Agents of Chaos: Name your superhero favorites

[K-Box]

It occurs to me that, whether they're outspoken anarchists, trickster personalities or even just vaguely aligned as Chaotic Good, there are surprisingly (to me, at least) relatively few Agents of Chaos among the ranks of superheroes.

Superman started out as an FDR-esque gang-buster who showed no restraint in brutalizing slumlords or unilaterally unseating sovereign leaders to whom his creators objected (as when Siegel and Shuster drew Superman cold-cocking Hitler and Stalin and hauling them before a world court), but he'd become a champion of the status quo by the 1950s. Likewise, what's ironic about Batman is that, whenever he's broken out of the self-parody that the 1960s TV show turned him into and been most aggressive in subverting the preexisting order, that's when his own authoritarian nature has become most overt, because if you remove the trappings of a superhero from Batman, what you're left with is Bruce Wayne, insanely wealthy industrialist who uses his resources to train and arm his own private militia, as well as his political influence to keep the actual agents of law enforcement out of his hair. This feint of promoting what appears to be a progressive agenda by practicing what actually amounts to fascism is even more problematic with the X-Men, who share Batman's willingness to recruit child soldiers and thoroughly indoctrinate them into their own cause. As for Spider-Man, one of the things that I've found so disappointing about him over the years is that, even when he's been pushed into positions that should by all rights have shaped him into a crusader for his fellow underdogs, he's instead simply retained an "Average Joe" mealy-mouthed Neutral Good point-of-view.

Now, switch to supervillains, and the field is practically saturated with Agents of Chaos, from most modern interpretations of the Joker to Anarky (who isn't actually an anarchist proper, since he shares the Neo-Tech philosophy of his co-creator, Alan Grant, but who nonetheless legitimately qualifies as anti-establishment). And yet, even many outlaw anti-heroes, the Punisher among them, tend to be portrayed as using anarchists' tools to advance their own authoritarian agendas. And this makes no real sense to me, because part of the whole point of superheroes is to serve as a power fantasy, and especially when I was growing up, one of my biggest power fantasies was to imagine myself as the underdog with all odds against him who successfully fights and defies the will of the greatest powers that be in the world. And yet, to judge from the characters who populate the superhero genre, it seems as though most fans would prefer to BE the powers that be, suppressing the subversive Agents of Chaos who want to change the world, even though anyone with eyes in their skulls should be able to see that the world SHOULD be changed. I mean, was I really that ALONE as a little kid, for wanting to see what I did from my superheroes and their conflicts?

Anyway, if you have any further thoughts on that tangent, I'd welcome hearing them, but in the meantime, I'd also invite you to name your favorite Agent-of-Chaos superheroes, as well as your reasons why. Plastic Man? Ambush Bug? Deadpool? V? From a certain point of view, Jaime Reyes versus the Reach was the purest distilled story of an Agent of Chaos versus the Forces of Order that I've seen in years from the superhero genre. In any event, I'm interested in your opinions.

[michaelpaciocco]

Mr. Miracle (the man who just wants to be free) vs. Darkseid (the embodiment of tyrannical order)

[Anders]

Aug 10, 2010 18:21:12 GMT -8 K-Box said:

And yet, to judge from the characters who populate the superhero genre, it seems as though most fans would prefer to BE the powers that be, suppressing the subversive Agents of Chaos who want to change the world, even though anyone with eyes in their skulls should be able to see that the world SHOULD be changed.

There are several possible answers to this, the most boring being that if the main characters do change the world the company will sell less comics because it will be much harder for new readers to get into it. As long as it's just about "the real world, except with superheroes" there's no threshold - you just pick up the comic and start reading. But once you make it "the real world, except it's different" you make it much harder to pick up new readers.

(Of course, this is based on the old model of comics primarily being sold in supermarkets to kids and their parents, but all the big mainstream characters were shaped by that model. Newer comics that expect to be read by more - I use the word hesitantly and in a non-elitist sense - sophisticated readers don't have this problem nearly as much. The Authority, Hellboy, Watchmen, Powers - all of them feature changing worlds.)

Another answer is that it's hard to portray a character who wants to change the world without getting into very sensitive political, cultural and religious questions, which, again, will directly lead to turning off a large part of your potential audience - an even larger part, since you will not only need sophisticated readers, but sophisticated readers who at least agree with how the writer portrays the issues if not what positions the characters take. There are those who make this work - Ex Machina is probably the best example - but it's very, very difficult to do well.

Yet another answer is that when supercomics were new there were plenty of easy targets that were perceived as real threats to society in the form of organized crime, enemy spies and so on. Evil superpowered criminals (as opposed to idealistic revolutionaries) also make for very practical enemies from a storytelling point of view since they would be very difficult to handle for normal law enforcement, plus you can do that whole mirror thing.

I'm sure the restrictions of the Comics Code also plays into all this.

Longwinded answer short: it's less about what kids wanted and more about what publishers could make the most money from.

[Anders]

When it comes to favorites, it's hard to pass by Grant Morrison's various takes on the theme: The Brotherhood of Dada (villains, to be sure, but damned entertaining), the Invisibles and Seaguy pop to mind.