Authoritarianism, Metahumans, and Crimefighting

[redsycorax]

Something has occurred to me about superheroes and metahumans in the former USSR. Namely, this. While writing a recent Horned Owl and Bat story, I became quite conscious that there would probably be  division of labour and public relations issues about the operation of metahuman 'heroes' in either Nazi Germany or the USSR. I've written Horned Owl so he's a conservative patriot who was frightened by the anarchy and unrest that he saw during the interwar period in Weimar Germany and he's not fully aware of the extent of the cruelty, brutality and sadism of the Nazi regime. He's not a raving anti-Semite- he doesn't like  'radical' Jews but would probably give money to war veteran disabled Jewish beggars he saw on the street.  It struck me that members of the UBA would have divergent senses of responsibility and duties- Gundra the Valkyrie might take on supernatural menaces and threats, Ubermensch would tackle the scientifically based metahumans and Horned Owl, Bat and Usil would deal with more everyday, mundane figures. Sea Wolf and Kamikaze would take on naval and aerial duties.  One problem I can see with this is what would happen with media censorship in Nazi Germany and the USSR. They wouldn't want to acknowledge what they considered 'unpatriotic' or 'counter-revolutionary' criminal or deviant social activities, unless they could be regulated and controlled, or in cases where they were indulged in by the party hierarchy.  While the frontline figures might well go up against paranormal, alien or foreign metahuman adversaries, their relatively less empowered colleagues would basically tackle more mundane concerns like... well, crimefighting.  This has the potential to cause some interesting frustrations within the membership of Soviet or Nazi metahuman organisations.  At some point, there will be resentment voiced at the 'frontliners' getting all the publicity and plaudits while the 'real work' of crime fighting and protecting everyday citizens goes unacknowledged.  Some interesting opportunities for character conflict might be conceivably created. 

[johnreiter902]

This is a very interesting question for me. Just how was crime news handled in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia? I assume crimes, and the solving of them, were still reported, to show people how useful and effective the police were.

[redsycorax]

Well, yes, but they were both authoritarian states and considered themselves 'utopias.' There was considerable censorship of state media to reinforce that self-presentation, even when it was largely illusory and conflicted with the far more sordid truth. In actual fact, serial killers like Paul Ozgorow and Martha Marek did really exist and in the case of Nazi Germany, as I've noted, forensic detail, surveillance and apprehension were booby trapped by anti-Semitism, which hampered criminal investigation procedures. As for the Soviet Union, the failures of its communist regime are legend- crop failures, mass starvation, consumer goods shortages, communist party hierarchy corruption and a predatory party elite with a strong sense of self-entitlement. And when they got entangled in Afghanistan in the eighties, there was the question of that failed state's major cash crop- opium poppies and heroin. Added to that, like Nazi Germany, the USSR had its own criminal underworld and at least one known serial killer, Andre Chikatelo. From what I've read, and depressingly, Putinist Russia is little different.

[redsycorax]

Unfortunately, one side-effect of totalitarian regime censorship is the problem that it poses for enterprising fan fiction writers trying to incorporate historical detail into their stories through having more quotodian superhero crimefighters engage with them- at least, in the context of the Horned Owl and Bat. Here's one problem that I've encountered, for instance. As I've noted above, the Paul Ozgorow and Martha Marek Horned Owl and Bat stories were based on real-life cases OTL, which made them handy for Georg and Wilhelm to investigate and assist the apprehension of the culprits in question. Because of wartime censorship and the destruction of Nazi era criminal investigation records in Allied air bombings or resistance attacks on Nazi buildings as war conditions deteriorated for Nazi Germany (and Imperial Japan), we know little about what wartime German law enforcement and their regime counterparts actually confronted. As a result of that, there's only one real-life figure that could be shoehorned into a Horned Owl story and that's a French fascist doctor and serial killer whose prey were Jewish women trying to escape Nazi Germany and its puppet regime in Vichy France. In order for that plot to be realistic enough, it would have to occur near the end of the war and the status of the Bat would need to be resolved. For the Horned Owl and Bat to be innocent about the real character of the Nazi regime in its early days would be plausible, but by 1944 or 1945, some unpleasant realities would have dawned on Georg. To say nothing of his relationship with his colleagues Ubermensch, Gudra, Kamikaze, Sea Wolf and Usil- although by then, Usil would probably have opted out to join the Italian resistance.

[johnreiter902]

We don't actually know what happened to the members of the UBA after 1942. I imagine that a line in the sand would be drawn. The team would split between those who are fanatically Nazi and support the atrocities of the regime, and those who are basically more people with an authoritarian, ultra-nationalist bend, who would feel appalled by the atrocities and want to overthrow the Nazi government and bring them to justice. It would be a bit like a miniature version of the Marvel Civil War, with some heroes joining the German underground, and some fighting their former comrades on behalf of the government.

As I wrote Horned Owl, he is ruthless and authoritarian, but not evil. He does honestly believe in justice, and he believes fascism is the way to maintain justice and order. I think that he would join the German underground in the later days of the war, since a detective like him would quickly learn about the Holocaust. Other members of the UBA I'm less sure of. I noted when I read the comics that Sea Wolf seemed particularly scheevy, and was one of the types who would have probably been a supervillain if the Nazis were not in power and gave him a job.

[redsycorax]

I tend to agree with you about Horned Owl's characterisation, but he's also a widowed dad bringing up a child on his own. That humanises him to some extent- he's very proud of Willi's intelligence and self-discipline and clearly loves his son. If there's going to be a devastating denouement as a consequence and the Bat does die in 5E continuity, and Gudra does act as a psychopomp, bearing him away to Valhalla, I think that might shatter the UBA asunder. Ubermensch and Valkyrie would be on one side, Horned Owl would be out of the team at once, and feel betrayed by Gudra's activities, although whether he would change sides is a moot point. As I write him, he's not a hardline anti-Semite but a conservative. He's not a fan of "radical" Jews, but on the other hand, he would be genuinely horrified at the mistreatment and abuse of Jewish war veterans and WW1 disabled by the Nazi state. Ubermensch strikes me as a fanatic, probably psychotic. Valkryie is taken aback by Horned Owl's response to her psychopomp duties when it came to the Bat. She's a traditional warrior and not particularly impressed by Ubermensch's behaviour. As Italy's fascist era erodes, Usil gradually draws away from his UBA colleagues. At some point, Sumo and Kamikaze would probably prioritise the preservation of Imperial Japan above that of Nazi Germany and UBA Germany and UBA Japan would effectively cease co-operation as collaboration became difficult.

[johnreiter902]

I believe that the Japanese version of the UBA is the Samurai Squad, from All-Star Squadron #42. The members in that issue were Kung, Tsunami, Sumo, and Prince Daka. I assume that Kamikazi was a later member.

[redsycorax]

I've had an interesting AU idea about the role of the Black Dragon Society on Earth-Two. Instead of receiving the go-ahead for the Resurrection Project as they did in Earth-S' Japan, what happened instead was that the Japanese Buddhist hierarchy found out what the Shinto extremist faction in their Onmyogi were up to well beforehand and lobbied Hirohito hard to refuse to authorise the project. As a consequence, Earth-Two's Black Dragon Society were frustrated in their objectives, nekuromanshi was banned outright in a closed session in the Japanese Diet Cabinet Room  after an emphatic refusal from the Chrysanthemum Throne intimidated Tojo and its adherents from pursuing the project and Captain Asahi Sato was allowed to rest in peace. After the war, surviving members of the Black Dragon Society were tried by international mage peers for that reason and the Society was forcibly disbanded.

[DocQuantum]

The Black Dragon Society was a real-world organization, I believe.

[redsycorax]

That's correct, Doc. As you can see from this Wikipedia article, there certainly was a Black Dragon Society active before and during the Second World War in 'our' Imperial Japan and it was what we would consider a right-wing ultranationalist group. I used this as a partial template for my Captain Nippon stories in the Elseworld sections. Earth-S (or any Earth-Two) Black Dragon Society might have had different options available to its leadership, which might have affected their tactics, strategies and logistics, but it would still have the same underlying motivation- expansion and consolidation of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and pursuit of Imperial Japan's 'manifest destiny' through any means necessary. And of course, nowadays, we're not bound by simplistic generalisations about the unity of one's wartime opponents, and most historians of note agree that the contending byzantine brawling of Nazi institutions ultimately led to their defeat, so it's plausible that the same could be true in the case of Imperial Japan or the USSR. Something to bear in mind when writing fan fiction set in those particular environments: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dragon_Society

[redsycorax]

I've discovered the esistence of a third Nazi era serial killer, Johann Eichhorn (1903-1939), so that will form the basis for a third Horned owl and Bat story about how they assisted in his apprehension. Tentatively, it's going to be named "Minus Zweihundertdreiundsiebzig"/Minus 273. Although given Eichhorn's story, this one's going to be rather grim and gritty. So, how does a loving dad like Georg shield his son Wilhelm from the depths of human depravity in this case? Or do I necessarily make this a Horned Owl only case?

[johnreiter902]

Aug 1, 2022 0:49:51 GMT redsycorax said:

That's correct, Doc. As you can see from this Wikipedia article, there certainly was a Black Dragon Society active before and during the Second World War in 'our' Imperial Japan and it was what we would consider a right-wing ultranationalist group. I used this as a partial template for my Captain Nippon stories in the Elseworld sections. Earth-S (or any Earth-Two) Black Dragon Society might have had different options available to its leadership, which might have affected their tactics, strategies and logistics, but it would still have the same underlying motivation- expansion and consolidation of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and pursuit of Imperial Japan's 'manifest destiny' through any means necessary. And of course, nowadays, we're not bound by simplistic generalisations about the unity of one's wartime opponents, and most historians of note agree that the contending byzantine brawling of Nazi institutions ultimately led to their defeat, so it's plausible that the same could be true in the case of Imperial Japan or the USSR. Something to bear in mind when writing fan fiction set in those particular environments: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dragon_Society

On Earth-2, the Black Dragon Society was led by a hooded supervillain called the Dragon King. A scientific genius, and a member of the royal family, he also had some knowledge of magic. He was responsible for creating the energy field which protected Axis territory from Allied mystery men. The only other appearance of the Society on Earth-2 that I know of was in All Star Comics #12, where they tried to steal inventions from American scientists and were stopped by the JSA.

[dave]

Actually, the Black Dragon Society had two other appearances on Earth 2 during the war: in All-American Comics Vol 1 #41 August 1942 they fought Atom I and Hop Harrigan, who tale was published post WW II in Comic Cavalcade Vol 1 #16 August 1946

On Earth S they first fought Minute Man in Master Comics Vol 1 #21 December 1941 and Spy Smasher in Spy Smasher Vol 1 #9 December 1942.

It was on Earth Quality and/or X where they had their most appearances. The Black Dragons fought Rusty Ryan and the Boyville Brigadiers in starting in Feature Comics Vol 1 #55 April 1942 through Feature Comics Vol 1 #61 October 1942, Black Condor I in Crack Comics Vol 1#28 March 1943. The Sniper fought them starting in Military Comics Vol 1 #24 November 1943. That same issue had him fight the Black Dragons top assassin Suratai, who continued to fight the Sniper until his last appearance ad the Black Dragon became the Sniper's arch enemy.

[redsycorax]

Hey, dave, thanks for the Spy Smasher reference. I knew about the Earth-S Black Dragon Society's battle against Minute Man, but not the Spy Smasher episode. I'll incorporate that into my first Captain Nippon story.

[redsycorax]

I've also come up with a Japanese term for superheroes/metahumans/mystery men and women/action heroes. They are 仮面の冒険者 (Kamen no bōken-sha, 'masked adventurers")