Most superheros spend their lives fighting evil transhumanist villains. They don’t tend to be transhumanist themselves, and their superpowers are (in Western tradition) gained by a nonreproducible accident. There’s even a trope where having superpowers is a burden.
More in the comics, I would say. In the films he only has one self-modification: the fusion device in his chest, and that is more of a medical device required to keep him alive than an actual transhumanist augmentation. In the comics, Stark has to continually modify his biology to keep up with the enhancements to his armor/fight more powerful villains.
Actually Captain America is perhaps a better example. He becomes a super soldier not by accident, but by volunteering for an experimental human-enhancement procedure.
Not really; in the films he is constantly upgrading his suits, and has gone through 7 (IIRC). We almost always see some improvement from suit to suit (ability to fold up into a portable suitcase; improved firepower; resistance to cold; etc.). In addition, per Wikipedia, in Iron Man 3 Stark will be injected with a supersoldier virus, called Extremis.
I think the suit definitely counts as human augmentation. Plus, he designs his augmentations himself. Captain America just used the technology of some guy who then promptly proceeded to die, making the process unrepeatable for some reason. Stark is constantly refining his stuff.
Saying the suit makes Stark a transhuman is like saying my car makes me a transhuman. One of the characters even flies away with one of Stark’s suits in the second movie, so it isn’t really a part of him in any sense. Yes Iron Man’s technology progresses, but so does Batman’s.
Plus, he designs his augmentations himself. Captain America just used the technology of some guy who then promptly proceeded to die
Ok, that might make Iron Man a better or more interesting character, but Tony Stark is not actually an augmented person in the movies. (Again, except for his fusion device thing, but that’s the equivalent of a pacemaker, it restores normal mobility but doesn’t augment his abilities).
How about a cyborg whose arm unscrews? Is he not augmented? Most of a cochlear implant can be removed. Nothing about trans-humanism says your augmentations have to be permanently attached to your body. You need only want to improve yourself and your abilities, which a robot suit of that caliber definitely accomplishes.
And, yes, obviously transhumanism is defined relative to historical context. If everyone’s doing it, you don’t need to have a word for it. That we have a word implies that transhumanists are looking ahead, and looking for things that not everyone has yet. So, no, your car doesn’t make you a trans-humanist, but a robotic exoskeleton might be evidence of that philosophy.
It depends. If a person loses an arm and gets a mechanical prosthesis to restore normal functioning, that isn’t transhumanist. If they get a prosthesis because they want to be super strong (or whatever), that is transhumanist.
That we have a word implies that transhumanists are looking ahead, and looking for things that not everyone has yet.
Transhumanism isn’t about any technology, it specifically refers to augmentation of humans themselves.
If it functions normally then it’s a little bit transhumanist, because there might be advantages to having limbs you can detach if you want to. Also, mechanical limbs are more easily replaced and wouldn’t require food to maintain.
This is reminding me of Manny’s assortment of arms for different purposes in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress—they aren’t the center of the story, they’re almost a cool background detail.
And then there’s the waldos in Heinlein’s “Waldo”—arms of various sizes which mimic the movements of the user. I’m a bit surprised that they don’t exist already, but a casual search suggests that they don’t.
This conversation sounds a little bit to me like the conversation in disputing definitions.
Taboo transhumanism or something, perhaps? I think that these superheroes count as significant positive change at least, one of the things NancyLebovitz described in the title post.
The OP asked for transhumanist fiction, not for fiction about transhumans; these are different things. A story by cavemen about a society with cars would be an example of transhumanist fiction.
Most superheros spend their lives fighting evil transhumanist villains. They don’t tend to be transhumanist themselves, and their superpowers are (in Western tradition) gained by a nonreproducible accident.
Except the archetypal superhero, “superman”, whose powers are reproducible in the literal sense, including to a significant degree with humans. (It is notable that Clark himself doesn’t go out of his way to reproduce half-superbabies. In fact that sounds like something a villain might do and so is quite likely the plot of a comic somewhere.)
The next most famous superhero “Batman” also has powers that are reproducible. He has ridiculous amounts of money, a ridiculous amount of training and practice, an engineering department and brilliant foresight and planning. All of these are ‘just’ hard work and so are reproducible. In fact “The Batman” role even changes hands at times, which means it could be reproduced.
The instantiation of The Hulk I’m most familiar with quite possibly could be considered a transhumanist. Sure, he got his Hulk powers through an accident but that was an accident while actively trying to make himself transhuman through his genetic engineering.
Iron man. That’s not just reproducible. That’s mass-reproducible. In fact the most irritating thing about “The Avengers” is that Stark isn’t going to take the obvious next step: Make a goddam suit for Scarlett Johansson! Her agility and combat prowess would be perfect for controlling a suitably remodeled Iron Man suit—where that suit would offset her vulnerability and relative weakness.
Then there is “Captain America”. Wasn’t the “accident” there that the super-soldier enhancement program was destroyed, leaving only one? He was actively created as part of a (military run) ‘transhumanist’ research program.
Then, again on the ‘anti-reproducible status quo preservation’ side of things there is “X-Men” where one of the movies has trying to reproduce superpowers as the plot by the Villain that needs to be thwarted.
In fact the most irritating thing about “The Avengers” is that Stark isn’t going to take the obvious next step: Make a goddam suit for Scarlett Johansson!
This actually happened in the Ultimates comic, an alternate version of the Avengers.
That and equip all of SHIELD with suits—that kinda happened in The Ultimates too, but it’s stated that Tony only allowed it with an older form of the Iron Man technology. Selfish bastard.
Actually, while The Ultimates got kinda weird as time went on (especially with Ultimate Avengers), it does a good job on the difficulty of keeping technological genies in their bottles.
This actually happened in the Ultimates comic, an alternate version of the Avengers.
I was going to applaud Stark for not failing at rudimentary strategic thinking… but it sounds like this Stark is actually just a sappy romantic trying to woo Natasha with gifts. Oh well, that works too.
The Incredibiles is especially annoying that way—innate talents = virtue. Trying to acquire ability = being a pain in the ass and deserving humiliation.
Alan Moore’s Miracleman reboot from the 80s actually does go all out with superpowers as the onset of a transhuman era instead of fancy professional wrestling with a painstakingly maintained present day status quo.
The trade paperbacks are out of print due to byzantine copyright shenanigans, so getting a copy requires a bit of creativity.
It’s not a superhero comic unless “being a thinly veiled Hunter S. Thompson analogue” counts as a superpower, but Ellis’s Transmetropolitan regularly uses low-grade transhumanism as a backdrop to its core story of political journalism. It starts out being mainly a shock-value thing—the first few panels in its core setting mention or depict advanced information warfare leading to autocannibalism, a guy selling his skin for ad space, and a subculture whose adherents splice alien DNA into their own to express a type of species dysphoria—but later it evolves into a more nuanced approach.
By the end of the series the message seems to be that no matter how we permute our cultures or our bodies, human value systems will end up leading to largely the same types of conflicts. Which seems like a fairly realistic approach, given that strongly transhuman intelligence is absent from the setting.
Ellis’s Black Summer also depicts an explicitly transhuman version of what’s essentially DC Comics’ Justice League, but that’s a more obscure series and the morality in it is a lot murkier.
Superhero comics?
Most superheros spend their lives fighting evil transhumanist villains. They don’t tend to be transhumanist themselves, and their superpowers are (in Western tradition) gained by a nonreproducible accident. There’s even a trope where having superpowers is a burden.
The obvious counter-example is iron man, especially in the films.
More in the comics, I would say. In the films he only has one self-modification: the fusion device in his chest, and that is more of a medical device required to keep him alive than an actual transhumanist augmentation. In the comics, Stark has to continually modify his biology to keep up with the enhancements to his armor/fight more powerful villains.
Actually Captain America is perhaps a better example. He becomes a super soldier not by accident, but by volunteering for an experimental human-enhancement procedure.
I like the comics already. That heart magnet thing just seemed so contrived.
Not really; in the films he is constantly upgrading his suits, and has gone through 7 (IIRC). We almost always see some improvement from suit to suit (ability to fold up into a portable suitcase; improved firepower; resistance to cold; etc.). In addition, per Wikipedia, in Iron Man 3 Stark will be injected with a supersoldier virus, called Extremis.
I think the suit definitely counts as human augmentation. Plus, he designs his augmentations himself. Captain America just used the technology of some guy who then promptly proceeded to die, making the process unrepeatable for some reason. Stark is constantly refining his stuff.
Saying the suit makes Stark a transhuman is like saying my car makes me a transhuman. One of the characters even flies away with one of Stark’s suits in the second movie, so it isn’t really a part of him in any sense. Yes Iron Man’s technology progresses, but so does Batman’s.
Ok, that might make Iron Man a better or more interesting character, but Tony Stark is not actually an augmented person in the movies. (Again, except for his fusion device thing, but that’s the equivalent of a pacemaker, it restores normal mobility but doesn’t augment his abilities).
How about a cyborg whose arm unscrews? Is he not augmented? Most of a cochlear implant can be removed. Nothing about trans-humanism says your augmentations have to be permanently attached to your body. You need only want to improve yourself and your abilities, which a robot suit of that caliber definitely accomplishes.
And, yes, obviously transhumanism is defined relative to historical context. If everyone’s doing it, you don’t need to have a word for it. That we have a word implies that transhumanists are looking ahead, and looking for things that not everyone has yet. So, no, your car doesn’t make you a trans-humanist, but a robotic exoskeleton might be evidence of that philosophy.
It depends. If a person loses an arm and gets a mechanical prosthesis to restore normal functioning, that isn’t transhumanist. If they get a prosthesis because they want to be super strong (or whatever), that is transhumanist.
Transhumanism isn’t about any technology, it specifically refers to augmentation of humans themselves.
If it functions normally then it’s a little bit transhumanist, because there might be advantages to having limbs you can detach if you want to. Also, mechanical limbs are more easily replaced and wouldn’t require food to maintain.
This is reminding me of Manny’s assortment of arms for different purposes in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress—they aren’t the center of the story, they’re almost a cool background detail.
And then there’s the waldos in Heinlein’s “Waldo”—arms of various sizes which mimic the movements of the user. I’m a bit surprised that they don’t exist already, but a casual search suggests that they don’t.
This conversation sounds a little bit to me like the conversation in disputing definitions.
Taboo transhumanism or something, perhaps? I think that these superheroes count as significant positive change at least, one of the things NancyLebovitz described in the title post.
Sure. I think we just have different definitions of the term. Not much to be gained here.
The OP asked for transhumanist fiction, not for fiction about transhumans; these are different things. A story by cavemen about a society with cars would be an example of transhumanist fiction.
Except the archetypal superhero, “superman”, whose powers are reproducible in the literal sense, including to a significant degree with humans. (It is notable that Clark himself doesn’t go out of his way to reproduce half-superbabies. In fact that sounds like something a villain might do and so is quite likely the plot of a comic somewhere.)
The next most famous superhero “Batman” also has powers that are reproducible. He has ridiculous amounts of money, a ridiculous amount of training and practice, an engineering department and brilliant foresight and planning. All of these are ‘just’ hard work and so are reproducible. In fact “The Batman” role even changes hands at times, which means it could be reproduced.
The instantiation of The Hulk I’m most familiar with quite possibly could be considered a transhumanist. Sure, he got his Hulk powers through an accident but that was an accident while actively trying to make himself transhuman through his genetic engineering.
Iron man. That’s not just reproducible. That’s mass-reproducible. In fact the most irritating thing about “The Avengers” is that Stark isn’t going to take the obvious next step: Make a goddam suit for Scarlett Johansson! Her agility and combat prowess would be perfect for controlling a suitably remodeled Iron Man suit—where that suit would offset her vulnerability and relative weakness.
Then there is “Captain America”. Wasn’t the “accident” there that the super-soldier enhancement program was destroyed, leaving only one? He was actively created as part of a (military run) ‘transhumanist’ research program.
Then, again on the ‘anti-reproducible status quo preservation’ side of things there is “X-Men” where one of the movies has trying to reproduce superpowers as the plot by the Villain that needs to be thwarted.
This actually happened in the Ultimates comic, an alternate version of the Avengers.
That and equip all of SHIELD with suits—that kinda happened in The Ultimates too, but it’s stated that Tony only allowed it with an older form of the Iron Man technology. Selfish bastard.
Actually, while The Ultimates got kinda weird as time went on (especially with Ultimate Avengers), it does a good job on the difficulty of keeping technological genies in their bottles.
I was going to applaud Stark for not failing at rudimentary strategic thinking… but it sounds like this Stark is actually just a sappy romantic trying to woo Natasha with gifts. Oh well, that works too.
Supervillains are often better role models, aside from their improper values.
The Incredibiles is especially annoying that way—innate talents = virtue. Trying to acquire ability = being a pain in the ass and deserving humiliation.
Alan Moore’s Miracleman reboot from the 80s actually does go all out with superpowers as the onset of a transhuman era instead of fancy professional wrestling with a painstakingly maintained present day status quo.
The trade paperbacks are out of print due to byzantine copyright shenanigans, so getting a copy requires a bit of creativity.
The Engineer from The Authority. I think I remember reading somewhere that Warren Ellis is a transhumanist.
It’s not a superhero comic unless “being a thinly veiled Hunter S. Thompson analogue” counts as a superpower, but Ellis’s Transmetropolitan regularly uses low-grade transhumanism as a backdrop to its core story of political journalism. It starts out being mainly a shock-value thing—the first few panels in its core setting mention or depict advanced information warfare leading to autocannibalism, a guy selling his skin for ad space, and a subculture whose adherents splice alien DNA into their own to express a type of species dysphoria—but later it evolves into a more nuanced approach.
By the end of the series the message seems to be that no matter how we permute our cultures or our bodies, human value systems will end up leading to largely the same types of conflicts. Which seems like a fairly realistic approach, given that strongly transhuman intelligence is absent from the setting.
Ellis’s Black Summer also depicts an explicitly transhuman version of what’s essentially DC Comics’ Justice League, but that’s a more obscure series and the morality in it is a lot murkier.