Thursday 17 September 2015

Superheroes

See here. Poul Anderson did not write superheroes but easily could have done. They exist in prose as well as in comic strips and on screen. The first superhero was an extraterrestrial, therefore an sf character. Pseudo-scientific rationales can be concocted for superpowers. The psychic time travel in Anderson's There Will Be Time is a superpower. His characters, Joel Weatherfield and the Danellians, are super-human beings with sf explanations, extraterrestrial and extra-temporal, respectively.

"Superheroes" as a hybrid genre also presents magical and supernatural explanations for superpowers but Anderson did all that as well. He wrote fantasies featuring Conan, Norse gods and other supernatural beings.

I have said all or most of this before. These current reflections are prompted by concurrently reading David Lagercrant's The Girl In The Spider's Web which ingeniously incorporates Marvel Comics superheroes as fictions within the fiction. Our heroine is not super-powered but has been inspired to develop her human talents to a super-normal level by reading these characters while suffering injustice - a classic superhero "origin story."

Poul Anderson turned his hand to many kinds of work, including original stories about characters created by other authors. Isabel Allende wrote a Zorro novel and I wish that Anderson had written a Superman novel.

10 comments:

David Birr said...

How about "The Sensitive Man," trained to temporarily focus his senses -- or boost his strength or reflexes -- to superhuman levels? Anderson even used the term "homo superior," which at least in the *X-Men* comics refers to superhuman mutants; I don't know if he invented the expression or not, but "The Sensitive Man" was published well before the first *X-Men* issue.

Also, can a not-precisely-good man be called a "hero" when battling downright evil opponents? If so, I present a "superhero" by the name of Don Luis Ildefonso Castelar y Moreno, who kicked the collective backside of the GENETICALLY-ENHANCED Exaltationists, killing two and wounded at least two others, including their leader, after they kidnapped him. They were explicitly described as "supermen" ... and they couldn't hold Don Luis prisoner. Doesn't that make HIM even more super?

Paul Shackley said...

David,
Yes, all valid. I have mentioned the Sensitive Man somewhere.
Paul.

Paul Shackley said...

See addendum just made to post.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, David!

Now, why didn't I think of Don Luis Castelar? He certainly kicked Exaltationist rumps in a most satisfactory way! I would only add that, by his own lights, Don Luis was not really a bad man at all.

And, yes, you also made good points about the UN-Men.

Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I think you should have mentioned S.M. Stirling's four Draka novels. These featured who, by merciless training, study, and indoctrination (and later, by genetic modifications), strove to become super men. And the Draka philosopher Elvira Naldorrsen worked out socio/political/ideological expositions and rationalizations of Draka beliefs and aspirations.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
Yes, that is going back to the original Nietzschean meaning of "superman." So I have more to read of Naldorrsen in late books?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Some, but not as much as I would like in UNDER THE YOKE and THE STONE DOGS.

Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You wished Poul Anderson had written a Superman novel. Well, he DID write a Conan the Barbarian book, CONAN THE REBEL.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
PA would have been good at realizing the planet Krypton and rationalizing Kent's powers.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Hmmm, I never thought of it like that before, but I agree!

Sean