Tag Bald Knobbers

By Zero
The general consensus among the public at large is that Superheroes have Superpowers. Be it supernatural, science related or simply resulting in special training to become the pinnacle of human development. “They” (the same “they” that speaks so prolifically throughout the annals of time, debunking and dissolving and disproving) say that we’re not Superheroes if we don’t have Superpowers. They say that without Superpowers, we can’t really be effective.
I disagree. Wholly.
Before I tackle the semantics of this subject, I’d like to state simply that while we do seem to emulate the more current comic book Superhero meme, there is a much older and more substantive meme that is being overlooked.
Research the Scarlet Pimpernel. Tomo Gozen. Joan of Arc. The Sons of Liberty. The Bald Knobbers. Don’t recognize the names? Google is your friend. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Compassion and True Justice are older than superheroes. They’re older than Superman, Batman, they’re older than Coca-Cola.
A lot older.
Superheroes are simply the modern manifestation of this recurring theme, and the fact that an entire group of people has been driven by discontent and injustice to emulate these fantastic and literally incredible characters is proof of a sad age, indeed. But instead of embracing or supporting this marvel of human spirit to fly in the face of apathy, the majority chooses to ridicule from the safety of their armchairs without a second thought. Understandable, to a point, but it’s a knee-jerk reaction.
Really, people. Your main criticism is based on aesthetics alone. I’ve seen some of you, out in public, wearing your snuggies and your Uggs. Your button-up, popped-collar Kmart specials. You’re no prize to fashion.
It’s time to stop making decisions based on image. Hasn’t American Beauty taught you anything?
I think the reason for this criticism overkill is that the public secretly wishes that Superheroes were real. They’ve been waiting for it, subconsciously on the edge of their seats, and now that it’s in the eye of the media they want nothing less than leaping tall buildings, laser vision and adamantium claws. They want a huge change, a quantum leap in evolution because all the old tricks aren’t working for this country anymore. It’s a product of desensitization, in my opinion.
Any president that took over for Bush was screwed for this exact same reason. People want too much, and when they don’t get what they expect, any and all efforts are discounted and criticized into the ground. But now we’re getting into the realm of politics, and at this point I’ll bring my ADD rantings back to the subject at hand.
A real hero doesn’t fool himself into thinking that he can cure all with one solid blow to the heart of some perceived “evil”. That’s grossly naïve. It’s a child’s solution, albeit one that is often used to satiate a pre-existing bloodlust.
Changing the world is something that is going to take patience, persistence in character, and above all the unspoken choice that the people of this community make every day of their lives. The choice to go beyond random acts of kindness, or simple decency. The choice to become the antithesis of apathy, simply by getting out there and doing anything. Sacrificing the need to be cool, in the old sense of fashionable aloofness, for a new unity.
You think we crave the spotlight? You’d be right in some cases. As with any loosely organized bunch of universal misfits, we have a few of those types. But ask yourself, has the typical celebrity done much beyond perform onscreen, or produce a hit album every few years?
If that’s the extent of their contributions to society, how does that put them above a person that braves the cold to feed the homeless, or risks their neck just because they’re tired of watching the world crumble around them? Is it simply the aesthetic, or the image, or the lifestyle that makes America worship them so?
What does that say about our country?
The world has lost perspective, we’ve given over to the things that should take up a very small percentage of our time, and the demand for these things have caused supplies to boom. This has resulted in the current lifestyle-obsessed society that is clogging the arteries of human progress.
The saddest consequence of all is that kindness and compassion are lost to mystique and drama. Conflict is more exciting than peace. It’s an overindulgence that has crippled us.
I’d say that the RLSH community is a direct consequence of this.
So how could we expect anything less, in our image obsessed world, than these strangely dressed people vying for your attention? How many good cops or charity workers do you see in the mainstream media, calling attention to simple acts of human decency?
Not many. Not enough. In the end, that choice is all it takes to be… something more.
Think about it.

Originally posted: http://mysterio.startlogic.com/WordPress/?p=556
By Brad
As a lifelong reader of comics, I feel like an aging punk rocker, horrified at how my private subculture has been appropriated by the mainstream media. Like an indy music hipster, —dude, I heard it first on vinyl, I don’t even own a cd player— aging comic book readers like myself disdain comic book movies. I read that when I was in high school. The movie totally ruined it.
Comics have become an accepted part, if not the most accepted part, of the American entertainment landscape. Mainstream comics, particularly as depicted in movies, are always dark and gritty. But it’s important to remember that transition didn’t happen until the mid-1980s with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Superheroes before that period, who were sometimes wanted by the law à la Spiderman, were never seen breaking the law, but were depicted as trying to uphold it as private citizens. The genius of Watchmen and the Dark Knight is that they follow the thinking process of the classic superhero with two different conclusions. I liked the Watchmen movie, but it glossed over the main point of the comic: the corrosive effects of vigilantism on a society.
I’ve discovered people who are wearing garish costumes and trying to fight crime, but without the benefit of superscience, superstrength or really anything. This is so absurd and charming that one can’t help but support these costumed crusaders. Superbarrio is my favorite of the Real Life Superheroes. It’s hard not to like this over-weight gentleman who puts on a Lucha Libre wrestling mask and has sworn to protect the poor people of Mexico.
These Real Life Superheroes hearken back to another age of comics when morality was presented in simpler terms. We can chuckle at these people and wonder if they’re doing this in earnest or as a form of cosplay. However, the sentiment of the superhero, to go beyond the rule of law and rid the streets of crime, has had expression in the Real World, that isn’t so wonderful.
Bob Kane’s Batman chose his costume and persona in an effort to frighten criminals, who he called a “superstitious and cowardly lot.” The Ku Klux Klan wore their hoods and white sheets to appear as ghosts, to frighten and terrorize Blacks. Placing burning crosses on the property of Blacks was originally an affront to the deeply Christian beliefs of rural Blacks, whose religion and spirituality was their only real possession. It was only later that cross burning was rationalized as a some kind of internal Christian ritual.
The Klan’s illegal actions were applauded and celebrated in D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. It’s hard to imagine a film about the KKK being presented as the “good guys”, but the film was a blockbuster success. It was the Batman of its day.  After his private screening at the White House, Woodrow Wilson even commented, “it is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true”.
At roughly the same time as the Ku Klux Klan, there was another costumed group, although this time not dedicated to racism, that decided to take the law into their own hands. On paper, the early Bald Knobbers sound like a decent bunch, similar in concept to Curtis Sliwa’s neighborhood watch group,The Guardian Angels. The Bald Knobbers were a secret society of men, who wore an odd, masked and horned costume, and were trying to uphold the peace. The Bald Knobbers were Missouri Republicans, who were loyal to the Union during the Civil War. In the lawless environment of post-war Missouri, they acted like an unaccountable police force. Unfortunately this group that was formed to protect the people of Missouri, drunk with power, applied brutality and murder not only to criminals, but those they felt who were immoral. They later attacked and murdered people for what they believed to be licentious and anti-Christian behavior.
During Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, more Americans got in on the illegal vigilante act, but this time with governmental approval. The American Protective League, which had around 300,000 members, was not a bunch of costumed crusaders, but a large snitch group, dedicated to disrupting Unions, Wobblies, anarchists, anti-war advocates, and other undesirables. These characters opened private mail, broke into people’s houses, riffling through desks and drawers and found 3 million cases of “disloyalty.” There was even a kid-friendly junior version with the Our Gang title, Anti Yellow Dog League.
I thought of these things after watching the recent Batman movie. It does have an explicit desire to go beyond the perceived limits of law. Bruce Wayne uses technology to spy on every single person in Gotham city. He knows it’s illegal and unethical — it’s clearly an unreasonable search and seizure — but does it anyway. The ends justify the means.  Many people saw a connection between the Patriot Act and other erosion of civil liberties with the viewpoint of Batman. When the Soviets had a massive domestic spying network, complimented by legions of snitches, they probably thought they were doing the right thing too.
The graffiti in The Watchmen comic reads, “Who Watches the Watchmen?” Something to think about in these times.