Sept 2025 "Hope core: Super-heros In The Age of Now" by Julie Calvert

Today, we are faced with famine, genocide, and war–a political hellscape. The news, fiction, and climate around us have darkened, and it perpetuates the sense of hopelessness we all feel… This situation reminds me of America post-WWII–torn and dismayed; a cultural identity lost. However, from those ashes arose various new forms of art, literature, and philosophy. In particular, I think of superheroes. And in that particularity, of this day and age, I think of James Gunn’s Superman (2025) and Doom Patrol.

Superheroes, from the start, reflected the values of a herculean hero. My experience with the golden age of comics may be limited, but we have all seen clippings of Superman falling to the use of kryptonite… but just when all is lost, he prevails. That is hope prevailing, purely, wholeheartedly. Now, I cannot say when DC and Marvel all collectively decided to focus on the inherent darkness of a superhero's backstory. (Perhaps we can blame Alan Moore in the 80s.) I think perhaps it was all an attempt to make comics seem 'serious' and appealing to a more mature audience; however, I think it is ridiculous to feel the need to add the most appallingly dark villains to claim something has 'value' and is a legitimate form of literature, film, or simply as a text. The success of James Gunn's Superman (2025) proves that, and the failure of Zack Snyder's

2025's version of the MAN OF STEEL

(2013) equally proves it. Presently, the masses are worn thin from art reviling in the darkness; we all just want something positive. I think the only people who might argue otherwise are 16-year-olds who slam the door on their parents, crying out, 'You'll never understand!' Too many people used to think that cynicism and negativity equated intellect and seriousness… (How grateful I am that our generation grew up.) Gunn's Superman isn't a story focusing on Superman's "depressing" origin as an alien on Earth. It isn't about his shortcomings to humanize him in a way that makes him seem 'normal'. What it is, however, is a story of good triumphing over evil–a story where a space alien is just as human as we are, because he gets scared too. I think we all needed Gunn's Superman–we all needed that hope.

  Now, not to jump the Gunn, but this past summer I went and saw My Chemical Romance live at Oracle Park, San Francisco. It was a phenomenal, life-altering experience. Not only was I at a concert for one of my favorite bands, but I was also within 100 meters of Gerard Way, who wrote two of my favorite comics of all time! Now, if you know anything about Way, you know that he is a very positive person–that positivity, and his general optimistic demeanor, is particularly important when you know how he struggled with not only depression, but also addiction. (He is also probably the funniest musician in the history of rock’n’roll.)

All of this, of course, makes him the perfect candidate to write his own run of DC’s Doom Patrol. If you asked me what Doom Patrol is, I’d probably shrug my shoulders and say something cheesy like ‘love’. The thing about Doom Patrol, though, is that they are the original ragtag team of misfit freaks, whose powers come from traumatic experiences. They hide away, they feel like monsters, but they want to do good. In the late 1980s, Scottish author Grant Morrison picked up the comic and made it what it is known as today.

It carries mature notes, dealing with things like sexuality, gender, and trauma; however, it is hilarious, and even delightfully satirical at times. Morrison’s development of his villains subverts expectations of previous foes superheroes face. It is delightfully humorous and profound in its exploration of identity after trauma. Gerard Way, with his humor and his life experiences, was thus a perfect candidate to pick up Morrison’s torch. “The Doom Patrol was the first superhero team I ever saw participate in a group therapy session. In fact, the scene, in issue #35 of Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s run, was the first time I had seen anyone in group therapy–something I probably would have benefited from later in life,” Way recalls in his ‘Backward’. Doom Patrol, to me, is the perfect combination of adult themes and absurd humor – the perfect way to illuminate absurdity while shining light on love, hope, and family.