Our admiration for Mark Waid knows no bounds. We like the analysis he gives his own work. In an interview, he said this sentence, which we find very important: “I love the new directions of your Marvel books. Both Bruce Banner and Matt Murdock have fresh “onwards and upwards” attitudes. They’re deciding to change, whereas most of the time superheroes are more reacting to external events.” Reacting to events. He gives an example:

I think you see very clearly in Daredevil that depression is inertia. What fuels depression is that sense of helplessness, that sense of not knowing what to do next, that image of sitting on a gargoyle in the rain on the rooftop, frozen by inaction. To me, Daredevil come to grips with that and is actively pushing past. I wrote a scene where he feels that paralysis that comes with depression and he pushes through it.  He makes an active decision to move forward.  Any movement is better than no movement at all.  (“Interview: Mark Waid on the Inner Demons of Daredevil, Attitude Adjustment for the Hulk, and the Thrill of Digital Comics,” www.comicsbeat.com, February 10, 2014).

Similarly, Greg Rucka, in talking about his work on Batman and on the death of Sarah Essen, said that “this death has to mean something.” (Chris Sims, “Born in a World Of Tragedy: Greg Rucka Reflects on His Batman Work, Part One,” www.comicsalliance.com, September 17, 2014). And when we look at the title of the article this quote is taken from, we realize that characters can experience tragedies—events over which they have no control—but at the same time, these same events must have some significance.

Heroes must take their destiny in hand, and at the same time, can’t be indifferent to the tragedies they see around them. At the end of the story “Counteroffensive,” Benson and his team return to the Bunker. They had been close to twenty when they left, and now are just a half-dozen. Did they win or were they slaughtered? Jenny has lost her brother, Liane is traumatized by the brutality of combat, and Benson must bear the weight of his decisions. They need to think about and absorb the consequences of their actions and those of others. This reflection process must lead to the upcoming events. That’s how we see heroes controlling their destiny.