Long before superheroes transitioned to the big screen, I was a huge comic book nerd. My comic book habit was so out of control that whenever my mom sent me to the grocery store, I’d steal her change to feed my habit. Since I’m a boomer, when I was a kid, the latest Spider-man was only 15 cents, which means my thievery — and my addiction went under my parent’s radar.
Believe it or not, the source of my habit was Fulton Feed & Seed, a mom-and-pop hardware store that, for reasons unknown, sold comic books in addition to hammers, nails, and the baby chicks under heat lamps displayed in the store window. By my senior year in high school, I had a huge comic book collection that I kept in a black trunk positioned at the foot of my bed. My collection met its demise one summer while I was away working for my cousin.
My mom decided to toss my entire treasure chest of comics in the trash in her infinite wisdom. I’m not saying I’m still carrying a grudge, but whenever I see a comic book I once owned sell for thousands of dollars, the image of that black trunk appears in my mind.
My fascination with superheroes and supervillains is why M. Knight Shyamalan’s 2000 film Unbreakable, which starred Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, is one of my favorites. The film, named in 2011 as one of the top ten superhero films of its era, theorized that the archetypes found in comic book mythology are exaggerations of real-life heroes and villains.
Unbreakable’s genius notwithstanding, when Marvel’s Stan Lee or the folks at DC Comics created their multiverse of superheroes and supervillains, they never expected to be so close to the mark. Here are a few examples where the comic book universe collides with dystopian reality.
The Two-Faced Politician
District Attorney Harvey Dent was once a rising star in Gotham City until a mob boss hideously scarred the left side of his face with acidic chemicals. He subsequently loses his mind, adopting the “Two-Face” persona.
Two-Face obsessively makes decisions by flipping a two-headed coin. Later iterations of this supervillain portray him as a personal friend and ally to Batman, and the best friend of Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne.
While he could never be best friends with the Dark Knight, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is the real-life doppelgänger for Harvey Dent. For years seen as a political moderate, Graham and the late Senator John McCain from Arizona, were practically inseparable.
Graham was an ally of President Joseph Biden during his tenure representing Delaware in the US Senate, telling a reporter in 2015, “If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, then you got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation. ’Cause what’s not to like?” By 2015, Senator Graham’s star continued to rise, landing him among the GOP’s candidates for president.
But something happened after the 2016 election. In a few short months, the South Carolina Senator went from relatively decent politician to a sell-out political hack. Like the Two-Face character in the comic books, Graham’s personality changed, but it wasn’t due to a mob boss — just a politician who acts like one.
Graham’s transformation was so much like the Two-Face comic book character his 2020 opponent, Jaime Harrison, referenced the personality change in a campaign ad. Did Harrison really intend to compare Graham to Two-Face? I guess we’ll have to ask him.
The Mask of White Supremacy
I was never a big fan of the Watchmen comic books, but when HBO dropped its 2019 “remix” of the original series, I was on board. The truth is I’ll watch just about anything with Regina King in it.
I was hooked on Watchmen when the first episode began with a scene depicting the Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My only issue was I thought the plot was a bit far-fetched. I mean, would anyone believe a plotline where violent white supremacists try to overthrow the government, and all the heroes have to wear masks over their faces? Give me a break.
That time Batman highjacked every cellphone in Gotham City
In the 2008 film The Dark Knight, part two in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, The Joker terrorizes Gotham City. To track The Joker down, Batman asks Lucius Fox, who manages Wayne Enterprises, to monitor the cellphones of Gotham City’s 30 million citizens — without their knowledge or consent.
Batman and Fox decide that while mass surveillance is a slippery slope, maybe it’s okay to do it this one time to stop the imminent threat of The Joker’s terrorism. They agree to delete the mountain of cellphone information gleaned from the surveillance once they track down The Joker.
It’s almost as though the cellphone surveillance plot in The Dark Knight opened Pandora’s box. Because just over a decade later, the New York Times reported “dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized” are tracking the movements — not of 30 million — but tens of millions of mobile phone owners. But unlike Batman and Lucius Fox, they keep the massive trove of information they gather.
The Mob Boss turned Politician
Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin, built his criminal empire by recruiting Chinese, Japanese, and Russian gangsters, to become one of the most prominent organized crime figures in the United States. Despite the many depictions of the Kingpin with an extraordinarily heavyset appearance, he is heavily muscled and not obese. After using his vast ill-gotten resources to help Manhattanites survive a crisis, Fisk parlayed his newfound popularity to become mayor of New York City.
A few years ago, there was a real-life kingpin wannabe with a real estate empire inherited from his family. After building a reputation for defrauding banks and not paying his debts, Russian oligarchs helped him wrangle his way into the White House.
But that is a story we all want to forget.