This post originally appeared on the Something Awful forums.
Introduction: Goku is more popular than Superman
Superman’s problem is that, at least right now, he does not resonate on a deep level with anyone under the age of 30. I mean, sure, it can be fun to go out and see the latest Superman movie at the movie theater, but Supes himself is not what he used to be. Per comichron.com, 823,829 copies of “Adventures of Superman”, Superman’s primary monthly ongoing, were paid for in 1965. In 2014, Superman’s primary monthly ongoing sold only 97,166 copies. Almost everyone has some sort of fictional world that was very influential on them in their formative years. The kind of thing that, even with all its flaws exposed, still evokes feelings of happiness, even affection. While I don’t have raw data on this assumption like I did for the sales figures, I’m going to say that the number of people who feel a closeness with the Dragonball franchise is much larger than the number of people who feel the same for the Superman franchise.
Why? Thesis: Superman is less appealing to modern audiences than Goku because of two unfortunate flaws: first, his core qualities are tied to a presentation that is not as appealing or relevant to modern audiences; second, there are huge pressures preventing any change to the fundamental aspects of Superman’s presentation.
Why was Superman so popular?
I’m going to discuss the presentation of Superman’s core qualities vs. the presentation of Goku’s core qualities and why Goku’s presentation is more suited to modern readers’ than Superman’s. I say “presentation” because at their core, they are both very similar characters – many people who have made more superficial comparisons than then one I’m attempting right here have cited Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” so you can probably just google “Goku Superman monomyth.” Some people complain that music producers have managed to engineer repetitive pop music that prods your brain into liking it even though each song has the same beats – to which I say c’mon, son, we figured that out for narratives like 5000 years ago. There’s just something that makes our brain squirt dopamine when it comes to stories about people who are somehow special or powerful in some way who fight enemies who are just as powerful as they are and in doing so showcase the best of both themselves and what we value as humanity.
So since the obligatory “how are they alike” paragraph is out of the way, let’s talk about the differences.
Why was Superman so popular to begin with?
Superman’s first appearance was in 1933, right in the middle of the Great Depression, meaning he provided a power fantasy to powerless readers. His outfit was familiar to his initial audience as it was designed to resemble that of a circus strongman. Buying a comic book in those days was relatively cheap, and it was one of the most affordable forms of entertainment in terms of both monetary cost and time. Alternative forms of home entertainment: books (this is also the golden age of the pulp novel) and radio (though in 1930 only 40% of Americans even had a radio – would be 90% in 1940). Through the middle of the 20th century, comics were the ideal form of entertainment for kids – portable, inexpensive, and, very importantly, due to their episodic nature, easy to discuss with friends. You could be working class, middle class, or maybe even rich, and still enjoy a Superman Comic. There’s another component of Superman’s presentation that I don’t see discussed as much as I believe the topic warrants. Superman is not only a heroic selfless character (as any character following the monomyth pattern would be), Superman is also a moral authority. The Comics Code Authority, whose standards were in use from the 50s to sometime 20-30 years ago, ensured that Superman would never behave in any way short of upstanding, but even independent from that, Superman is the unassailable arbiter of right and wrong – Lois and Jimmy behave like a petulant children and Superman gently scolds them and saves them from their own poor decisions. Supergirl and Krypto look to Superman as the “father” of their Super-family. For a child inundated with Cold War scaremongering, I imagine that having a strong authority figure to look up to would have been quite comforting.
What made Supes less fun?
Jumping forward to after the fall of the iron curtain, a lot of these qualities aren’t just neutral, they’re downright unattractive. “What’s the deal with superheroes wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants!” is like the “What’s the deal with airplane food!” of preteen humor. I don’t know many people whose parents made a habit of taking them to the circus. Weirdly enough, I actually did go to the circus often as a kid (it was always in town right around my birthday) and I remember most of the acts being built around death-defying stunts and/or animals. I guess strong guys aren’t that interesting to go see IRL now that you can watch ’em on ESPN or something. So to modern kids Supes’ look is just “the established superhero look,” with no real rhyme or reason, and certainly no connection to the real world. Nobody short of a fan at a convention would want to actually go around wearing that getup. Comic books are also not a great form of entertainment for a kid. They’re pretty expensive and you have to wait a month between each issue. Even worse, they have a high barrier to entry in terms of getting up to speed with the story and characters. You could, as I did, pick up an issue of Wonder Woman in 1996, find it peppered with footnotes, and not know what the hell was going on. That means even if you did manage to get into Superman comics as a preteen in the 90s, who are you going to talk about the latest issue with? Most of your friends aren’t going have the funds or patience required to get up to speed. And then the biggest stumbling block for a preteen kid just looking to have fun, this horror, brought to us in the 80s and “perfected” in the 90s – the company-wide crossover. To get what’s happening with Supes, you have to also buy 5 other comic books. Actually following a modern ongoing is the domain of either adults or the children of the middle class.
OK, but that’s just the comic – what about the character itself, featured in several cartoons in the last two decades. That brings me back to how Superman is the quintessential paternal authority figure. Even in his 90s cartoon, Superman doesn’t get tired and lash out in anger. Superman doesn’t act selfishly in a weak moment. In the Justice League series, Superman is a senior member of the League and acts in part as its moral center. His best moment in all of these cartoons is his famous “world of cardboard” speech where he discusses how he HAS to be perfect all the time because if he makes one little fuckup, he could kill someone. It’s a fascinating moment of pathos, but nobody can hear that speech and think, “yes, that is me! I can be like that!”
Superman is your dad. In many cases, Superman is a fond childhood figure TO your dad. Supes IS the establishment. And we dont’ like the establishment around these parts. (“No, fuck YOU dad.”)
Why is Goku so popular?
So let’s talk about Goku now. We like to joke about how Goku is the world’s worst father, but in a way that reveals part of his appeal. Does YOUR Dad act like Goku? I should fucking hope not. So weirdly, even though Supes isn’t a father in most of the known versions of his franchise and Goku is, Goku doesn’t read as this paternal figure who’s gonna come and tell you to pick up your goddamn room and write a thank-you letter to Grandma. I’ve read a lot of people who said Goku taught them bravery or that, in a weird mutation of WWJD, they ask themselves “What would Goku do?” but I have never read someone say “Goku was the father I never had.” (And I have read people say that of Optimus Fucking Prime of all people…robots.) Goku’s just a simple guy who does what he thinks is right, but he’s sometimes selfish (eats all of Roshi’s prize money away), sometimes careless (see beginning scenes where he somehow loses track of the whereabouts of his 4-year-old son), and every now and then commits a social faux pas (talking to everyone, even Gods and Kings, like a hick). He is more or less the best we can realistically aspire to – we’ll never be perfect, but we can try to do our best to be courageous. Who can hope to emulate Superman’s perfection?
Goku’s costume is relatable as well. Goku wears a gi. Gis are fuckin’ cool. If I had one I would wear that shit out to the park.
Oh yeah and the violence. Preteens love violence, or at least the sense that there are consequences to what they’re watching (lol violence has no consequences in the world of comics) DBZ is more violent than the Justice League cartoon and it’s a fuckload more violent than the comics of the 50s and 60s. Maybe on par with the 1985 comics and forward, but that brings me back to continuity.
Yes, DBZ is a linear story and isn’t episodic, but it is a hell of a lot easier to enter as a beginner than any given Superman issue of the last several decades. Hell, most of us started out never having seen Dragonball. You got these seemingly random characters like Yamcha or Chaotzu, but there’s never a plot twist that hinges on knowing some obscure fact about them from years ago. You can watch DBZ at home, then go chat with your friends about it and argue about power levels. Watching DBZ is affordable. You just need a TV and maybe cable (although I believe when it aired in some countries, you didn’t even need that!) You don’t need to get your parents to drive you to a store or buy you a subscription. You can enjoy DBZ independently, even if you’re a kid. If you’re a preteen you can nerd out about DBZ with your friends even if your friends are poorer than yourself. Full disclosure, I am a comics nerd, but not a single one of my IRL friends is. I’ve got no one IRL with whom I can share the joy that is Blue Beetle. I’ve turned to drugs and the internet to dull the pain.
Alternate explanations for Supes’ waning popularity
Q: If Superman doesn’t “get tired and lash out in anger,” how do you explain this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8VPOP7huew
A: What I meant was, he doesn’t snap at Batman or something just as a result of being physically tired the way one might say something kinda catty to their spouse just because they had a bad day. (As in, he’s a paragon of virtue we can’t hope to emulate due to our human failings.) I didn’t make that explicit as I should have though, and that is a sweet fight scene.
Also, to be clear, I’m speaking about how likely it is for either franchise to be cherished in the heart of someone because of their fond memories of it from their preteen/teen years. I know that it’s quite possible to come to love Supes as an adult – I didn’t “get” Superman until I was well into college.
NowonSA: “Branching off from continuity, there’s also the fact that there’s simply less media (comics/manga, movies, cartoons/anime) about Goku than there is about Superman by a wide margin. Even a great idea or character can get boring if you see it, or him, too much. DBZ is also primarily Goku’s story, but there’s plenty of episodes of the anime that he’s not in at all, or plays a very minor role in. By comparison, Superman tends to be the focus of things (in general, I know there are plenty of exceptions) even in a team-up or justice league book, simply because he’s Superman.”
I have plenty of friends who like Spiderman and can’t wait to see more Spiderman movies; my best friend’s fiance loooooooves Spiderman and reads every issue (lives in another town so my reason for drugging and interneting myself into an early grave still stand). Spider-man is in a shitload of media. Furthermore, I have a boatload of friends who will rave about the 90s X-Men cartoon and buy X-men video games, even if they don’t read any X-men ongoing comics. And don’t get me started on Batman. Everyone loves Batman. His 90s animated series was baller (and watched by everyone) and the video games are even moreso (and played by everyone).
We all want more Spiderman, X-men, and Batman. We don’t want more Superman. Why? Spidey, Bats, and the X-men are all anti-establishment. If you’re a modern kid, do you really want to be with the establishment? If you’re a racial minority, gay, an immigrant, sort of funny looking, a latchkey child, just kind of a rebel shithead, or whatever, the answer is no. Supes has a reputation, deserved or no, for being establishment. Even if you can run a bunch of what-if stories and little side stories where a different aspect of Superman is explored, you will never see a cartoon, video game, or movie feature a genuinely fresh take on the character. You won’t even know if, let’s say, a story about what would happen if Supes landed in the USSR as a baby even existed unless you were already somehow plugged into the comic book scene. If you were some kid who didn’t already read comics and who didn’t have a friend or family member who read comics, you wouldn’t say to your parents, “take me to the comic book store, for I hear there will be an alternate take on Superman that I will like more than the established version of the character.” And unorthodox takes on the character will always be comics-only.
Blue Star: “That’s a fascinating analysis, Xibanya. I’d tweak it a little to include people born a little earlier than 1985, maybe close to 1980. I was born in December 1983 and for me Superman was just sort’ve there. I enjoyed the WB animated Batman and Superman shows but DBZ completely ensnared me when I first saw it in 1997. One thing I think you left out, though, is the rise of the internet in the 90s and early 2000s. I think that might’ve been a factor to DBZ’s success. Because even if there weren’t a lot of other kids to discuss DBZ at school you could still go online and talk about it.”
I would say the internet does not account for the DB franchise’s global success. My best friend from high school is from Brownsville, Texas, and she had all the DBZ movies on videotape. Her family was also broke as shit and she never had a computer (she still doesn’t actually. She uses her phone exclusively for what I usually do with a computer). Mexicans gonna watch DBZ man, they won’t let things like a lack of internet stop them. I would actually say what makes the internet significant is not so much because it fueled DBZ fandom (though it undeniably played a huge role in fandom in the United States) but because it was yet another alternative to comic books as a form of entertainment.
It’s impossible to “fix” Superman
We’ve discussed why Goku’s presentation resonates on a deep level to modern audiences while Superman’s does not. Now I’m going to discuss why it’s impossible to “fix” Superman in the sense of making his character really grab audiences the way it once did in the mid 20th century.
So, about Supes. He’s a household name in a way that Goku doesn’t come close to matching. If the Scarlet Pimpernel is the granddaddy of all superheroes, Superman is THE daddy of all superheroes. The tropemaker and trendsetter. Yet he’s kinda not fun. Surely the rich guys who run DC comics can hire some consultants to help them punch it up a bit (haw) so what gives?
Part of it is that Superman is not really the character or the story. Superman is a brand. You know immediately what he looks like. You know what he talks like and acts like. He’s practically the mascot of American comics, the mascot of DC comics in all but name. Yeah, he has a comic, but the money that brings in is peanuts compared with the merchandise. You got toys, picture books, costumes, PJs, T-shirts, movies, movie tie-ins, video games, mugs, keychains, etc etc etc. People who don’t even give a flying fuck about Superman probably have at least one Superman branded item in their home. (I have Superman PJs my mom bought me. She doesn’t even know I like comics.) You can’t change the way Superman looks because then you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Oh yeah, sometimes you get a costume revamp or whatever, but that’s always comics-only and while you can get some kind of deluxe 10″ figure of Supes in the new costume, it never bleeds out into mainstream merch. And inevitably the new design in the comic is reverted back to the classic design to great fanfare (often accompanied by the comic trumpeting “You asked, we listend!”). In short, changing Superman will damage the brand and make the shareholder’s less money, at least in the short run.
But money aside, fans won’t allow any changes to be made to the character. You can’t change Superman, he’s always been that way! Even though for decades now Superman has existed on echo nostalgia – you have to go back to the early 1930s to get to a time where there is not a single person who can claim to have fond memories of reading Superman as a child. As a recent and concrete example of how you can’t even change things very much for a character seen as “nostalgic,” even in an out of continuity story, look no father than the “Epic Mickey” video game. Mickey Mouse suffers from a similar issue. He used to be a scrappy trickster a la Bugs Bunny but became sanitized over the years to the point of basically being a living saint. Early press for the game promised that it would be a return to Mickey’s roots when he could actually have flaws and moral failings. The game purported to have a morality system where if you acted good, Mickey would look like a shining beacon of virtue, and if you acted bad, Mickey would start to look mean. This got thrown out before release because play testers hated the idea that Mickey could be anything less than a paragon of virtue.
http://www.1up.com/news/scrapper-mickey-removed-disney-epic
Disney Epic Mickey focuses on the mouse’s ability to make choices, resulting in a good heroic Mickey, or an evil “scrapper” Mickey (above) — or at least, it used to. The Mainichi Daily News reports (via Joystiq) that the mean-looking mouse is being removed from the game after Junction Point found he did poorly in focus testing. Instead, bad behaviors like theft and erasure (i.e. cartoon murder) will result in a smudgy look.
“People don’t like when you mess with Mickey,” said creator Warren Spector. “We did a focus test that was really eye-opening for me. There was a biker dude saying, ‘Oh, I’d never play a Mickey Mouse game,’ and then we showed him images of a changed Mickey. I was sitting there thinking, ‘You’re gonna love what we do,’ but he said, ‘No! Don’t mess with my childhood.'”
So there you have it: the game concept of moral choice is still in, but Mickey will look a lot less menacing because a biker dude (who would never play the game) wants his childhood left alone. If only that biker knew the power he wields. For the time being we’ll just trust that Spector knows what he’s doing. Check out our hands-on E3 preview for more information.
You can bet that people who don’t even give a fuck about Superman comics, people who have never ever read comics, would flip if you made any kind of change to the character. If you need more proof, just look at the hysteria in the 90s over the “Death of Superman” (when savvy fans all knew he’d be back eventually) or non-fans freaking out over the dissolution of Peter and MJ’s marriage in Spider-Man (I’m not fond of the plot twist myself, but they stayed married in the other versions of the franchise, why are all you normals gettin’ mad?)
The Fall of Goku
SO, that brings me back to Goku.
I believe that the DBZ franchise is far from over. I’d say these movies and DB Kai are testing the waters for a more modern series. DBZ will go on. And there may come a time when modern audiences cannot relate to Goku. Given that Toei’s answer was to literally revisit Goku’s childhood instead of finding a way forward, you can bet that if that time comes, Goku will stagnate just as Superman has done for all the reasons outlined above. (Goku appears in public service announcements and soft drink commercials? No way he’s ever going to appreciably change in appearance or get replaced by a younger character.) And if they tried, fans worldwide would scream bloody murder.
To sum up some of the previous parts, Superman is less appealing to modern audiences than Goku in part because Superman is associated with establishment authority. The popular perception of Superman is that he fights crime. By it’s very nature, fighting crime means seeking out people who are going against the mandates of authority and passing judgement on them right there. And Superman, the crimefighter/defender of Earth has a master – that master is The Law, or at least his own rigid moral code.
But what if the audience has lost faith in its governing institutions? It has been well documented in the USA at least that faith in central authority has eroded considerably since Watergate. It wouldn’t surprise me if Japan had a severe crisis of faith in the post WWII era. Japan has a culture that forces one to submit to authority in order to get ahead, but Japanese movies and TV (real scientific, I know) imply to me that when a salaryman kisses their boss’s ass, often they’re just going through the motions.
Enter Goku – Goku does not fight crime in the sense that he goes out into the world looking for people he thinks are up to no good and then raining hurt down upon them. All of his conflicts are quite personal. And while Goku has martial arts masters, he has no master in the sense that he serves no one, not even The Law. So Goku is Superman for an era in which we have lost faith in institutions and instead have faith in ourselves.
So one threat to Goku’s popularity would be a cultural shift towards faith in institutions. Hard to say if that would actually happen, but if it did, kids might prefer a strong authority figure who upholds law and order to a goofy manchild who just fights people who mess with him and his friends.
The biggest threat to Goku, however, is increasing diversity of options. DBZ in many parts of the world, was the only prominent anime available at the time – that means the only show with a serialized format (instead of stand alone episodes) and the only show that showed a semi-serious story with violence that had consequences as opposed to goofy slapstick for laughs. When I first started watching DBZ in the late 90s, there was absolutely nothing else like it on TV. But if you’re a preteen today and you want to watch a sem-serious serialized cartoon that has punching with consequences (I should start a band called Punching With Consequences) you have a veritable buffet of choices. As TFS has cheekily pointed out, you can have Ninja Goku (Naruto), Pirate Goku (One Piece), or if you want your Gokus to be made in America and animated in Korea you can watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. There are tons more that I haven’t even listed because if I did we’d be here all day. A goon here mentioned how the internet fuelled DBZ fandom, permitting fans to discuss episodes over the net – but these days you’ve got Hulu, YouTube, and other streaming services that weren’t available then, meaning that when picking out your punchmans show of choice you’re not even restricted to punchmans that air when you get home from school.
Since Dragonball was the trendsetter for modern Shonen, creators have had three decades to expand and improve the formula. So what does it take for Goku to stay relevant with Luffy and Naruto? More new material, certainly, but except for Battle of Gods, we’ve just been getting retreads of old material (video games just follow the established storyline, next movie is literally revisiting an old foe). The franchise needs new stories to move forward.
So what does Goku need to stay beloved in the hearts of children and adults around the world? More Goku.
An aside:
Even if we get more Goku, if the show’s creators (Toriyama, Toei, et al,) are unwilling to let anyone other than Goku be the hero, they have limited the number of stories they can tell. Sure, you can have a parade of amazing new bad guys, but you can’t have any significant character development on the part of Goku. Fundamentally, all good stories show the protagonist confronted with a choice – change something about themselves for the better or decline. If they change for the better, you get a happy ending – even if the lead dies! (Carton, “A Tale of Two Cities”) If they refuse to change, you get a tragic ending, even if they live (Creon, “Antigone”). But you really don’t have much latitude with Goku as he is at the end of DBZ. And even if you did, you can’t change the fundamental nature of Goku for the same reason Superman’s costume will never permanently change – Goku is a brand now. He’s too firmly established to change without having fans scream bloody murder or losing merchandising revenue. This isn’t a deadly flaw, however. We don’t even need real Goku character development, after all, Batman is still a brooding loner, Spider-man is still a wisecracking nerd, but in order to tell a wider variety of stories, I think that the supporting cast needs to be permitted to have a little more focus – after all, with Spidey and Bats, the bulk of the character development is mainly done by their supporting cast anyway. I do have hope, however, since Toriyama hinted that this might happen in the movie coming out uh, is it today? So we’ll see.
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