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Power Fantasies
Ask anyone who doesn’t read comic books what other people like about comic books, and you’ll often hear: “They’re a power fantasy.” Take a cliché: the class runt comes home from a day of getting beaten by the bullies, reads a superhero comic, and dreams about putting on tights and throwing buses at everyone he despises. Complex problems turn into concrete objects, and then you smash ‘em. And so the bigger the wham-bam, the better.
But take a look at two recent superhero games – the much-loved Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the braindead beat-em-‘up Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - and you’ll see it’s not that simple. The Marvel game is a straight-up power fantasy: you pick from a couple of dozen superheroes and use them to beat the Christ out of everything in your path. From the gameplay to the narrative design, it’s a game where your might makes you right.
Batman: Arkham Aslyum is subtler, because as you know if you’ve followed Batman in the last thirty years, the hero of the game is almost as cracked as the antagonists he locked up. Batman’s worst enemy is himself. Well, if you go by the gameplay, it’s Poison Ivy, but let’s stick to the script: the game touches on the death of his parents, the lunacy of his behavior, his doubts about his sanity. In one scene Batman, hopped up on hallucinogens, watches himself crawling around on all fours or gibbering like a mental patient: these are his inner demons, the man he’d become if he crumbled. And his real victory in the game doesn’t come when he clobbers the Joker – that was a gimme – but when he turns down the body-building, mind-altering drug that might’ve helped him. And so he ducks the loony bin again.
Sure, it’s still a beat-‘em-up: the game is never better than when you’re swinging fists through a pack of hoodlums who can barely fight back. But it’s more than a power fantasy, which is why I liked it. As a young comic nut, I didn’t just read the straight-up superheroes. I always dug the mutants, the displaced teens, the people who hated their powers. Just in the X-Men franchise, Rogue can’t touch another person’s skin; Magik survived a childhood abduction, trapped by a man who both mentored and abused her; and Phoenix was a suicide. Yes, they bust stuff up, too – but they’re much more engaging than a simple power fantasy. After all, sometimes you hate your bullies – and sometimes you just hate yourself. 
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 doesn’t get that. The game spins off Marvel’s recent Civil War storyline, where the superheroes of the Marvel universe fought each other over whether they should submit to government regulation, or keep acting like reckless vigilantes. That’s an interesting conflict, because we get to choose between two sides that both want to do the right thing. The comics themselves were kinda so-so – they choked through the revelations and surprise cameos and cooked-up crossovers that you expect from these comic “events” – but they’re practically Hemingway next to the game.
In MUA2’s story (and watch for spoilers), Iron Man and Captain America begin feuding and you get to take a side. But by the third act, they’re back together again to fight a common – very common – enemy: a nanotech hive-mind abetted by a c-list supervillain with no motives to speak of. All those conflicted superheroes just go back to being heroes again, and the character with the shakiest position – Nick Fury – never resolves it. You never argue with Fury about his choices; by the time you get to him, he’s morphed into a kind of Mecha-Nick Fury, and instead of pounding sense into him, you just beat the ‘bots out of him. The moral: “Why can’t we all just get along?”
But if I’m making fun of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, that’s not to say Batman: Arkham Aslyum’s story is anything special. The set-up’s contrived, the script just strings together everything we already know about Batman, and anyway, I’m not convinced the “unstable hero” angle has legs. I mean, for how long can anybody be unstable?
Still, the game works because it gives us a character who’s worth our imagination. When I look back at the comics that fascinated me as a kid, and the characters that really caught my imagination, I don’t see anything in the text or the images that I could point to that would necessarily make you feel the way I did. Comic – and game – characters leave room for the imagination. We don’t need to see their inner lives spelled out. We just need a reason to believe they have one.
Chris Dahlen writes about games, music, pop, and tech. You can find him online at @savetherobot, or drop him a line at chris [at] savetherobot.com.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
On the subject of power fantasies, it's one of the reasons why 100 Bullets is such a good comic - probably my all time favourite. The whole conceit and how it's at odds because the power, if used, is a massive transgression that never turns out to be as transparent as it seemed. I love the way that the power doesn't actually satisfy the reason why those who are given it need power - the apparently consequence free gun and evidence actually destroy certainties and so seldom works as revenge, redemption, or resolution. That and it's a twisty, beautifully told and visualised story that's just so compelling and involving.
I'm terrified at the thought of it being turned into a game - the first attempt was canned, I think, and I've not heard anything more of the next attempt. It's the kind of thing that just shouldn't get made until games can handle the kind of complexity (and morality) that's yet to be meaningfully implemented.
By the way, I owe a shout-out to the comic store that's keeping me in great books and that also appeared in my "Zero Sum Pinball" column: Jetpack Comics in Rochester, NH (http://www.jetpackcomics.com/). Unlike most comic book stores where the customers are creepy and the owner wishes you weren't even there, Jetpack is a real asset to the community and a great place to shop.
Ok, now let's look at the subtlety in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and the civil war.
writer Mark Millar says of it:
"The political allegory is only for those that are politically aware. Kids are going to read it and just see a big superhero fight"
Or look at the conflict between Ironman and Captain America. Why those two? You are familiar with their characters yes? They are both heroes that represent America specifically.
Captain America is obvious, he fought nazis. He is the American ideal of Freedom. Interesting you mention drugs, because Captain America is a product of American sports medicine, because that's what it takes to crush the enemies of America. He also shoots people too, with bullets. Batman he is not.
Why is Ironman his rival? Ironman is the Hero of American Capitalism. While the Captain is a product of WW2, Ironman first armored himself in the Vietnam War. Like Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark is a very wealthy man. Tony Stark used his money to build a suit that lets him fly and shoot punch-lasers from his palms. Batman throws bat-shaped boomerangs.
Different wars, different ideals, yet both are Americans. They come into conflict with one another
but... what you describe a c-list generic villain springing up out of nowhere, dismissing "why can't we all get along" as a brainless message... what it shows is that Americans, from different eras with different values, are still fellow Americans, and will protect their country together, no matter what. The villain is merely a vessel to show these American Heroes what they truly value and cherish.
I didn't need captain america having flashbacks strangling nazis with a bald eagle or Tony Stark snorting gold dollars to understand who they are. I knew who these characters are, and I used that imagination you mentioned.
Ultimate Alliance is made for comic book fans. I don't need Iron Fists's backstory fisted into my brainal rectum to know who he is or know his motivation, the sheer joy of a c-lister being playable is enough fun.
It's like playing with action figures. I liked playing with action figures as a kid, using my imagination.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: is getting a box of 90 action figures to play with, that is really awesome.
You're totally right about the action figures. (In fact, Batman in AA is a LOT like an action figure - he's totally stiff and impassive until suddenly you start banging him into things.) If MUA 2 had 90 action figures I'd love it, but I only got 20-some playable ones to choose from.
I don't disagree with anything about what you said about the Cap'n and Iron Man - that's a great analysis. But the comics handled Civil War with far more depth than the game, where their disagreement in Act 2 just wraps up in time to fight the bad guy, and at the end, they agree to a softened version of the superhero registration. In the comics, one side wins and the other side loses big - and the winning side is losing now, too. I don't want to praise the comics simply for having more plot twists, but they're taking the idea farther than the game, and never feel as pat. I wouldn't argue that Batman: Arkham Asylum is high art - but even the Joker fight's not quite as dumb as Mecca-Nick Fury.
One other complaint: the incidental dialogue in MUA 2 is really, really horrible. I mean, I'm not saying that I would be able to think up 10 interesting things for Captain Marvel to say. But the one-liners are so corny, out-of-character - and poorly acted! Favorites: Songbird: "Let's hear it for the ladies!" Wolverine: "Don't mess with the old Canuckle-head." And the best of all, Daredevil (who, for noobs, is blind) saying, "You should've seen that coming." Getting my ass kicked by Dagger was fun. But as a comic fan, listening to that stuff was even worse than watching X-Men 3 again.
>>Batman: Arkham Aslyum is subtler
>>In one scene Batman, hopped up on hallucinogens, watches himself crawling around on all fours or gibbering like a mental patient:
Subtlety= Batman on drugs, crawling around babbling like a 'mental patient' (arkham ASYLUM, GET IT???)
>>but when he turns down the body-building, mind-altering drug that might’ve helped him.
"HEY BATMAN WANT TO TAKE DRUGS IT MAKE U STRONG"
"NO! DRUGS BAD!"
"WOW BATMAN SO MORALITY"
this is subtlety?
What you've done is traded the honesty of UA's power fantasy to Batman's Superiority fantasy. Batman:AA bashes into your head "yeah, you got INNER DEMONS, you got MOTIVATION: your PARENTS are DEAD, GARGOYLES EVERYWHERE"
>>We don’t need to see their inner lives spelled out
we don't need to?
>>because as you know if you’ve followed Batman in the last thirty years, the hero of the game is almost as cracked as the antagonists he locked up.
>>the death of his parents, the lunacy of his behavior, his doubts about his sanity.
>> I always dug the mutants, the displaced teens, the people who hated their powers. Just in the X-Men franchise, Rogue can’t touch another person’s skin; Magik survived a childhood abduction, trapped by a man who both mentored and abused her; and Phoenix was a suicide.
You say that, but you then give a detailed account of all the inner struggles of heroes you love.
>>characters leave room for the imagination.
but in this article you love the 'dictate everything this person has done and is feeling' ala Batman:AA, and when room is left it is 'brainless'
You do not need a brain to play Batman:AA. You can mash attack and win all battles. There is a "Please solve this for me mode" where Batman's X-ray vision tells you what to do. What B:AA DOES do is make you feel powerful and Batmannish with little effort (you do not need to be as skilled or clever as batman, you just point him where the bright flashing glowing objects are x-rayed)
Take this cliché: the class runt comes home from a day of getting beaten by the bullies, reads a superhero comic, goes and meets other super hero comic lovers but needs to feel superior to them so he then tells the other runts their heroes suck and his is better and deeper because he has tortured inner demons and complex issues and hates himself because of the deep scars and inner demons that have deeply scarred and he is fighting the badguys but fights badguys so hard he is almost badguy and walking razor edge between badguy fighter and badguy!! So deep.
Civil War was actually a storyline that I genuinely looked forward to reading, despite the flaws. So I'm quite let down by the game being presented with a brilliant premise, and not running with it.
The story worked because neither side was right or wrong, it was simply a matter of perspective. So to finish the game with a simple matter of the good guys being good and the bad guys being bad seems to have missed the point entirely.
I agree, and I've gotta hand it to Marvel that after the cheap crossover events I grew up with - namely Secret War and then Secret War II, which pretty much ended my comic book habit for a long, long time - they've done a good job of architecting these big stories and continuing them into each other. Civil War impresses me more now that I can see how it feeds into Secret Invasion and Dark Reign. And some of the Dark Reign spin-offs and tie-ins have actually been pretty interesting; I liked Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men, though may not enough to spend $4 on them every month.