is an extremist dark solution, and a reasonable reaction for his people to call him a mad man.

This is what he did to Gamora’s home planet, in order for what happened to his planet doesn’t happen to others, like hers. This dark motivation, all in the name of ensuring balance, is what he tells Gamora.

He knows what’s right for the greater good.

This is almost similar to the events that preceded that of the Infinity Gauntlet, which took place in the Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos comic.

Here, Thanos tells the Silver Surfer…

With that, he tells the Silver Surfer that his solution for this is “Euthanasia, by killing off 50%of this universe’s population”.

This is in conjunction with Mistress Death’s request, after she raised him from the dead, “My Mistress Death likes a constant and steady harvest.

The balance must be maintained and that’s why I have returned.” The Silver Surfer disagrees with this, saying that this solution is too terminal.

Thanos was willing to sacrifice Gamora to get the Soul Stone in order to fulfill his quest. This is something the Avengers weren’t willing to do, seeing life as something trivial with the main goal of beating Thanos.

Vision is willing to sacrifice his life to destroy the mind stone before Thanos gets it. This is more of one life for the sake of half universe, which is a tough dilemma that the Avengers face. Captain America refuses to let Vision do this saying….

Well, in the end, Thanos achieved his mission, that cost him everything, as he told young Gamora, despite the efforts of the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Doctor Strange and the Wakandan Army.

Anyway, let’s wait to see what the Avengers: Endgame has to offer after that post-snap cliffhanger and how the heroes will beat this guy.

And that’s all about Thanos, the Mad Titan.

Sources:

Marvel.com

Marvel.wikia.com

Wikipedia

IMDb

Thanos Origins Explained: The Life of the Mad Titan (Infinity War Guide)

Variant Comics

Marvel’s Villains: Thanos was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Erik Killmonger was probably the most talked-about Marvel villain after the release of the Black Panther movie earlier this year, after Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

After a series of unmemorable villains, with the exception of Loki, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s third phase has been steadily producing villains whose motivations are well-grounded.

Killmonger however, stands out in this category of MCU antagonists. In this article, I’ll mention about his origin, abilities and motives from both the Marvel comics and the movie.

His motives however will be largely based on the movie, which really fleshed out his character as a sympathetic and complex one.

Erik Killmonger is a native of Wakanda, the fictional nation in Africa, born under the name N’Jadaka. He made his first debut in comics in Jungle Action #6, Panther’s Rage in September 1973.

This was created by writer Don McGregor and artist Rich Buckler.

As a side note, Jungle Action was the American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, that later introduced Black Panther as the first black superhero.

In the story line of his origin, Ulysses Klaue and his mercenaries attacked Wakanda with the intention of getting the valuable mineral, Vibranium and press-ganged N’Jadaka’s father, N’Jobu into helping Klaue.

When young T’Challa defeats Klaue, N’Jadaka’s father dies and his family exiled. N’Jadaka ended up in Harlem, New York, nursing his hatred against T’Challa, for the death of his father.

He changed his name to Erik Killmonger and studied at MIT gaining a PhD in Engineering and an MBA.

Killmonger is an expert martial artist; an extraordinary hand-to-hand combatant.

His uniform has evolved across the comics from lethal elements like studded spikes that inject poisons to wristbands with blades and energy blasters.

He is a brilliant tactician and a resourceful warrior willing to do what it takes to defeat the Black Panther, even if it meant launching revolution to destroy Wakanda’s economy with the intention of destroying T’Challa’s reputation in a global scale.

In this section, I’ll dwell more on Killmonger’s motives from the Black Panther movie and a little on the comics.

In the comics, his motivation for being T’Challa’s antagonist is pretty straight-forward, seeking revenge after the death of his father, as explained in his origin. Subsequent versions of his origins suggest that N’Jadaka was a child at the time of Klaue’s attack and that it was N’Jobu who had participated in the attack, dying in the process. This resulted to Killmonger instilling a need for revenge in his father’s name.

But Michael B. Jordan’s grandeur portrayal of Killmonger shows a more complex character whose motives are not that obvious or cliché.

Despite the fact that he is seeking revenge after his father’s death caused by T’Chaka, T’Challa’s father, which is a similar motive to what’s in the comics, his motives go further than that.

In the beginning of the movie where there’s the beautiful visual explaining the origin of Wakanda, we hear N’Jobu narrating about the origin of Wakanda to young N’Jadaka, talking about Wakanda’s thrive in next-level technology resulting from the Vibranium meteorite and that the world then was in chaos.

During this scene, we get to see slaves chained and shipped. During these events of injustice, Wakanda hid in plain sight and didn’t do anything with its advanced technology. Killmonger wants to use Wakanda’s resources to colonize the oppressors, by starting a revolution against them.

As a result Killmonger seeks to repay them tit-for-tat by arming oppressed black communities all over the world, with Wakanda’s advanced weapons, inciting a revolution.

Being raised in a society where he had a brutal childhood, after his father’s death and being abandoned, this shaped his view of society.

He can actually be compared to Magneto who is also known as Erik. Magneto as a child lived in the concentration camps where he suffered under the hands of humans, this created an innate hatred against humans.

For a character that’s driven by rage, this motive has catastrophic results, in that, there’s no thought of governing after destroying the Western society.

And here’s his second motive…..

The people of Wakanda are staunch to their traditions such as the battle for the throne, ingesting of the heart-shaped herb among others. They are nationalists and they have this view:

They don’t see themselves as part of the world, being a secretive nation and don’t see themselves as part of the black community. Killmonger opposes this completely.

He doesn’t give a shit about these rituals that the Wakandans follow and he believes that for this nation to progress, the traditions have to be removed.

This can be seen when:

· he commands the garden of the Heart-Shaped Herb to be burnt

· he refuses to complete the ceremonial combat

· when he walks to the throne and the camera is upside-down and slowly rotates 180 degrees, to symbolically show that Wakanda’s changing and Africa is about to be on top

This can also be seen in the track, “King’s Dead” from Black Panther: The Album where Kendrick Lamar simultaneously takes on the persona of Killmonger. He has a different opinion on how Wakanda should be ruled and is willing to overthrow T’Challa, without giving a damn about the traditions of Wakanda.

His motives can be closely compared to that of Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi:

He wants Wakanda to get rid of the tradition of living in isolation and make them realize that they are part of a larger ecosystem, the world. This can be seen through the symbolism of T’Challa’s and Killmonger’s Black Panther necklaces.

T’Challa wears the silver one because he doesn’t want to be noticed while Killmonger wears the golden necklace because he wants to reveal Wakanda to the world.

Both Killmonger and T’Challa want to achieve the same goals (except that Killmonger’s more brutal) and both are from contrasting backgrounds.

As seen in their spirit realms after they ingest the heart-shaped herbs in different scenes, T’Challa’s a lush beautiful world, the ancestral plain, where he meets his father to seek encouragement.

This is a place of empathy and peace.

As for Killmonger, he meets his father in his childhood apartment in Oakland, where we see him as a scared angry kid, which makes us sympathize with him.

This is a place of pain. He didn’t even hug his father.

Another reason to sympathize with Killmonger is that T’Chaka killed his father to save Zuri, his uncle, and turned a blind eye on him. This is symbolic in the same way Wakanda turned a blind eye by hiding in plain site, from helping the rest of the world. Unfortunately, he was far gone to the bad side of life, when he kills people, even his girlfriend, without any remorse. T’Challa and his estranged cousin could have been on the same page of the family.

There’s an element of tragedy to this, and this is in the Wakandan sunset scene where his bleeding out, arm and arm with T’Challa, refusing the medical help.

We can’t get to wonder how differently Killmonger would have been, if things worked out for the better for him.

Killmonger changes T’Challa’s view of the world, and as a character-arc for T’Challa, he refuses Wakanda’s nationalism and Killmonger’s brutal solution, by stating that:

With that, we realize Killmonger wasn’t just out to take over Wakanda as king with superficial evil plans out of mere vengeance, but we see that his disposition was one that had to be adopted.

And that’s all about Erik Killmonger.

Sources:

Genius

Marvel

Black Panther: Why Killmonger is the Best Marvel Villain Ever

Is Black Panther’s Killmonger the Best Villain Since the Joker — Wisecrack Quick

Why Black Panther Has Marvel’s Best Villain Ever

Marvel's Villains: Erik Killmonger was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lex Luthor, Superman’s archenemy and ally (when the need arises) is another well-known supervillain and sometimes hero in the DC universe.

He is a well-known public figure, owner of the LexCorp conglomerate, a bald-power-mad American business magnate, a philanthropist to the city of Metropolis and last but not least, an intelligent engineer.

As a matter of fact, Lex was ranked at 4th position on IGN’s list of Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time.

Known for his mantra, “end justifies the means”, his single-minded and quite often reptilian and brutal way of thinking puts him at odds with the Man of Steel.

Lex is the kind of villain who is willing to use all means to do what ever it takes to beat Superman without caring about those he hurts.

I think this also makes him to be arguably DC’s most iconic villain, in that he’s a normal human being with no superhuman abilities but he goes head to head with Superman; more of a “mind-over-muscle” dynamic duo.

So how did the man of Metropolis come to be, why is he bald and what are his abilities and his motives? I’ll start this off with his origin together with the etymology of his name, which is pretty interesting.

Alexander Joseph Luthor (Lex is short for Alexander) is the son of Lionel Luthor (whose was notably seen in Smallville).

He made his first appearance in April 1940, (roughly the same time as that of the Joker) in Action Comics (these were the American comic book series that introduced Superman, before taking on the current name of DC Comics).

As for his name, Lex Luthor turns out to have a deeper meaning than I expected. As with most villains, their names are depictions of who they are, their personalities, abilities or who they will become.

A good example is Edward Nygma as the Riddler (the name Nygma can be derived from the word enigmatic, which describes his puzzling character).

In the case of Lex Luthor, Lex as previously mentioned, short for Alexander, which is derived from the Greek Alexandros (αλεχανδροσ) meaning “defender of men”.

As for Luthor, this is a variation of Luther, which is derived from a Germanic name compounded from the names liut (people) and heri (army).

Putting these translations together, Lex Luthor roughly means, Defender of the People, Soldier of Men.

This sounds a bit contradictory since Lex is the bad guy and yet his name describes him as the protagonist, the savior, the white knight. I’ll explain this later as we explore his motives.

Lex Luthor was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the creators of Superman). He was initially depicted as a diabolical genius with red hair and was referred only by his surname, Luthor.

His motives were that of megalomaniacal characteristics (taking over the world and all that shit).

These have changed as his incarnations over the years have fleshed out his character.

As for his boldness, what really happened?

In his first appearance in the comics, he had red hair. The origin to his baldness was explained in the Adventure Comics in the 1960s that was about Lex meeting Superboy (young Clark Kent). Lex was a big fan of Superboy and both were buddies.

Luthor was working on a Kryptonite cure for Superboy in his lab, after a Kryptonite meteor crashed and injured Superboy. Unfortunately things go wrong in Lex’s lab and a fire starts. Superboy comes to the rescue and uses his super-breath to put out the fire but in the process knocks off one of the chemicals in the lab. This resulted to toxic fumes that makes Lex’s hair fall off, making him bald.

Lex blames Superboy for his carelessness that led to the destruction of his work and his hair. Although Superboy apologizes, Lex declines this saying that he was jealous of his genius and he vows that he will destroy him.

Lex Luthor doesn’t have superhuman abilities but he has, what he considers, the most dangerous mind in the world. He is depicted as the most intelligent human being in the DC universe.

With the exception of the extraterrestrial being called Brainiac, Luthor does not view any other being worthy of being his intellectual peer.

He possesses an eidetic memory (visual imagery of almost photographic accuracy) and has mastered seemingly every known form of science:

He is also a brilliant businessman, skilled in finance and politics and has been elected as the President of the US in his first attempt to run for the office.

Through his intellectual prowess, Lex has made liberal use of kryptonite weapons capable of killing Superman and in some situations, capable of injuring other Kryptonians.

In the case of the comic book Superman: Last Son of Krypton, Lex uses these weapons he invented together with Superman and other guys (Bizarro, Parasite and Metallo) to stop General Zod and his army of Kryptonians from destroying Metropolis.

From the etymology of the name Lex Luthor, that means Soldier of Men, Defender of the People, Lex’s reasons for hating Superman can be justified. And this is one of his motives for seeking means of destroying Superman is that:

Being the Defender of the People, he fights this alien being. He believes that with a being with so much power, it’s only a matter of time before he conquers over humanity. With that, we should be skeptical about Superman and we should destroy him before he destroys us.

But with Lex Luthor, there’s a selfish intention behind his logical motive. Other than just destroying Superman because he can destroy humanity, he believes that his pedestal as the true savior of humanity has been taken by Superman.

People see Superman as the beacon of hope instead of him and that pisses him off. He believes that he not only wants to be seen as a god, but as the only one the world needs, not Superman.

And that takes us to his second motive……

He’s an absolute narcissist. For self-made billionaires like Lex, they tend to feel that they’re the definition of awesomeness over to everybody else. He knows that he’s more intelligent than others and he deserves more than what others deserve.

In short, he deserves to be seen as the pinnacle of humanity.

In the 1980s incarnation of Lex, he’s seen as an industrialist who brought jobs to Metropolis (built museums and massive philharmonic orchestras) and all it mattered was that everyone knew that he was the best. He wants power and control and this makes him happy.

And then there comes Superman who flies over him. This, for the first time in his life, makes him small and that’s something he can’t deal with at all.

In the events of the Blackest Night comic book, where the rising of the dead was led by a villain named Black Hand, Lex he hides himself in his safehouse out of fear that all of the people he killed would come for him.

The zombie-victims, including his deceased father, break into his safehouse, seeking to feast on his greed-filled heart.

Lex manages to escape after receiving an orange power ring that’s fueled by the orange light of avarice/greed. Lex however gets overwhelmed by this power ring of avarice then seeks to get all other power rings for himself.

In the process, he gets into a fight with Wonder Woman who uses the Lasso of Truth to restrain him, which later reveals Lex’s secret, he wanted to be like Superman. He wanted to be as powerful as Superman.

And to finish off, here are some quick facts about Lex Luthor:

And that’s all about the Lex Luthor. Hope you enjoyed it, clap and drop a comment. Cheers!!!

Sources:

DC Comics

Wikipedia

Why is Lex Luthor Bald?

Comic Theory: Lex Luthor was destined to hate Superman

DC’s Villains: Lex Luthor was originally published in The Geek Interpreter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After writing a lot about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I thought of changing things up a bit and switch to DC Universe. The DC Universe is rich with villains whose reasons for being antagonists to the heroes are not as obvious as one would expect. They aren’t just out there to take over the world but they have other deeper and sometimes, sinister reasons for doing so.

And what other bad guy is there with such reasons other than the Joker. There are, for sure, other villains in the DC Universe who have, what might appear as inexplicable reasons for being evil, and the Joker is no exception.

The Joker is probably one of the most popular comic book character in the DC Comics and possibly, in the world of comics.

Known as the Crown Prince of Crime, (other titles are: the Ace of Knaves, the Jester of Genocide and the Harlequin of Hate) and Batman’s greatest enemy, the Joker has had a big impact in pop culture, from live-action and animated films to video games and other TV Series such as Batman: The Animated Series, Young Justice and Gotham.

The Joker is one of those characters whose sadistic sense of humor and enigmatic origin, identity and reasons as to what he does makes us fans scared of him, as I’ll explain later.

So who is the Joker, what are his abilities and what are his motives? I’ll explain all this, starting with a brief history of how he came to be into the world of comics.

The Joker is a supervillain, who came to be in mainstream comic books back in the 1940s and was created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane (the creator of the Batman) and Jerry Robinson.

The character was an inspiration by an actor named Conrad Veidt who was known for his creepy grinning visage in a film known as The Man Who Laughs (which was later a title to another DC Comic book featuring the Joker).

Jerry Robinson did a sketch of a joker-playing card and the character’s concept.

At first, he wanted a super-villain who would test Batman, not the typical gangster who Batman would easily defeat and one that’s diabolically sinister but clownish.

Think of this like the Sherlock vs Moriaty kind of relationship; Sherlock the sleuth detective (like Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective) vs Moriaty, the Napoleon of Crime (like Joker, the maniac).

Interestingly, the Joker was to be killed off in his second appearance in Batman #1 after been stabbed in the heart.

Bill Finger wanted to the Joker to die because he thought recurring villains would make Batman look as a tactless character. But this was overruled by an editor named Whitney Elisworth who hastily drew a panel that was added to the comic book, showing that the Joker was alive.

The Joker’s origin story is a complete mystery, although the generally accepted origin one is that he was a criminal formerly known as the Red Hood who got into a confrontation with Batman in a chemical factory and in the process, the Red Hood falls into the acidic chemical plant that disfigures his skin, turning him into the Joker.

In the iconic graphic novel, The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, the origin took a rather dramatic and dark tone.

It’s about an unnamed former lab assistant (of the chemical factory that he later confronts Batman), a failed comedian and a husband struggling to make a living to support his pregnant wife who later dies in an accident at home. Desperate, he helps mobsters in a robbery in the factory and he’s given the Red Hood helmet.

Things go wrong and Batman confronts the Red Hood, who jumps into the chemical waste that bleaches his skin and he goes insane. But later in this graphic novel, the Joker states that his past is vague and hazy to himself:

As for his real name, it’s also a mystery although in the Batman: The Animated Series and Batman 1989 movie he’s known as Jack Napier.

The Joker doesn’t have superhuman abilities, but he’s a highly intelligent criminal mastermind and a completely unpredictable villain. He commits sadistic crimes with a variety of goofey-thematic props such as:

· A deck of razor-tipped cards

· His flower in his lapel that sprays acid

· A lethal joy buzzer he puts on hand, that conducts millions of volts of electricity to kill the victim

· And the most iconic one, the Joker venom. This is a liquid or gaseous toxin he created that sends the victim into uncontrollable laughter, resulting to a coma or death. This later leaves the victim with a pained rictus grin.

He’s an expert chemist, skilled in melee combat (a noisy riotous fight), unpredictable and incredibly dangerous, considering his well-planned heinous plans.

An example is in the Dark Knight, where using his ‘supernatural’ charisma and planning, he announced on television that he would blow up a Hospital. The GCPD (Gotham City Police Department) didn’t know which one he’ll obliterate but the Joker had planned way ahead on the one he’ll blow up, and he did.

In short, the Joker is chaos-personified.

Here’s where things get interesting. We all know that one line in the Dark Knight movie, when the Joker, disguised as a nurse tells face-scarred Harvey Dent:

But other than just being an agent of chaos willing to disrupt the established order, just for the sake of it, I think his sadistic acts have deeper motives.

The Joker has shocked the world of comic readers through some of the horrifying things he has done such as beating up Jason Todd, the boy-wonder Robin with a crowbar and killing him in Death in the Family, shooting Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, in her waist, paralyzing her permanently in The Killing Joke and curving out his face and stitching it back to his deformed face (which is beyond insane and sick) in the New 52, Death of the Family.

All these, among other insane acts show that the Joker embraces meaningless and violence.

To some extent, the Joker is willing to prove that it only takes one bad day to drive a sane person to what he is. And that’s his first motive….

This is the complete opposite of Batman. Bruce Wayne witnessed the death of his parents at a tender age, which is traumatizing, and his reaction to this event that destroys his sense of meaning, is to fight crime as the masked vigilante.

While as for the Joker, whom we don’t know what drove him to what he is, embraces meaningless and violence. These two characters are opposing forces.

When these two collide, Batman tries to convince the Joker to accept conventional morality while the Joker seduces him to abandon it and make him to live in a world without rules.

At the end of the Killing Joke graphic novel, there’s a slightly sympathetic scene where Batman tries to convince the Joker, saying that he’s willing to rehabilitate him and that they don’t have to kill each other. The Joker turns down Batman’s helping hand, saying that it’s too late for him to change.

Then we come to his second motive….

To explain this is an example from the third act in the Dark Knight, when the Joker pressures the citizens of Gotham and the criminals who are in two separate boats loaded with explosives (without their knowledge), to choose among themselves who to blow up. It’s either the innocent citizens of Gotham blow up the criminals, or the criminals kill the citizens or the Joker blows up both boats.

The main intention was to have them abandon their moral code to do something they wouldn’t do, therefore corrupting their understanding of good. This is what Batman strives to fight, that’s, and I think, that’s why Batman doesn’t run over the Joker with his Batmobile and kill him.

If he did, the Joker would have won the argument. But the Joker did win this by corrupting Harvey Dent, who was portrayed as Gotham’s white knight.

He tells Harvey to abandon the establish order and that chaos is fair. This leads to Harvey Dent leaving his decisions of whether to abandon the moral code, (to kill or not to kill) with the flip of a coin, leaving such choices to chance, which he sees as fair.

The Joker sees that social morality is flimsy, that we are not as good as we pretend to be, and that no one is far from abandoning social morality, like himself. This can be connected to the way he uses Joker venom to terrorize people. Those victim to his venom laugh to death with a rictus grin, like himself.

The Joker isn’t mentally ill, as that would be the first thing any sane human being would perceive. His motives involve breaking people’s spirit on what’s good. And probably, he sees society in a completely different way that we can’t directly understand.

The fact that he takes pleasure from hurting people and watching the world burn, his enigmatic backstory and identity and his unpredictability behind his motives make him a very scary villain.

After all, in the real world, we get scared of things or people we don’t fully understand, like the Joker.

And that’s all about the Clown Prince of Crime. Hope you enjoyed it, clap and drop a comment on what other DC villain you would like me to write about.

Cheers!!!

Sources:

DC Wikia

The Philosophy of the Joker

The Dark Knight- Creating the Ultimate Antagonist

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