In our final lecture of the year we studied the theoretical works of Scott Bukatman through his book ‘Matters of Gravity – Special Effects & Supermen in the 20th Century.
The book discovered special effects in comic books for visual culture. He writes:
“As advanced technologies have proliferated, popular culture has turned the fear of instability into the thrill of topsy-turvydom, often by presenting images & experiences of weightless escape from controlled space”.
Here Bukatman is praising the idea of instability, naming it as something to be embraced from a postmodern point of view and regarding it as something to be in awe of. Further on into his book he begins to link this refrain from un-order into comic superheroes, defining their popularity.
Relationship between superheroes & the city
With the 20th Century came new concentrations of information and new modes of social definition. Bukatman defined the postmodern conception of an uncentered city as a sight of the familiar/strange, the sunlit/the shadow, the planned/the chaotic and the sublime/the uncanny. He gives the idea that superheroes inherit & adopt these paradoxical tropes and goes on to embody the characteristics of their local city.
The experience of the city & the comic book is less one of satic order than dynamic negotiation. For example, New York is a city of intense circulation; the streets keep moving and you’ve got to love the moment. Stillness is seen as boring and tedious, something that no one wants to be a part of. Bukatman relates this movement of the city to the movement of a superhero; to be a superhero, you’ve got to move.
Superhero comics narrate the sagas of propulsion and thrust through the city. Every superhero has these advanced powers of motion which are either natural or technological, much like the vehicles or the utilities of a city. Lois Lane described the movement of superman as the reds and blues running together and so that’s how he looked when he flew, a violet comet. Comets are seen as a phenomenal source, which much related to the way of a superhero.
City layers are also made legible in comics; surfaces are broken down during battles producing un-natural breakings in walls, and the fantastic four comics provide visuals of segmented 3d buildings in a blueprint style.
This is the use of architectural schematic plans to produce orderly fantastic spaces; buildings look ordered, however this order is broken down when superheroes are involved.
Superheroes and the city
Superheroes are always seen to gravitate towards the city such as New York and Gotham; they are never seen in rural destinations. They are always seen where the atmosphere is technological, busy and always a cause of trouble.
Superheroes come at you in bold streaks of colour, which contrasts the fixed, grey, ordered background of the great metropolis; another rise of American Modernism in a structured world.
Bukatman’s core proposition is that American superheroes embodied the same utopian aspirations of the city themselves. The concept of superheroes was welcomed in conjunction with the American Boom; the creation of new science, technology, industry, revolution, sexuality, values and beliefs symbolised the idea of the superhero as a result of a collective psyche. This psyche links modernist thought with the production of a superhero.
This rise in modernist America is sampled in many medias; in the 50’s intro to The Adventures of Superman he is compared to the speed of a locamotive and other residences of technology, and when teamed with his supernatural x-ray ability, he is established as having some sort of master over the city and is seen as a more modern version of the police.
Themes of Analysis
Bukatman compromises many theories in his book; superheroes as male power fantasies, displacement of sexual energy into aggression and the authority & order incarnate – fascist to the core. What he means by this last point is the battles in comics only address the symptoms of the disaster and leave the real problems of the city untouched-providing pointless solutions to the fighting as society is still broken.
In comics the order only really exists at the level of the narrative, for example:
- candy coloured costumes
- dynamic, irregular layouts
- movement beyond frame boundaries
- fragmented time
- visual sound effects
- chaos as pervasive and appealing
Visually, comics follow a modernist approach as supernaturals in both the superheroes and the story transition is irregular. A popular quote from the Silver Surfer comic states:
“I was born to soar, to ride the currents of space, not to be confined within a barren structure”.
Grids & Grace
Bukatman also writes about the relation of grid structures towards superheroes. If we look at New York City from a birds-eye view, the city is structured within a confined grid pattern. 
The grid layout shows control and a rationalist order that seems to rule the city. However this order is resisted through the upward thrust of high-rise buildings; each apartment within this solid grid structure is unique and individual which defines the dreams of their owners, supplementing the dreams of the city. Buketman here is linking the comic books as a resistance to social organisation.
Interestingly about the structure of New York is Broadway, which is the only stret that defies the grid structure, noticeably running in a diagonal through the heart of the city. This links in with Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43).
This piece plays around with colour theory to induce the movement of the city, and this combined with the structure of Broadway outlines New York’s modernity. Buketman also theorises the construction of New York to be connected to comics, in which he connects the perspective of builders high above the city at ease with their jobs to superheroes.
Supermans Metropolis
Metropolis was unnamed until 1939 and related to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. The Villian Lex Luthor states in a comic:
“Metropolis was nothing until I built it according to my vision, all in all it is a perfect vision of order…”
Lex Luthor rationalises the modernist police of superman, linking the villanious intentions with the order of the city.
Batmans Gotham
Gotham has no master and is depicted with angular perspectives. The orginal cartoons are quite childish whereas the later depictions are much darker. Tim Burton described it ‘as if hell had grown from the sidewalk and kept on going’. Gotham is not about transparency; it is a darker, shaded and opaque city allowing space for variable interpretation, which is evidenced in the dramatic contrast between the cartoon and the later films.
Spiderman’s New York
Bukatman descibes the spiderman character as the only character who lives in the real city of New York, rather than a fictional landscape. The real neurosis of Spiderman demands a real city setting, as he is this guilt ridden, confused character.
Spiderman is given a very animalistic perception as a superhero (spider sense), in which he uses this perception to navigate around his environment using touch and acrobatics. The physical state of the city also becomes unstable; walls become floors, verticality becomes something else.
In conclusion, Bukatman theorises superheroes as vehicles of urban representation. They embody perceptual paradigms and through the superhero we can recover the city as new and shifting ground.
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