META: Surface Deconstruction vs. Actual Deconstruction

[Andrew Perron]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:32:39 +0000 (UTC), Tom Russell wrote:

> Superheroes-- no matter how they're
> deconstructed, and no matter how flawed they might be-- should still
> be, well, heroic.  Even when the heroes fail or are mostly defined and/
> or motivated by some psychological damage, they're still heroes, still
> trying to do the right thing.

Indeed.  And this is really what I'm getting at with my comments on
"realism"; there are those who would find it realistic to "deconstruct"
heroes by having them all have horrible inner selves and selfish reasons
for what they do, with no regard for consequences and nothing that they can
truly protect - because these people can't see any true goodness in the
real world, can't even see the possibility for it.  But that doesn't
actually make it realistic.

> Hero, of course, does not equal perfect or square-jawed. Looking at
> Spider-Man-- specifically Lee-Ditko's Spidey-- you have this
> sarcastic, anti-social, broiling-with-anger loner who, over the course
> of 38 issues, starts to grow up a little.

To combine this with the above paragraph, I think the problem with
Spider-Man for quite a while has been that everyone is convinced that the
"classic" way to tell a Spider-Man story is for him to be suffering ALL.
THE. TIME, with not a moment of personal happiness.  Certainly, Spidey
should have horrible obstacles in his way, both personal and heroic - but
he should triumph over those obstacles.  There's no catharsis to be found
in an unending slog.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, going off on his own tangent.