Titans: How Superheroes Can Help Us Make Sense of a Polarized World

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These days it seems like heroes fight each other more often than they fight villains. The hero-vs-hero trope so common in comic books and in superhero movies these days can provide us with a means of thinking about the deeply polarized state of modern politics and public opinion about civic life, morality, and even God. There is a real divide in our public life that nobody seems to be able to cross. It’s easy to complain that people should be more willing to meet each other half-way, that politicians should be more willing to compromise in order to get things done, but there are plenty of important issues on which compromise really isn’t possible. We see this problem dramatized in comics like Marvel’s Civil War and Avengers vs X-Men; in DC’s Kingdom Come and The Dark Knight Returns; and in film media like Daredevil, Batman v Superman, and Captain America: Civil War. The consequences of the conflicts that arise in these stories can serve as warnings about our current political environment. They’re safe places in which we can see the logic of our political dysfunction carried to frightening (but perhaps inevitable?) conclusions.