The Doctrine of Superhero Fiction
Most people think superhero stories are about costumes, flying, or cool powers. They aren’t. Those things are just the “decorations.”
True superhero fiction is actually about obligation. It is the story of people who have a job they can never quit, and a burden they can never put down. If a character has powers but no duty to others, they might look like a superhero, but the story isn’t actually part of the genre.
To understand why, we look at the five Articles of the Doctrine.
Article I: The Inescapable Mandate
A superhero cannot walk away. The most important part of a superhero is that they have accepted a permanent “must-do” list. Whether they chose the job themselves or were born into it, they are stuck with the responsibility to protect others. In these stories, if a hero decides to just stop helping when they are still able to, it is a moral failure. If a story works just fine after the hero quits, then it wasn’t a superhero story to begin with.
Article II: The Public Covenant
Power creates a deal with society. In this genre, having powers is never a private thing. As soon as a superhero exists, a “contract” is formed between them and the world. The government, the media, and regular citizens all react. They might cheer for the hero, or they might be afraid of them, but they cannot ignore them. If a hero’s powers have no effect on how the public lives or thinks, the story has left the genre.
Article III: Civic Centrality
The world depends on the hero. A superhero is not a side character; they are the “support beams” of their world. Their presence keeps society stable, and their absence makes the world fall apart. It doesn’t matter if the hero is saving a neighborhood or the whole universe, what matters is that they are necessary. If you could remove the hero and the world stayed exactly the same, they aren’t a true superhero.
Article IV: The Interior Burden
It’s about the weight, not the show. Being a superhero should be hard. Because the job is permanent, it has a “cost.” It causes exhaustion, stress, and loneliness. It changes how the hero thinks and feels. If a story only treats powers as a “cool tool” for fighting and ignores the mental and emotional toll on the hero, it isn’t hitting the core of the genre.
Article V: Adversarial Proof
Villains exist to test the hero’s promise. The bad guy’s main job isn’t just to fight; it’s to create a crisis so big that the hero cannot walk away. The villain pressures the hero to see if they will finally break their promise to the world. Every battle is a question: “Will you keep protecting these people?” The genre’s answer is always: “Yes.”
The Prime Principle
Superhero fiction is the story of someone who cannot walk away, because if they did, the world would break.
Everything else is just adjacent.
stephenhudler.com 
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