There’s plenty to recommend about Scott Pilgrim Takes Off — paparazzi ninjas, veganism-based superpowers, someone punching a hole in the moon — but its most surprising element is how it takes a bold and unexpected stand against the idea of a protagonist as a narrative necessity.

We’ve always had stories that inspired toys (Star Wars) and toys that inspired stories (Transformers)—then, inevitably, Toy Story itself. Two recent films, though, feel less like play and more like payola. It’s easy to imagine desperate studio executives looking around the room for inspiration. And what did they see? Sneakers and Cheetos.

The regular claims that superhero stories are a kind of ‘modern mythology’ almost never account for the fact that these are corporate-owned characters, fiercely protected. In 2014, DC Entertainment refused at first to let the Superman logo be used on the gravestone of a murdered five-year-old boy. The American Bar Association wrote that DC’s ‘aggressive policing’ echoes Batman’s own crime-fighting, and that ‘no one is immune, even deceased children.’

The current pandemic has outdone the Death Ray, stopping DC and Marvel from releasing monthly new issues. That may not sound remarkable until you consider that not even World War II had managed to impede publication.

Compared to multimillion-dollar blockbusters, comics are fast, cheap, and disposable. This means comic books can flit like hummingbirds. Hollywood movies, meanwhile, steer like battleships. Superhero comics can try things the movies would never dare, knowing that they can always wave their failures away and start over next month.

What does this new Joker tell us about the twenty-first century? He says we’re lost, and we’re angry, and we’re entitled to more. But most of all, this Joker is just another man who feels like he doesn’t exist until he picks up a gun.