Superfuck You—The White Goliath

I want to ask you something: what is a superhero?

Superhero is one of those words that means various things to various people. To some it’s some guy in his underwear who can fly beating the shit out of some other guy in his underwear who wants to rule the world. To others it’s just a variation on that in various permutations. You wanna know what I think a superhero is?

The White Goliath is a superhero.

(At this point, I would like to point out that I don’t subscribe to the views that The White Goliath presented in the comic you just read. If I’ve learned one thing from South Park and how people react, it’s that sometimes it’s best to just come right out and say what you mean rather than allowing people to figure it out, as some people are very dumb and very quick to judge without actually attempting to look beyond the explicit. I’ll return to my little editorial thing now . . .)

That’s right, The White Goliath is a superhero. He’s the exact definition of the superhero in my mind. You know why? He does what he thinks is right no matter what. That’s what a superhero is, at it’s core: someone who has a moral code and backs it up when challenged. The White Goliath does that.

Now, of course, one must bear in mind that the moral code varies from person to person. What you think is right, won’t necessarily be what I think is right. But that’s okay, right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral, are all very subjective terms despite what anyone tells you.

No one does anything of their own free will unless on some level, they think it’s “right.”

Basically, what I’m saying is nothing new: there is no such thing as an objective good or evil. All that good and evil shit is up to the people who commit the act, and those who feel it’s their right to judge the act.

That’s what Superfucks is really all about: showing that everyone has their own ideas of what’s good/evil, right/wrong, moral/immoral, and that all views are just as valid.

Is murder wrong? I personally think it is, but that serial killer doesn’t. Two points of view on an issue of morality that are diametrically opposed and whose is correct in their assumptions of right and wrong? Damned if I know. Some people would say with absolute certainty that their view on morality s correct, but I don’t presume to be that arrogant.

The White Goliath believes that anyone who isn’t just like him is an inferior person and doesn’t deserve him saving them, but do deserve his scorn, rage, and violence. There are a lot of people who would agree with him (and do), so to them, he would be a champion of their morality: a superhero.

This of course lends to my belief that superhero comics aren’t good versus evil or any of that shit, but really just conflicting moralities. There’s no such thing as a hero or villain in an objective sense, only in a subjective view. Look at all the people who root for the “villain”: to them, the “villain” is the “hero.”

My favourite example of this is Grant Morrison’s Marvel Boy. In it, we find two people opposing one another: Doctor Midas, an armoured millionaire who prevents aliens from invading the planet, and works with the government; and there’s Noh-Varr, a alien who’s trying to remake Earth in his home planet’s image.

Now tell me, which of these two is the “hero” and which is the “villain”?

Well, in typical superhero stories, Midas would be the hero. He fights to keep Earth “pure” from alien invasions and such. He even wears Iron Man’s original armour. Noh-Varr is an alien attempting to conquer the world through culture, in a way. Totally a villain. But in the series itself, Noh-Varr is presented as the protagonist and Midas the antagonist. There are no absolutes when it comes to things like this.

So now that you know this, could you reread The White Goliath and take a better look at him. Look beyond the explicit meaning of his words and actions, and look at them in their basic form, and there you’ll see the same thing you’d see if you took a look at Superman or Spider-Man or any of them if you looked deeper to the core of them: a guy just trying to make the world better in his own way.

Chad Nevett
Listening to the Tragically Hip
December 15, 2002