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Waiting down upon the underworld to smash gang men, come a friend of the unfortunate enemy of criminal. In a serious, powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law. Hello everybody, welcome to Elseworlds Exchange of Sal. I'm Joel.
We're gonna talk about anti-heroes today in honor of a little show that's coming out from Netflix called The Punisher. Finally, Marvel's Punisher has a release date and it is the same day as Justice League, which I'm sure is just an accident. Oh yeah, no one's playing chess over there. No one's actively trying to counter anyone.
The funny thing is, I'm like, okay, you put Frank Castle against the Justice League in terms of popularity. You're not going to win. No. Like, you're only banking.
You must be banking on the concept that people are not gonna be able to get tickets to see Justice League. So they're gonna watch all of your show, which is not even possible. Yeah, counter programming, or you're banking on people who maybe don't have that much disposable income where it's like, well, it's this much for tickets, this much for pre-properation. Maybe I can just stay home and binge watch this.
Yeah, maybe I can just watch The Punisher, which I would like to. I'm so goddamn busy this season that I don't know when I'm gonna be able to watch it. It's true. How many episodes do you know?
Oh, that's good. I think it might be the standard 10, but I feel like maybe they trimmed it back a little bit. They really need to fix that shit because the Marvel Netflix shows need to be 8-12 episodes depending on popularity. Yeah, Defenders was doing better where they peeled it back a little bit.
They don't all need to be 10. What's funny is, even with Defenders, it felt like they were padding a little bit. Mm-hmm. So, you know, anyway.
It is what it is. In Honor of Our Boy Frank, we're gonna talk about anti-heroes, those characters in fiction who skirt the line between hero and villain and wind up on the other side. The 90s, if you're looking for any kind of frame of reference, was full of these characters. They owned the decade.
Yes, that, yeah. Anti-heroes were the standard, the gold standard for shit in 90s comics. You also, of course, if you want to go in movies, I think the 70s was more about the anti-hero. The 80s were more about like the buff, like, you know, military- Sports and Eggers.
... approved hero as opposed to like the anti-hero. Like Charlie Bronson, the character, which is like Death Wish. You know, either the system has failed me, and so I must go out and dispense justice as I see fit.
Absolutely. And as an added bonus, typically the audience slash people who live within the anti-heroes group or community are in favor of his over actions. Anti-heroes are definitely a lot of the time reflexive of the times they were created. I mean, the Punisher, people forget it now because they keep changing and updating his war, but you know, he was, of course, a reaction to Vietnam in any ways.
He was the trademark, you know, messed up vets. It's true. Yeah, Frank Castle is an interesting character when it comes to the anti-hero because when he was first invented by Jerry Conway in the 70s, he was a villain. Yes, straight up.
And here's the thing about villains is that if no one gives a shit about these black and white, like, obvious, like the color scheme for the Punisher, but these black and white obtuse, I want to, like, hand-dringing, I want to take over the world, snidely whiplash, I have no motivation outside of, like, wanting to take over the world. Those are boring, and no one really cares about their struggle. But if you make them compelling or make them the hero of their own story, then suddenly the villain becomes much more sympathetic and much more understandable and much more relatable. I think that Jerry Conway just did it too well and made the Punisher so sympathetic.
That's the thing, you know, they either end up becoming too sympathetic or you get the Venom Red Hood problem where it's like, oh, they're so cool though, but we can't keep writing about them if they're evil. Let's soften them a little bit. A gambit too, even to some degree as well. They also started as a villain before moving down into the anti-hero spectrum.
Most of the Marvel Pantheon, Deadpool, Gambit, Punisher, Venom, all these characters, Ghost Rider, either started out as a villain or looked like a villain, and it wasn't even that their origins are so tragic and so connectable for the audience. But it's more like they were so goddamn popular and they sold so many books, they needed to print more money, and ultimately you can't make a book about a villain without making it kind of gross. You exception to that? Obviously, Dr.
Doom has had some serious or fantastic. Yes, Deathstroke right now is a really good story about a villainous protagonist who is gross, but you know, they have other characters kind of shoulder the emotional weight for him. Harley Quinn is a, I say villain, I don't give a shit about this anti-hero nonsense. Harley Quinn is a villain.
She has murdered children in the story. No, come back with that. No, come back with that. Not my accent either.
But yeah, there's a lot of characters that are so popular. Venom is the perfect example and Deadpool, I guess, but Venom is the more relevant one for me where it's just like, okay, so Venom's this guy who sucks. He's got the worst origin you could possibly imagine. He really does.
He is so unsympathetic, he is so, well, he's anti-Spider-Man, and that's the hook. Spider-Man is all about responsibility, Venom is all about dodging responsibility. Yep. Moa Shale says, is Batman ultimately an anti-hero?
Let me get back to you on that because I think Batman does qualify on this list, but we'll leave it up for debate. But Venom is so stupid and obvious, the anime 90s, Venom, that when they ultimately found out that Venom was, like, could sell books on his own. They were like, well shit, we gotta make him a good guy. Lethal Protector, he's not just a hero, so he's a lethal protector.
Lethal Protector, I live in the catacombs of San Francisco or whatever, and I help homeless people. I'm spawn now. Literally spawn. That blows.
When they tried to make him, when they made Morbius into an anti-hero, he moved to Brownsville and held down homeless people. Morbius the living vampire anti-hero, not villain who sucks blood and kills people. No, no, no. Anti-hero helps Spider-Man suck blood and kills people.
Yeah, plasma, I need it. No, I need my plasma. God, I love that version so much. It's so ridiculous.
You need a character in your Spider-Man cartoon, and you need it to be pure G rated, like below G. Maybe not go with the vampire character. I'm not really a vampire. Science made me this way and I have suckers on my hands.
Then you may even dodge her by bringing the other anti-hero of Blade, who the vampire hunter kills the killers, and in your cartoon where no one can kill die or drink blood. You have killers fighting killers and you have to make the puncher on that show. They did. They had him a couple times.
Yeah, but his blade anti-hero is Blade, because I mean Blade just kills vampires. I don't know. I mean, he's only an anti-hero if you consider vampires to be human. If you think vampires can be redeemed, or maybe instead of being the vampire hunter, Blade could be the vampire counselor trying to teach them to drink the blood of animals and not the blood of man.
Right, that's in Spider-Man the cartoon from the 90s. Just like, man, I gotta catch Morbius and just explain to him how sucking plasma is bad. Yeah, I think I can really break through to him if I just talk to him. Yeah, Blade, what's the sword for?
Oh, you know, it makes me look cool. Red Samurai asks, hey guys, does Gogoman count as an anti-hero? And also what are your thoughts on the JLU version of that character? That's the one I grew up with.
So I always thought he was awesome. Also, Gogop has to get their tickets or their tickets or just league. No one has tickets. I think the JLU version of that character is one dimensional and they didn't really do enough with him.
They even admit it as much. They're like, we could have had Aquaman be the other guy on the team instead of the hawk, but you know, we just didn't. I'm glad. I like Hawker and I'm glad they really pushed Shaira a little bit more.
She had way better or more interesting arc and she's an female on the team and she wasn't like annoying her. Or stupid or like, or confusing. It was just like, yeah, just a character. You can see why they did that.
I think Bruce Tim said in a commentary for like the first Aquaman 2 part. He's like, no, we could have had him. But the problem was is that, you know, we had written such a military, Kingly Aquaman we would need to find new reasons for how the threats would affect Atlantis and why he would give a shit every week. Exactly.
And it's just, it would just be more, that's the trouble with Aquaman as a character and especially as a hero slash anti-hero, he's a monarch. Like, they'll be asking if the ruler of a country who is normally pacifistic reacting to a foreign aggressor or preemptively reacting to a foreign aggressor is an anti-hero. It's true where it's like, you know, that that's where you get into shades of grain. It's like, well, if you're just the an average Joe who got your house flooded when Atlantis attacked and everything, then yeah, you would probably see Aquaman of the Atlantians as villains, even though from their point of view, like, yeah, there was a bunch of stuff happening.
There was power struggles. We were just, you know, listening to orders and everything. We don't see ourselves as villains. Right.
I mean, I don't count Aquaman ultimately as an anti-hero, though I do think his Marvel counterpart, Nammour, is absolutely. Oh, fuck yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say Nammour is almost a straight up a villain. He's been a villain, Minita.
Yeah, who moonlight is a hero sometimes. But Nammour's interests are always pure by the Nathan Berg just jumping into the super chat to give us our... To give us our lipsees. Lipsees.
Thank you, Nathan. This is becoming his thing now, $10 in the lipsees. Right? And by the way, I think that's Eigor from Young Frank's sign in his avatar.
That's great. Whatever your hum... Who's on the other side? But yeah, Nammour is interesting because from his perspective, he always, first of all, he's always predictable.
You always know where, what side he's on, his own. And as long as you adhere to his set of rules, he is not really considered a villain. Or you would never really find... He catches ire, isn't he?
Like, when Nammour is attacking, usually somebody asks for it. It's true. And that, I think, is the perfect example of what an anti-hero is. If you violate this person's personal set of standards and trigger them into reacting, then you brought on yourself.
I mean, like, in that regard, Batman is absolutely an anti-hero. Yeah, I mean, it definitely depends what era you're looking at and what writer is in charge. But Batman to tomorrow with D&D term, he's gone from lawful good to more like chaotic good to sometimes lawful evil. If this is like Frank Miller era where it's like he's kind of a little fascist, he isn't he?
I mean, the dude has surveillance on everyone in his city. He beats the mentally ill and the poof-wrist. He has a one-man war on crime that is entirely self-financed, which means he's big unto privatization. Yes, he has a whole list made up of ways to kill his closest friends and allies in case they ever turn on him.
Ultimately, Batman only qualifies as a superhero or as a hero in general because Superman vouches for him. Yeah, no one else would deal with him if Superman's like, I like the cut of his jibba. Yeah, or Superman's like, I understand that we require people like, we need one character like him. We need a wild card.
We need one crazy guy. We have one. And what's also funny is that then Batman starts training all these other hymns. Like, sure, Superman might condone Batman, but what about Red Hood?
Red Hood is a complete loose cannon, even Batman A can't control and B didn't initially approve of. Red Hood breaks the one rule of Batman, he uses guns. And Batman buys him a big Mac to celebrate for it. I have never agreed with that.
I've always said if Red Hood is going to use guns, he shouldn't be wearing the bat on his chest. I think that, yeah, absolutely. And I think that they only, that's only editorial decision to make you aware that he's connected to Batman so that you might buy the book because it's Batman. And it would be so simple to be like, oh, well, I just have guns that shoot batarangs or, you know, these are riot rounds that aren't meant to kill, but no, no, they make a very solid point of eye shoot to kill.
Oh, yeah. By the way, so excited in the super chat, what about Daredevil Wolverine? We're getting to them. Hold your horses.
They will be there, though. Thank you for us. Oh, yes. Don't you make the cut.
But Red Hood is weird and I hate him and I wish he didn't exist, but the fact that he doesn't exist. The fact that he does exist, make him an anti-hero, make him the black sheep of the bat family, and make it so that Batman just addresses Jason as you died. Yeah. Like, Jason is dead.
This person who puts on a, like, biker outfit and murders criminals in life. I don't know who you are. Using my training, I do not approve, and that would not be my ward. Which they have done sometimes.
Right, but that sucks. That they would have to do it sometimes and then other times not. And then make him part of a team and make it so that every time that there's like a big bat family crisis, he's like the first one there. For a guy who has a problem with ever expanding the bat family and how much that sucks.
Sure does it a lot. But at least draw the line with murderers. Yeah. I don't know.
It's a real hypocrite thing. In fact, hey, we're talking about that. What about Catwoman? Occasionally fights crime also steals.
Oh, yeah. No, Catwoman is very much in the same category as Black Cat in terms of, like, villain who was rehabilitated by the person they were sleeping with into being a superhero or rather anti-hero. Catwoman is straight up an anti-hero in as much as she's even an anti-hero because her rules, you know, technically she would qualify under my criteria of like follows their own code. But her code is what I want.
Yeah, what I want I get. I mean, sometimes they have tried to make her more of like a Robin Hood type character, which is like, oh, I only steal from bad people. I only steal from those who have born it. And I'm like maybe taking care of an orphanage where I've taken in a teenage runaway prostitute who I am also mentoring to become a replacement sidekick.
Yeah, that's the issue there is that she is just like, the issue there is that whenever she was considered like a Robin Hood as character or was an anti-hero, it's during that time, which is considered to be the worst of her entire career in terms of comics. Like no one agrees that the 90s Catwoman works. And so as such, I think she only works as like, you know, as a foil for Batman. That's why I don't really like the idea of him selling down with her because like she's always that person he can't reach or, you know, pin down.
Seems doomed to fail from the get-go. Same deal with Spider-Man and Black Cat. Black Cat tried to be a superhero. She was almost a hero for longer than she was a villain.
And it's only been recently that like she got her ass kicked by Doc Ox Spider-Man. And so as such, she went like full Kingpin. It's funny. She became a Kingpin around the same time.
Selena became a Kingpin. And I actually liked Mob Boss Catwoman trying to keep peace and being like, look, I'm going to fight crime from within crime. I'm going to be, I'm going to Don Corleone this shit. No, no schools, no parks.
Yeah, no, what's it called? Mob King Batwoman or Catwoman works. Mob King Cat, Black Cat doesn't really because I never really credit her with an overabundance of brains. No, she, I never thought of her as a criminal genius.
She was just smart enough to do what she did. Exactly. And just hot enough to get away with it half the time. Like it's how she's managed.
It's funny how like, you know, Catwoman appeals to Batman on like an equal playing field. Like that man's like, there's, there but for a few like misguided choices go me. And Spider-Man's more like, whoa, that chick is fucking hot. It really is.
Like I'm sex with her in my Spider-Man comedy. There's not as much pathos in their relationship is there. No, straight up, he's just like, their relationship is spawned from like, I would love to bang you. But like, I would feel really bad about it if you kept stealing afterwards.
If I let you go. Don't steal nothing now. Please stop stealing. And she's like, no, he's like, okay, okay, damn it.
But I really can't control myself. By the red samurai in the super chat, I like Red Hood, especially more like more than Batwoman or spoiler. Although I don't think Red Hood kills anymore. Yeah, but he did.
And his whole character is predicated on murder. So like, I don't care for him. And also like, if you make the Red Hood just a slightly more severe version of Damien or Nightwing, he is wholly unnecessary. Damien, there's another perfect example.
Started as a super anti-hero that Batman had to basically, you know, what did I say Batman was more fit Grayson? And to work with and mentor. And now he's kind of more of a hero, really more now than ever. He's still an asshole.
But he's like a more heroic asshole and he doesn't carry around murder swords anymore. DC worked harder than any other like, to repair a character's image than anyone while maintaining who they are at the core. Like it's true. I hate Damien.
I'll read Damien's centric stories now, despite how much I don't like him. And that's a testament to like the effort that DC put in to making, when Damien first shows up, I'm like, okay, he sucks and he's an asshole. Like even if I were to buy the premise, I don't care for the character. And then they were like, okay, I think I can use that second part though.
And they did. And man, like Damien, the problem with Damien is just his inexorable tie to his future. And how it's like Damien is like gonna destroy Gotham or will kill someone. It's just destiny.
I'm like, you know, you're not really fixing the problem if you're saying. But they keep bringing up and they keep playing with that idea, even in Detective Comics recently, Future Tim says, I should kill you now for what you're gonna do to the Kent boy. It's like, get the fuck out of here. Don't make him that much of a monster.
Ah, but yeah, no, Damien is absolutely an anti-hero. Or at least he started out as one because he followed a code. And he also like, he killed people and wanted to follow, like to bring justice, but mostly to impress his father. Yeah.
And his father figure, Rachelle Gould, that too. Right. My question is somebody put this on a list and I don't know if I agree, but Judge Dred is Judge Dred an anti-hero. He's, you know, he goes back and forth.
I'd say in some stories, he's an anti-villain because he is the weapon of a fascist totalitarian government that is stepping on people all over the place. Yes, he fights for justice, but he fights for a corrupt warped version of justice. Exactly. Yeah.
No, his, his, his version of justice is so warped and horrible, but then again, so is his world. And so like in a world of Megas anyone, like you might need a justice of Judge Dred's variety. He's the man for the job in that, I mean, same for Worschach. He is also equally fucked up and kind of evil in his own right, but he gets the job done in that story.
He's the hero they needed at that time in that place. What's interesting is for Worschach, I'm always of the opinion like, I'm not the opinion in terms of watchmen that like none of them are heroes. No, they really aren't. And they're all kind of like better written versions of Garth and his characters.
Yeah. Yeah. They're like, they, they're, they're, they're narcissists that want to be like, they, they want to be acknowledged and they want to be given validation. And they think that the only way to do it is by putting on a costume and going outside.
It's basically Alan Moore's critique of the superhero. Yeah. And basically what would happen if like a real person wanted to be a superhero? You'd have to be crazy or at least have a death wish.
You'd have to be crazy or just an asshole. And that's really like Worschach. I, like, I don't know if he really wants to do justice or if he wants to be like, or if he just wants to get out some like sick fantasy of his. Again, it's, it's a lot of those things.
He is in service only to his brand of justice and no one else. And again, it's fitting because he's a critique of what is it Steve Ditko's very objectivist ideals that he put in stuff like the question and the blue beetle and all this other stuff. And it's like, either a hundred percent going or a hundred percent evil. There are no shades of gray in between.
Yeah. Well, we know for a fact that is not true. Because he is a massive walking shade of gray. Big time.
By the way, getting arts of the lobster in the super chat. He also, by the way, if any of you watching or listening to the show did not get the notification, we did an issue where we normally have the show unlisted until I'm in the show. So you might not have gotten the notification. The show went live, even if you have the bell clicked.
But just as a quick interlude, you should absolutely click the bell notification on the main channel just to make sure you get notifications of new videos as they come out. You read comics. You know what motion looks like in pictorial form. Basically, just look just click on the bell until it looks like the bell is ringing.
You see the motion lines. Make sure that's on so you can get a notification every time we have a video out because that's going to be the biggest, most freshest bite of the apple. So to speak, it really helps out the show and the channel when we get those first couple of those first hundred or so couple of hundred, couple of thousand views. So thank you very much, Artie LeLobster for notifying us and also for really helping to make a PSA for everybody.
By the way, Duran Jones, the Super Chat, big fan of the show, currently deployed right now. Thank you so much, man, for your service. Congratulations on still being alive. Have you guys talked about constany, not yet?
But I think we're getting there because we're talking about dudes and trench coats walking around and dispensing justices. A very true anti-hero thing. You want to be a good anti-hero. Get yourself a nice trench coat.
Exactly, exactly. So good question, Duran. You know what will jump into it from there. He's a constant anti-hero because I'm...
He's utterly self-serving and self-obsessed most of the time. In fact, his best story, danger his habits is all about him trying to save his ass, not the world, not anyone in need. In fact, he burns a couple people in need all to save himself. Yes, I agree in that regard.
He is... Well, I don't know if he's an anti-hero so much he's a son of a bitch. Yeah. That'd be like saying his Cassidy is super in anti-hero.
He's a real son of a bitch. Cassidy's just a bastard. He is not an anti-hero. He doesn't do any good.
The only thing he does is he protects Jesse a little bit until he doesn't. Yeah. And that dude is just a son of a bitch. And I think there's a line between an anti-hero and bastard.
So, yeah. I guess when we even talk about the idea of an anti-hero, it's just someone who's a protagonist of our story, but is devoid of all the traditional heroic traits, like generosity and compassion and all of this other stuff. Right. Like the new Scarlet Spider.
Which I've not read. Kane the Scarlet Spider is very much an anti-hero. In as much as he does the heroic stuff. He is a superhero in spite of himself, but he doesn't follow the traditional rules and deliberately doesn't want to fall into the traps that make a hero who...
Right. He's like, I'm not going to help people who don't ask for, don't deserve it. I have powers and I have responsibility to use them, but I'm also not going to be like a tool about it. By the way, artsy, jump back into the super chat.
Apparently the great post office wouldn't read the address I wrote in the packet as a reason. I'm sorry, man. This is in reference to our show. Letters page.
People send us letters and packages and postcards and whatnot. To the show, we open it on camera and then we show you what's inside of them. It's a really fun show. It's a great way to connect with the audience like artsy with the monster.
Yeah. The... Or just they know, go on. No, no, I was just going to say, yeah.
I think we have a good list of anti-heros so far. I think the Constantine does qualify. I don't know if Dangerous Habits is the one to pick. I think it's more like when Constantine has roped into situations where he has to like do heroics or perform exorcisms and whatnot then.
Something like he becomes an anti-hero. Right. But a lot of that time too. He's doing it for money.
He's doing it because he's getting something out of it. He's not doing it. The goodness of his heart. And he's doing it a lot of the times to assuade and deal with his own guilt.
So even his reason for being a hero is totally self-serving. Right. For that matter, I mean like spawn is an anti-hero. But barely.
I was going to put the max on here. But he isn't even close to a hero. He's a crazy person. But like max and spawn are very similar in that they are victims of the plot and the desire from the 90s to make characters that people want to buy.
And so they are caught in the trappings of traditional comics and superherodom without actually fitting into any of the molds. Max looks muscular and wears a costume so he must fight crime. But in fact, all he really does is he tries to figure out where the hell he is and protect maybe Julie a little bit. But mostly he's just kind of like along for the ride.
Similarly, dude is so incredibly selfish. All he wants to do is just be a left alone or so he can be emo or be used to be his best friend's situation where he's bangin' off. Sure, he saves some bums but it's only because those guys, the mobsters, the cybersassins had the misfortune of stumbling into his back alley. And it's all in the service of just being of not sidetracking him from his ultimate goal which is not to be spawned anymore.
By the way, and the bums still get hurt. Everyone around him still gets hurt. Oh, no one is really saved in spawn. No.
By the crushing and meds in the Super Chat's Deadpool Plus thoughts on the trailer? Holy crap, that Bob Ross trailer given it is... What an amazing parody. Herb.
He nails it. I love Bob Ross, thanks to Tiffany, I've been watched over hundreds of episodes of the show. And he nails quite perfectly. You really do.
I only wish he could have said Phthalo Blue, but anyway, so yeah. I wonder if Reynolds had to fight for that. It's like, okay, so for our trailer everyone's gonna watch it anyway, right? Because it's Deadpool too.
Let's do a Bob Ross better. I don't know if our key demo when young people will get the Bob Ross. Okay, you'll run. You do whatever you want, Ryan.
The fact is, all he has to do is point to the Twitch numbers when Bob Ross opens up Twitch Creative and be like, if half of them watch it because of that, we're good. Solid. Incidentally, a lot of the anti-heroes that I have on my list are Marvel. And I want to say it because Marvel was like an anti-hero factory for the last 30 years.
Like Ghost Rider. Yes. Like, is Ghost Rider even a hero? What the hell does he do?
I mean, he mostly fights and kills demons, right? Which is something no mortal man could deal with. So I kind of give him a pass on the senseless murder. Yeah, I mean, like it depends on what Ghost Rider's talking about.
I mean, Danny Ketch, he had the spirit of vengeance inside him. When innocent blood was spilt, he would go out and get vengeance for it. And I think that's another thing, is that like seeking vengeance and punishing the wicked for what they did instead of like apprehending them and letting two process take over. Making yourself judge during an executioner.
Exactly. That also means you're here. The chap brings up an interesting one too in terms of morality, and I really wanted to get your view on this. The from V from Vendetta, you know, he's a, you know, complete and utter anarchist.
He blows up buildings, he commits acts of terror, but he's doing so to fight a fascist totalitarian government. Like the whole theme of that is like, fascism versus anarchy is either right to use one to fight the other. Can you really only use one to fight the other? I'm glad that V was brought up.
I'm glad you mentioned that, Nast, because like, I have a lot of interesting mixed feelings about V. There are two versions of V. There's the comic version and there's the movie version. Yes, which are very different.
I prefer the movie version because I think V is a real character in the movie. He's in more of the movie because in the book you mostly see V through the eyes of other people. Yes, but when you do go home with V in the comics, V is black and white, totally obtuse has no morality. He is straight up basically a version of the propaganda that the government is perpetuating about him.
V is bare, I almost even, I could say that V is like an anarchist and a terrorist and a monster, but I would almost be ascribing too much character to V to say that because in V from Vendetta, the comic V is barely even a person. Yes, true. I don't think he's a mask. He is the mask.
Yes, he has no character. He simply is a catalyst and a plot device to let the story move forward such that it is because the story itself is not especially linear. The parlament blows up first, I think, in the comics. Yes.
So there's a lot of weird issues I have with the V character in the comic. The movie character version is an antihero and I really dig him. He's charming as hell. That helps.
He's charming as hell which helps, but he's also like V is actually more real in the movie because his obsession with the letter V, the coincidences slash imagery of the letter V throughout the movie are indicative of a particular style of mental illness that is associative with symbolism and imagery and stuff like that. When he found out he was number five and there was all these V's. When he looked for the patterns and found them, he took them. So that in and of itself makes him an actual person.
Then there's his affinity for Evie and his interest in her and why he wants her to be part of his crusade. The comic book version of him is very not really, I don't really get it. I kind of get it, but it's more like his motivations are his own and it's more like, again, I don't even think there's a person in there. Right.
Cruncy in the chat brings up an interesting point. He's been very vocal in this conversation. V doesn't want anarchy. He just wants to kill fascism.
Right. So he's not trying to start anarchy. He is trying to upset and usurp the government itself so that, I guess he wants democracy because he wants the people to decide what they want. The problem is that people did decide what they want and they elected Suttler.
So it's a Macbag. It's a hell of a thing. I think that's why V for Vendette is so interesting. Especially in the times we live in now, it gives you a lot to chew on and a lot to think about.
It's true. So is V an anti-hero? I say the movie version is more of an anti-hero and the comic version is something else. What about, but there's other characters that straight up don't count?
I know that I saw the comedian on there. The comedian is not an anti-hero. He's another bastard. The comedian is a bad guy.
And well, here's the thing. He's not even a bad guy. He's a soldier. Like, he is told where to go, who to kill.
And that's it. You know, like he's a real indictment of Captain America where it's like, no, maybe you shouldn't worship these people to this level. Maybe you shouldn't put a colorful costume on a state-sponsored killer. Exactly.
And that's the thing is that I wouldn't even go so far as to say he's a soldier because I think that really doesn't, I think that diminishes and it hurts the term soldier. The comedian is more like a higher gun. Yeah, he's a mercenary. He's a mercenary.
And most mercenaries in fiction are anti-heroes. There are very few morally upright mercenaries. True. So with respect to the comedian, the comedian is more like, let's look at the things he does when he's not on the clock.
And the things he does when he's not on the clock are like, knock up people without being murdered. Yeah. I mean, like, he's not a good guy. He does not.
And I think the only times when he actually does any super heroics are like when he is told by the government to do it. And so I was such like, he's just a Murr. He's not even an anti-hero. He was Mesa in the super-chetses.
Hey guys, love y'all. I just barely arrived. I got a question for you. What the new gods from DC Comics and the masks comic, the anti-heroes.
What are the new gods Joel? I want to hear your opinion on this. I mean, the new gods to me, they're almost kind of like, you know, primal forces. They're a lot like, you know, like Greek choirs are like how gods were shown in old stories where it's like, oh, I puppeteer your fate and everything.
And you know, everything that goes on there. Some new gods, I would argue, are more evil than others. Like, O'Rion is an anti-hero, definitely. Because, you know, he fights on the side of the heroes, but he also has, you know, there's darkness and this anger in him that he must deal with.
And everything. I mean, obviously, all the new gods from apocalypse are straight up, they're straight up chaotic evil, all of them. Absolutely. Although, I mean, you know, not everyone from apocalypse is straight up evil, depending on like, they're upping.
I mean, like Mr. Miracle was raised by dark, so I'd have to say. That's true. That's true.
He did. In spite of his upbringing, he even barred it too, turned against it as well. But with the masks, yeah, the masks are basically like, I don't even know if the masks even count as heroes because like, I've never seen a mask do anything heroic. They're agents of pure chaos.
Yeah, they are chaos. You know, they're like the Joker, but like, they don't murder. They don't want to take over the world and murder everybody. So I guess thank God for that.
They're trickster gods. Yeah. I was interested in like talking about Lobo, for example. Another Merck.
Yeah, he's a mercenary. Although, I think that when Lobo, when push comes to shove, Lobo deep down wants, he doesn't want to crush the world. You know, like, he doesn't want to do good in as much as he wants to be paid. Yeah.
But when he sees something that is so atrociously evil that there's nothing he can do about it or that he knows there's something he can do about it, he will get it. He also has a code. He's an anti-hero with a code. He loves space dolphins.
Don't mess with space dolphins around him. Yes, you've asked it. But I think Lobo counts. I think he has a low.
I think he has an anti-hero slash mercenary. He falls under the line of like being an anti-hero because he does actually try to do good sometimes. Yeah. He is selfish.
He is self-serving. He is like motivated by money, but some things are more important to him than money. He has a weird like warrior code thing going on. He's got like an honor thing.
Right. Getting away from like those mercs and such. Here's a good anti-hero for you. What about Marv from Sin City?
Oh, yeah, definitely straight up anti-hero. You know, hurts people, doesn't have a problem with it, but maintains that the people he are hurting is worse than him and you know, in pursuit of something better trying to help out people in need. He is incredibly like, it's actually terrible how he's written because like, if you don't agree with him, you are a jerk. Yeah.
But he also does just heinous things. Oh, God. Yeah. But the trick that Frank Miller pulls is that he just makes the people he's doing them to so much worse than Marv.
Classic noir storytelling. I mean, with Marv, I would say like anyone you're supposed to root for is anti-hero in Sin City. Oh, yeah. There are no like straight up good guy heroes in that.
They're all pretty bad. No, I'm hard again. I guess. It's like the best one.
Hard again is the best one and even still like there's some weird stuff with Hard Again. Yeah, Hard Again does cross some lines, but he tries desperately not to. He's like, I'm the one good cop in Sin City, but even then like by that standard. Yeah.
I think I wouldn't even say the Hard Again is anti-hero. I say he's a straight up hero. I think he's the closest thing to a hero that Frank Miller has ever written. Yeah.
But yeah, we didn't really talk about Deadpool again, you know, at the superficial level he's a mercenary, but like he's basically a superhero this point. Well, it's funny. Deadpool has had such a journey from Duggan has been writing it from chaotic, almost freakazoid to getting a daughter and you know, like kind of building this surrogate family, then like actually getting to become an Avenger to losing all that in the secret empire by becoming a collaborator. And to now he's just back to his chaotic mercenary roots.
Exactly. I think that anyone who like, yeah, I think that Deadpool is all the way because he also despite his like his high profile superherodom. People like the part where he like kills people and doesn't care. Yeah.
So I think he is a anti-hero technically. Which I never used to like that version is the thing I liked that Duggan actually gave him more of a personality and gave him more of a code and gave him lines he couldn't cross and gave him people that he wanted to be proud of him is the thing like Deadpool before didn't care what people thought about him. Now it's like, oh, I have a kid and I have friends and I'm on a team. I actually want them to think good things about me.
Yeah. The chat brought this guy up and I think that sometimes he counts and sometimes he's a villain and that's Magneto. Again, much like Deadpool, I think Magneto has had every D&D alignment. He's been a villain.
He's been an anti-villain. He's been an anti-hero. He's been a straight up hero. Exactly.
Magneto's been everything. I think that the Cullen Bunse series is the closest thing to like the anti-hero that we want to read about. He's basically the Punisher, but with mutant powers. Yeah.
And so, yes, I think Magneto definitely counts. And of course, going from X-Men to X-Men. We haven't talked about this guy yet, but what about Wolverine? Yeah, boom.
I was considering an anti-hero and I never really got why. Can you explain it to me or do you disagree? I guess because he has no qualms about killing. He has no qualms about doing the dirty work.
Although the X-Men don't really have like a set-and-stone, no-kill rule. So it's like he's not really... So he's not like a weird outlier in that team. It's like he's a loner, which is indicative of an anti-hero, but he's not like a million teams.
So he's not that much of a loner. Not at all. No. I mean, even when he's alone, he used to have teenage female sidekicks with him.
So I mean, that... Wolverine is a big walking contradiction. I think maybe it's because he drinks and he smokes and he swears and he's surly like most anti-heroes. Even though it's like I would much rather have Wolverine watching my back than constant team watching my back.
I know Wolverine won't stab me in the guts. No. What is it? Brobok.
Because he'll bail on you. And he does. A bunch of times. So I mean, like in that regard, I think Wolverine, I think Wolverine's one of those characters that like wants you to call him an anti-hero.
But he really is basically just Captain America. He acts tougher than like he acts. He puts up a tough game to hide from the face. I know I'm actually quite sensitive though and I believe in many tragedies.
Exactly. Red X-88 asks a question for you Joel because I won't be able to answer this shit. Do all the enemies have anti-heroes to go along with their heroes? Example Vegeta, Sesuke, Haye, Sanisuke, and Piccolo?
Very much so, yes. But I would say that's part of another big sub-trope and sub-genre. My best friend, the enemy, or my best friend, the rival. Where it's like usually I'll fight you in the first arc and we'll be about on the same level.
And then maybe we'll team up, maybe no circumstances will take us other places. But like I always come back to you. I can't ever escape you. You're my Joker essentially, but you're also my buddy in a weird way.
And there's also of course like the trope in anime where it's like here's the anti-hero, the anti-hero, like the literal anti-hero. Here's evil spike. Here's the dark mirror version of them. Christian Medston back in the Super Chat's to say Logan went and done right.
He plenty missed in the film when he was ready to abandon X23, but the truck had everybody laugh for the equivalent of that moment. Yeah, like that's a Wolverine at the end of his rope. That's a Wolverine we've really never seen before. It's not one that I consider to be a hero and he's certainly not the Wolverine we're referring to.
That version of him is very different. He's more like a Western tragic hero than he is. Yeah, he's more like a late period Clint Eastwood. He's basically Clint Eastwood and Unforgiven.
Yeah, exactly. And with that regard, is Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven a hero of any kind? Not really. Well, Unforgiven is interesting because it plays with what you expect in the Western tropes where it's like the hired gunslinger is technically the hero and the sheriff of the town is technically the bad guy.
Right, exactly. They really flip that one on you in an interesting way. That's probably one of my favorite examples of like depending on who you focus on the movie where it's like, hey man, good and evil or subjective depending on which side of the fence you're on. Yeah, I agree with that.
I was going to say, oh, we promise we talk about Daredevil. Yeah. Is Daredevil an anti-hero? I mean, he has many anti-heroish tendencies.
He broods. He hangs out on top of churches and everything. But I don't think he's really, well, I mean, okay, Netflix, Daredevil is pretty selfish a lot of the time when it comes to a new romance in his life, but he doesn't kill, he honors his word, he helps out, he doesn't, well, okay, well, he abandons foggy every so often, but foggy abandons him too. They have a weird back and forth those two.
Yeah, yeah. I think at the end of the day, Matt is a hero. I think he's more like one of those. He's a street-level hero.
He does the best he can with what he's got. Yeah, and he's tortured and all the other. Moon, okay, Moon Knight's an anti-hero because he has no problem killing people. And then even then, it's like, can we call him an anti-hero when he's also literally crazy, where it's like, is he even responsible for his own actions when he has multiple personalities bumping around in his head?
Yeah, I say yes, because all of them are accountable. That's fair. And he wants to wear the tights. He gets, he's under the same scrutiny as everybody else.
Yeah. But yeah, I think Moon Knight's straight up as an anti-hero slash, like, he's basically just like a more extreme Batman in as much as I use my money to wage a one-man war on crime. Yeah. Whatever's happening that way.
Someone mentions Danny Ran Luke Cage and the heroes for hire. They don't actually take any money. No, it's weird. They never once take any money.
They might say like, I will take your case like the old time you detect this, but not just keep your money though. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, gotta be a bad business model, but then again, I'm sure Rand Corp is just putting everybody's bills on that team. It's gotta be like a tax write-off.
There's no profit and it's just a good way to like, it's a charitable thing. It's like a donation. There you go. The chat says Green Arrow.
Definitely in certain Longbow Hunters he's an anti-hero, which I disagree with a lot of Longbow Hunters. I know it's the story everyone likes. It is almost a Green Arrow with Dark Knight Returns is to Batman. It's the one.
Everybody's red. It's the trade that's always in circulation, even though I feel it's not a great representation of the hero most of the time. Yeah, no, I agree with that. Hulk.
That's another interesting one. Hulk definitely, you know, it helps weird because he's like in a spawn category. I don't want to be the superhero of the story. Yeah.
He is destructive, but a lot of that's out of his control. Banner is definitely not like an anti-hero. He's not a bad guy. He wants to do a good.
Shit. Hank Pym is arguably more of an anti-hero just in the way he's been written in his general behavior. Yeah. What about Amanda Weller?
Ah, we had this conversation last week too about whether or not she's evil, and I thought long and hard about this one. I think she thinks of herself as an anti-hero. She thinks herself as the ultimate public servant who will do whatever it takes to keep America and its allies safe, even if it means destroying lives and stepping over other people. To the squad, she is most 100% of villains.
Yes. I think Amanda Weller is such an interesting character because she gets to be whatever we need her to be to different characters in the story. Yeah. To the Swiss, that's why she's the villain.
Maria Hill falls into the same category too, I would say. I agree. Maria Hill is a less effective Amanda Weller. She gets in trouble a lot, and most of the evil acts that Maria Hill does is just to save her own ass from shit because she's like, I can't go down because if I do, who's going to protect all you stupid people?
I think initially Maria Hill was basically just a reluctant anti-hero. She wanted to do good. She makes decisions. She had people probe Spider-Man's mind when he was a guest in their place just so because she needed to know, because she believed she needed to know about the house of Anne.
She's like, I'm in charge of all this shit. I can't have missing notes to everything that happened here. I don't argue with her on that point. Over time, they forgot what to do with her, which is the unfortunate history of all Bendis creations.
That's why I like Spencer making her a huge vocal point of secret empire. She's the one who's like, look, you might not like me, but I'm the only one standing between you and evil Captain America. Yeah. Moana, Charlie says, how do you write a popular anti-hero without turning them into a hero?
Or who is the epitome of anti-hero in your opinion? Yeah, Joel, if you take this one, I'll wrap up with that thought as well. You know, this is a good one because I get to talk about one of my favorites who I was saving for the very end. Jonah Hex, and I think the reason he's been allowed to stay such a such a center anti-hero for so long is a lot about the top of the top of the world.