'Watchmen' comic creator says that adults liking superhero movies can be 'a precursor to fascism'
- Author Alan Moore thinks adults liking superhero movies can be a "precursor to fascism."
- He called it an "infantilisation," and an "urge towards simpler times, simpler realities."
Author Alan Moore, the co-creator of graphic novels like "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta," doesn't think superheroes are for grownups.
Moore, who has expressed his disdain for superhero movies for years, told The Guardian in a recent interview that he thinks adults who like them can be a "precursor for fascism."
"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," Moore said. "Because that kind of infantilisation — that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities — that can very often be a precursor to fascism."
He used the popularity of superhero movies and the election of Donald Trump as examples.
Superheros have dominated Hollywood and the box office for over a decade thanks largely to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But Moore thinks superheroes should still be for children, despite his own involvement in shifting that narrative with "Watchmen" in 1986, which was written by Moore with art by Dave Gibbons.
"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," Moore said. "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."
While Moore said he "will always love and adore" comics, he has no plans to return to the medium.
"I'm definitely done with comics," he told The Guardian. "I haven't written one for getting on for five years. I will always love and adore the comics medium but the comics industry and all of the stuff attached to it just became unbearable."