‘Watchmen’ Author Alan Moore Blasts Superhero Films’ Popularity as Dangerous Sign of Adult ‘Infantilization’

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The creator of the beloved book series turned movie and television show Watchmen criticized adult fans of superhero films.

Although Alan Moore has created one of the most widely recognized superhero brands, Watchmen, he has never been silent when it comes to branding the genre as “infantilizing.”

In a new interview with The Guardian last Friday, he labeled adult fascination with superhero films as a “precursor to fascism.”

I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilization – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.

Moore even cited that during the political upheaval following the 2016 election, the popularity of superhero films seemed to increase ten-fold:

Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys – and it was always boys – of 50 years ago.

I didn’t really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s – to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional – when things like Watchmen were first appearing.