A city of monsters with no humans called Monstropolis centers around the city's power company, Monsters, Inc. The lovable, confident, tough, furry blue behemoth-like giant monster named James P. Sullivan (better known as Sulley) and his wisecracking best friend, short, green cyclops monster Mike Wazowski, discover what happens when the real world interacts with theirs in the form of a 2-year-old baby girl dubbed "Boo," who accidentally sneaks into the monster world with Sulley one night. And now it's up to Sulley and Mike to send Boo back in her door before anybody finds out, especially two evil villains such as Sulley's main rival as a scarer, chameleon-like Randall (a monster that Boo is very afraid of), who possesses the ability to change the color of his skin, and Mike and Sulley's boss Mr. Waternoose, the chairman and chief executive officer of Monsters, Inc.
While the concept of vigilante heroism is nothing new, the current trend of vigilante superheroism and its formalization and transition into the mainstream can be traced back to the mid-to-late 1980′s, during and immediately following the most intense portions of the great war.
Once forced to hide among us under threat of government reprisal or mass hysteria in both literal and metaphorical witch hunting, when it became clear that man alone could not tackle the threat that D’aagor posed, powered individuals took it upon themselves to come out of hiding and fight the battles that the military couldn’t, protecting their friends, families, homes, and cities from the rogue dragon’s armies.
It was from this initial surge of local heroism and the stories that spread thereof, along with the success of the UN’s superhuman strike team in defeating D’aagor, that the modern age of vigilante justice and superheroism began, ushering in a new era which we continue to find ourselves in today.
While some scholars are content with considering this initial surge of wartime heroism from powered civilians the “First Wave” of modern superheroes, many of what we now consider to be the defining characteristics of superheroes were not yet present because of the chaos that prompted their heroic actions in the first place.
While many modern superheroes maintain a hero identity along with a secret identity, this was not the case during the war. As every battle then was a battle of desperation, most people fought simply to survive. Because of this, the fears or conventions of modern heroes - adapted from earlier comic books - were not nearly as present as they are today.
On top of this, those heroes ended up largely working alone and coming and going in a flash - there to save the day and then disappearing back into obscurity, never to be seen again and with no real sense of community or power structure behind them to support them. They were heroes in perhaps the truest sense, but also the most fleeting, as aside from the government sanctioned strike team that took out D’aagor, they maintained no real presence in the public eye.
Therefore, most would consider the true “First Wave” of modern superheroes to be the era immediately following the war, after the success of the team of 10 that came to be known as “The First Heroes”. These 10 incredible individuals had shone an international light on people with powers for the first time, instant celebrities who helped put to bed any fears that powered folk might be just as monstrous or inhuman as D’aagor.
While only five of the “First Heroes” ever really remained in the public eye, and only two of those became actual superheroes as we would understand them today, they nevertheless set the standard for what it was to be a hero and what it was our world was to be headed for. While it was done in perhaps the worst possible way, the revelation of the drakan race - of dragons - could not be undone, and neither could the revelations of people with extraordinary powers, or of magic.
So, no such attempts were made by the governments of the world. Rather, they moved to legitimize such individuals. They proposed to create a system that would protect the rights of powered people and allow them to do as they’d done during the war, which was to fight those who would exploit the chaos of the situation to commit crimes.
This movement was spearheaded by one man in particular, that being ‘First Hero’ Dr. Stan Lewis, the man responsible for pulling together the team of 10 that put an end to D’aagor’s genocidal ambitions.
He was one of the first to understand, as a person with powers himself, that now that the genie was out of the bottle, there was no stopping the change that was coming. So rather than fight it, he was the one who proposed that they get out in front of it, setting the stage for the Superhuman Civil Rights Movement of the mid-to-late 1980′s. He also played a large part in the Drakan Civil Rights Movement of the early 90′s, which he carried out in conjunction with fellow ‘First Hero’ and King of the Dragons, Sirus Albion.
It was his and King Albion’s actions that ensured not only the rights and privacy of dragons and otherwise powered individuals, but which set the stage for the first real vigilante hero organizations to start popping up. Organizations such as “Street Justice”, “Olympiad”, “Hope St.”, and “The Hero Association of America”, colloquially known as “H2A”. While some organizations were more successful than others, these four set the stage for the community and climate surrounding modern superheroes that exists today.
Before their founding, most heroes acted alone. Sometimes they would ally with one another locally if they happened to know each other, but otherwise, being a superhero following the great war was a lonely and disheartening experience where people were just as afraid or unsure of you as they were thankful, if not more. These original heroes, with possible exception to the widely exalted ‘First Heroes’, faced endless scrutiny from citizens and law enforcement alike, and were not seen as being very legitimate.
The First Wave, then, was something of an era of lawlessness and isolation, and it was only after the drafting of the formal rules and regulations pioneered by the likes of Street Justice and H2A that this new trend of powered heroes was fully legitimized.
With help from big names such as ‘First Heroes’ Takuma Miyamoto (billed by some as the “Astral Samurai”) and Damien White (who operated under the name “Demon Stone”), and final review and support from Dr. Stan, a plan was drawn up, and Street Justice, H2A, and other such organizations were officially recognized by the United States Government on both a federal and law enforcement level, and talks and hearings were held which hashed out the details of the regulations that all modern heroes are now beholden to.
Therefore, with the legitimization of H2A and Street Justice in 1992, the Second Wave of modern superheroes officially began, and with it, the great hero boom of the 1990′s. More modern myths and legends were born in this decade than any before or since, and hero agencies large and small came and went like the seasons year after year.
While they were allowed to retain some degree of their independence and freedom in what they chose to involve themselves with, heroes were no longer true vigilantes. Their agencies provided them with legal representation, a salary, and acted as go-betweens for them and local law enforcement and various government agencies. In exchange, heroes would be turned into celebrities not unlike sports stars, and they would sell products for various brands and companies sponsoring or otherwise affiliated with the agency they represented.
For a fledgling hero community that needed some good PR, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Becoming celebrities and public figures like this helped warm people up to the idea of having superheroes around, and while not every hero liked the idea or subscribed to this model, those who did had no need for a day job - they could make a living simply by being a hero. One hero who was particularly opposed to this new model was Damien White, who ‘hung up the cape’ shortly after Street Justice went legitimate and tried to turn him into an even bigger celebrity.
But while Damien left the spotlight to pursue more personal goals, Takuma Miyamoto carried on, seeing the value of such a system and taking it upon himself to set an example for what a hero could - and should - be. He was a particularly exceptional hero under the employ of H2A who took on foe after foe and challenge after challenge with such ease and grace that he earned the title of “The most powerful man on Earth”. To this day, it remains unchallenged.
But Takuma was by no means the only big-name hero of the time, as the likes of legends such as The Crimson Comet, Future Knight, Dragon Man, Blue Behemoth, Eighth Wonder, and “The Incredible” Ion would go to show. This so-called “Golden Age” of heroes would last from the beginning of the Second Wave in 1992 to the beginning of the Third (and current) Wave of 2006.
With the disappearance of Future Knight sometime in the late 1990′s, the preoccupation of Takuma with his pupil, the retiring of icons such as Blue Behemoth and Eighth Wonder, and the death of “The Incredible” Ion in a battle with a rogue dragon in 2005, the climate had changed.
While the number of hero organizations had begun to level out, and the love of and trust in heroes was at an all-time high among the public, there were problems bubbling up beneath the surface which were beginning to change the tone of powered communities and call into question the degree of support vs. fear they were actually getting from the government and certain sections of the general population.
With the death of Ion blamed on a refusal of law enforcement to intervene or lend a hand, tensions mounting between human and drakan communities all across the country, an uptick in crime since the legitimization of hero agencies in 1992, and a new push from politicians to begin imposing stricter sanctions and limitations on not only heroes, but dragons and powered folk in general, the ‘Golden Age’ had come to an end, and a new era had begun, bringing new struggles along with it.
In this new, Third Wave of modern superheroes, the theatricality of heroes began to gradually become stripped away. The comic book origins of superhero mainstays were beginning to lose their luster, and as heroes became bigger and bigger public stars, maintaining a secret identity became more tiresome and unnecessary, as they were now essentially celebrities. So, many made their true identities public, and though many maintain ‘hero names’ and personas as a nod to the old days, it’s rare to find one who takes it very seriously anymore.
What’s more, the world was becoming tenser and more political with every passing year. While the general public loved heroes, many superhumans and dragons were becoming critical of the hero industry as a whole. Citing issues with government and law enforcement discrimination in cases involving powered individuals - especially dragons - and an increasing inability for heroes or their organizations to independently probe and investigate corruption, heroes were beginning to lose their luster for the very communities they were supposed to represent.
Feeling as though their needs were no longer being met by the heroes, their communities began taking matters into their own hands. Activists such as Rick Flowers, Eddie King, Artemis Abbasi, Marianne Dubois, and Keisha Jefferson became almost as famous and well known as the heroes themselves. They believed heroes were being neutered and in some ways becoming part of the system, and the problem. Because of this, they have pushed and continue to push for new legislation expanding the abilities of officially sanctioned heroes and ensuring the freedoms and protections of powered and drakan individuals across the country.
For a long while, these grassroots activists and organizations were largely ignored. Then, in early 2015, The Circus was formed, and everything changed. Many famous activists became a part of this new group which claimed to represent the dragons and the supers in a way the heroes never could. They began offering a variety of services, including their own truly vigilante heroes, and were quickly branded criminals for the actions they took, particularly against the rich and powerful. But this didn’t stop them from becoming a pillar of their communities.
Add onto this the emergence of Providence and its radical, violent call for change, staging public executions of those they deem ‘dangerous’ toward dragons and the powered or ‘unfit’ for the world they wish to create, and suddenly, heroes had competition. New organizations were popping up to represent their communities in ways the heroes could not or would not, and people were becoming increasingly polarized as a result.
Nowadays, heroes are gradually becoming political animals, whether they want to be or not. The old way of doing things is no longer working, and mounting civil unrest threatens to tip the balance that’s been enjoyed since the 90′s. Heroes can’t just be celebrities and corporate spokesmen anymore, they have to stand for something, they have to push for change. Otherwise, they may be rejected by their own communities.
As we enter into the 2020 election, the hero industry is on the verge of its ‘Fourth Wave’, and the very definition of what it means to be a hero may be about to change. With Providence becoming bigger and bolder and presidential candidate and ‘First Hero’ Peter Marx proposing stricter regulations of powered individuals, many fear we may be entering into a new era of fear and paranoia.
Only time will tell what form this ‘Fourth Wave’ will ultimately end up taking and whether or not the hero profession will survive what’s set to come.
