Don't Trust Any Superhero Under 18

If you've listened to a writer for more than ten minutes you'll have heard the phrase 'suspension of disbelief.' In short, it's like this: any time an element in a story is introduced that is not a part of the world as we know it, we sometimes have to suspend our need to analyze the element and instead enjoy what it brings to the story. A good example is super powers - there's no way anyone could lift a truck without it snapping in half, or fly without a jetpack or wings. But it's cool that they can, and in the face of that we accept it.

But there are limits. And nowhere are these limits tested than in superhero comics, which are so fantastic it's practically a requirement going in that you accept that a guy puts on a pair of glasses and he looks different. (They've tried to give it a more technical explanation, ranging from muscular ontrol over Superman's face to hypnotism amplified by the glasses, but the more technical it gets the more the glasses lose their elemental simplicity - they're a mask that doesn't look like a mask, and that's the beauty of the disguise.)

Superhero fans often laugh at proclamations that there's an element of a story that a reader can't buy other than the presence of the superpowers. "You can believe a man can fly," they chortle, "but not that parting your hair differently will fool your closest friends?" I think these people are just doing it to score Nerd Cred which is the worst cred; surely there is a finer grade than an either/or choice between a story so much like real life that the narrative is boring, and a story so fantastic the narrative is nonsense. Every superhero fan has their pet element they can't buy into - some minor, some so major they are barely fans of the genre at all.

For me, it's underage superheroes.

I can buy that Superman's glasses fool everyone. I can buy that the Flash can run at superspeed without a stray grasshopper blowing a hole in his head. I can buy that the Hulk's rampages rarely kill anyone (this is a HUGE debate in comics, beyond the scope of this post.) But I can't buy that any responsible adult or society would be fine with a twelve year old getting shot at and beating up criminals. That's where I get off the fun train.

I barely trust the average sixteen year old to not fuck up my order at A&W. I'm not gonna trust them to stop a bomb about to blow up the world, or an invasion by telepathic space dinosaurs, or the underworld machinations of the world's deadliest rodeo clown. Think about when you were a teenager. If you didn't wince once, you're a liar. Imagine that version of you in charge of anything.

This is why I could never get into the Teen Titans or the Legion of Super-Heroes like so many comics readers my age, and why my affection for Spider-Man begins the moment he gets out of high school (Brian Bendis, let my Parker go... to college) and part of why I like Superman over Batman, because no matter how many "Superman is a dick, lol" jokes you make at least he never sends his adopted son out to get shot at, so Supes is one up on Bats there.

There is a place for young super heroes out there - just not in any pull list I've got under my name. I realized that some kids will more readily identify with someone closer to their own age, but I was never one of them. I never had a problem connecting with a Russian farmer or an African tribal goddess, and I don't think that held anyone else back from enjoying the X-Men's most fruitful creative period. So with reader identification out of the way I'm left with how they fit into the world, and a guy who can control gravity is something I buy far more readily than him being sixteen years old and doing the work of cops.