Many of the Marvel Universe superheroes of the early 1960s could be seen as early
deconstructions of the superhero genre
before their styles and formulas became standard issue genre tropes, long before
Alan Moore's
Watchmen (see below), by showing that while gaining superpowers may have allowed ordinary people to do good, even save the world, it didn't necessarily make their lives better. Though this is more true of the early Marvel stories than later on:
The following have their own pages:
Comic Books
- Captain America: The Red Skull is this for hammy supervillains in general, and fictional Nazis in particular. Even the original Silver Age origin story gave a surprisingly sympathetic and to some extent "realistic" explanation for why a non-psychopath would want to be a Nazi supervillain, and why he would likely be a Large Ham if he became one. Many early stories nevertheless portrayed him as a more or less generic ranting villain, who knew he was evil. But later writers (or at least some of them) realized that such villainy is unrealistic, so instead they tend to give him a coherent Nazi worldview. The result makes him more terrifying, since the best stories really manage to show how he can be a genocidal Nazi and still be morally upright by the standards of his own culture.
- Damage Control: The central conceit of the series is that somebody has to clean up all those messes.
- Daredevil: Matt Murdock got enhanced senses after being blinded by radioactive waste, but his whole life has been an uphill battle from his humble beginnings to being a respected lawyer by day to having his personal and professional lives torn apart time and again, and losing some of the women he loved along the way.
- The Incredible Hulk: Bruce Banner turned into the super strong Hulk thanks to a gamma bomb explosion, endowing him with the strength and stamina to battle threats that even some other super strong heroes may struggle with, but Bruce has little to no control over the Hulk, which often results in a lot of property damage and turning Bruce into a fugitive hunted all over the world by the army.
- Immortal Hulk: The series deconstructs several elements of the Hulk mythos as well as some from super-hero comics in general. Since this is a horror series, many of these tread into Nightmare Fuel territory.
- Death Is Cheap is horrifically deconstructed when it's learned that the reason the Hulk and gamma mutates keep coming back is because death has a metaphorical revolving door for them to keep walking out of. Made worse is the fact that it's due to an Eldritch Abomination that is The Anti-God, which is only bringing them back so it has pawns it can use to enact its own plans. There's also the trauma of having to experience death in all of it's pain and terror only to come back repeatedly and realize it's going to keep happening again and again and that you may end up surviving thousands of years past the ends of your friends, loved ones and everything you ever held to be important.
- I Did What I Had to Do is also given a harsh look from various angles and sides. The Avengers try to bring in Bruce and end up tangling with the Hulk. They can ultimately only win when they use a Kill Sat to hit him with a superbeam of solar energy which ends up not only killing Bruce (again), but destroys what's left of the town they were fighting in. Later, the opposite side is looked at with General Fortean, who believes he is absolutely justified in doing anything to fight the Hulk, while acting like a Knight Templar. However, it turns out that Reggie is actually mentally disturbed and everything he says it just an excuse to bring order to his world at any cost. It's only at the end when he's in the Below-Place that he realize the horrible mistake he made in pursuing Gamma-based weapon research, which ends up damning himself for all time.
- Fantastic Four:
- The Fantastic Four, the first big Marvel hit, was seen and welcomed as a reaction to other superhero stories. Namely the fact that the team dispensed with the secret identity along with masks. They also in the early stories in Fantastic Four (1961) featured highly dysfunctional figures, with Johnny Storm being a real hothead and Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy about his powers and Ben Grimm/The Thing being the first example of a Monster-As-Superhero who was prone to temper tantrums, frustration over his feelings for Sue and his anger at Reed, with their adventures being the only thing keep them together at least in the Jack Kirby era.
- While the series as a whole, especially in the early days, has always lampshaded and subverted common superhero tropes like secret identities, team unity and family issues, and even a secret base, in Fantastic Four (1998), Mark Waid made the fact that the team was out and proud as superheroes a purposeful event in the team's creation: Reed made them celebrities to atone for the accident that robbed them of a normal life.
- Mark Waid's run also throws a dark mirror on the Reed-Doom relationship. Both have always been shown with varying levels of similarities, but Waid accentuates it. Reed takes over Latveria and gets as obsessed with the then-dead Victor as Victor gets with him. Overall it's a fairly chilling look at how isolated and driven two intelligent men are, and how defined by each other they have become.
- Marvel Apes: The storyline deconstructs the Funny Animal. A reality ruled by non-human primates would most likely be far more violent than ours, since most primates don't have human-level empathy. Even heroes like Captain America sees nothing wrong with beating villains to death, since that's just how apes are.
- Marvel Knights 20th: The story as a whole deconstructs the original idea of Marvel Knights, which told standalone stories in the Marvel Universe. This concept drives the plot of Marvel Knights 20th, as the Marvel Universe has been literally forgotten by its inhabitants.
- Marvel Team-Up: The Marvel hero Freedom Ring was meant to be a deconstruction of the way most teen superheroes were handled. His creator, Robert Kirkman, wanted to have a young hero who would struggle to use his abilities and ultimately die early on in his career in order to contrast the ease with which most teenage characters adjust to their powers. Since Freedom Ring was also one of the few gay superheroes Marvel published, this lead to some
Unfortunate Implications and an apology from Kirkman. - Moon Knight: Usually viewed as one to The Cowl archetype heroes. As it turns out, spending almost every waking hour beating up criminals, pushing your mind and body to its limits, and getting into life or death scrapes with superhumans really does a number on your psyche - though Moon Knight's was troubled to begin with. His stories often make note that the only way anyone could go through with this kind of lifestyle is by being unstable to begin with. Ol' Moonie has no interests outside of crime fighting, and Steven Grant being a seperate alter can be easily interpreted as an extreme version of Batman's idea of "Brucie Wayne" being seemingly a seperate person. In essence, Moon Knight is every joke about the mental instability of Batman, Daredevil, The Phantom and Spawn played dead straight. And it sure as hell isn't funny.
- The Punisher:
- Marvel Universe vs. the Punisher could be read as a deconstruction on Marvel Zombies. In the MZ titles, the titular zombies don’t actually act like zombies, but rather intelligent cannibals that happen to be undead (who end up conquering their world). This story kinda runs with that idea, showing a mutating Hate Plague that simply makes the infected savage maniacs that are easily dealt with. It also demonstrates a better understanding of the heroes; MZ!Mr. Fantastic loses his mind after the death of his children, whereas the Reed of this world keeps his sanity and helps establish a safe-zone with the surviving heroes.
- The Punisher MAX is a deconstruction of the entire Punisher mythos, as well as the "avenging vigilante" archetype as a whole. Frank, while still sympathetic, is not really out to avenge his family but is instead driven by a combination of bloodlust and guilt. The concept of a badass Psycho for Hire is thoroughly debunked: the majority of them are just repulsive sadists, and the ones who aren't are genuinely insane and not the least bit appealing. The majority of the Old Soldier types have been driven psychotic by their experiences, and there most certainly is no such thing as a Noble Demon.
- Squadron Supreme: The comic was one of the first comics to examine how the presence of superheroes would affect modern society and culture with the titular Squadron trying to create a one-world government without war, hunger or crime but gradually become tyrants that clamp down on people's rights. It gets so bad that one of their members even leaves the group and forms his own super-team to oppose them.
- The Ultimates (2002):
- The values the "ultimate American hero" had back in World War II would not translate well in the progressed world of today. Captain America's Deliberate Values Dissonance turns him into an outright Cowboy Cop jerk who thinks every solution to his problems is to beat it up. As cathartic and deserving kicking Hank Pym's ass for his abuse of Janet is, it's still apparent that Cap just assaulted and injured someone without even considering what Janet would've wanted in this situation.
- Being a giant-sized superhero would not actually be useful on a mission like detaining the Hulk in the middle of New York City. Hank Pym is very easily thrown off balance and is quickly taken out when Hulk causes him to fall into a building. His fight against Captain America doesn't get much done either, as the environment around him ends up constricting him and gets used against him resulting in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
Western Animation
- Iron Man: Armored Adventures: The show offers an interesting take on the teenage superhero genre in the fact the hero really couldn't care any less about school or fitting in, claiming it's a waste of time and instead stating that his work as a hero is more important. He then proceeds to cheat on his tests and homework in order to pass, since him being a hero gives him the latitude to do so, and high school is meaningless and doesn't matter once you graduate.
