Deviance and Criminality: Understanding Villainy in Comics

In this course we have tackled numerous topics in a short span of time. These topics have spanned from social sciences, the origins of man, the birth of personalities, and the concepts of marriage and family. Out of all these interesting topics though, the theme of deviance and criminality evolved my mindset the most. As an avid comic book/manga reader I believe that hero is only as interesting as the villains they face.This ideal shows throughout with popular examples such as Batman with Joker, Superman with Lex Luthor, Thor with Loki, and the X-Men with Magneto. With this mindset however, I never really dove into the process of why these villains are evil until we covered the deviance and criminality chapter of our course. This paper will

Deviance can be describes as a departure from social norms, it could be beliefs rather than actual behavior, and what is considered deviant can vary throughout societies. Furthermore, evil acts are considered deviant, but deviant acts are not always considered evil. With these facts, my mindset of what deviant behavior was changed, from an association of deviant equaling bad to deviant equaling something abnormal and not necessarily a bad thing. Also, like the paragraph above, my hypothesis about people being born good or evil was further debunked with the slide describing how deviance can vary and things that may cause and effect deviant behavior. Some of these things include circumstances, time, age, and mental health of a person. This statement shows that besides the actual person’s choices, outside forces can help deter or enhance one’s deviant behavior. Also, who the person surrounds themselves with is a catalyst for positive or negative deviance. Ultimately, the notes for this chapter was a great help in me understanding the basic knowledge of deviance and it gave me clearer grasp of what external or internal factors can or cannot affect one’s deviant

Each example brought it’s own key lesson while being different from the others in their own studies. Any false impressions I had before learning more about this topic were pretty much debunked with the studies and information collected for this class and any possible question I had while reading and watching the various documents were answered with the corresponding examples. Furthermore, the documents given on this topic kept me engaged and interested in the topic throughout which helped me gain a larger understanding towards deviance and deviant nature. Overall, these examples enhanced my thinking by answering my questions, correcting my my false assumptions on the topic, and giving me more to think about in regards to