Critiquing Super-Violence in “Gotham Central”
Critics of various political stripes have accused superhero stories of promoting violence through glossy spectacles and the central conceit of super-strong vigilantes who typically solve problems with their fists. #GothamCentral directly addresses these critiques. 1/13
Perhaps the most memorable–and certainly the most influential–critique of violence in superhero comics comes from Fredric Wertham’s 1954 bestseller “Seduction of the Innocent,” which heavily influenced the subsequent creation of the censoring body known as the Comics Code Authority. 2/13
“It is this feature that engenders… 1 of 2 attitudes: [children] either fantasy themselves as supermen, with the attendant prejudices against the submen, or it makes them submissive and receptive to the blandishments of strong men who will solve all their social problems for them–by force.” 4/13
A central flaw of Wertham’s critique was his assumption that children (not to mention the teens & adults who also read comics) are not discerning –that the fantasy media someone consumes directly informs how they behave in real life. Today, video games are often similarly accused. 5/13
Still, Wertham’s concern about the hyper-masculine and racist elements of superhero violence are not completely unjustified. Superhero comics have a long history of racial caricature and contemporary feminists have similarly critiqued superheroes as promoting toxic masculine fantasies. 6/13
Within both conservative and liberal critiques of superheroic violence, whether the violence is “problematic” often depends, in part, on whether there’s any consideration of the morality of violence: does the story embrace violent fantasies or does it question them? 7/13
Gotham Central doesn’t reject violence. This is, in fact, an incredibly violent series. Superviolence that’s often cartoonish elsewhere is rendered with sometimes-brutal realism. Blood spatters, bodies break, people die. But this brutality has a purpose. 8/13
This is dramatically evident in Gotham Central #1, when the GCPD confront the consequences of Mr. Freeze’s superpowered violence. In many Batman stories, Mr. Freeze’s victims are safely unthawed. But here, frozen bodies shatter into pieces in front of stunned human beings. 9/13
The physical costs of superpowered violence are emphasized by artist Michael Lark’s framing of the encounter with Freeze & its aftermath. Lark uses “inset panels”–i.e., panels that spotlight a small aspect of a larger scene–to underscore the horrific effect of violence on specific bodyparts. 10/13
Lark also emphasizes the emotional costs of superpowered violence. Here, he uses spacing, framing, and pacing to emphasize Renee Montoya’s painful shock. The repetition of Renee’s expression the how she drifts out of the frame in the final panel specifically evokes traumatic disassociation. 11/13
Granted, this violence is orchestrated by a supervillain rather than a superhero. But several characters in the story blame superheroes like Batman for escalating the intensity of Gotham’s violent crime, arguing the existence of superheroes prompts the creation of supervillains. 12/13
Ultimately, Gotham Central reflects Jim Coby & Joanna Davis-McElligatt’s argument that, “By externalizing the internal, cartoons can stage a critical dialectic between the function of power, between those harmed and those causing harm, and between the reader and the creator’s universe.” 13/13