Dark Side Of The Toon

t’s been a comic book twister for quite some time now…

Is there really all that much difference between an avenging vigilante such as Batman and an anti-establishment anarchist such as The Joker?

Is Luke really all that different from his father, Darth Vadar, as he sets about killing anyone who stands in the way of destiny..? Oh, and do the cowboys really deserve all that land…?

For young Greystones artist Emma Torreggiani, both the superhero paradox (making the world a safer place for innocents whilst also, by their very presence, making it more dangerous ) and the superhero fallacy (where we tend to put ourselves at the centre of our stories) were the main inspirations for her college comics module. Entitled The Adventures Of Hero-Man, the above strip is intended, says Emma, “to be a commentary on how superheroes are often portrayed as working to enforce the status quo, even though they break the status quo by merely existing.”

Taking her thesis further, Ms Torreggiani states, “It’s easy to acknowledge that a superpowered being protecting your town would be a good thing, but not so easy to accept that the people who raid your town for resources may be just as deserving of those resources as the people of your town.”

So, not so much Iron Man as Irony Man. 

Naturally, Emma’s stripped-bare comic strip can be adapted to many a modern misery, from Aghanistan to Hong Kong, from Syria to Kilcoole.

Cover art by Warrick Wong Design.