Musing 3/1/22 – What Happened to the Heroic Superheroes?

I just finished watching The Guardians of Justice on Netflix.

Why? I do not know. I was interested in seeing where yet another superhero series would do to further tarnish the very notion of superheroes.

It didn’t disappoint — or more accurately; it did.

Filled with excessive violence, gore, blood, homophobia (yes, I know it takes place in an AU 1980s) and violence against women. It has rip-offs of every DC hero and a few Marvel ones, but it twists and deforms them. For some odd reason, streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu (that’s all I’ve seen so far) seem to think that this is the type of superhero series that we are clamoring for.

Well, I’m not.

My first experience was with Amazon’s The Boys. I saw maybe about four episodes before I stopped in disgust. Or whatever episode it was where the Superman/Captain America clone,—Homelander—allowed an airplane filled with innocent people to crash into the ocean, killing everyone. He wouldn’t even take a little girl off the plane despite her mother’s pleas. Then there was the rape of the newest member of this so-called superhero team by the Aquaman rip-off. The Wonder Woman of the group just blithely accepts everything that Homelander does, no matter what. The Flash insult is a murderer and a drug addict. That’s about as far as I got.

Then came Invincible, another Amazon offering (Jeff Bezos, are you paying attention at all?!) where once again the Superman ripoff (Omni-man) is a total murdering, pretentious, SOB and his son, who calls himself Invincible in one scene threatens to hurt his mother. And, of course, there was lots of blood and gore to last a lifetime, along with Omni-Man brutally and graphically, murdering his own team. About, the only thing I liked about this show was Monster Girl.

From what I understand, the comic versions are ten-thousand times worse.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of freedom of expression for obvious reasons. I would just like to see a series where the heroes are — well — HEROIC! Or at least where they are half-way decent people. They don’t have to be perfect. Everyone has flaws, but I’m so tired of the pervasive notion that everything has to go down a dark and violent path nowadays. How does any of that drive the story? It’s just lazy writing.

I’ve already got my solution planned. We’ve all heard the Toni Morrison quote, “If there is a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

So I intend to. If you’re interested in the story, it’s called The Good Guys, and it’s on my WIP page. Maybe Netflix, Amazon or Hulu will pick it up. Hell, it will be a change of pace, that’s for sure.

If you see anything else like these shows, let me know. I can’t guarantee I’ll watch, but if I do, you’ll hear about it.

What do you think, peeps?

Peace~

Wendy