Gods, Billionaires, and the Psychology of Power
A thought experiment on superheroes, hierarchy, and the fear of the other
Superheroes are often treated as cultural wallpaper. Familiar icons recycled endlessly across screens and merchandise, assumed to be politically neutral because they are fictional. Yet fiction has always been one of the primary ways societies rehearse moral intuitions. Myths do not argue. They normalise. They make certain arrangements of power feel natural, inevitable, even comforting.
This essay is a thought experiment, not a statement of fact. It does not claim that comic book universes consciously encode political ideologies, nor that readers align neatly along partisan lines. Instead, it asks what becomes visible when we treat superhero narratives as psychological artefacts. What kinds of power do these stories make feel legitimate. What kinds of power do they make feel dangerous. And how closely do those intuitions mirror real world social and political anxieties.
When viewed this way, the long standing contrast between DC Comics and Marvel Comics begins to look less like a creative rivalry and more like a split in how modern culture understands authority, hierarchy, and difference.
A note on interpretation and intent
Before proceeding, it is important to clarify what this essay is not claiming.
This is not an argument that DC Comics is inherently right wing, nor that Marvel Comics is inherently left wing. Neither company is politically monolithic, and both contain stories, characters, and writers that challenge the patterns discussed here. Nor is this an attempt to categorise readers, creators, or fans along ideological lines.
Instead, this essay uses DC and Marvel as symbolic case studies in a broader psychological thought experiment. The aim is to explore how different narrative traditions tend to frame power, legitimacy, hierarchy, and difference, and how those framings can resonate with real world political intuitions.
The value of this comparison lies not in classification, but in provocation. It is intended to encourage social, political, and psychological discourse about why certain forms of power feel natural, reassuring, or threatening, and how cultural myths may subtly shape those feelings. The goal is not to reach a verdict, but to open a space for critical reflection.
In that sense, the DC and Marvel divide is best understood not as a political binary, but as a lens through which to examine how humans make sense of authority, fear, and control in an unequal world.
Two narrative traditions, two intuitions about power
At the level of tone and structure, DC stories tend to be mythic. Their heroes resemble gods, aristocrats, or chosen figures. Superman is born superior. Wonder Woman is raised within a warrior elite. Batman is an unelected sovereign who operates above the law. Power in DC is foundational. It exists prior to social consent. The narrative tension lies not in whether power should exist, but in whether the powerful will use it wisely.
Marvel stories, by contrast, are grounded and contingent. Power arrives accidentally, unevenly, and often traumatically. It disrupts ordinary life rather than elevating it. Characters struggle with rent, discrimination, guilt, illness, and institutional failure. Power is treated as destabilising rather than inherently legitimising.
Psychologically, this distinction maps onto two very old ways of understanding social order.
One assumes hierarchy is inevitable, so the moral task is ensuring the right people are in charge.
The other assumes power is inherently risky, so the moral task is limiting its concentration and impact.
Neither worldview is inherently right or wrong. But they produce very different intuitions about who should be trusted.
DC and the normalisation of hierarchy
In DC narratives, power is typically framed as an intrinsic property. It belongs to certain individuals by virtue of biology, lineage, training, or exceptional capacity. Superman does not earn his strength. Batman does not receive a public mandate. Wonder Woman does not derive authority from democratic consent.
What follows is subtle but psychologically important. If power is intrinsic, then legitimacy becomes a matter of character rather than accountability. The ethical question becomes whether the individual is morally good enough, not whether they should possess authority in the first place.
This mirrors what social psychologists describe as elite trust bias. The tendency to assume that people who are exceptional in one domain are also more competent, rational, or ethical in others. Wealth becomes a proxy for intelligence. Intelligence becomes a proxy for wisdom. Power becomes a proxy for virtue.
DC narratives often reinforce this bias. Batman’s mass surveillance is framed as necessary. Superman’s restraint is framed as noble. When things go wrong, the solution is rarely systemic reform. It is personal failure or moral corruption. Replace the bad actor, restore the hierarchy, and order returns.
This does not mean DC endorses authoritarianism. But it does mean that hierarchy itself is rarely interrogated. Power is treated as natural. The only question is who deserves to wield it.
Batman and the psychology of selective fear
Batman is the most psychologically revealing figure in this landscape. His defining anxiety is unchecked power. His paranoia about Superman is rooted in the belief that no being should exist beyond control. Even benevolent power, in his view, is dangerous if it cannot be restrained.
Yet Batman himself is profoundly unchecked.
He is a billionaire with private military technology, global surveillance infrastructure, advanced artificial intelligence, and total operational autonomy. He answers to no electorate, no court, and no oversight body. His authority is self authored and self enforced.
This is not a narrative oversight. It is a psychological contradiction worth examining.
Batman fears power that does not resemble his own. Superman’s power is embodied, biological, and visible. It cannot be redistributed or regulated through familiar systems. It exists outside capitalism, bureaucracy, and law.
Batman’s power, by contrast, is systemic. It looks like things society already normalises. Wealth. Technology. Intelligence. Strategic planning. These forms of power feel legitimate because they mirror real world hierarchies that are already accepted.
The fear, then, is not power itself. It is power that arrives from outside approved pathways.
This distinction maps directly onto contemporary anxieties.
Fear of the other in the real world
In real world politics, societies often tolerate extreme inequality as long as it appears earned through recognised systems. Billionaires wield enormous influence over media, infrastructure, labour markets, and even space exploration. Yet this concentration of power is frequently framed as innovation or leadership rather than a democratic problem.
At the same time, far smaller shifts in embodied difference are treated as existential threats. Immigration is framed as invasion. Cultural change is framed as loss. Demographic difference becomes synonymous with danger.
Psychologically, this reflects what is known as outgroup threat perception. Humans are less threatened by inequality than by unpredictability. Power feels safer when it is legible, even if it is vast. It feels dangerous when it is embodied in people who do not resemble the dominant group.
Superman embodies this anxiety perfectly. He is powerful not because of systems we recognise, but because of what he is. His existence challenges the comforting belief that hierarchy is earned and controllable.
Batman, by contrast, reinforces hierarchy. His power reassures us that dominance can remain within familiar hands.
Billionaires as modern superheroes
The comparison between Batman and real world billionaires is not accidental. Figures like tech magnates and industrial leaders are often framed as exceptional individuals whose wealth signifies competence and vision. Their influence over communication platforms, labour conditions, and public discourse is immense, yet rarely subjected to the same moral scrutiny as political power.
This mirrors DC’s logic. Power is justified by personal excellence. Oversight is framed as an obstacle. Trust is placed in the individual rather than the system.
Marvel narratives are far more sceptical of this arrangement. They repeatedly show what happens when good intentions collide with structural consequences. Power causes harm even when wielded by decent people. Accountability matters more than character.
From a psychological perspective, this difference matters because it shapes how people interpret real world authority. If we internalise stories where power is self legitimising, we may be less inclined to question it when it manifests in familiar forms.
Marvel and the problematisation of power
Marvel narratives begin from a different assumption. Power is not destiny. It is disruption.
Spider Man’s defining lesson is not triumph, but responsibility born from failure. His power does not elevate him above ordinary life. It entangles him more deeply within it.
The X Men make the social allegory explicit. Power marks you as other. It invites fear, surveillance, and containment. The moral centre of these stories is not whether mutants are good enough to rule, but whether society can coexist with difference without resorting to violence or exclusion.
Even Marvel’s most patriotic figure, Captain America, derives legitimacy not from the state, but from resistance to unjust authority. Power is only legitimate when it is accountable and constrained.
Psychologically, Marvel treats power as a moral hazard. Something that demands humility, transparency, and often collective restraint.
Might makes right and its dangers
The phrase “might makes right” is rarely stated outright in DC narratives, but the logic can quietly emerge. If power exists naturally, and if moral goodness is assumed among the powerful, then authority becomes self justifying.
The danger of this worldview is not fictional. History is full of examples where strength, wealth, or technological superiority were used to justify domination. Colonialism, racial hierarchy, and economic exploitation were all framed as natural outcomes of superiority rather than moral choices.
When stories normalise the idea that order comes from exceptional individuals rather than accountable systems, they risk reinforcing these intuitions.
Marvel’s cautionary approach offers a counterbalance. It insists that power must always be questioned, regardless of who holds it. That good intentions are not enough. That harm can emerge even from heroism.
Why this matters for students
For a university audience, this thought experiment is valuable not because it categorises comics as left or right, but because it reveals how cultural narratives shape political intuition.
Students can ask meaningful questions.
Why does one form of power feel safer than another. Why is systemic dominance often less frightening than embodied difference. How do stories train us to trust elites or distrust outsiders.
Superhero narratives become a laboratory for examining these questions. A way to explore how fear, hierarchy, and legitimacy are psychologically constructed.
Simply Put
This essay does not argue that DC is politically dangerous or that Marvel is morally superior. Both traditions reflect different human concerns. Myths need gods, and they need warnings.
But it is worth noticing which stories feel comforting, and why.
When fictional power feels righteous simply by existing, we may be less inclined to question it when it appears in real life. When fictional power is always treated as dangerous, we may be better prepared to ask who benefits, who is harmed, and who decides.
Superheroes are not distractions from politics. They are how politics becomes emotionally intelligible.
Not by telling us what to think, but by shaping what kinds of power feel natural, and what kinds feel threatening.
And in that sense, the stories we cheer for say as much about our psychology as they do about our heroes.
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