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Deconstructed Superhero

Deconstructed Superhero

A Miracleman wannabe, he is, in the Planetary series, the representation of the 80's superhero deconstruction.

Name:
Deconstructed Superhero
Publisher:
Real name:
Aliases:
  • Caped Man
Birth date:
None
Gender:
Male
Powers:
  • Super Strength
cover

Origin

The Deconstructed superhero or Caped Man, was one of the few traditionalist superheros still living in England in the 60's and 70's. However during the 80's he discovered than most of his story was false: his powers were not given by a gentle scientific mentor, instead he was cloned from aryan super-athletes and Hitler's personal sexual midgets. These revelations caused him a nervous break down which traduced in psychological issues from split personalities, drugs addictions, changes in his sexual orientation, among other traumas.

Lost, confused and shamed of himself, the fallen hero put all the blame of his problems on Jack Carter for the invading darkness in his life and sought to kill him. However, Carter proved to be more trickier than him and after fake his death , he turned around the circumstances, putting an end to the Deconstructed Superhero misery.

Creation

The Decontructed Superhero, as every other character in Planetary series was an expy used for Warren Ellis to meta-analyze the development of the pop culture of the XX century, specially superhero tales.

Based loosely on Miracleman (Marvel Man), the Deconstructed Superhero is a representation of the British deconstruction of the Superhero genre, by contrasting how a innocent character as Marvel Man, the British copy of Captain Marvel, was turned upside down and deconstructed by Alan Moore in a more postmodern and dark approach to the character. An evolution trend which would lead later to Watchmen and would be follow up in Vertigo and to a grim n' gritty interpretation in superhero comics from the 80's onward.

The clash between the Deconstructed Superhero and Jack Carter is an analogy to the classic superhero ideal against the dark adult comics represented by the John Constantine expy.

Issues

January 2000

Volumes

1999

Died in issues

Authors

Enemies