Alan Moore Warns That Superhero Worship Could “Very Often Be A Precursor To Fascism”

If you’re a fan of comic books and you were to create a Mount Rushmore of comic book creators, the first name many will mention is Jack Kirby. But soon after, you might get to Alan Moore. The British writer revolutionized the entire medium and superhero comics, specifically, with various works created in the ‘80s. His most prominent work is “Watchmen,” which is often regarded as one of the very best comic book stories ever written. So, when the guy who deconstructed superheroes better than anyone else comes out and warns people about their fascination with capes and cowls perhaps leading to disastrous real-world results, folks listen.

Speaking to The Guardian over the weekend, Alan Moore talked about superheroes. Admittedly, this isn’t something that Moore does very often. The writer doesn’t like to step out into the limelight all that often, and when he does, Moore is definitely not someone to fondly remember the good ol’ days and superheroes. And rather unsurprisingly, Moore went on a bit of a rant about just how concerned he is with adults being obsessed with superheroes. He thinks this is a precursor to something very dangerous.

READ MORE: ‘Watchmen’ Writer Alan Moore Says Superhero FIlms Have “Blighted Cinema & Culture”

“Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys – and it was always boys – of 50 years ago,” said Moore. “I didn’t really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s – to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional – when things like ‘Watchmen’ were first appearing. There were an awful lot of headlines saying ‘Comics Have Grown Up’. I tend to think that, no, comics hadn’t grown up. There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as they’d ever been. It wasn’t comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.”

He continued, “I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilization – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.”

READ MORE: ‘V for Vendetta’ Isn’t Science Fiction Anymore

While these are definitely strong words, especially coming from someone who played an incredible role in popularizing comics for adult readers decades ago, Moore has fairly consistently been warning the general population about its love of superheroes. Almost exactly two years ago today, I wrote about Alan Moore talking about how superhero films were a “blight” on culture. And in his full quote, he talked more about how the genre “infantilized” adults and showed how they only wanted to experience simplistic situations. 

So, if nothing else, Alan Moore is very consistent in his dislike of modern superhero worship. Let’s just hope he’s wrong about what it could lead to. Because let’s be real, the situation around the world isn’t going in a great direction right now.