Why the World Craves Superheroes
An Argument for God from the Desire for Justice
In 2008 Marvel Studios released a movie by the name of Iron Man, beginning the first phase of what has been dubbed “The Marvel Cinematic Universe” (MCU for short). This release marked the beginning of the most successful film franchise in history. According to IGN’s Connor Sheppard the total profits of the combined MCU movies has reached $11,355,359,299 making it “The overall highest-grossing franchise by almost $6 billion” and he therefore proclaimed “the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an immortal giant that towers over all other franchises”.1 The MCU has grossed more than double the profits of the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises combined.
From the first Iron Man movie to Avengers: Endgame (released April 26, 2019) Marvel demonstrated, beyond contestation and for the whole world to see, that the world craves Superheroes.
Admittedly, however, this doesn’t mean that all one has to do to be successful is make a movie and brand it “a super hero film.” In fact, DC Comics has demonstrated time and again their ability to make flops of what should be successes. The recent DC movie, The Flash, just suffered one of the worst financial losses in super hero movie history.
Klein Felt, writing for The Direct, an independent entertainment news outlet, stated just recently that, “Given The Flash's paltry box office numbers, the Andy Muschetti-directed DC film has earned the title of the biggest box office flop in superhero movie history. Because of The Flash's reported $220 million budget (and $150 million promotional budget), the movie is likely set to lose over $200M for Warner Bros. which would be the biggest financial loss suffered by a studio because of a superhero film.”2
Recently even the Marvel films, after Endgame, have been struggling by comparison to their earlier glory. So what accounts for the success or failure of a superhero story? Are the recent flops and declining successes just people getting tired of superheroes movies or is something else happening? The phrase “super hero fatigue” has been floated around by some in the entertainment industry in an attempt to explain why things are starting to go south for these kinds of movie franchises.
The truth is, however, people are not tired of super heroes. People crave them as much today as they ever have. What the movie making executives and promoters don’t understand is why the MCU was such a success in the first place. The primary reason those movies succeeded is because they actually presented us with stories of superheroes and more and more frequently the recent movies have failed to do so.
“Now, wait just a minute.” You’ll say, “What do you mean by that? Don’t they keep making movies with people in tights jumping off buildings while things are exploding? Don’t they keep making movies with people shooting lasers out of their eyes, running at the speed of light, flying, teleporting, and letting bullets and missiles bounce off their chests (or bracelets) like it’s nothing?”
Well, yes. Yes, they do. But nothing about that guarantees the production of a Super Hero story. In fact, if you think super powers are the only key ingredient to superhero stories then you are revealing the same kind of ignorance that those currently running the new phases of Marvel (and those who seem to have been running DC movies forever) are showing. The super powers are an important tool in the hands of the hero, but they are secondary to the most important aspect of superheroes, namely, virtue.
Let’s play a game. In the following pairs which, in each case, better represents the definition of what it means to be a hero.
Deadpool or Spider-Man
Captain America or Wolverine
Batman or the Punisher
Let me go ahead and make a prediction. You said, Spider-Man, Captain America, and Batman. Why? Not necessarily because you dislike the other characters. You might find them pretty darn cool, actually. But I asked you which of each pair came closest to the definition of a true hero and I am pretty confident about who you picked.
I myself have always liked Wolverine with his adamantium skeleton and claws, healing powers, attitude and all. But I know that Captain America is closer to what it means to be a real hero. Captain moderates his anger, tries to do what is truly right, even lives a healthier lifestyle. Spider-Man, likewise, always sacrifices his own wants and desires to do what is best for others. Batman (at least traditionally) has one rule, he doesn’t kill the bad guys, he hands them over to the authorities for judgment. The Punisher is out for personal revenge and does a lot of wicked things to wicked people, but it’s not about justice. Deadpool is a self-serving mercenary that occasionally can be pointed at people worse than he is. It’s not hard to see the difference between heroes and “anti-heroes” is it?
Let’s do one more (and I hope you’ve watched the Marvel movies so you can really play along).
Who is more like a real hero: Tony Stark in Iron Man or Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame?
Forgive me being so presumptuous with you today but, I think I know what you picked again. You picked the latter Tony Stark. Why?
When we first meet Tony Stark in Iron Man we meet him as a womanizing billionaire weapon maker selling to the highest bidder who only ever thinks about himself. By the time we say goodbye to Tony Stark in Endgame he is a committed husband and father, he loves a boy named Peter who has no dad and risks everything for him, and he lays down his life for his friends and the world. Tony’s story arc in the MCU is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and compelling storylines in movie history. And the people now running marvel apparently have no idea why.
Virtue. Tony Stark became a virtuous man. Not a perfect man, but a good man. In fact, every superhero movie worth its salt has presented us with pictures of virtuous people, or people learning to walk in virtue. If you take that out of the story, you don’t have a superhero movie no matter how many super powers and explosions you cram into the story.
Some Superhero movies have flopped just because they are terrible writing and acting, to be sure. But some of what has been attributed to “superhero fatigue” in recent years has nothing to do with people getting tired of superheroes. The waning interest comes from making movies where the so-called heroes are no better than us. They may be more powerful, but that is not the lone thing we need. We need, indeed we deeply crave, someone who is more powerful than us but who is also supremely good.
Why do we love superhero stories? We love them because we live in a world full of injustice. Every day in the news it is more of the same. Somewhere people were senselessly gunned down. Somewhere a child was stolen from his or her family, raped and thrown out like garbage. Somewhere a war grinds on making it impossible for people to just live their lives, get married, and raise their kids in peace. On and on and on. We feel it deeply. Some of us try hard not to look at it because we feel it so deeply and we feel completely impotent to do anything about it.
We need a hero. We long for a hero. But we also want someone who is not just good and willing to stand up against evil, we want someone powerful enough to actually get it done. You see the combination of virtue and power is what is so alluring to billions of people around the world. A superhero is someone who is virtuous (or at least learning to be) and who has the power to stop evil in its tracks. Superheroes don’t need, nor wait upon, bureaucratic and hypocritical governments that take too long or fail to do what is right, they act and they act immediately and for the good. Isn’t that what we all long for? Immediate justice. True justice.
The more recent Marvel movies are showing us that what people don’t want is morally ambiguous heroes. We aren’t tired of the genre, we are weary of mixing immorality with power. We have that already, everyday. It’s called life as we know it. If you insist on dragging our heroes into the depths of vicious behavior, you will lose us. You have not lost our desire for superheroes. Scratch that itch as it should be scratched and we will be back.
Turning back to the game we played, where you picked which character was the better example of a hero, let’s go a little further. Why was it that you and I were able to pick that out so easily? Why was it so obvious to us? I really think that everyone being honest with themselves would pick in the same way you and I did. But why?
It’s almost as if everyone knows that sacrificing yourself for the wellbeing of others is praiseworthy. It’s almost as if everyone knows that justice should be impartial and not a vendetta. It’s almost as if everyone knows that murder is bad, telling the truth is good, and being a responsible person who loves his wife and kids is better than being a jerk who only thinks of himself. Weird. It’s almost as if everyone knows that morally right and wrong behavior exists as an objective category that is true for all people equally.
People always want to deny this, but they affirm it by their own words and deeds and objections all the time. C. S. Lewis was an atheist from the time he was 15 until he was about 30. In his book, Mere Christianity, he wrote,
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”3
In other words, if we recognize the reality of injustice (and we all do) then there must be a perfect standard of justice by which we can compare. In fact, we can see degrees of justice and injustice. Try this on for size. Which is worse:
Failing to return your shopping cart but leaving it behind the car next to you.
Or
Stealing all of your groceries.
Well, they’re both wrong. Both are inconsiderate and hint at a lack of virtue. Dante might have special circles for both kinds of people. But almost everyone would say that the 2nd option is worse than the first. More of us are guilty of 1 than 2 because we believe the second is more egregious and the first less so. Let’s play again. Which is worse:
Speaking badly of your employer around the water cooler.
Or
Lighting your employer’s car on fire, spelling “I quit” with lighter fluid.
Okay, okay. But really, both are wrong and you and I know it. But one is obviously worse and more damaging.
Let me offer two popular analogies that are relevant to moral considerations. Bowling and map making.
If you throw strikes every time you get up in all 10 frames of a bowling match, without fail, you will have 300 points and a perfect game. That is the ideal score that every bowler desires and there is no way to do better than that. So how do you know how well you have done in any particular game of bowling? By comparing your score to the perfect score.
Anything less than 300 points means that your game could have been better. If you are like me…then your game could have been a lot better. But the perfect score is what makes your score meaningful. It is something to aim at, an objective standard of perfection that gives life to the game.
That is what C. S. Lewis meant when he said he realized his ideas about the injustice of the world required a perfect standard of justice. How can we know things are imperfect if we don’t know what perfection looks like?
Map making. Imagine trying to make a map of the United States. If you want to have some fun, take a minute now and draw one out by hand on a piece of paper, from memory.
Maps A, B, and C all have some real struggles, but which is actually closer to the correct map? C is the closest (although humorously misinformed). Again it is the perfect example that allows us to judge the other attempts. So it is with morality. We know things are wrong, that injustice exists, but how? Only because we know there is a perfect morality and we know that it ought to be kept and isn’t.
But what is that standard of perfect virtue and morality? The perfect standard is God himself, the moral lawgiver. If indeed murder and rape is truly wrong and honesty and self sacrifice are truly praiseworthy, then where do we ground those standards? You and I might disagree on a moral issue. So you and I can’t ground morality in ourselves. Whole societies may disagree on moral issues (who was right, Nazi Germany or the Allied forces?), so whole societies cannot ground morality either. If indeed there are moral truths, as we know there are, then those must be grounded in something that is above the level of mankind and which is binding upon us all. God is the only candidate for grounding objective morality. If anything is morally wrong for all people, places and times, or if anything is morally praiseworthy, God must exist as its ground.
If objective moral values exist then God exists.
Objective moral values exist.
Therefore, God exists.
We know there is moral truth, we feel injustice in our bones every day, and so we long for someone who can step in and save the day and administer true and perfect justice. That’s why we crave superheroes. Because we know justice is real and also that it isn’t happening as it should. But this desire points beyond itself. In fact, all universal human desires point us to an end which satisfies them. We hunger because there is food. We thirst because there is water. We crave justice because there is a moral law giver.
Once again I go to C. S. Lewis who wrote,
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
This argument is known as the argument for God from desire. One could formalize the argument like this:
If there is a desire which is found to be a part of the universal human experience then something exists which can satisfy that desire.
There is a universal human desire for justice.
Therefore there is an ideal justice giver.
It is for this very reason that Justice is a central theme in Scripture. The 10 Commandments are the cornerstone summary of God’s law and all legitimate human law must pay it heed. It is this law which God will use to judge the hearts and actions of every last human person who has ever lived when Jesus Christ returns.
The irony is that we all long for justice but that if we received it fully as we are it would destroy us. Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone”4 and yet he also told us “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”5 God’s standards of justice require perfection because he himself is moral perfection. We would not want any other kind of judge and yet we find ourselves falling terribly short of his perfect standard.
In any court of law if the judge looked upon a murderer and thief and simply waved the charges and set him free we would cry “injustice!” And rightly so. But we are all lawbreakers and God is perfectly good. We know the truth about virtue and morality and we demonstrate by our crying out against injustice “how that the work of the law is written on [our] hearts”.6 But it is that same law which condemns us as unjust people. The apostle Paul tells us “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.
We have been lied to and cry foul! But we have lied. We have been stolen from and we cry foul! But we have stolen. We see reckless hate leading to murder and we weep for justice, but we have hated! We will be held to account by the same moral law by which we rightfully condemn others.
We indeed need a superhero. One who can save us from all who do injustice around us, but one who can go beyond all of that and save us from ourselves. We need Jesus.
Two thousand years ago God the Father set into motion phase two of the real universe and he sent his Son into the world to save humanity so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”7 He sent Jesus, who willingly gave up his life for sinners like you and me, to absorb God’s righteous anger towards our sin and injustice. Jesus stood between the Father and the world and he took God’s wrath that we deserve, he took the death we ought to die, and he conquered sin and evil on the cross and he proved it by rising from the dead.
But the story isn’t over. Jesus promised he would return again and when he does he would bring with him a rule of perfect righteousness and the whole world will live alongside perfect justice forever. God will dwell with his people, and injustice will be no more. But we must trust in Jesus to save us lest we meet justice without him and be justly destroyed.
We need a hero. We have one. In the meanwhile, before Jesus returns he has left his church to work in this world, to proclaim the good news of forgiveness of sins to all who believe, and to work for true justice in our land. It is no coincidence that the more a hero looks like a true hero, the more they look like Jesus. We crave superheroes, because we crave Christ.
As we trust in Jesus and follow him we become little heroes of truth and justice in his image.
Connor Sheppard, “The 10 Highest Grossing Movie Franchise of All Time,” IGN, June 10, 2023, https://www.ign.com/articles/highest-grossing-movie-franchises#.
Klein Felt, “The Flash Becomes Worst Box Office Flop in Superhero Movie History,” The Direct, July 6, 2023, https://thedirect.com/article/the-flash-box-office-flop-superhero-movie-history#:~:text=Given%20The%20Flash%27s%20paltry%20box,flop%20in%20superhero%20movie%20history.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
Mark 10:18 (ESV).
Matthew 5:48 (ESV).
Romans 2:15 (ESV). Note: I changed “their” to “our” for the sake of context and bracketed it.
John 3:16
Thanks for your comment! I agree with you about the mystery genre. Have you read Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels? They are my absolute favorite.
I think part of the problem with modern movies in general is they invest so much money and time into crazy explosions and action scenes, the result is almost boring, particularly when coupled with pallid, generic plot lines. As you say, good hero is not simply a guy in tights jumping off buildings.
I’ve never been big on super heroes in general but I have recently realized the dynamic is the same for my beloved mystery genre. I used to feel a bit guilty for my love of Agatha Christie, until I realized that the inevitable and infallible success of her Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot points us to that inevitable (and already won) success of our infallible Lord against all wickedness, evil, and sin. Marple often mentions her unwavering commitment to seeking out truth, while Poirot speaks of his commitment to justice. The only novel of hers I know of where the killer gets away with it, the victims have themselves gotten away with murder but managed to evade justice.
My husband and I have also been watching Walker, Texas Ranger lately and the whole draw of the show (and origin of all great Chuck Norris jokes) is how Walker is so impervious, always ahead of the bad guys, and always gets them in the end. They didn’t need a very fancy budget for that.
We tell stories where evil loses out and good triumphs because as you say, we are wired to desire this.
Even in the silliness of Jeeves and Wooster points to how God, despite all our foolishness, is ever reliable and will make all things right in the end. 😂🙌🏻