Key Issues : Fan Rage and the Action Figure Aesthetic

Currently, the second best way to start a controversy is to say out loud at a comic shop how happy you are with the casting in comic book movies. You could mention most of the recent castings, whether Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Michael B. Jordan as The Human Torch, Ben Affleck as Batman, or Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. The best way to start a controversy is to drop these names on Twitter and watch the vehement denials that “he isn’t Batman,” or “she’s too skinny to be Wonder Woman.” Either the physiques of these actors, who have just started training for their roles, are called out and questioned, or, what is more mysterious, there are attempts to banish these actors from the roles through denial: “The Human Torch is white.” The mystery is how these standards were set at all when you consider that not too long ago most superheroes weren’t depicted like supermodels, Greek statuary, or bodybuilders. There were those Charles Atlas ads in old comic books, but the heroes and heroines were leaner, more human looking than the guy that kicked sand in the other guy’s face. Adam West’s Batman even had a teeny tiny potbelly.

In the comic books, one of the most natural depiction of comic book heroes in the 1960s occurred in the pages of The Justice League of America. Mike Sekowksy did a good job making the DC heroes look like ordinary Joes and Janes. So that when you look at this panel from Brave and the Bold #29, you’re reminded of a bunch of cosplayers, as if any old weekend warriors could pop some brewskis and become mythic figures. They don’t look like body builders or pro wrestlers, or even like movie stars, although Hal Jordan could pass for a Golden Age newspaper comic star like Pat Ryan in low lighting.

At some point since the 1960s, a sensibility invaded comic books that said that heroes should look neither like the ideal physiques of gods and goddesses nor the ordinary bodies of regular men and women, but the hypertrophic physiques of bodybuilders and pro wrestlers instead. Assisted somewhat by the physical culture craze of the seventies and eighties, it became a comic book phenomenon through the luck of seventies TV and film casting as bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno became the Hulk, Amazon-sized beauty Lynda Carter became Wonder Woman, and hunky thespian and soap actor Christopher Reeve beefed it up at the gym when he was cast as Superman. This trend continued into the comic pages so that muscularly inspired aspiring comic artists like Robert Liefeld, who, despite being inimitable, was followed by a host of imitators that believed that generic musculature was more authentic and authoritative than each individual hero concept that was smothered by the bombastic anatomy.

From Gambit and the Xternals #2. The muscles have arrived.

And today’s fans, having subsisted on that diet for far too long, get outraged when they’re served up a casting like Gal Gadot, whose physique harkens back to the Sekowksy Wonder Woman of the Silver Age.

Mike Sekowsky’s Wonder Woman, with her uplifted mien in the above panel, looks beatific, like Joan of Arc, and he draws her lithe, small of chest, and sparse of figure. Aquaman is broader of hip than this Wonder Woman. Were fans of the day shouting at the pages? No. There were no internet message boards in old comic books, but the more primitive form of feedback and social media in those comics, the letter column, is full of deep responses about comic book content from yesteryear’s children that shame the superficial body shaming posted online by 2013’s grown-up trolls after Gal Gadot’s casting. And Sekowksy’s Wonder Woman, or H.G. Peter’s, or Ross Andru’s, all of which are reprinted with frequency, are more iconic than the oft aped Byrne and Perez Wonder Woman, a mutant which has been derived not from artistic precedents but by following the opinions of previous casting directors. Not that this Wonder Woman wasn’t a good Wonder Woman, one who gave numerous creators a new direction for the past 39 years, but Gal Gadot is no less Wonder Woman. Her physique is classic Wonder Woman and fanboys with some knowledge of comic book canon will see that her image suits the Golden Age and Silver Age sensibility for Wonder Woman.

The popular criticism of Ben Affleck and Michael B. Jordan, that neither IS the hero that they portray—“that isn’t my Batman,” or “that isn’t Johnny Storm,” or the more denial-laced “Ben Affleck CAN’T be Batman,” doesn’t, on the face of it, appear to be as superficial. Admittedly, there was some snarking about Affleck being a little overweight in public appearances, and there were some more racially offensive things tweeted about Michael B. Jordan, but the harder to analyze claims are the seemingly blander claims that neither IS the hero. These vanilla statements are appealing to being, to the essence of each hero, as if there was an essence of Batman or an essence of Human Torch, and in this way the claims are grounded in a kind of faith, and one can assume it is bad faith unless there is an essence of Batman or Human Torch in which to base your appeal of the casting decision. The problem with trusting bad faith is that it is an inauthentic response, the root of simulation and not creation. It is the difference between Superman Returns and Superman the Movie:

One problem is with the casting. Brandon Routh lacks charisma as Superman, and I suppose as Clark Kent, he isn’t supposed to have any. Routh may have been cast because he looks a little like Reeve, but there are times when he looks more like an action figure; were effects used to make him seem built from synthetics? We remember the chemistry between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder (Lois Lane) in the original “Superman” movie, and then observe how their counterparts are tongue-tied in this one.

This is from the most famous superhero casting critique, Roger Ebert’s critique of Superman Returns. The idea here is that the producers of Superman Returns, in trying to find another Christopher Reeve rather than another Superman, found an action figure of Christopher Reeve instead. That plastic casting, perhaps to take the mold required by fan service, created a plastic Superman movie that not only the cast but the audience could not believe in. We pay to be transported to alternate realities, not to gaze upon mere simulacra, and it is a disservice to create a film that is, at root, an imitation of another film, stuffed with imitation performances and an imitation of a story. It would have been better to find a new story and a new Superman, much as the noir first season of The Adventures of Superman and George Reeves looked very little like the 1978 Superman film, and yet, neither rendition is less a Superman than the other. Similarly, the creative team of Man of Steel found a new Superman, Henry Cavill, and elicited authentic performances in their actors rather than trying to imitate those that have come before. Which isn’t to say that Superman Returns is a particularly bad film. It is one of the better fake films ever made, full of fake feeling, phony performances, and slick salesmanship of the superhero tropes. It is currently the best example of The Action Figure Aesthetic which results from catering to fans and their plastic prejudices. And we can trust that if the producers of The Man of Steel sequel tried to find another Christopher Bale instead of casting a new Batman, or a more pituitary advantaged Amazon, the result would be just as plastic and just as hollow.