About a month or so ago, there was and still is a person who has been making continuous threads on 4chan’s /co/ asking if Superman was becoming outdated. It’s a question that had been on my mind while writing my current writing project, which has been the largest single project I’ve focused primarily on that is not Avocado or the Guide. I’m aware it is a story not many people are reading. Heck, the re-upload of the original concept by KMEB did not get much notice on both the subreddit and this site. And yet, part of the appeal in writing Aww Staw Supah Fwuff is because of the parallels behind superheroes, and fluffy ponies as a genre.
I remember that, many years ago, I came across a comic called Superman’s Metropolis. The idea sort of baffled me, because what the artist/author did, was literally adapt Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, to a Superman mold. The main character was replaced with Superman, and the leader of the city, the “mind” was made to be Jonathan Kent. It seems like such a silly idea, which it is. But then the question becomes, why do it?
There was a quote that Max Landis mentioned in his video documentary about the death of Superman. And that Superman means something to people. He means something to people, the way classic Simpsons did to the 90s audience he first watched the show. Someone did an entire retelling of the story of Akira, but with Simpsons characters called Bartkira. And someone would read this and think, why? Why go through the effort to retell Akira with Simpsons characters? Or retell Metropolis with the Superman mythos? In adapting one story to another mold, it becomes a way to explore how a story would be different if certain characters were playing certain roles. But ultimately, doing a retelling, and putting the effort to explore how a retelling might work with a different setting, or changes to mythos, requires a heavy amount of effort, which brings me to my next point.
I’ve heard enough people who say that fluffies aren’t really worth the effort. Or, they would say something along the lines of “fluffies are only good for abuse and suffering”, et cetera et cetera. When working on the cyberpunk idea I head a while back, someone mentioned that the idea seemed like a lot of effort for fluffies and could work on its own. But the thing was, I created the setting with fluffies in mind.
How does this tie to superheroes? Because there is such a thing as superhero fatigue. As well as a disillusionment with the superhero idea.
We don’t have to look far. One of the biggest critics I can think of when it comes to superheroes is Garth Ennis, whose well known for writing The Boys. Ennis is known for being overly edgy in his writing and ideas, but Ennis really has a hatred for superheroes. Some claim that he likes Superman but, end of the day, Ennis’s best work has been on comics revolving around soldiers, war, and lone gunmen (a reason why his Punisher and Nick Fury stories are so well-known). I can get by that, but the reality is that Ennis really, really hates superheroes. If that’s not evident enough, I feel the cover of the final issue of the Boys speaks volumes.
I had talked before on this site about Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come, which was an entire superhero comic done in gouache. It is a lot of effort, but, its clear that Ross wanted to portray this idea of Superheroes as a mythos. In rivalling the deconstruction, cynicism and pessimism of the Dark Age of superheroes, Ross wanted to tell a story that also represented superheroes at their best. Especially the older superheroes.
Of course, I am not Alex Ross. But I mentioned his example because would ask why he would put so much effort into creating such a superhero story, and depict superheroes in such a way. Many people have commented on the superheroes are a continuation of classic mythology. Whether its retelling Greek or Norse Gods in a modern setting, or Kirby coming up with a new pantheon in the New Gods and the Eternals, there is a heavy amount of mythmaking in creating a superhero world. Ross’s graphic novel, with its high attention to detail and its realism, becomes less a piece of pop culture and more of a fine art, an attempt to elevate the medium to being more than just men in tights fighting each other.
And I think the same can apply to fluffies. I have been known to be critical of the abuse within the fluffy pony fandom, but it would be more accurate to say that I am critical of the excessive emphasis of abuse and suffering related to fluffies as a concept, especially as the years went on. This is not say that there aren’t interesting ideas and concepts that have been explored from the abuse or sadbox sides – after all, and as much as I love Avocado, Avocado is a product of industrial sadbox . And FierceDeityLynx’s plum is sympathetic, despite the amount of abuse she endured at the hands of her herd. But the problem with fluffy pony fiction, is that too much of it reads like how Ennis thinks of superheroes. And I get that there are people who would prefer to see fluffies in terms of stress relief, or as a niche interest for something really edgy. But I do think the fiction can be aspire to be a lot more than that.