On election night, after it was announced that Kshama Sawant (a socialist) had taken a clear lead (52.56 percent to 47.12 percent) in her race against Pamela Banks (a standard-issue Democrat) and was certainly on her way to another seat on the city council, she took to the stage and made a speech. As she thanked her supporters, listed her goals, and endorsed Bernie Sanders, one could not help but notice that the long yellow scarf she wore looked, at certain angles, very much like a superhero cape. Was this the intended effect? Are socialists now attempting to associate this major part of American popular culture with their cause? Of course not. The scarf was only just a scarf on a socialist politician.

But here is something to consider. There is a connection between the nationally recognized rise of Sawant and the current box-office dominance of superhero movies. The popularity of the former surged at a time when capitalism seemed to have no political challenge in sight. Unions were practically dead, we were all drowning in debt, our wages were flat, and the right was determined to stay in power and keep fighting costly wars. In short, there was no alternative to this neoliberal global order. Obama was elected after the crash of 2008 to change or improve the state of things, but Wall Street continued its control of Washington, inequality worsened, and the only issue that could excite Congress was dismantling Obamacare.

It is in this political and economic climate that Hollywood found a big pot of gold. This was a growing demand for images and narratives of action. But the humans (or human-like aliens) the studios put on the screen could only meet challenges, beat foes, and change their world with superhuman features and abilities. As a consequence, the consumer of these images was stuck in this troubling position: He or she had, in reality, powers that could only be activated and increased by connecting with many, many other bodies (collective action). But that form of super-power was no longer accessible to him/her (the decline of unions), and all he/she had was just the lame powers of his/her individual body. Yet, what they saw on the screen were individuals or groups of individuals who could only make an impact with bodies that possessed very fantastic powers.

And then we saw Sawant in something that almost looked like a cape. But there was nothing fantastic about her or her speech. She was pretty normal, pretty much keeping it real: more pay for workers, more taxes for rich people, more recognition of the rights of black Americans—not the stuff of superheroes. So, what did this accidental cape mean? It flickeringly marked something like a transitional point from a power that can only be consumed as fiction to one that can be accessed in reality, that of the collective.