The Uncanny X-Valley
At what point does the trend towards more “realistic” comic book stories clash too harshly with the fantasy elements of the super hero genre?

There is a concept in robotics referred to as the “uncanny valley”. The basis for the uncanny valley is the notion that as a robot becomes more “human” in appearance; the stronger and more positive emotional response real humans will have towards the robot. Up to a point. At some point the robot becomes close to human, but not quite, and becomes repulsive and disturbing. That range, where a realistic robot comes close enough to lifelike to be repulsive is called the uncanny valley.
I think that there is a similar concept that can be applied to comic books, which I like to call the Uncanny X-Valley (no points for being clever). For many years, super hero comic books have tried to be more and more realistic, both in story and art. And for the most part, fan response to this trend has been positive. But I think we are beginning to see these types of stories entering the Uncanny X-Valley, where the realism begins to bump up against the fantasy elements and magnifies the areas of required suspension of disbelief enough that the enjoyment of the story suffers.

I really started to think about this concept while reading Marvel’s Civil War (which just ended, for those of you in the distant future reading an archive of this post and want to put it in historical perspective). The basis for Marvel’s Civil War is that after a tragedy involving super heroes and villains (which resulted in many civilian deaths), the US Government passes a super human registration act, where all super powered individuals need to register with the government and if they want to fight crime they have to do it under the supervision of S.H.I.E.L.D. I like the high concept idea behind Civil War, but while reading it, I found it harder to suspend my disbelief. If the story is going to get into lobbying and congressional politics, then where was the ACLU lawsuit challenging the registration act? If super powered battles can cause huge tragedies, then how come villains still don’t simply kill captured heroes? I think that they might be going too far in realism in one area, but not going as far in other areas and that discrepancy is starting to become too jarring. This range, where a story’s realism actually makes suspension of disbelief more difficult rather than less, is the Uncanny X-Valley.
This is not an attack on Civil War. I don’t think that Civil War has descended to the bottom of the valley. (I’d like to do a more thorough analysis of Civil War, but I think I needed to explore this concept first.) And there are plenty of other examples. I think that the reason super hero movies pretty much sucked (with the exception of Superman) before CGI is the presence of the Uncanny X-Valley. Putting an accurate comic book costume on a real actor almost always looks goofy because everything else in the movie looked real. One of the ways the X-Men movies tried to avoid falling into the valley was by avoiding spandex. Also in the first X-Men movie an extra effort was made to avoid the valley by openly acknowledging the silliness of code names. In Batman Begins, Gotham City was given a very distinctive and not overly realistic feel. Batman Begins also went to great lengths to justify and explain Batman’s gadgets in a way that avoids the valley. The Uncanny X-Valley isn’t just a comic story phenomenon either. Some people find Alex Ross’s super hero paintings “too realistic”. (I’m not one of them.)
Maybe using anthropomorphic characters is a way to avoid falling into the valley. Usagi Yojimbo stories have a lot of components and elements that are historically accurate and thoroughly researched. However, not matter how “realistic” an Usagi Yojimbo story might be written, the title character is still a samurai rabbit. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the fact that the main character is a rabbit is one of the keys to telling more “human” stories?
I think it will be interesting to watch and see if a rapid descent into the Uncanny X-Valley occurs for mainstream super hero comics. I think it is more likely that the pendulum will swing back the other way and more fantastic (and less realistic) stories start coming back in style. Time will tell.
And I’ll be watching.








