Where are you, Economic Justice Person?

As I write, the highly anticipated epic movie “Watchmen” is about to open at a theatre near you. In this sure-to-be-a-blockbuster film, based on a groundbreaking graphic novel from the late 1980s, a group of costumed vigilantes confront the questions posed by their own histories and their roles in the world (along with other more nefarious things like a string of murders and a possible nuclear holocaust).

The notion of the disguised crusader for justice goes back at least as far as the beginning of the 20th century, with characters like the Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro—whose own pedigrees can be traced back to legendary figures like Robin Hood. (The recently deceased science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer once posited a genealogy linking many of these extraordinary literary characters, from Tarzan and Doc Savage to Sherlock Holmes and James Bond.) And while tales of superheroes can be found all over the world and throughout history, it was in America in the 1930s, in economically and politically unstable times, that many of the comic book superheroes that we still follow today had their origins. Future waves of superhero development came at other times of threat and uncertainty, in the Cold War 1950s and the Vietnam era.

So it’s not surprising that superheroes have been enjoying another renaissance in recent years. As in previous times, they are seen defending justice in the face of various classic threats—common criminals, ruthless and powerful supervillains, or corrupt and abusive government authority. Some recent superheroes, however, have aimed at more contemporary targets. Captain Planet, designed by Ted Turner, emerged in the 1990s as an unapologetically didactic hero for environmental causes. Super Barrio is a “real-life superhero,” based on Mexico’s masked lucha libre wrestlers, who organize poor communities and encourage political involvement. (And yes, Virginia, there are quite a few “real-life superheroes”—a web search on that phrase will help you meet folks like Italy’s “Entomo The Insect-Man,” New York’s “Terrifica,” and Washington DC’s “Captain Prospect.”)

The need for the superhero, of course, emerges when existing institutions are seen as inadequate protection against threats to the maintenance of a just society, whether we’re talking about old-style gangsters or interplanetary invasions. The greatest threat of our time, of course, in terms of the number of people affected and the amount of damage done, has proved to be not international terrorism but criminal finance—“international banksterism,” one might say—and the economic inequities and disruptions that it has spawned. How one might long for a scene where Economic Justice Person storms a seedy boiler-room telemarketing operation, scattering fraudulent hucksters left and right before grabbing the supervisor by the lapels and saying “OK, buddy—I wanna talk to your boss. Now.” Or watch as EJP pursues an executive jet down a private runway, latching onto the tail fin and bringing the jet to a screeching halt moments before the greedy fugitive CEO can escape to Antigua with the employees’ purloined pension money.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way. Achieving the elusive goal of true economic justice will require superhuman efforts—and all we’ve got is us. But who knows—together we might possess more power than we think we do.

So, as Captain America might put it: “Avengers—ASSEMBLE!”

- Skip Mendler