Are the "mob" villains still useful?

[Ascended]

I don't think so, or at least that's not how I meant it. I'm asking as Superman, his stories, and his villains including these, are being written by writers now and frankly in a long time, and in how all this is likely to track as far as what most writers' interests are when writing Superman stories, do they still serve a purpose?

Not reading the whole discussion, but for my two cents....

Yeah, the mob villains still serve a function. Bendis used them in the not-to-distant past. And isn't the CW show using Intergang right now? The new Superman cartoon did a riff on Intergang too, and I think the subplot of who's pulling those strings is still hanging? If you wanna look back a little further, we also saw mobsters in the 90's cartoon. I feel like they're around. Maybe at the edges but they're around.

Modern writers don't seem to use the mob very often it's true, but they're somewhat out of fashion aren't they? I don't see a lot of mobsters in any of my fiction these days. At least not in prominent roles. Daredevil is off fighting demon ninja cults or something (I need to catch up there) and Batman is fighting his own super robots across the multiverse or some such weirdness. Arrow's jumping timelines and screwing around with Waller. Bludhaven had Blockbuster, but he died at what, the end of the first year? Granted, my pull list skews towards the high concept stuff like Thor, Supes, GL, etc., so maybe I'm missing some good mob stories?

Feels to me like we're more likely to see corrupt businessmen or politicians, or radicalized /domestic/ terrorists these days, at least as far as 'real-world villain proxies' go. Maybe the idea of the mob just seems a little too....quaint?.....to be a big scary villain right now, when government itself is being eaten by conmen, and mobsters look honorable and reasonable compared to the lunatics shooting up schools.

But I feel like Intergang, at least, still has a minor but fairly consistent presence in the Superverse. And I think I saw some scans of a Williamson issue with Red Cloud? I dunno if that was just a 'random bad guy' thing or if it might be hinting at more but I feel like the invisible mafia would fit Williamson's run real smoothly.

[Kuwagaton]

Good points. Though almost every Golden Age superhero was built on punching gangsters, so a lot it for Superman specifically is just the shift to Superman becoming more and more a sci-fi superhero fighting aliens, mad scientists, monsters, giant monsters, etc. Changing with the changing conventions of science fiction as Golden became Silver and different media reinforced all the increased sci-fi bent, etc.

(Batman might have ended up a mostly sci-fi hero too, but just enough different forces in and out of comics kept him from remaining that way, forces came in to gradually ground or reground his stories again, Denny O'Neil, etc)

I meant to bring up that in addition to coming before all the others, Superman had the idea of a man who couldn't be worked over by the butt of a pistol, slapjack, punch in the stomach, or even a bullet. For all the people who point out that the Golden age Superman was technically weak, he was really as proportionately strong as any other Superman, if not stronger. So it was interesting to see how the stories could still capture the imagination by literally just punching out the mob

[Jim Kelly]

While I like the Superman Revenge Squad, I also like their Earthbound equivalent, the Anti-Superman Gang. It strikes me, they were a continuation of perhaps the earliest gang--the League to Destroy Superman which was a long running serial in the syndicated newspaper strip--March 10th - November 15th, 1941. Individual members of the League (most notably the Blonde Tigress) sought to destroy Superman.

What's great about this concept is that it can never be defeated (as with the Anti-Superman Gang), since there will always be new gangsters that think they can take down the Man of Steel and will try some new scheme to do so. Given stories should be about characters as much as about plots, it's a great way to explore different personality types within a super-hero comic book.

[The Overlord]

Yes, writers and editors don't seem to find organized crime figures to be of much use in Superman comics, even if fans still do. We should all note that Lex operates or functions a lot like an organized crime figure though, it's just that he doesn't fit all those conventions like others do and we fans don't want to view Lex though that lens since he's Superman archenemy and whatnot. So it's possible Lex sort of cannibalizes the usefulness of mob figures in the eyes of writers and editors.

Yeah, but if Lex is the king of corruption in Metropolis, guys like Bruno or Moxie Mannheim would be the dukes and barons of corruption. Lex cannot weave a web of corruption across Metropolis by himself, he needs helpers and allies. Lex would want to put as much distance between himself and his crimes as possible, that's what Intergang is good for. Intergang can dump toxic waste or break strikes or whatever, so Lex wouldn't have to.

Metropolis is not a failed city like Gotham is, but it would still have massive structural problems if someone like Lex has massive influence over it. The underworld should be more stable in Metropolis than Gotham because Lex is the king of the city, he wants a stable underworld to do his bidding and not create chaos on the streets. Intergang is the middle management of evil, not the most glamorous job, but someone has to do it.

I can't believe I still have to keep saying this - I never asked that, and when I say filler I don't mean low stakes stories - Superman fighting low stakes villains like mobsters/gangsters is not filler. Smashes the Klan had him fight racists and that's not filler. It's all about treatment and execution. No one wants filler because filler is boring effortless trash stories. But many people love lower stakes more personal/intimate slice of life stories, because that's not the same as filler.



Except that these villains don't usually build out Metropolis or give more use to the supporting cast. That's what you want these villains to be used for, that's how you think they should be used, but when are they actually used that way?



Spectacular Spider-Man right? Awesome show, does the mob villains like Hammerhead and Tombstone right, but also isn't Superman and his rogues.



That's not what I'm asking - never have I asked are they exciting. I asked if they're still useful if writers seemingly never want to use them, or when they do have no interest in using their potential beyond schlubs Superman deals with quickly early on before leading to Darkseid or whatever. Very different question.

Perhaps you are not being as clear as you could be if several people have missed your meaning.

Also, it seems extremely limiting to discuss whether these mobster villains serve if purpose if you are not willing to discuss ideas presented here on how they could be used better.

[godisawesome]

I’m of the opinion that Metropolis should feel like it’s wobbling on a knives edge between vaguely-utopic “City of Tomorrow” and outright cyberpunk dystopia; the Brainiac 13 era leaned heavily on that, and I sort of think that such a cool idea should have been preserved or even fine tuned.

[Kuwagaton]

One of the most succinct points to be made about a big city setting is that all of the things that make life attractive and easy will go both ways so long as they exist.

I miss the upgraded Metropolis as it really leaned into the fictional aspect of the setting while being more a more reasonable translation than say, Mega City One.

[exile001]

I’m of the opinion that Metropolis should feel like it’s wobbling on a knives edge between vaguely-utopic “City of Tomorrow” and outright cyberpunk dystopia; the Brainiac 13 era leaned heavily on that, and I sort of think that such a cool idea should have been preserved or even fine tuned.

I miss the upgraded Metropolis as it really leaned into the fictional aspect of the setting while being more a more reasonable translation than say, Mega City One.

I never understood why they reverted the city. It seemed like a perfect place for a Superman to live, gave license for more crazy Sci-Fi upgrades to even common thugs, and elevated the city into a character in and of itself.

[Jim Kelly]

I guess I'm not in with the in-crowd, because I don't like the souped-up Metropolis. I like it to be an ordinary big city--a slightly cleaned-up version of Manhattan. Probably because I grew up watching the George Reeves Superman and reading the 1960s and 1970s comic books. I enjoyed Clark taking the bus to work and interacting with regular people in the city. What I imagine Cary Bates, Elliot Maggin and Julie Schwartz drew from their own experience living in a big city and going to work in a tall office building.

I'd say that most things in the Superman comics should be regular. This is to offer a sharp contrast with the Man of Tomorrow himself. It shouldn't be a City of Tomorrow. There shouldn't be all kinds of costumed super-powered people flying around the city. They shouldn't have a Science Police with futuristic weapons. It should be a city like most cities, with organized crime, social problems, unions going on strike, dirty politics.

When everything is super, what is so super about Superman?

If you want all that futuristic stuff surrounding Clark, there's always the 30th century, Rann, Warworld, Thanagar, Supertown. The Caped Kryptonian can go off and have wild adventures on those weird worlds, but at the end of the day, he should return to 344 Clinton Street, click on the 11 O'Clock News and keep up his stamp collection.

[marhawkman]

I guess I'm not in with the in-crowd, because I don't like the souped-up Metropolis. I like it to be an ordinary big city--a slightly cleaned-up version of Manhattan. Probably because I grew up watching the George Reeves Superman and reading the 1960s and 1970s comic books. I enjoyed Clark taking the bus to work and interacting with regular people in the city. What I imagine Cary Bates, Elliot Maggin and Julie Schwartz drew from their own experience living in a big city and going to work in a tall office building.

I'd say that most things in the Superman comics should be regular. This is to offer a sharp contrast with the Man of Tomorrow himself. It shouldn't be a City of Tomorrow. There shouldn't be all kinds of costumed super-powered people flying around the city. They shouldn't have a Science Police with futuristic weapons. It should be a city like most cities, with organized crime, social problems, unions going on strike, dirty politics.

When everything is super, what is so super about Superman?

If you want all that futuristic stuff surrounding Clark, there's always the 30th century, Rann, Warworld, Thanagar, Supertown. The Caped Kryptonian can go off and have wild adventures on those weird worlds, but at the end of the day, he should return to 344 Clinton Street, click on the 11 O'Clock News and keep up his stamp collection.

When I think of the traditional take on Metropolis, I think back to Max Fleischer. It felt like a "near future" sort of sci-fi where it's trying to guess, in an optimistic way, what things will be like a decade or two from now.

[The Overlord]

Yeah. I think making Metropolis too high-tech is a bit too much, I think comic books usually work better if you have a few fantastical elements, but making the rest of the world fairly normal, rather than having the entire setting be a super fantastical Earth.

I actually think it would be fun for Superman to go into a dive bar and have to question some gangsters to get info, it could be fun having Superman have to deal with stuff that people normally associate with Batman and handle it differently.

[charliehustle415]

Intergang was a great way to show off Clark's deductive skills by him going undercover because you can't always punch bad guys you gotta prove they're bad guys.

They were done real justice in Timm's animated series. There was a arc where there was a plot to kill Lois and Clark had to figure it out. Great stuff

[Vakanai]

Perhaps you are not being as clear as you could be if several people have missed your meaning.

Perhaps, but I've since clarified multiple times. Feel more like it's less about clarity and more a difference in what people want to discuss, as you illustrate:

Also, it seems extremely limiting to discuss whether these mobster villains serve if purpose if you are not willing to discuss ideas presented here on how they could be used better.

Disagree - I don't care to discuss how they could bee used better, because it's unrelated to my question, least as I've clarified it. Do they currently serve a purpose or have they recently served a purpose (say in the last decade) as written now? The answer seems to have been given by people constantly stating their wishes for how these characters should be written, but that's just a different discussion entirely. Please, feel free to start that thread, I'd be interested in reading it. But that's just not this thread.

[magha_regulus]

I guess I'm not in with the in-crowd, because I don't like the souped-up Metropolis. I like it to be an ordinary big city--a slightly cleaned-up version of Manhattan. Probably because I grew up watching the George Reeves Superman and reading the 1960s and 1970s comic books. I enjoyed Clark taking the bus to work and interacting with regular people in the city. What I imagine Cary Bates, Elliot Maggin and Julie Schwartz drew from their own experience living in a big city and going to work in a tall office building.

I'd say that most things in the Superman comics should be regular. This is to offer a sharp contrast with the Man of Tomorrow himself. It shouldn't be a City of Tomorrow. There shouldn't be all kinds of costumed super-powered people flying around the city. They shouldn't have a Science Police with futuristic weapons. It should be a city like most cities, with organized crime, social problems, unions going on strike, dirty politics.

When everything is super, what is so super about Superman?

If you want all that futuristic stuff surrounding Clark, there's always the 30th century, Rann, Warworld, Thanagar, Supertown. The Caped Kryptonian can go off and have wild adventures on those weird worlds, but at the end of the day, he should return to 344 Clinton Street, click on the 11 O'Clock News and keep up his stamp collection.

I agree with this for the beginning of his time as Superman, but I think these sorts of changes do a lot to show Superman's impact on his world. I see it as Metroplis' reaction to Superman's presence over the years (especially in the case of what they are trying to do with Steel).

[Jim Kelly]

I agree with this for the beginning of his time as Superman, but I think these sorts of changes do a lot to show Superman's impact on his world. I see it as Metroplis' reaction to Superman's presence over the years (especially in the case of what they are trying to do with Steel).

I've thought about that. Unfortunately, I've spent many hours of my life thinking about that--when maybe I should have been thinking about how to solve climate change or world hunger. And I was going to post about it in my previous post but I edited that out. I realized it was no good to go down that road.

If you start to think about the implications of fantasy it all starts to come apart. The existence of aliens would completely change our world beyond all recognition. Or knowing for certain that God, Jesus, all the angels actually exist as a scientific fact and not just as a matter of faith would completely overthrow the world order. Or knowing that vampires are real would mean that the supernatural (including God etc.) is all real--why aren't vampires the most religious of anyone given they have proof that a certain faith is absolutely right?

It's all too much. And not in the good way that George Harrison sang about. It's too unwieldy to deal with in a story where we just need aliens because that's the easy way to create a super-hero. It was never intended to be more than that. It was either that Superman came from the future or he came from a futuristic planet and they settled on the futuristic planet. It's just the excuse to explain why he has abilities far beyond those of ordinary men. It was never supposed to open the door to so many other implications that completely change the reality of the story.