I don't think the superhero genre started this way at all. After all, the vast majority of silver age heroes were white, straight, male, and morally Christian. These IPs were wrested away from their creators by big business, who then handed everything off to radical leftists. They proceeded to subvert and destroy, slowly at first, and now rapidly, as is their MO.

I also think the classic vigilante is more akin to a monarch; they both decide and enforce a morality that is individually determined, a perfect reflection of their personal worldviews. Only in recent times has the vigilante become a mouthpiece for leftist statism, and that shift has been simultaneous with the overriding narrative switcheroo by leftists. To wit: they must imagine and conjure threats and oppressors so that leftism can maintain the "resistance" high ground even as it mercilessly wields near-total control.