The Problem With Defining Comic Book Characters As 'Crazy'

gamerant.com:

How many supervillains on the comic book page or in their big-screen adaptations are motivated, explained, or empowered by «criminal insanity»? These characters, in one form or another, are a staple of comic books and the art they inspire, but almost every version of neurodivergence in the medium is full of holes.

Mental illness is always a difficult subject to discuss. Taking an inelegant approach to a very real concern is a common problem in genre fiction, but some issues are more commonly misused than others. Superhero movies rarely understand most of the big topics one might hear debated on the news, but their approach to mental health is almost deliberately ill-intentioned.

Are Pure Evil Villains Better Than Sympathetic Ones?

The belief that neurodivergent people are more capable of violence is extremely pervasive, leading to a chicken/egg argument. Villains whose motivation boils down to a Hollywood understanding of mental illness are common across most forms of media. Some even go so far as to depict neurodivergence as a superhuman capability, to be used for good or for ill. The primary difference between the «crazy» character of standard genre fiction and superhero fiction is tone. There are a lot of different ways superhero media handles their mentally ill character, but almost all of them lack full understanding and narrative weight.

There are a few different archetypes for the «crazy» characters of comic book media. Most of them tend to be villains. These villains are the least fleshed-out of the medium's portrayal of those dealing with mental health issues. The laziest versions of these stories need only point in their direction and expect the audience to understand them as evil. The term «psychopath» is a