Vigilante Dream
Or The Middle Class Fascist ID represented in DC Comic's Vigilante
“The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world.”
-J.G Ballard, Kingdom Come
A comic book, even a good one, will not change anyone’s minds. Watchmen, for all its best efforts did nothing to convince the American public that nuclear war with the Russians would be undesirable. Likewise, Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman failed to teach us hope’s power to uplift us all into a better future. In spite of good intentions, they excel at reinforcing already held biases, drenching its readers in comforting nostalgia and delusions. No delusion is more comforting than the American fascists adoration of characters like The Punisher. Whenever a murderous cop or right wing terrorist adorns himself in this symbol many across the internet are quick to point out superficial gaps in the logic of doing so. A favorite among these status quo defenders is the apparent dichotomy between being an officer of the peace and idolizing a violent Punisher of the guilty, however upon examination no such dichotomy actually exists. It is more than evident that the vast majority of American Police and Military, when given the opportunity, relish the chance to murder indiscriminately, with little care given to the severity of the crime - nor due process. This violent fantasy dream of a more perfect world built upon the extermination of so-called bad actors has been the red beating heart of western fascists since colonial times. The only true dichotomy between characters like the Punisher and the American imperialist fascist is cowardice, across all swathes of fascist from the lowest bootlicker to the highest warmonger one truth is shared; this truth is that they will only commit violence when there is a near absolute assurance that their violence will never be done back to them. Soldiers routinely fire carte blanche on civilian populations, while our Police won’t stop an armed shooter even if the numbers favor them, instead choosing to harass the innocent unarmed victim of the same crime they let happen. Mass shootings are a terrible tragedy that we seek to purge from our society, endless war is just the cost of doing buisness.
Oppression in the name of material comfort is why so much effort is placed on the debate of gun control, while our military is given a blank check and blind eye to murder across the globe. Fascism is Cowardice, it is a promise that the violence done to others will never be done back to us. The very word fascism is rooted in the idea of a collective violence that strengthens the whole. Along the artistic front of America, this fascist cowardice is characterized when writers attempt to rapidly sand down the jagged edges of the Punisher, trying to poison the well but ultimately only furthering the ever present culture war and effectively changing no minds. These efforts have done nothing to stem the usage of these symbols or curtail the joyful Punisher-esque attitude of murderous state officials Instead this serves only to insulate profits, but why? Like so many questions regarding mass media like comics and their effect on the collective unconscious of America, the truth is not so easy to navigate.
The initial, gut reaction to any such critique of the real world using fiction is simple; the Punisher is fiction, his reality is not ours even if it attempts to mirror ours and fiction is not responsible for the actions of its readers. On a much more base level, I doubt the jackbooted police that adorn themselves with his symbol have read a Punisher comic. In spite of this, these characters are an important tool for understanding how such a mindset grows and festers. The Punisher, like soldiers and police officers are too far gone into this violent dream. However the Punisher, like police cannot be reformed or democratized. The characters history is muddied by several decades of different interpretations, and no definitive characterization of the Punisher exists save for violence and a few parts of his origin story. Ergo neither should be used as a throughline for wide critique as many will be quick to point out the wildly different interpretations of both police and Punisher exist. However, in lieu of police who carry out the state violence we can look at who the violence most benefits; the middle class. Without a reliable group of as Marx puts “tool of reactionary intrigue” there would be few cheerleaders or benefactors of imperialism. The poor American’s life changes little for better or worse as tanks roll through Middle eastern countries, goods for continued survival must be acquired no matter the cost. However once basic material goods are satisified and then some, a new concern for long term safety arises to protect that satisfaction. There would be no want for a patrolman if the gated community or suburb did not exist, and on a further level the armed police become protectors primarily of this social stratum who need them the most. A wealthy person does not need for the police as his needs are satisfied by the private security sector that offers him a greater level of protection. But, when these elements fail, when the lush garden of earthly delights is finally penetrated by a serpent, whether that be the resistance to gentrification or a common thief, a return to satisfaction must be purchased with unlimited violence. It is 1983’s eponymously titled Vigilante by DC Comics that exemplifies this violent dream shared by the American middle class more so than any other piece of comic book fiction at the time.
Vigilante is a character created in 1983 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, the character debuted in Wolfman’s iconic run of Teen Titans, and after rave reviews was promptly given his own series starting in 1983 which ran for 50 issues spanning 5 years. This brief character run has never been directly followed up, and being relatively untouched by the churning remake machine of capitalism makes him such a compelling case study. Vigilante is stuck in a very firm time and place, he does not suffer from the fatigue of being passed from one writer to the other, Wolfman retained creative control for the whole run. Based loosely off the character off of the 1937 cowboy character of the same name, Wolfman’s Vigilante was a cowboy for the Reagan Era, riding not a horse - but a motorcycle through the real streets of New York City clad in a skintight black costume and dispensing justice with a modern arsenal.
Though this piece will not cover the ins and outs of every issue of the series, it will cover enough that I recommend people to visit this link and read at least some of the series first if you fear spoilers. In spite of a version of the character appearing recently in the Peacemaker series on HBO max, 0 efforts have been made to make the series readable legally, save for a single trade paperback released some years ago collecting the first 15 or so issues, therefore you may pirate to your heart’s content (not that you need any reason to). Another reason why I believe piracy is the de-facto way to read Vigilante is because the scans I have linked to are the only place where the original fan letter pages can be read. These fan solicitations do more to make the case for this middle class fascist rot more so than I ever could, because in the 1980s most readers of vigilante were middle class men. According to a readership survey published just a year after Vigilante began, the average comic book reader was men under 30, college educated, with a mean income of $60,000 a year in today’s dollars. This demographic was at the time commonly referred to as the Yuppies.
Slang for Young Urban Professional, Yuppies were the vanguard of the fiscally conservative socially liberal movement. After Vietnam, formerly radical college students found that life in once-again sleepy suburban America held no allure after hippie protests dried up and moved to the cities en masse. With them, they bropught suburban penchant for greed and uniformity, carving out swathes of the cities to create the first modern gentrification movement in America. Ironically, just recently as two decades earlier some of these very same middle class American families had fled the cities for the safety of the isolated suburb. Returning now to the siren song of the new sectors fueled by Reaganomics, they shaped the landscape of places like New York and San Francisco that exist to this day. As the aptly named Nostalgia Central puts it “Yuppies weren’t all bad. Yuppies led the way in gentrifying urban neighborhoods, turning warehouse lofts and run-down brownstones into valuable real estate”. The Yuppie movement can be seen as the first class explosion in America since the settler reinvention of the Wild West. A bored middle class individual could turn a city into their personal avarice playground, caring little for the former inhabitants save for when their former hippie hearts ting with guilty charity. College was cheap, and so were homes to renovate. This level of control over others, once only afforded to kings and executives was now accessible to an entire class. Any stoke broker or firm partner could live with reckless abandon not afforded in rigid suburban life; there was no homeowners association or God above you. Vigilante catered directly to that class of people. When not mowing down criminals, Vigilante’s alter ego of WASP Attorney Adrian Chase was attending these same health clubs, fancy dinners and charity benefits. Just underneath this well mannered exterior was a soul that trembled with the anticipation of more unrestrained violence, preaching fear of said violence to his peers as a release. Yet Chase saw himself as better than those he protected, a conservative tough on crime WASP in a legal system he saw as too concerned with technicalities.
From the very first issue, Vigilante is tinged with a particular strain of hyper reality pulled from news headlines and 24/7 cable channels; the cover of his very first issue has him flanked by a fake newspaper evoking the New York Times and drenched with the appearance that crime in the 1980s was spiraling to a fever pitch, even as reporting proved that the early 1980s had the lowest murder rate of the 20th century. Vigilante lived in a real place, he interacted with real people and commented on real issues plaguing the modern citizen. In spite of this attention to detail the output on the first page is anything but real, instead just a carbon copy of the Punisher’s origin story.
Some details are changed, but the broad strokes are the same between the two; Adrien Chase is a government employee (attorney not soldier) whose family are murdered by organized criminals. Chase, unlike Frank Castle is also, briefly, a victim of the attack that claims his family. This brief period of clinical death is where the Vigilante is implied to have been born. A cliche idea for sure, but the veneer of being a functional member of society is all but gone, now the simmering suburban violence underneath has a face, and a name. The very first letters page for Vigilante debuted with the second issue, and laid out the characters code and the authors intent.
As an aside, letters pages are important, more comic book collections should strive to include them, even if some personal information has to be redacted for our digital age. This Vigilante Manifesto is important, though I disagree with the notion that the character is apolitical as I hope to prove, this code of ethics establishes that the character is at least trying to be better than someone like the Punisher (an ideal that he will fail countless times over). Reading this piece, one question pops into my mind by the 3rd or so question; Is Vigilante intended to be a Punisher satire? The answer is probably, at least unintentionally by the end, but also that this meme below sucks:
Asinine delivery method notwithstanding, but the idea that Satire should somehow signal to audiences that it is criticizing something goes against the very idea of a well written satire. Good satire in my opinion is the only form of art that should be judged by its verisimilitude, Fascists like Starship troopers, conservatives like Rorschach. A truly great satire can be read either as wish fulfillment fantasy or a fantastic piece of parody. Take for example, the comic series Judge Dredd. There are fantastic moments poking fun at various aspects of modern society, in particular policing, and yet a decent swathe of Judge Dredd fans enjoy the book primarily because Dredd is a murderous incorruptible Judge that lets no criminal get off easy. The very first Judge Dredd writer John Wagner was a staunch left-wing labor advocate for creators rights, and yet cop bootshiner Chuck Dixon has pitched countless Judge Dredd stories, that if I’m being honest would probably be good. Judge Dredd excels because someone like Dixon can write their deepest fantasies into the work about mass killing homeless people and it is no less out of place than the idea that cops would overthrow the US government so that they could police with even less oversight. Vigilante reaches this equilibrium in only 50 issues where Dredd has had close to 50 years. Writers like Marv Wolfman and Paul Kupperberg are firing on the same level as Alan Moore. Like a jazz band even the last minute improvisation feels calm and controlled; almost pre-determined. If any one early issue sets Vigilante down the doomed path of a fascist, it’s the very second one.
The pilot issue is a mob story, and not a very good one. I don’t feel all that bad when they all get shot, and the comparisons to movies like Death Wish in the letters page are spot on. But the second issue completely subverts this, in a way I don’t think the readership of 1983 really got; it is essentially To Kill A Mockingbird with guns.
The opening splash page is practically telling on itself. If there is one piece of evidence that Wolfman might be attempting to subvert the concept of a noble old school conservative Vigilante, it is this page. Seeing Chase’s WASP features twisted into a villainous sneer, half eclipsed by his costume, one might assume that a reverse Law And Order format might be in store for them. Chase after all is still a practicing Defense Attorney, whats to stop him from essentially feeding himself future kills? But as the second page reveals, this is two years before he ever became Vigilante. This hatred has always been with him, the murder of his family was just an excuse. As we see throughout the series they become nonentities; he never visits their graves, he stops visiting extended family, this tragedy has placed him into his dream, a violent fantasy that he doesn’t want to wake up from, and eventually can’t. The story is that a mentally handicapped man accused of a horrible and brutal rape is released from prison after the state overturns his conviction. Chase, who had prosecuted the man two years prior seeks him out and violently beats him, hoping to extract a confession for the prior assault. This savage brutality is prefaced with vignettes showing us how the man’s life has been destroyed. The entire family is now out of work, tainted with the stench of this horrible crime, in spite of his proclaimed innocence his mothers house is pelted with rocks and bottles. During the final brawl itself their familial home is all but destroyed as Vigilante nearly kills the man. It is only with the radio transmission that new evidence implicating a foreign ambassador living next door that causes his life to be spared. With a final look on the carnage Vigilante’s first victim exits the comic forever. Chase is understandably remorseful, for only a single page. After a meeting with his father in their billowing upstate mansion he rededicates himself to both his passion for prosecuting criminals and his love for hunting them by proclaiming “Lets do it right” all the while he holds an assault rifle. The era of the conservative justified shooting Vigilante has begun.
The fifth issue marks the first to print actual fan letters, and in just 5 issues Chase’s violent dream has spread into a suburban nightmare. Of the 5 letters printed, none of the 5 come from the traditional idea of an unsafe city with a high crime rate, they come from towns like Lexington Kentucky, or Brattleboro Vermont. One letter amazingly cites John Hinckley as an example of the type of person who Vigilante should go after, another wishes that Superman would take a page from Vigilante’s book and finally drop his no kill rule. Even the sacred cow of the American Justice System: The Police, is less in the eyes of this fan, stating that “ even though many [police] agree with him, [they] will try and track him down”. In spite of these damning pieces, there are still some level heads among the early readership, one writer from Arcata, California writes about the benefits of these technicalities Chase constantly derides, saying “technicalities are what prevents an all white jury from convicting a black man of murder, Technicalities require police officers to read you your rights … I support those who break some laws, such as civil disobedience”. This shockingly astute, if liberal platitude filled piece of writing received no response from Wolfman.
The fiction itself is not free from this spreading Vigilante Dream, as by issue 10 multiple copycats inspired by his crusade begin murdering criminals indiscriminately. Though Vigilante has little hesitation against going after these copycats, he gives almost no thought as to why his brand of violence is so intoxicating. Even in his personal life he gives little thought to the immense conflict of interest of being a lawyer and a killer as he spends his time in numerous swanky health clubs, perfecting his body not for his own health, but for the express detriment of others. The first copycat saga comes to a head as, while he spends too much time chasing after the fledgling vigilante Electrocutioner, his young assistant JJ Davis is murdered tracking down a lead on organized crime, granting him yet another excuse to kill.
In an attempt, I assume, to assuage the fears of the audience that this is a character above reactionary violence he does not murder the cyborg mob boss responsible, instead graciously leaving him in a coma. His reward for this noble action is allowing himself to accept an appointment to be a judge, because as J. Sakai wrote “in America there’s always a prize in every box of crackerjacks”. Issue 12, marks yet another moment where Chase contemplates his role in things, and is in my opinion a brilliant piece of unintentional satire as Chase briefly realizes his part in the cycle of violence.
Following this all too brief moment of reflection, Vigilante’s triumphant re-re-return culminates in him nobly deciding to not murder a group of white racist Americans who committed an unprovoked hate crime and went free because it would make him like them or even worse, after that he talks a strung out sniper down while his girlfriend fatally overdoses the next room over. This Liberal Period of Vigilante is a personal favorite, because of how comical it is. A cop who kills is no better because he considers the optics and the ethics and the bodies and spaces and the intersectionality before he ultimately pulls the trigger anyways, and as his body count reaches double digits its hard to wonder if this is intentional or not. Make no mistake, despite my unforgiving hatred for the idea of Adrien Chase AKA Vigilante the storytelling of this man, this Reaganite turned Clintonite stormtrooper who kills and hopes that eventually a number of dead will solve crime itself is beautiful prose. The letter column betrays the false veneer of Vigilante’s newfound stoicism as one man writes “The hate-filled Vengeance Machine showed his true potential against the character. It’s because of stories like this that I bought Issue #1.” Adrien thinks he wants to be a passionate do-gooder, but the people want blood, or worse yet they want these scum in a dark prison-hole forever. One writer solemnly reports that in his estimation, Vigilante has killed 30 by issue 13. The legendary Alan Moore delivers an all too real story of a child molester with custody over his victim in issues 17 and 18, one of the most beautiful parts of how Vigilante works is eventually he will go up against someone who does deserve punishment, it makes you susceptible to him and his dream. Issue 19’s letter page opens with a fan declaring “reasonable force is a joke”. By issue 20 Adrien has retired from murdering, opting to live a life of relative normalcy with his new lover, while a new Vigilante kills his way through the city, executing people for shoplifting. Despite being telegraphed early on that this is someone else, nobody around him believes him. It’s only a small, and even somewhat understandable leap in logic in these people’s heads that someone capable of shooting a bank robber will eventually shoot someone for any transgression against property. They’re almost right too, as almost in response to being outdone by a stranger Chase becomes increasingly violent at home, carrying a gun and almost striking his girlfriend on multiple occasions. The fascism has turned inwards and many fan letters assumed that the inciting incident to Chase’s return would be him murdering her or her death at the hands of a criminal. As these issues proceed a shadow story follows a retired police officer inspired by Vigilante grow increasingly distant from their family as he stalks and eventually murders a man for robbing a convenience store. Vigilante later almost murders the man for getting in his way.
The copycat saga ends almost 15 issues later, after the first copycat Vigilante (along with the similarly inspired Electrocutioner) is killed by Chase, revealing him to be a coworker and close personal friend. This inspires a wannabe cop on bailiff duty to become the second copycat, a more compassionate vigilante who mostly executes people that prey on women and the homeless. The liberal Vigilante fades into the Woke Vigilante who then, in issue 36 is unceremoniously executed by the newly popular Peacemaker, recruited by the US Government to serve on an anti terrorism task force and currently suffering from a psychotic break after finding out his father was a Nazi Death Camp officer. Woke Vigilante dies on the tarmac like a dog, a case of wrong place wrong time. This accidental death is the second to last excuse Adrian Chase ever makes, in his third time returning to the costume he must transcend politics and crime to become the running dog for the greatest fascists on the planet: America. Like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front decades later Adrien Chases vigilante crusade, what started as one bored and angry suburban mans fascist war against the lesser, he finds himself becoming a federal asset; a sanctioned violence to further our own ends.
Already facing a murder charge for the death of the first copycat vigilante, Adrien Chase’s return to form is marked by immediately pushing a police officer to his death for simply getting in his way. No remorse this time, as story ramps up to its ultimate conclusion, nothing is above the mission and only he can right the wrongs as a federally sanctioned mass killer, given plausible deniability and a gun. In one of his first missions as Federal Vigilante he stops a white slavery ring perpetrated by middle eastern nationals, and shoots his way through a slum after a price is put on his head. Paul Kupperberg, in my opinion the worst guest writer of the bunch follows it up with a story blaming Palestine sympathetic terrrorists for flooding the streets with crack cocaine to buy arms, a twisted America First ideal of Iran Contra that is beautiful for how black hearted it is. One letter after the story even complains that Kupperberg doesn’t realize that there are more muslim names outside of Ali and Muhammad. Meanwhile, his now forgotten girlfriend is institutionalized due to the trauma of living near such simmering rage. In an odd coincidence this issue 41 ends with Vigilante ramming a helicopter into the world trade center to stop a now unsanctioned federal terrorist Peacemaker. The letter page cheers this violence on as a man from France writes that “I find the violence in Vigilante to be extremely cathartic. I’m spending a year in a suburb of Paris. As you’ve probably heard, subhuman lunatics were running around blowing people up during the month of September.” The letter is referring to the protest bombings against France’s military actions in the Middle East. Again, when a small fraction of the violence done by these western countries is returned, it is an outrage, it is a tragedy that someone could be so evil as to strike back.
Finally, as Vigilante enters the final stretch of his story, he takes on a belief structure common of a Fascist faced with the idea he cannot win; he enters a sort of revelatory state. Like Salo, Chase has given up the idea of pretending to be a good person or even a person at all, instead fully content with giving in to animal instincts. He takes a new lover; a ruthless mercenary with little care for his moral code. He learns to love the idea of abandoning whatever moral code remained, letting one last copycat, a homeless mentally ill man, be beaten to death in an abandoned building as he watches gleefully. He takes in a movie, beating several teenagers savagely for talking at him. On one last drug bust he guns down not just the armed dealers but the addicts that lay unarmed on the mattress. Losing himself in the violence he wounds several police officers before fatally shooting a detective that had once been his friend and ally. Then, he goes home and claims one last victim: himself, as he takes his own life with his iconic revolver, leaving his remains for his unassuming girlfriend to discover. While Chase’s soul assuredly descends downward, his earthly remains fail upwards one last time as he is buried with full honors awarded to a fallen public servant, being buried next to his family as his murderess girlfriend sobs. She later quits her mercenary lifestyle and joins this unnamed terrorism task force in his honor. The cycle of violence continues, but for Chase this only could have ended one way, in fact several letter writers predicted the twist as early as the 10th issue.
In a column by Wolfman as part of the last Vigilante letters page he states that the idea for Chase’s end was first thought up by him back in issue 37, when Chase killed his first police officer. Though by this time he had killed almost 50 people, the idea of hurting a police officer was a line too far. Despite this, he does go on to state that he doesn’t think someone like Vigilante would be sane. One of the last letters ever printed talks about his own local Vigilante who killed 3 during a subway robbery, and how he should be considered a hero instead of Chase, who has killed in his estimation over 100 people. I guess there is a line. Another wishes that the upcoming Peacemaker spinoff of this book would do more to rehabilitate the image of this murderer. Even as their once hero lay dead in the ground, the dream goes on.
I love Vigilante, I hope people don’t misconstrue this piece as a “secret fascism of Vigilante” or why “nobody should ever read this garbage”. I used character based critiques because of how many people even at the time identified with him, as they do now with Punisher. This comic is a work of art, a beautiful look into the mind of a fascist with the added benefit of having actual wannabe fascists write in to critique the character for not being fascist enough. Originally I wanted to compare Vigilante to another pre 2000s Yuppie fascist; Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. The book and film are fantastic, and yet as of late there have been a shocking amount of people who claim to adore and idolize the character. You can chalk some of this up to irony, and admittedly some of these posts have earned a chuckle, but as so many people proclaim “He’s just like me”, I cannot help but see American Psycho as a wonderful piece of precognitive satire, something that saw a rot within upper middle class society before it would ever show its head to most people. Vigilante doesn’t really need another source for comparison because recently, as part of the Peacemaker HBO Max Series, the character was revamped. The once formerly comfortably living Vigilante was given a new working class backstory and played as a cross between Big Bang Theory Sheldon, Dahmer, and Deadpool as a wise cracking killer. To my fright one morning I saw a fancam for the character of Vigilante, primarily focusing on how attractive this new nerdy Adrien Chase was. While I don’t doubt that there are plenty in the working class, especially in the west, with fascist sympathies, taking this character who, in spite of a tragedy still lives a comfortable life but has an urge to kill to make his life more comfortable, and replacing it with someone who lives in a trailer park living paycheck to paycheck feels like cheapening the emotional depth of the character.
Before I conclude, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk once more about the letters page, in particular a single letter from issue 16, written by a man from Oregon. This letter first inspired this piece and is arguably more astute than anything I’ve written here.
Gary Plauche, the man mentioned here who murdered the man who molested his son, is a hero. By sheer luck he managed to commit, publicly, one of the only good and safe acts of vigilante justice ever. He is also incredibly lucky, as no one but the monster was hurt or killed, and though I believe in rehabilitative justice for all, I lose no sleep over this man even if it goes against my personal beliefs. However Gary stopped there, he had with almost complete certainty that this was the right man and he did not go on a killing spree against any convicted or alleged abusers of children, as good as the prospect at first sounds. This is in my opinion a good thing, and yet I constantly see him used as an example of why violence against criminals should be escalated, I don’t think this should be the case. Though in particular powerful people who abuse women and children often get off free, and even I fantasize about running into their homes with a gun, the truth dies with them, their victims receive no assurance that this will stop any system of abuse, it just kills a person involved. Jefferey Epstein deserved to die, but the countless people who enabled him and killed were never named in court living free to this day. This man here manages to break down the fine line between a righteous killing and the fascist violence against all criminals so heavily cheered by fans of this book. It’s simply a beautiful piece of writing, and the final line about justice is monumentally prophetic. This piece received no response from Wolfman.
To conclude, please read Vigilante, it is a beautifully succinct work of art that illuminates the fascist mind. Despite my rhetoric above I’ve met Marv Wolfman and he seems like a nice guy, if a little misguided while making this (unless he was playing a character). Take care not to give in to the fascist Vigilante dream, no matter how enticing it seems because it can only lead down one road.
I hope you enjoyed this lengthy read if you made it this far. I wouldn’t blame you for stopping, but if you’d like lengthy reads like this, you can choose one of the subscription plans. All pieces of writing will be released totally for free on the same day, but in the future polls and interest checks on ideas may grace those who decide to support my work. If you just want to chuck me some cash for the way too much time it took to write this, you can visit my twitter @java_jigga and cashapp me, again totally optional but it helps keep the lights on. I’ll see you next time.
Really excellent piece!
this is so fucking good man