Welcome to my post, which explains a lot about movie tropes that are present in films. The first few posts on this site will involve anti-heroes in comic book movies. Anti-Heroes are basically a kind of hero that lies beyond the boundaries of what is considered acceptable. While they have some fairly reprehensible means of achieving justice, they ultimately do such acts for a good purpose. They are essentially an extreme version of a typical good-guy hero, always willing to sink to low depths to save the day. Some of them have journeys that are different than their typically heroic counterparts. For Ellen Siegelman’s instance, the standard story involves the hero leaving their mother to defeat a dragon while The Curious Incident’s Christopher leave his father to find his mother (Siefelman, 2005). Christopher is considered an anti-hero according to the author of the book and review, as some people mistreat him due to his disability while there is a mystery revolving around the murder of a neighbor’s poodle with a fork. As John McAteer would say, they do not follow the droning status quo of the law, but still have traits and did things that would portray them as “good people” (McAteer, 2017). Anti-heroes may work outside the vale of what is seen as good by the normal populous, but that does not mean they are necessarily “evil” from the viewers’ perspective. Just because they do some dirty business, does not necessarily mean they are bad guys since there is a benevolent purpose. A lot of these heroes can be wronged in some way or form, like a group of people have ruined their public image or their life and the wronged heroes seek vengeance on their assailants. John McAteer includes corrupt governments as one of those forces that drive anti-heroes to be considered outlaws (McAteer, 2017). Governments can be a treacherous force as they hold more power than even high-ranking criminals and will do anything to keep the power and make anyone they do not like suffer in the process. This can be a reference to how corrupt a figure or group of power can be in real life. An anti-hero can be a dark, brooding, violent vigilantes such as the Punisher, or comical, equally violent anti-heroes such as Deadpool and the Suicide Squad. There are some dark anti-heroes like the Punisher who, according to John McAteer, he is the ultimate vigilante, not even hesitating to kill bad guys on the spot in ways that other superheroes do not appreciate (McAteer, 2017). A lot of anti-heroes tend to butcher bad guys rather than imprison them, this method is not the best method considering that there is a “No Killing” code with superheroes in comic books such as Batman, despite his parents’ murder. They believe “No Killing” codes exist because killing the bad guys would make the killer hero no better than the villains, even if it makes the world a better place. A lot of villains are known to kill for some purpose in terms of Mr. Freeze, or just for fun in terms of the Joker and Carnage. Then there are lighter-hearted, comical anti-heroes like Deadpool and the Suicide Squad. They tend to be like the darker ones but can have a little humor or light-hearted themes like friendships or vulgar humor. Deadpool is more or less a parody to other superhero movies. Deadpool is an anti-hero that is created by a nasty experiment Wolverine was put through, and therefore cannot be killed or injured in anyway, but with a vulgar and punny twist to him. The Suicide Squad on the other hand are anti-heroes that are assembled from different imprisoned villains, according to John, they seem to rely on friendship to keep the squad together (McAteer, 2017). Apparently, friendship is an important key to redemption and becoming a true hero. Next time, topics on lighthearted anti-heroes such as Deadpool. There are examples of anti-heroes in a video I posted at the top of the post.
Sources:
McAteer, J. (2017, September 19). Suicide Squad, Deadpool, and the Rise of the Comic Book Antihero. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://www.equip.org/article/suicide-squad-deadpool-rise-comic-book-antihero/.
Siegelman, E. (2005). An Anti-Hero’s Journey. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, 24(2), 47-57. doi:10.1525/jung.1.2005.24.2.47
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