Are Kid Superheroes A Morally Reprehensible Concept?

[Adam Allen]

If you're concerned with the moral implications of how it translates to the real world, then superheroes are a wrong idea. I would never support vigilantes running around employing violence in the streets, in real life. I love the Punisher as a fictional character, but anyone trying to do that in real life would be the exact opposite of a hero.

Kid superheroes are okay because, in the fiction of superheroes, the underlying narrative is essentially that the heroes/good will triumph over the villains/evil. This is also why violence in superhero stories gets a pass as far as morality goes -- in a superhero story, any violence on the part of the good guys is always ultimately to the greater good -- unlike real life violence, which is nowhere near as clean-cut.

Put another way, superhero stories are not meant to encourage the audience to literally put on a costume and go engage in some vigilante violence. We are meant to understand that part is just action/entertainment. The moral message is meant to be encouragement to act with virtue -- that, if you act with virtue, you will make the world a better place. Given this, yeah, it's totally fine to have kid characters be a part of that message.

[kjn]

Put another way, superhero stories are not meant to encourage the audience to literally put on a costume and go engage in some vigilante violence. We are meant to understand that part is just action/entertainment. The moral message is meant to be encouragement to act with virtue -- that, if you act with virtue, you will make the world a better place. Given this, yeah, it's totally fine to have kid characters be a part of that message.

I'd go even further than that.

By externalising the fantasy of crime fighting and violence, superhero comics served to strengthen the ideas that those things are not for you and me, but better left to specialists. They can be said to romanticise the private justice of old, in the same way that the old landed was romanticised in the 19th century fiction while they in actuality were stripped of their old powers and priviliges.