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- comics@lemmy.ml
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Ironically and not, that’s exactly what Iron Man brought Nu-Spiderman to do in the CW movie. Government is crying about control, so a war profiteer recruits, illegally extricates from the country, arms and indoctrinates a kid to collaborate in a paramilitary action to oppress the following groups represented: war veterans, the elderly, women, foreigners, scientists, disabled, performance athletes, amputees and people seeking asylum.
Geez. Considering the previous movie was about a nazi takeover of the US, seems like someone shoud have seen things coming!
They made Spiderman rich in the movies because the writers a rich and think writing about a poor beneath them.
Other assholes include: Thor who is a dumb over privlaged fratboy who causes interndimentonal wars by acting like a dumb frat boy.
Ironman who was not only a war profiter who gave one the most powerful weapons platforms in the world to some teenager without any kind of oversight whose main story arc involves him fucking over poor people
Captain marvel is a brutal space pig who uses their powers to intimidate indigenous people on whatever planet she is on. Uses a weapon that can level city blocks and her character progression is that she needs to be more emotional. Plus she was fine committing genocide on the skrulls until she found out they had women.
Wakanda is a monarchist enthnostate presented as a utopia that tortures and murders outsiders and is presented in such a way that if it was the US the movie would be labeled as propaganda. Plus using ‘colonizer’ as a slur to call the people helping them even though they were never colonized
The eternals are boring
Wonda is everything that justifies the hate of mutants. But it’s not her fault so she gets an pass. But it highlights everything stupid about the gay and minority parallel. No hates black or lbgtq people because they can think a hundred peope to death.
Almost all of these people are sone kind of aristocrat.
Black Widow spends all of her movie rescuing like 12 people while letting and entire gulag of men die in an avalanche without even flinching. Not to mention the fact that her and Hawkeye worked for the CIA and probably overthrow countless democracies.
The guardians of the galaxy employ a dangerous psychopathic racoon who thinks nothing of murder.
The least aggregous is Captain America, a living propaganda poster. Antman, one of the only poor person appearing in End Game is treated like a joke even though he should be the most dangerous one among them.
USAgent was treated like crap before he did anything wrong to the point I kind of felt bad for him
Getting rid of Zemos direct Nazi ties makes him almost a hero. And those ties are less then SHIELD’s and less then that of most countries
Also, do not forget the beef between Disney and DeSantis only started when people saw they were working together. And only do scenes involving any kind of homosexuality in such away as to edit them out for whatever dictatorship they want to impress.
Also the original MCU Quicksilver was a thousand times better then yet another quipy hero that we don’t need. Plus asshole Quicksilver is closer source material.
I always think back to this one quote, something like
You can tell the morals of a society by the myths they tell themselves. We tell stories of heroes who save the world then quietly go back to their day job until they’re needed again
I read that and I actually think positively on it. To me, i read it as the good person doesnt stand by and do nothing, they fight evil as it crops up, even at the cost of their peaceful life they desire. Im not sure I can agree to any one type of story them we tell though. Its pretty varied.
I’m curious, what’s you’re take on that then?
Some versions do try to tell a more complex story, like The Boys and Invincible. My Hero Academia is also there as an anime
Doesn’t Invincible literally work with and for a secret government military organization?
Only at first, when he was naive.
then
The shadowy organization betrayed him because hes not fully has many, and invincible basically starts fighting them while still fighting the impotent bad guys.
Season 3 spoilers:
Tap for spoiler
Mark realizes Cecil is using them and nearly kills him, leaving Pentagon. There’s an epic episode showing Cecil’s past
I like One Punch Man. While he is a hero. The fact that he does it for fun and is frustrated at being so powerful makes it really stand out.
I love OPM, however I think it’s more about shonen anime stereotypes rather than western superhero stereotypes
Saitama is hilarious in the driest way possible, which is a humor that not everyone can appreciate
The pilot episode where he meets a crazed villain who loses his shit when Saitama tells him ‘I am a hero for fun’, and goes on a rant on what a stupid backstory that is… before he gets blown to bits with one single punch.
The running joke of him always losing at video games because he just does the same move again and again.
His entire relationship with Genos
Umbrella academy?
Loving invincible currently
superheroes are “benign” fascists, it’s fiction that would never work. Even in the gooest, saccharine interpretations I would be the one criticizing superman lol
I question how many comics you have read then since many of these characters were created as anti-fascist figures. Captain America, Superman, and The X-Men for example were all vocally against fascism, bigotry, racism, and more.
Captain America for instance has a history of being in opposition to his government on issues around civil rights. He has always been an icon of anti-fascism.
Of course non-media literate people and just people who only know the character from posters and t shirts see the stars and stripes and think he’s simply a “patriotic” hero.
As far as whether it would “work” in reality, well I think that is beside the point. These are about fantasy, myth making and legends. They are not supposed to be real. They explore ideas around what makes a hero with layers of fantasy and unreality that make the stories unpractical for our real world and to dismiss the idea they explore because of that misses the point of the art. But…
The moral questions that would arise if they were to exist the real world have also been handled really well by the comic book medium, books like The Watchmen, Rising Stars, V for Vendetta, Miracleman (pretty much anything by Alan Moore tbh), and more.
Comics and superheroes are modern day myth making, and the value of that shouldn’t be dismissed. Captain America, Spider-Man, The X-Men and more have inspired generations to view altruistic acts and things to be admired and aspired to. And the value of that should not be underestimated.
Also it bleeds into other media. Like the kid’s show Paw Patrol. I am obviously far too old to watch the show and while I have enjoyed watching kids stuff from time to time I just haven’t been able to spare rhe time for that one.
However based on a cursory knowledge of it and reviews from youtubers the show has some really bad ideas in the subtext.
Firstly the shows basic services in the community are fully privatized. They even have some scenes where outsiders want to call the cops or some other local service only to be reminded by locals that in that community they are done by this kid and his dogs.
Also that kid who commands paw patrol? He is like the avengers in that he lives quite apart from the community he is supposed to be serving.
This is akin to how billionaires don’t just live far away… they live REALLY far away and secluded from most people and don’t interact with them directly. This is despite the fact that they control extremely critical assets to the community, they are not just isolated from the community, they are also unaccountable to them.
So, paw patrol is a libertarian dytopia?
Pretty much.
Ironically Superman is one of the least fascy superheroes, at least when written by anyone who understands the character.
Tbh they’re just misrepresenting the argument. Most (famous) superheros aren’t fascists. They spend a lot of time punching imperialists in the face at a minimum.
What they represent is a social desire for the hero-figure, the strong-man, to fix society’s problems instead of collective and democratic action. That’s the dilemma people like Alan Moore are pointing out when they talk about how comics can enable fascism.
Fair enough, but watchmen is cool
It’s cool because it deconstructs the whole thing, down to having a quasi god as one of the heroes
And having Captain America be The Comedian, because American exceptionalism is a joke.
Wow, now I understand why I hated all those movies.
there are plenty of reasons to hate those movies. this is just another.
That’s the problem with superhero stories. The story needs to begin and end with the world in a state similar to our own (for relatabilitiy and sequel potential) despite the vast power of its protagonist, so the hero must ultimately be concerned with preserving the status quo.
It’s one of the reasons why superhero movies are in decline now that all the most famous storylines have already been adapted, and why comic book sales have been going downhill ever since they started taking themselves seriously.
You just reminded me of one of the Life is Strange fanfics I read once. Where Max and Chloe have these time and space warping powers and just go the opposite way, they determine the status quo is fucked and needs to be rectified globally and then start doing it in an actually thoughtful sensible way. (There was some shadowy confusing adversity but I can’t recall its nature)
This is my condition on lemmy 🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐
You just made a post to describe how you can’t make posts. Why not just post what you want?
Posts are not a problem. It’s when l form my communities, that’s when l get banned. Two lemmy instances banned me after l created my communities and started posting in them !!
There’s like two way it could end when a superhuman being try to change the status quo for the good, one is through the courtroom, which is slow and boring, another one is to forcefully take over the “bad” government and force the “good” on people, which we have seen in something like Injustice.
This is the reality of the world 🌍!!
The court decisions are only worth something if the legislative made proper laws and the executive is enforcing them.
But assuming superhuman capabilities the most obvious choice imo. is to use these abilities to help lift the most discriminated out of poverty. And if then the forces of the status quo come to take it away again, then he needs to fight them directly.
In my country, the Judiciary is the biggest criminal while the legislatures belong to the mafia 🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐
The court decisions are only worth something if the legislative made proper laws and the executive is enforcing them.
Yeah, but that is the only lasting change that can be done for the country, and it’s a slow and painful process.
But assuming superhuman capabilities the most obvious choice imo. is to use these abilities to help lift the most discriminated out of poverty. And if then the forces of the status quo come to take it away again, then he needs to fight them directly.
I think that’s why people love One Piece, liberating country out of their oppressor and challenging status quo is the theme.
Great. So we’re going to be seeing this meme 8 times every month?
This is why the Nolan Batman trilogy (really the first two films) resonated so well with the global audience.
It was an ordinary guy against systemic corruption, something that a majority of the global population lives in every day.
Not a superhero against an externalized villain whose motives can be boiled down to either “evil because I deserve it” (the main antagonist) or “evil because of necessity” (every thug and extra who gets beat up).
Iron Man was also basically a giant ad for the US military in Afghanistan lol. Marvel never brought back the Taliban ten rings in Shang Chi
Calling Bruce Wayne an ordinary guy is a travesty. And the whole point of the Iron Man 1st movie is that warmongering is a terrible legacy. Are you sure you watched any of these movies?
dc is more guilty of this than marvel, but yeah.
Sam Raimi Spider-man spent most of his time saving people from imminent harm and stopping armed robberies. He fought the CEO of a company that developed military technology who was killing people to hang onto his position of power and wealth. He then fought a mad scientist that spent the entire movie putting innocent people in danger, attacking Spider-man and ultimately risking the deaths of millions out of an obsession and the influence his technology had over him. In the third one… he turns into a bit of a dick for a while because he’s being partially controlled by an alien, and the theme for all three villains is revenge. At no point in the trilogy does he target anyone who is trying to make a political or social change, just people that are attacking him personally and/or putting innocent bystanders in harm’s way.
In the Amazing Spider-Man movies he pretty much just fights a guy who is trying to turn everyone into lizards, his own stalker who just happens to get electricity powers, and the rich brat that blames him for not giving him blood samples which he thinks will cure his disease (they won’t, but the reason for the refusal is still poorly defined).
MCU Spider-man gets recruited to fight half the avengers, which might play into this if the civil war was about a larger societal issue, but it wasn’t. As far as the movie presents it, the entire issue is about the rules governing the avengers themselves and the fate of Bucky. Arguably the Captain America side is presented more favorably, but that too would go against the point the comic is making because they are the ones resisting the status quo and sticking it to the man.
And in his actual movies, MCU spider-man fights a guy who is flooding the streets with high tech weapons just for the money, a con man that’s willing to kill innocent people to make himself look like a superhero, and all those villains from the previous continuities who is actually just trying to send home.
Maybe spider-man was a bad example. Surely the rest of the MCU must be pro-government propaganda, right?
Iron Man 1: Rich selfish asshole has a wake up call, realizes that harm he’s done by filling the world with weapons, immediately exits the arms industry and dedicates his company to developing peaceful technologies to help the world. Uses the technology he developed to intervene in conflicts where civilians are getting massacred and no one is willing to do anything about it. Defies the US military to do it. The villain is a greedy executive that tries to kill Tony to seize control of the company and continue building weapons.
Iron Man 2: Tony is continuing his policy of protecting people in war zones, in defiance of an angry US government. The government tries to steal his suit for the military, and works with a rival company to develop drone versions which Tony destroys.
Iron Man 3: Wouldn’t you know it, another company developing military tech is run by an evil guy and is killing innocent people.
Captain America: Literally fighting Nazis.
Captain America 2: Fighting the Nazis that have infiltrated the US government.
Captain America 3: Fighting to save his friend in defiance of a government that would rather kill him than bring him in peacefully.
Thor: Shakespeare in space, plus Thor learns humility.
Thor 2: Blowing up the universe is bad.
Thor 3: Thor literally helps start a revolution to overthrow a dictator.
Thor 4: The gods are assholes who should care more about people.
The Incredible Hulk: Science man good, military guy bad. Smashy smashy.
Ant Man: An ex con who went to jail for hacking a corrupt corporation gets recruited by a scientist who helps him take and an evil CEO of a corrupt corporation.
Alright, I’m not listing any more, there’s a million of these things, you get the idea.
The Falcon movie, set with a background of black oppression and empowerment, is about how General President Ross is really a good guy who loves his country and family even though he did medical experiments on and then enslaved a guy.
The villain.
Disney hasn’t actually done that bad a job at messaging so far but that’s… Pretty bad. And suspiciously timed.
Iron Man 1: Rich selfish asshole has a wake up call
More precisely, the wake-up call being: the weapons that he sold to the US military as a war profiteer have ended up in the hands of the enemies and he gets blown up with a missile that has his name on it. It was rather on point.
Captain America 2: Fighting the Nazis that have infiltrated the US government.
…my memory must be shit; I don’t remember Captain America ever fighting DOGE…
doge is a recent name for hydra.
I took this to be about MCU specifically, so I’ll skip the first two Spiderman film continuities.
Homecoming - the villain is a lower class guy who has been screwed by the fallout of the Avengers and is making money to improve his family off of it. He is somewhat sympathetic, but the moral of the story is trust in the authorities because a well meaning guy will fix the hiccup in the system, and responding to systemic issues with force is wrong. Could be argued the real villain is Tony Stark.
I did not see the remaining MCU Spidermen, but they look to focus on more otherworldly Meta-continuity forces.
Black Panther - the villain is an extremist with a point. Killmongers desire for revenge and modes go too far. He should be better, like the royal family are. Luckily Killmonger inspires the legitimate authority to make a choice to do more and be more benign. Maybe he just should have trusted in the legitimate authorities all along and stayed inside the social bounds… Which had not made change until his use of force and theft?
I have seen the Iron Men, but not recently enough to engage with.
Civil War: the authorities want something that is controversial, but it turns out they weren’t the legitimate authorities, but secret Nazis trying to bring harm to everyone. The legitimate authorities had folks best interests at heart and fix everything. Could go either way, since forming a terrorist cell to fight authority is pretty radical.
The Thanos films: Thanos’ malthusianism is presented as bad, but not actually as wrong. There have been plenty of ways at this point to show that Malthusianism isn’t accurate, (and wasn’t actually an original part of the character) but it was put in here and not debated or shown to be wrong in itself, just “bad that he did it”. Malthusian ideals are strongly linked to right wing ideologies (as well as some nutty far left ones) that have been ascendent in relatively core right wing parties in the last 20 years.
Black Panther - the villain is an extremist with a point. Killmongers desire for revenge and modes go too far. He should be better, like the royal family are. Luckily Killmonger inspires the legitimate authority to make a choice to do more and be more benign. Maybe he just should have trusted in the legitimate authorities all along and stayed inside the social bounds… Which had not made change until his use of force and theft?
That basic theme and tension is present in a lot of black American discourse, of how much to work within the rules of the system and how much to actually violate the rules of the system in order to effectuate change. You can place a lot of the black civil rights icons onto the spectrum of how to use law breaking or violence as means to protect or advance black rights.
During the abolitionist era before the Civil War, David Walker called on slaves to physically overpower and literally kill their masters, and Henry Highland Garnet advocated for violent rebellion to overturn slavery.
Post-emancipation, anti-lynching advocate Ida Wells called on black families to arm themselves, to provide the protection that the law would not. Malcolm X also advocated for self defense, and predicted violence as the inevitable consequences of continued oppression of black Americans (which some took to mean he also advocated for initiating violence to advance black rights “by any means necessary,” but I personally think those views ignore nuance and context).
Each of these controversial figures often had a more nonviolent contemporary who advocated for less violent means to win hearts and minds.
Black Panther’s writer and director, Ryan Coogler, definitely knows all of this. He’s steeped in black history, both the history itself and the history of the art and literature and discourse around those topics. Placing that conflict and tension at the center of a freaking Marvel movie, designed to be a high budget blockbuster, was basically a work of genius.
The movie itself ultimately takes the side that coexistence is a better goal than reversing the subjugation, to oppress the former oppressor. But that doesn’t really much fit within the debate of this original comic, of whether the superhero movies advocate for preserving the status quo.
I don’t mind saying, I’m writing a book, and this is one of the conversations near the end. One character says to another: “Yeah, things are better. But can any of us truly say that things wouldn’t have improved if that terrorist hadn’t threatened everyone?”
Thankfully, in the story’s case, the reply to that quote is that while explosions and deaths were far more visible, a variety of powerful people were already making broad changes - just in a slower and less risky way. Of course, that’s fiction; and is not saying those things are a guarantee in the real world.
“MILLIONS MUST DIE” is a common alt right meme, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen references to Thanos included with it.
which movie is this referring to? I’ve been plugging away at the mcu movies and most of the time the enemy is the nazi spinoff faction seeking to subjugate all of humanity that embedded itself in multiple parts of the government. I only watched one of the other spider man movies and don’t remember anything about it
Sadly the only way for an American to get a new thought is to be spoon-fed it through a screen.
The argument in the cartoon is almost exactly the same problem Harry Potter has. The protagonists, save one who is ridiculed, don’t try or even want to stop slavery or make their capitalist nobility make things more fair. Not an American phenomenon.
Remember, its not Americans vs the citizens of the world. It’s the capitalist against you.
So these cartoons basically emerge from the Cabal psyche ???🤔🤔
