Comic landscapes

I love superheroes. Since I was a child, superheroes have been an important part of my life, my thoughts and desires because they have always made me feel powerful. My imagination grew up through their stories and experiences and I learnt that all of us are able to achieve our dreams and vital goals, even to help the others when they need it. The first comic I read was one of Batman which explained the importance of his weapons, his Bat-cave, his friendship with Robin, his loyalty to Alfred the butler and, mainly, his need to help others and to act in the name of justice. Batman fascinated me not only in cartoon characters but in his altruistic and self-bettering personality and from that moment on I included superhero comics and films in my everyday life. 

One of the most interesting and mysterious things in comics is the meaning of the places where the action develops. The landscapes of superhero comics are really amazing because most of them are located in futuristic big cities built of imaginary skyscrapers and strange suburbs enveloped in decadent and dreamlike atmospheres. They represent a fusion of several universes and dreamy worlds, mixing avant-garde technology, beautiful landscapes and spectacular architecture. In superhero comics what is really surprising is the relationship between heroes and their cities because these cities usually represent these heroes’ supernatural and human natures. Most are big sprawling places where technology and success prospers but, on the other hand, they are also full of slums and hideouts, usually where the villains live. Sometimes illustrators have created cities as another main character of the story line and they are symbols of democratic values, especially liberty and justice. In fact, when there is a threat to the city and its citizens, we can understand it as a menace to democracy and the city becomes a controversial place where democratic heroes and totalitarian villains clash. The city-democracy relationship really represents the legendary differences between good and evil forces and these battles take place over the rooftops, in the sewers or in the streets and usually the city architecture and physical structures (if we understood them as democracy) are deeply affected and damaged. Finally, we can consider that mass media is the collective consciousness of the city that helps citizens either to eulogize or to banish superheroes. 

There are some important and well-known cities in comics that have become well entrenched in our collective imagination:

1. Gotham City (Batman):  Perhaps the most famous comic city, this is a gothic, decadent place with a lot of dangerous slums. It has been overwhelmed by corrupt politicians and villains and only Batman is able to help the police to restore justice and peace. It’s like New York at night.

2. Metropolis (Superman): Generally, we have considered this to be a city like New York by day but actually it is inspired by Toronto, although it also has some aspects of Los Angeles and Chicago. It has always been the bull’s eye for the world’s super-villains.

  

3. Sin City: This city is really the main character of Frank Miller’s comic. It is a black and white city of lights, shadows and shapes, an urban oasis in the middle of a rural and deserted landscape, the best place for anti-heroes and human temptations to live.

 

4. Coast City (Green Lantern): This is a city that has a specific location since it is situated in Southern California, in a place between San Diego and Los Angeles. Its citizens are all very civilized and responsible, except for the villains, of course.

5. Neo-Tokyo (Akira): This symbolizes the purest cyberpunk aesthetic and depicts Tokyo in 2030 after its destruction by the Third World War in 1992. Neo-Tokyo is built over an artificial island and after some catastrophic events it is transformed into a ghost city.

6. Mega City One (Judge Dredd): One of the biggest, most sprawling futurist cities drawn by illustrators, it has many characteristics and references to Blade Runner and The Fifth Element.

However, if we have to choose only one real city to be the most representative superhero comic cities, this is New York. It has been the city par excellence where superheroes have done their great deeds. New York represents an urban quality based on contrasts and visual instability, a good representation of complexity and chaos resulting from crime where superheroes are the last hope for saving citizens in inhospitable architectural spaces. It reflects the center of commercial and financial world power with a dark side presented as a criminal landscape. Therefore, New York comprises innumerable parts of many cities all around the world; it’s a modern icon and symbolizes an ideal of democracy where their citizens embody the human being as a whole. 


 

There are two accentuated points of view between comic readers regarding to their understanding of the concept of superhero cities. DC readers accept totally fictitious cities; e.g. that Coast City would be destroyed, killing seven million people, with consequences that would affect the whole Universe; they accept that New York exists but Metropolis too, and even that Lex Luthor would be the President. In other words, DC readers want an unreal landscape and a lot of places and situations that don’t exist in the real world. On the contrary, Marvel readers prefer their superheroes to live and fight in real cities like New York, Los Angeles and London. For them, fictitious places are little towns or villages in the middle of nowhere where superheroes go only to have an adventure. They also accept that unreal foreign nations like Latveria and Genosha have to be in Africa, Europe or South America. For Marvel readers it is more credible that Spiderman or Captain America would live in a real city because this characteristic links them to our real world more than Batman to Gotham City. 

Although all these ideas, thoughts, beliefs and preferences might be weird or freaky, reality shows us that the world of superhero comics extends widely to people of all ages, because not only is it a good way to help us escape to another worlds but through them we are able to feel all the weaknesses and strengths of our superheroes. Besides, who wouldn’t like to be a superhero, although it was only for a day? 

Uinen