Wednesday, May 11, 2011

For all his intimidating physicality,

Darkseid is very rarely seen in "action." He doesn't punch through a wall and start trading haymakers with Superman, his actions are geared towards conditioning people to embrace and exploit their own base hatred and fear. That's how he wins and remakes the world in his own image, by dividing humanity and spreading the evil of hate, fear and ignorance, allowing them to believe that they can justify believing that someone else is somehow less of a person.

Unlike most villains, Darkseid's ultimate goal doesn't really involve killing anyone. He's devoted not to death but to Anti-Life -- described by Walter Simonson "the outside control of all living thought," a slavery that masquerades as freedom by allowing its victims to give in to the dark side of humanity. Again: No subtlety whatsoever.

But it's what he does. In Forever People, it takes the form of an amusement park where the exhibits are his victims, conditioning people to ignore the suffering of their fellow man, terrifying the children who realize what's happening while the adults become more an more jaded. In Mr. Miracle, he commissions a trap for the world's greatest escape artist that doesn't involve ropes, chains, or locks, but rather a building full of people who have been convinced that Mr. Miracle isn't one of them, that he's something other, something that isn't a person and is therefore there to be destroyed.

It might not be subtle, but at the same time, it's hardly the grandstanding form of blow-up-the-world evil that comic books have a reputation of portraying. This is a villain who exploits the small selfishness that we all see, experience, and even commit on a daily basis and shows how it all adds up to towering evil, and that makes him one of the most genuinely terrifying villains in comics. Darkseid's not real, but the evil he dabbles in is.

6 comments:

Avuncular Chum said...

Has the ability to copy, google, and find a source within a second or two created an expectation that the reader will invariably do so? Does that excuse the quoter for not citing his sources? I'll take my answer off the air.

M. Sáflo said...

That'll teach me not to log out of Gmail, a-heh heh.

not eb said...

It has long ago been established, privately if not publicly, that this blog mostly served to showcase the occasional movie review and 'words that sound good next to each other.' A tendency towards, I would think, you were also inclined, Avuncular Chum. I hope no one suspects that I wrote any of the things written here. And the things I did write, I would hope the same. Context is a burden. 'Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.'

M. Sáflo said...

Posted some mind-expanding stuff up in here and you went and deleted it. Stone cold.

M. Sáflo said...

And another thing: you should know better than to promote reactionary nonsense like this PressPausePlay documentary. It would be a shame if your 177 loyal Twitter followers got it into their heads that you sympathize with the craven, entitled pigs who shudder at the idea of a world where the commoners think they should be allowed to create Art™.

not eb said...

I didn't delete it! I honestly don't know what happened to it, nor do I wish to censor the thoughts and desires of my returning public.

As for PressPausePlay, this is the second time someone's talked to me about any specific content I've posted on Twitter, so I validate that as an idea worth discussing. I don't agree with it all, but I do think that there's going to be so much creative content available in the future that it will be nigh-impossible to find things. Maybe that means a lot, maybe it doesn't. But it's worth discussing.