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Why don't superheroes stop wars, instead of fighting supervillains? Marvel offers an answer, via The Fantastic Four leader Reed Richards

Reed Richards believes that it's not worth the political fallout to intervene in international conflicts, according to a recent Marvel comic book (Meanwhile, DC's Superman is stopping wars around the world as per his new movie trailer)

Graeme McMillan
News by Graeme McMillan, Editor
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It’s a question that many fans have asked over the years: why don’t superheroes do more when it comes to ending wars and bringing peace around the world? A new Marvel comic book has offered a potential answer, and one that comes from a seemingly knowledgeable source: Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four, himself.

In Death of the Silver Surfer #1 — released June 11 — Reed and fellow FF member Johnny Storm visit the aftermath of an appearance from the titular cosmic hero, who had just ended the ‘Santo Marcan Civil War’ after 234 days by destroying the weapons of war being used by both sides. Reed explicitly tells Johnny that the Surfer had done “the right thing,” explaining that he’d ended “a war that everyone said they wanted to end. And he did it without killing anyone, as far as I can tell. He just dismantled every offensive weapon on the battlefield.”

Johnny, understandably, asks, “If… that’s the right thing, why didn’t… we do it?”

Reed’s explanation for non-interventionism comes down to politics. “If we’d done anything, it would have been interpreted as an American intervention. And interests, both domestic and foreign, would have exploited that impression for their own purposes.” He adds, “In fact, we’d better make ourselves scarce before our mere presence after the fact gives them ammo.”

It’s a reasonable, perhaps even sensible, argument — and certainly one that makes more sense in the fictional context than “because having superheroes end all war would break the fictional universe the stories take place in, and we need that universe to keep selling more comic books,” which is the real answer. (It’s not as if superheroes haven’t attempted to forcibly end all war in the past; Marvel’s own 1985 miniseries Squadron Supreme is about that very thing, and worth revisiting in this context.)

That said, it’s also notable that the explanation comes from the leader of the Fantastic Four — about to be rebooted in a big screen context in July’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps — while the trailer for DC Studios’ Superman shows that Superman did intercede in a foreign war to stop it, setting off all manner of political fallout. We should also note that Death of the Silver Surfer is written by acclaimed comic book writer Greg Pak; Pak also wrote a run of Superman in Action Comics back in 2015 — where Superman got involved in anti-police brutality protests.

In multiple incarnations, then, Superman would appear to be less purposefully calculated and passive than the Fantastic Four, it seems. Although Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman has said that The Invisible Woman is heading up a group pushing for global demilitarization and creating a lasting world peace…

Death of the Silver Surfer #1 is available now. The Fantastic Four: First Steps will arrive in theaters July 25.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

 

Graeme McMillan

Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.

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