In a World of Super-Violence, Can Pacifism Pack a Punch?: Nonviolent Superheroes and their Implications

Since at least 1954-the year when Congress, inspired by psychologist Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, investigated comics as a cause of juvenile delinquency, and when the industry implemented in the hearings' wake a Comics Code, nominally active until 2011, that disallowed, among much else, "[s]cenes of excessive violence"3 -the relevant debate has tended to center around the literal-minded question of how violence in superhero comics impacts the morals and behavior of readers, especially children.4 Rather than assert whether comic book heroes are good or bad role models for individuals, this article will highlight, in accordance with Marco Arnaudo's suggestion that their stories often employ "a principle of allegory that is relatively rare in the world of contemporary pop fiction" (17), their metaphoric value, specifically how they stand for other sorts of superhuman entities. [...]I turn to the question posed in my title: