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Clark Kent and Ben Grimm as the Jumping off Point of their Respective Universes

So I’ve been thinking a lot about where the morality of Superhero comics have gone in the past 80 years since Action Comics 1, and I think something that’s very interesting about that is how you can see both the DC and Marvel universes having a similar progression, with Marvel simply going through the early stages much faster, and DC somewhat following behind somewhat dragging its feet, somewhat jumping in out of nowhere. But both of them start off with a similar concept: A guy who will always do the right thing. 

 Now ultimately, Clark Kent didn’t really start out perfect, I know that. But the interpretation of him that we all know now is the version of Superman that does things the right way every time. He doesn’t like that he can’t punch Lex Luthor out, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. (You can’t ignore that part of his image comes from being made more like Captain Marvel to compete with him, especially since he was eventually written by Otto Binder.) He’s one of the few Heroes who survived the Comics Code, and those were actually some of the stories where the Big Blue Boyscout is more of a dick. However, for a very long time, the most popular hero in the world is a guy who likes helping people with a smile on his face, and while he has complicated feelings about his place in the world and what his powers mean from a surprisingly early point, there is no truly Morally gray or Black action that defines our boy when he’s in character. 

I feel like before I get into the Ben Grimm introduction there are a few things I should say for clarity. 1. I was named after Ben Grimm, so I have a lot of affection for him and that’ll color this little essay more than I want it to I’m sure. 2. Some people might feel that Captain America is a good fit for this idea, but I disagree. Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely Comics, and he didn’t save his company or change the way that comics were being written in the way the Fantastic Four did. 3. Marvel Comics was different from DC from the moment the Fantastic Four were first published, and that starts off the development I’m getting at. 

The Fantastic Four are at their core an ensemble. They are three interesting, dynamic characters and Johnny Storm, who are a family before they’re a team. The Justice League had worked together for years, but they were still a bunch of Golden Age or Silver Age dudes (and one gal at any given time, maybe two here or there) who all acted like slightly different versions of either Superman or Batman. The Fantastic Four start off with four characters very distinct from each other, and one of them distinct from the rest of comics. 

While Sue Storm became a great character, unfortunately she got the poor treatment most women got in early comics as a woman who’s trait that made her most different was that she was simply not a man. That changes, and not long after she’s introduced there are some small moments where she feels like her own character, but its not for a long time that a writer makes her someone other than a mother figure or Reed’s girlfriend/wife. Reed is interesting early on, and he develops much quicker, but at the start he reads somewhat like the other genius superheros available at DC. 

Ben Grimm was something completely new. For the first time outside of a horror story, a superpower was a curse. The nicest guy in the entire world, the guy who would do the right thing and always help the people he cares about, gets turned into an ugly rock monster. What’s more, in comics to that point the thing (no pun intended) that didn’t look human, was super strong, and spoke like a bad mobster impression? Always the bad guy. Ben Grimm “Talks like dis,” but is a sweetheart who wants people to be safe. How unfair is it that a selfish kid like Johnny gets to have a power that lets him protect himself, shoot fire balls, and fly in a way similar to his company’s grandpa’s company early star? That’s the point. 

Superman can do anything, and he chooses to do the right thing. The world has cursed the Thing, people are afraid of him, and he chooses to do the right thing. Both stories and both characters have a lot of nuance added on by writers joining the narrative over the years but are ultimately that simple. When Superman has the chance to kill Darkseid? He won’t. When Ben has to choose between being human again or helping save the day? That handsome Yancy street mug will have to wait. And just like Superman before him, everyone loves Ben Grimm. 

Ben is a favorite of readers and writers at Marvel for years. He’s similar to Superman in the end result sure, but while Clark is your friendly smiling guy, Ben Grimm’s grumbling all the way. Yeah, he’ll save the world, but then something gets worse. What a revoltin’ development. Its new, its something that hadn’t been seen and people could relate to the guy who it felt like never got a break. So from there, the Fantastic Four are THE BOOK before another one comes along. When Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, or the Avengers as a whole show up? Sorry kids, the Fantastic Four you aint. They’ll handle Galactus, you can handle Count Nefaria. What drops the FF and Ben with readers, is a character pretty similar to him in concept but boldly original in the same way as Ben was when he showed up. Spider-Man.

Ben Grimm is my second favorite Superhero, Spidey’s my first. This isn’t the place to get into it, but just like Ben he has every bad thing that can happen to him happen, and after letting a crook run past him in his origin story, he tries to do what’s right no matter how hard it makes his life from that point on. What sets us on our path with him is when Gwen Stacey dies. Comics can be serious now, superhero comics can be emotional. Most importantly, comics can get dark. 

Gwen Stacy died in 1973 and it sparked a lot of darker storylines in comics trying to follow the leader in some cases, and in others stories that were now free from scrutiny. It’s no real coincidence that Wolverine debuted in 1974. He joined the X-Men in 1975, and hated authority, loved drinking and smoking, and was a violent animal compared to Marvel’s tame roster. I love Wolverine, in fact as a disclaimer, I love every character mentioned so far in this essay. What Wolverine did however, I don’t love so much. 

The careful planning and work that went into Wolverine did not go into the characters that tried to ape his style. Chris Claremont and John Bryne, and later Frank Miller all handled him with care. Your Punishers and your Ghost Riders and your Deadpools don’t have that when they’re introduced. (Punisher was introduced before Wolvie but only as a Spider-Man villain.) There’s suddenly way more guns in comics, or rather way more guns being used by “good guys”. The Anti-Hero is the new Hero. Things get so bad across the X-Men and really almost everywhere else that characters like Lobo pop up, or you have Gail Simone reinventing Deadpool so that someone can make fun of theses characters. Lobo is a parody of the badass tough guy vigilante so over the top it stops being a parody than becomes one again. Deadpool’s a character reinvented to make fun of himself. 

However, all this aside, the other big shift is the graphic novel. Graphic novels were taken as a great opportunity for comics to be taken seriously by the people writing them. Most of the ones in the eighties are like that, very serious, very dark, and luckily very good. Watchmen is spectacular, The Dark Knight Returns is a very good Batman story despite being a bad Superman story, and God Loves Man Kills is a half optimistic half heart breaking story for the X-Men. Readers and critics agree dark is good for comics. 

The Superman of the 40s doesn’t look normal standing next to Azreal or Jason Todd as Red Hood. Ben Grimm seems like an oddity next to Cable and Shatterstar. The good guys are seen as boring by a lot of people, and while we’re lucky that Superman hasn’t fallen to the side, it seemed like Ben Grimm was in danger of just that until a few months ago. Luckily, a lot of newer characters like Moon Girl and Ms Marvel are much brighter, and the DC Rebirth reboot has given us a lot more smiles on the page for Supes, Wonder Woman, Batman, and pretty much every hero really. The right thing might be the right story people want to read again, and that means that for comics’ big two, their moral centers might just get the credit they deserve again. And that’s a hell of a thing.