Bibliography: Prairieschooner.unl.edu. 1926. Post-modern Superheroes | Prairie Schooner. [online] Available at: http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/?q=blog/post-modern-superheroes [Accessed: 1 Aug 2013].
Released as a mini-series by Marvel Comics in 1985, Squadron Supreme pastiches DC’s popular Justice League of America, with “analog” clones of Superman (Hyperion), Wonder Woman (Power Princess), Batman (Nighthawk), and so on, giving readers a familiar iconography while they are confronted with some hard truths of those beloved characters. The plot of the series explored the possibilities of a pantheon of American superheroes that, after a third world war, decide to rid the world of all its deficiencies and impose their utopian regime. They tackle hunger, poverty, war, and crime, although the vast majority of the series concerns itself with the moral ambiguity of a behavior modification machine, which was originally invented to rehabilitate criminals, but inevitably used for the selfish ends of one of the main characters. If these characters like Superman can impose a utopia, then they can also impose a dystopia, and it’s only a small matter of ideology that saves us from one or damns us to the other. Thus, the series is more about the corruption of superheroes failing to be held in check, and as long as superheroes are acting like super humans, their ‘‘human’’ aspects will fail to emerge.
Nighthawk, the Batman-clone, takes exception to the implied fascism to affect such widespread social change, and rallies a resistance group to battle the Squadron’s utopian efforts.
The social problems and philosophical questions make this one of the most deep super-hero comic series ever.
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