The Dark Knight, The Punisher, Vigilante, Ghost Rider, Spawn, Hell Boy!
We live in very dark times, in a very dark world, filled with dark people, living dark lives, with dark motives and dark moods.
We are so entrenched into accepting darkness in our everyday lives that we have even created a hero named: The Dark Knight!
He is supposed to be one of the good guys, even though he is a “vigilante”.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a vigilante as:
“a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate) or more broadly: a self-appointed doer of justice.”
Thus what it means is that such a hero can “punish” another person as he sees fit. Oh he saves people sure, but he also has the ability to decide it’s ok to punish, even kill and take revenge on “evil doers”.
Of course I don’t want to single out The Dark Knight (who is merely a more modern day contortion of the original crime fighting hero Batman). As I mentioned there is also: The Punisher, Vigilante, Ghost Rider, Spawn, and Hell Boy to name just a few!
And yes, you are reading right, there is actually a cowboy hero on the “Justice League” who goes by the very name of Vigilante!
As a kid I know I was taught such things as “do unto others” and “whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, that you do unto me”, etc. Most super heroes – even “Batman” were originally based on the idea that it was never right to do what the bad guys did to others – exacting justice — because it would make them no better than the bad guys.
When did we decide that this idea was outdated and unsound?
In the coming months we’ll look at:
- Vampires as heroes?
- Demons as heroes? Ghost Rider, Hell Boy and Spawn!
- The original Superman (a model of Christ)?
