His real name is Tom Mayflower, but he is better known as "The Escapist". He is a superhero extraordinaire with an enhanced ability for escapology. His main nemesis is a mysterious criminal network known as "The Iron Chain". All in all, "The Escapist" is a great read. But an even better read is "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", the story about the creators of "The Escapist". Too often are the heroic efforts of writers and illustrators overshadowed by the fictional heavyweights they create, which is why today I want to write about them: the heroes behind our heroes, the Kavaliers and Clays of the world. And what better place to start than with Kavalier and Clay themselves?
Josef Kavalier is a hungarian jew who just barely escaped the iron clutches of the holocaust and Sam Clay is a closeted homosexual, soul-searching in the middle of the twentieth century. Together, this odd duo of heroes fight the genocidal Nazi threat through the only way they know how: through fiction. During the Second World War, the storyline for "The Escapist" takes a turn and joins the Allied struggle against the Axis Powers, beating Nazis on a weekly basis for the kids to read. In their own humble way, Kavalier and Clay fight for liberal democracy, for justice. They send a message, make a statement. It might seem odd to think that one can fight the Nazi regime by publishing comic books, cute even. But I, for one, believe that fiction has a stronger, more subtle impact than people give it credit for. Didn't Pablo Picasso once say that art is a weapon? Why then wouldn't popular art be more so?
In any case, we all know what happened in the end with regards to the Nazi threat. Western democracy's triumphant victory over totalitarianism and eugenics. The plight of the individual is heard, somewhat. Hooray for us. But the fight is far from over, heroes are still needed. Heroes that can stand up not just for democratic nations but for those who even within these nations are often in need of being saved. In the 1960s we witness the civil rights movement, the breaking point that would give birth to the binary cultural war that is America today. Since then, and despite the heavy-handed censorship of the cold war era with its hollywood blacklists and whatnot, geek culture has chipped in forming part of a broad, exciting media revolution that seeks greater notoriety for the little guys: the jews, the gays, african americans, women, citizens of the developing world and so on.
Don't take for granted that Star Trek broadcasted American television's first scripted interracial kiss. The creators of Star Trek started with a civil rights agenda, refusing to produce the show if not with a racially diverse cast. Don't take for granted that classic, mind-shattering moment in the history of gaming when intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran removes her helmet and reveals her gender. Or X-Men's "Northstar" marrying another man, giving us the first gay marriage in American comic book history. And now even Spider-man is of african and hispanic heritage ("blacktino" for the politically incorrect). These fictional milestones mean something, I think. The United States had black superheroes long before it had a black president. Maybe there's something there, maybe not. But at least we can say that pop culture is more inclusive than ever, and it may not seem like much today but at the time it was a tough jump to make. And all so we could be superheroes too. People like me. I thank these awesome, progressive geeks of yesteryear. These little heroes of ours. 