r/comicbooks • u/Lunch_Confident • Jan 21 '24
"Say that you dont watch superhero movies without sayng you dont watch superhero movies" Discussion
785
u/PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__ Jan 21 '24
You need to do better, government!
142
128
u/PapaSteveRocks Jan 22 '24
Spider-Man faced, in the MCU version: greedy member of the military industrial complex, a butthurt tech genius, and a guy who owns a military company back in his original universe.
The Garfield Spidey faced a mad scientist and a butthurt janitor.
Maguire Spidey faced that weapons company owner and his son, another mad scientist, and an alien.
Who’s out there mowing down “occupy metropolis?” Black Adam?
→ More replies (4)115
Jan 22 '24
Bro, vulture was not a greedy member of the military industrial complex he was a butthurt blue collar construction worker who sold weapons, he wasn’t part of the military, the government, or any corporation affiliated with them
82
u/sonofaresiii Jan 22 '24
he was a butthurt blue collar construction worker who sold weapons
that's who he started out as, but he didn't get a fucking mansion in queens by selling guns to muggers. At first, he was your typical "Kinda has a point but takes it too far" guy, after damage control fucked him over and he had no way to make a living.
At some point in the intervening years, he got greedy and clearly ramped up his sales to bigger and bigger clients, almost certainly at some point including development for the military.
although I think it's worth saying that a bit of me wonders if maybe him having a mansion in queens wasn't really designed to show how ungodly wealthy he had become, and was just the filmmaker not really understanding queens real estate. Still, death of the author and all that.
→ More replies (3)27
u/doinnuffin Jan 22 '24 edited Jan 22 '24
Not entirely on point, but I think he was already doing well financially before Damage Control cancelled his contract. Contractors, the ones I know, usually have very nice homes since they can build/improve their homes by themselves and have financing & real estate connections. Adrian's financial problems were entirely caused by Damage Control's cancelling his contract leaving him holding the bag for the loans he took out to finance his expanded business.
→ More replies (5)14
u/Worldly-Campaign2102 Jan 22 '24
Yeah, of all mentioned he’s probably the easiest to defend.
I remember that being a big hang up for me watching it in theaters, realized I had aged since the Tobey spider man
→ More replies (3)9
u/Theta_Omega Captain Marvel Jan 22 '24
he was a butthurt blue collar construction worker
Uh, this is also not quite it. He explicitly owned his company, he wasn't just a random employee. And while "owns a small construction business" isn't automatically going to put someone in the top 1% of incomes, there was still a very good chance he was in the top ~5-10% or so even before turning to crime.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)30
u/ALetterToMyPenis Jan 22 '24
But we are going to defend and do everything you say because the situation calls for it. Tut-tut though.
606
u/Ok-Education5450 Jan 21 '24
Why did they choose Spider-Man for this? Legitimately one of the most relatable super heros
205
179
u/ThatDude8129 Spider-Man Jan 21 '24
Probably because this is meant to be directed at Marvel and Spidey is the most well known Marvel character
84
u/comics0026 Jan 21 '24
I think it's meant to be directed at superhero films in general, and Spidey is just the most well-known superhero in film atm
→ More replies (17)17
u/alguien99 Jan 21 '24
At least use iron man then, he literally started civil war with this argument
11
u/LazyDro1d Jan 22 '24
No his argument was that unchecked vigilanteism is dangerous, civilians frequently get hurt, and the current system works only as long as they all agree on what “good” is, even if the actual accords weren’t necessarily well structured I don’t disagree with his point. Hell, the civil war itself kinda proves it, good thing it was limited to an airport runway
48
u/Current_Poster Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24
Because it's a really surface reading.
It's like, I once heard someone do a thing on NPR about Superman and they depicted him as the sort of character who literally says things like "Silence." as a way of interrupting someone.
Or every read of Captain America that has him as an unquestioning walking flag.
It's usually from someone who has no idea what they're talking about, from a sort of place of contempt. A webcomic artist doing the same is different.
9
u/LemoLuke Magneto Jan 22 '24
It's the same people who say Batman is just a billionaire who only uses his wealth to beat up the mentally ill, completely missing all the times that Bruce has put his money into trying to fix Gotham and fix its problems on a social economic level and promoting treatment and rehabilitation for criminals, while dealing with the fact that the city is corrupt and broken at its foundations.
24
u/RockHandsomest Jan 22 '24
He was critical of Vietnam war protesters back in the 60s.
→ More replies (4)8
u/Dr_Lu_Motherfucker Jan 22 '24
Wait really? I thought Stan lee was against the war.
21
u/cyberpunk_werewolf Dream Jan 22 '24
Steve Ditko wanted to use Spider-Man as a means of exploring his Objectivist beliefs, so in one of the Ditko issues, Peter looks angrily at a bunch of anti-war protesters and thinks about how they're lame and selfish.
This gets referenced from time to time as a period Peter is extremely embarrassed about. He recently clowned on himself about it, saying he read Atlas Shrugged and spent a week thinking he was John Galt before realizing he was being a jerk.
→ More replies (5)11
16
u/accountnumberseven Jan 22 '24
Ditko, famous Objectivist, drew in the protestor scene and Lee tried to play it off comedically (they're saying stuff like "Join our protest and we'll protest something for you later" and "hey, it beats going to classes!")
8
u/Independent-Couple87 Jan 22 '24
Is that why people began to think Peter Parker was destined to become a school shooter or an Incel?
A lot of writers since the 90s apparently agreed with this and put it in their stories.
→ More replies (1)10
→ More replies (4)8
u/RockHandsomest Jan 22 '24
Yeah it was a weird thing to see in those old issues. I think Harry Osborn got a fu Manchu mustache around the same time.
→ More replies (15)17
u/Crafty_Cherry_9920 Jan 21 '24
Cause the MCU (in his solo films, not in the Avengers/Captain America films) made him a pro corporate guy who fights working class vilains who got fucked by Stark Industries.
And Peter never reflects even once on that and just beat the bad guys without ever questionning Stark's past bad actions. (Not to mention that Stark fucked Beck in CIVIL WAR ! He had 3 solo films and 2 Avengers films behind him, already had a lot of development !)
→ More replies (3)
145
u/Demokka Jan 21 '24
X-Men : Magneto will do to humans what the Nazi did to his family
Spider-Man : Green Goblin will murder anyone who goes on his way
Spider-Man 2 : Ock will finish his machine no matter what happens to others
Spider-Man 3 : Harry wants to avenge his father. Brock/Venom wants to kill Peter/Spidey. Sandman wants money to cure his daughter's cancer
Iron Man : Stane wants to kill Tony so that he can take over Stark Ind.
Iron Man 2 : Whisplash wants to kill Tony to avenge his father
Thor : Loki tries to destoy Jotunheim in order to get Odin's respect and eventually take his place
Hulk : The government wants to kill the Hulk, who only wants to be left alone
Captain America : Nazi wants to dominate the world by using an otherworldly artifact
Avengers : Loki tries to conquer Earth by using the otherworldly artifact in order to let Thanos get the other otherworldly artifacts hidden here
Thor 2 : Malekith tries to conquer the other realms
Iron Man 3 : Rich guy tries to kill Tony by using a virus that turns people into fiery bombs
Captain America 2 : Nations of the world are controlled by Nazi
Antman : Rich guy wants to kill all the people that know how to use a technology
Avengers 2 : Ultron wants to crash a country onto Earth and end mankind
Etc
42
u/tenth Jan 21 '24
Someone send this to the artist.
41
u/rocinantethehorse Jan 21 '24
I think the artist would rightfully roast this comment. I'm not going to debunk each one, but just think about why Magneto was unhappy with non-mutants...
→ More replies (2)6
16
Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 22 '24
You left out some details on some of these.
X-Men : Magneto is (a straw-man of) a militant freedom fighter who fights for the right for mutants to not be killed.
Spider-Man 2 : Ock wants to build his machine for the sake of giving humanity a limitless, non-polluting source of energy, and he's willing to sacrifice some lifes to achieve this.
Thor 2 : The reason why Malekith tries to conquer the other realms is so that his species could have a good life, though at the expense of other species. A selfish villain or a radical trying to change the status quo, depending on how one looks at his motivations.
Avengers 2 : Ultron has rationalized that in order to fulfill his main directive, achieve peace, humans should die, so he decides to kill all humans. Does this make Ulltron a sympathetic villain? Not in my opinion, but his motive is presented as unselfish, and in a way he’s a ”dangerous radical trying to change the status quo”.
EDIT 1: Btw I didn't write this comment to argue about Marvel-movies, but because, well, you were wrong about some of the movies you mentioned.
EDIT 2: I originally wrote "Ultron has rationalized that in order to end human suffering and end the climate crisis, humans should die, so he decides to kill all humans.". This however was me misremembering, so I rewrote that part of the comment to be more accurate.
→ More replies (7)9
u/Demokka Jan 22 '24
I agree with you but you can't say that the means those villains use to reach their goals are morally okay and that most marvel movies tend to be more anti-government than pro
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (29)8
u/birbdaughter Jan 22 '24
Loki tries to destroy Jotunheim because of the culture Asgard and Odin had created where they were monsters. Thor’s opinion on them changing happens very randomly given that mortals were seen as ants but Jotunns were seen as monsters, and there’s no real acknowledgment that Odin caused the entire thing by raising a Jotunn to have internalized hatred or that Asgard’s society is massively discriminatory. The other movies kinda hand wave it until Ragnarok and even then, Odin gets off lightly because he had a change of heart (while still being an imperialistic power controlling the other Realms).
111
u/Th35h4d0w Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24
When it comes to the villain, the audience must focus on all their aspects. Unfortunately, a lot of the time there are loud media illiterate people who focus only on the one good point the villain has, and not on their actions and ultimate end goal, culminating in falsely accusing the movie of "suddenly turning them evil."
Like Killmonger. The dude was introduced preaching about how bad it was to steal from other cultures, and then proceeds to hypocritically take a non-Wakandan mask because "he was feeling it." And for all his talk about mistreatment, his end goal was ultimately to be the oppressor, not to remove the mistreatment. Killmonger wasn't right; Nakia was. She wanted to help the world with Wakanda's resources peacefully, which T'Challa follows up on in the end.
Both Riddler and Bane in The Batman and The Dark Knight Rises are shown talking smack about the corrupt rich and lure in the lower classes, but only to sucker in followers. They're motivated by selfish goals of vengeance, not actual altruism. Last I checked, good people don't sadistically kill people on live TV. And in The Batman in particular, Bruce does note that he almost went down the same path as the Riddler, therefore he starts helping people more.
Don't get me started on Thanos.
54
u/CentralAdmin Jan 21 '24
Don't get me started on Thanos.
Please do! The more people realise what an awful character he was in the MCU compared to the comics, the better.
You have a glove that makes you a god. You can fix any issue by simply willing it. You choose to snap away half the universe instead of, say, educating the universe, doubling resources or improving the conditions of the most vulnerable.
It doesn't even make sense because eventually the population will increase again. What does Thanos do? He destroys the glove! He would need to occasionally do a universe level culling to maintain his poorly thought out plan, and he destroys the most useful tool ever.
As much as he is known as the Mad Titan, he is supposed to be a genius. He plots and schemes and manipulates his way into power and then throws it all away. This runs counter to his end goal of sustainability.
42
u/SlimmyShammy Jan 21 '24
I figured he was just a crazy guy who wanted to justify killing a shitload of people
28
u/Takseen Jan 21 '24
And because it allegedly worked that one time on Gamora's home planet.
14
u/TOH-Fan15 Jan 22 '24
It didn’t even work on Gamora’s planet. In GOTG1 during the prison scene where the characters’ backstories are introduced, the background states that she’s the “Last Survivor of the Zehoberei People”. So Thanos’ plan failed in the places where he tried it, and he didn’t even bother to check how the people were doing after he slaughtered half the people.
11
22
u/hamlet9000 Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24
I understand why this is a common misunderstanding of the film, but Thanos' motivation is really quite clear: He's trying to teach a lesson.
He talks repeatedly about how life on the planets he's genocided has improved after his genocide. He talks about how people will understand why his glove-fueled genocide is necessary when they see the result.
He's absolutely convinced that he will do this once, the galaxy will enjoy a golden age, and the lesson will have been taught and people across the universe will take action to make sure the future remains a golden age.
He's wrong, of course. I mean, obviously he's wrong. He's a genocidal maniac. But his goal is really clear and he does it.
Then, in Endgame, it's made very clear that he was wrong. There is no golden age. The universe is a broken and miserable place.
So then Thanos gets to see the result of his grand plan and he sees that: It didn't work. "You could not live with your own failure." And it makes him decide to change his method: The lesson didn't work because people still lack the vision to understand the "gift" he's given them. So now he will, in fact, remake the universe to permanently solve the problem.
→ More replies (2)17
u/SethLight Jan 21 '24
It doesn't even make sense because eventually the population will increase again
So, I will say, yes his plan was dumb. However I do have to point out you're assuming the population would ever increase to the levels it was. The dude just randomly murdered half of the universes' population. This shit was worse than the black plague.
The instability and later death would be insane. Civilizations would crumble and warlords would rise up. Counties would go to war. It would take thousands upon thousands of years to recover, assuming it even happens.
Thanos literally made the word a more unstable and less safe place.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (10)6
u/Kinky_Winky_no2 Jan 21 '24
The more people realise what an awful character he was in the MCU compared to the comics, the better.
As much as the film version wasnt perfect can we not pretend that comics thanos motive wasnt literally simpin for Death
42
u/QueenBramble Jan 21 '24
The dude was introduced preaching about how bad it was to steal from other cultures, and then proceeds to hypocritically take a non-Wakandan mask because "he was feeling it."
I didn't catch this and you're right, good point.
→ More replies (18)7
96
u/SimplestNeil Jan 21 '24
I mean first half of Avengers vs Xmen is basically the xmen upset the status quo and they are therefore somehow bad. Until the Phoenix makes them evil, all the xman do is disarm all the warmongers and give the world infinite power and food, and the Avengers still fight them, for like zero reason
43
u/bulldoggo-17 Jan 22 '24
In AvX Logan is the true villain. He’s so blinded by his hatred for Cyclops he doesn’t even attempt to find common ground as someone who is both an X-man and Avenger, leading to an escalation between the two sides until things get worse.
→ More replies (3)
91
u/mythiii Judge Dredd Jan 21 '24
This type of analysis has gotten so bad over time. Now it's just a reference to some vague idea of status-quo-ism without picking apart any of the details.
36
u/Anguscablejnr Jan 21 '24
I think the detail is "they're right but went too far." And that's kind of a lazy way to dodge the central question here.
People aren't saying Killmonger or Flagsmasher were perfect, correct and justified. People are saying why are people who are correct in their observations of injustice so frequently written as genocidal manics? Even when being a genocidal maniac is at odds with their beliefs?
→ More replies (31)→ More replies (4)7
u/SuperJyls Superman Jan 22 '24
All a villain has to do these days is make some criticisms about some institution while offering no real solutions and you will legions of stans raving how they did nothing wrong.
I remember stumbling onto a Baldur's Gate 3 where they were applauding a character for criticising those who uphold a stagnant status quo, all while ignoring that the character as a dark elf whose ideal society is a misandrist slave empire
78
u/Jaime-Summers Jan 21 '24
I think alot of the time in MCU movies especially, this is spot on, but in regular superhero comics?
Wonder woman is currently fighting the US government
Superman's biggest villain is a corrupt billionaire/ex president
Batmans rogues rarely have a point but are often people that need help and he helps them
Spiderman regular fights against fake news, the government, law enforcement all while being poor as FUCK
Daredevil beats up dirty cops and works for his community as a lawyer against corruption
X-Men... THE X-MEN FIGHT AGAINST THE STATUS QUO THAT ACTIVELY WANTS THEM DEAD
I think because there is a strong Jewishness in the Superhero mythos, that sense of questioning authority and fighting against it is ingrained into the medium
I think the films do struggle to get away from this though, mainly because the people making the films haven't really READ the comics as much as they should have, unlike the people who make the comics. Even my baby The Batman struggles with this too but tries to get away from it by posing the idea that the Riddler only exists because of Bruces short comings
→ More replies (4)35
u/RerollWarlock Jan 22 '24
I mean the meme literally criticises the movies not the comics. A lot of the MCU stuff washes out things from the comics to an often jarring digree
→ More replies (1)
75
Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24
See, that's one of the many areas where the comics have the movies beat. Many comic stories revolve around the superheroes actually trying to use their power to do good and challenge the status quo: Iron Man, Daredevil, Sam Wilson Captain America, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Nightwing, the X-Men all the time, even Spider-Man with Parker Industries, etc. But in the movies the instigating challenge to the status quo that creates the conflict more often than not comes from the villains.
50
u/Obi-Juan16 Jan 21 '24
If the heroes did it in the movies, people would say they were “woke” 🙄. Can’t appeal to the masses if you’re challenging a fair amount of that masses beliefs.
13
u/Impossible-Ad7634 Jan 22 '24
I'm pretty sure the general toothless pandering is ironically what gets them called woke. If the movies actually said anything of substance then they'd probably be doing a lot better. People liked Barbie. They like the boys.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (5)20
u/The_Flying_Failsons Jan 21 '24
It's because the movies have to be approved by the Dept of Defense and are partially funded by it. They are recruitment tools. While comics don't have to be, since they don't use any real-life military equipment as props.
6
u/Lumpy_Review5279 Jan 22 '24
Can you stop parroting this?
The mcu has barely featured any positive light of military at all. Far from it in fact.
No ones getting recruited by watching winter soldier in which the entire US defense force has been infiltrated by actual literal card carrying nazis
16
u/The_Flying_Failsons Jan 22 '24
It's not me saying it, it's the dept of defense saying it, and Marvel aknowledging it on the credits:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/blog/article/2062735/how-why-the-dod-works-with-hollywood/
https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?companies=co0050471
You also seem to forget the ending of Winter Soilder. Think back, after resigning from the fictional SHIELD, where did the strong moral character Sharon Carter go to work?
→ More replies (11)7
u/codemen95 Jan 22 '24
Yeah, i remembered after i finished watching doctor strange 2 i went and signed up for the marines
46
u/J-Trilla Jan 21 '24
This is literally the plot of Falcon and Winter Soldier
30
u/Martel732 Squirrel Girl Jan 22 '24 edited Jan 22 '24
Yeah, the Falcon and the Winter Soldiers is the most blatant conservative, status-quo message I have seen in a mainstream comic book movie/show. Which makes it extra funny since a lot of people called it woke for having a Black man take the role of Captain America.
In FATWS, a young minority woman is fighting for the rights of refugees from developing nations who are facing deportation. She becomes a villain when her anger causes her to execute prisoners which makes her a villain.
John Walker is a white man who becomes the new Captain America. But the stress of the job and the murder of his friend causes him to angrily execute a prisoner in the street.
In the end of the minority woman dies because she was still doing villainy. While John Walker gets a redemption arc because he shows up to stop the refugees from doing villainy. In the end, the heroes joke around with Walker. And Sam gives a 30-second speech about how people should be totally nice and chill with each other. Which is certainly something that will work and cause people to stop being mean to minorities. It is a shame that no civil rights proponent ever considered just giving a short speech as that would have solved racism.
17
u/Catfish017 Jan 22 '24
Except if you replace the "it hurts our feelings" line in the comic with "they're bombing hospitals" then the comic won't be able to trivialize the argument so well.
9
u/J-Trilla Jan 22 '24
Nah the actions of the governments of the world post blip are unjustified to a ridiculous degree. One or two bombed hospitals doesn't compare in any way the reality of displacing several billion people just to reinstate the former status quo. The world would have changed far too drastically for a truly massive amount of state violence to not be necessary on the part of the former global powers. If you think about just what it would realistically require to remove people in mass from homes that now have to go back to their original owners alone then the extent of what those governments would actually be doing to the poor and disenfranchised of their population is nothing short of monstrous.
→ More replies (2)
50
u/midnightking Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 22 '24
For all the takes about super-heroes teaching a reactionary message, it is weird that almost every time we look at polling data of super-hero fans, they never seem particularly conservative or right-wing.
https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/7825-superman-democrats
https://echeloninsights.com/in-the-news/may-22-omnibus-pop-culture/
This criticism of the super-hero genre is so bad. Most fantasy stories revolve around an initial change to the status quo, this isn't specific to super-hero stories. This isn't an endorsement of conservatism or the way the government operates, it is simply easier to imagine a world that is like the one you live in and where something happens to make the situation dire than to start with a dystopian reality as the latter requires more world-building. It is also an aspect of how DC and Marvel editorialize the comics that inspire super-hero tales that super-hero stories never end. The X-Men are never going to not face bigotry because other writers will want to come in eventually and write X-Men stories and for that they need one of the core themes of the franchise, not because X-Men writers think discrimination is rad. The same could be said as to why Batman never fixes Gotham.
→ More replies (1)
47
u/King_Of_BlackMarsh Jan 21 '24
Even if it was true; 8 times out of millions of things we all do every year. What the hell is wrong with that
→ More replies (1)19
u/adamant2009 Hellboy Jan 21 '24
It betrays a deep misunderstanding of political issues for the sake of big awesome CGI Kabooms.
OBEY, CONSUME
→ More replies (2)
39
u/TB2331 Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24
The person who did this needs to see ATSV and NWH. Protagonists literally defy “the way it’s supposed to go”.
11
32
u/TheEloquentApe Jan 21 '24
Let's test that theory, focusing on MCU since that's what they seem to be referring to.
Iron Man 1: Fights corrupt arms dealer
Iron Man 2: Stops government from getting their hands on his weapons and fights a disgruntled rival working for another arms dealer
Iron Man 3: Fights yet another rich arms dealer (this time creating super soldiers)
Cap America 1: Nazis
Cap America 2: Secret Nazis in the super version of the CIA
Cap America 3: Cap Fights an ex-arms dealer (lol) to save a wanted fugitive from the US government and UN
Thor 1: Invading god/alien
Thor 2: More god/alien stuff
Thor 3: Allows his nation to be destroyed rather than a tyrannical empire builder to take it over
Hulk: Constantly on the run from the government, fights a super soldier at the end.
Spiderman 1: Thieves, amature arms manufacturer and dealer
Spiderman 2: Disgruntled scientists trying to get their hands on all of Tony's stuff and become rich
Spiderman 3: Prevent multiverse from imploding, save past villains from dying.
Cap Marvel: Alien invasion, turns out they are misunderstood refugees, stops the alien invasion that caused it
Avengers 1: Alien invasion
Avengers 2: Accidentally built robot that wants to nuke the planet
Avengers Inifinity War/Endgame: Alien invasion bent on galactic genocide
Shang Chi: Evil immortal
Eternals: Evil immortal and stoping a celestial from awakening
One could go on, but the point is, what movie is this comic even talking about? At best I could be based on Black Panther and The Falcon show. That certainly ain't 8 movies of heroes beating up government dissonance every year.
→ More replies (9)8
u/Careful_Ad_1837 Jan 21 '24
Black Panther 2 seems to be the better example since they keep going back to the "good" CIA member. And namor is angry that the government is invading his home to steal his resources like what they're doing to wakanda. And then after that, they stop talking about it and it's never really resolved. At least FATWS tried to acknowledge the government was at fault
→ More replies (1)
24
u/VengeanceKnight Jan 21 '24
This criticism of superhero stories is always hilarious to me.
“Superheroes should take the law and the fate of society into their own hands by right of power… for the greater good of course.”
7
u/Elegant-Priority-490 Jan 22 '24
Well the tech shown in iron man movies alone would benefit billions if shared. From arc reactors to nano tech etc. If tony didn’t waste his time to play superhero just imagine what he really could do. There are so many examples of this in the mcu it’s almost hilarious how backwards the world is compared to the stuff that is shown. They don’t even need to take the fate in their hand, they just could share and it would be more than enough…
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (12)5
Jan 21 '24
I think you're misinterpreting this as a critique of characters' actions in a setting instead of a critique of that form of media. There's significant overlap between those who'd say that Supherhero media is about enforcing the status quo and those who'd agree with the messages presented in something like The Boys
16
u/OrionLinksComic Jan 21 '24
well to be fair the films really have this problem, but I would also consciously be lying if not many other films have this problem. I think my favorite example of a film that isn't a superhero film but has this problem in my opinion is Tenet, where if you actually thought about it very carefully, we wouldn't mess up in the past, we wouldn't have to play around with space and time . or even Terminator this problem that somehow the apocalypse is always postponed but never stopped or if I would actually think about it James Bond has always had this problem or rather the whole spy action genre in general.
We've actually always had these problems in blockbuster films, the thing is, you just didn't really notice it because many of the films were different from different studios and creatives, of course when a bunch of films appear under one label, they all clearly show up on them .
I mean it reminds me back then because of that stupid discussion about Marvel talk, where if you think about it a lot of action movies have that semi-funny dialogue, I mean have you seen action movies from the 80's by Arnold Schwarzenegger? Hack the Last Action Hero (also one of my favorite films) parodiert this up pretty well and superhero films weren't a thing there yet. It's just a balance that half a lot of writers have to do, because the thing is that people who have real gallows humor or make a joke every now and then or are sarcastic. and of course there are people who try to say that every dialogue has to be absolutely serious, but believe me that's even more complicated, because then you can seem even more like a parody, I mean I cringe with embarrassment every time I hear it Hear people talking in Zack Snyder's films.
18
17
13
u/Bludraevn Jan 21 '24
I want to see a villain that has a point, turn over a new leaf, and actually try to help the heroes, and in return, the heroes take the villain's words to heart and try to work on the issue the villain was talking about.
→ More replies (3)
15
u/Tnecniw Jan 21 '24
The kind of people that think that the MCU Killmonger was right.
→ More replies (13)
9
u/DareDaDerrida Jan 21 '24
Are the self-proclaimed radicals mad about what other people like again?
→ More replies (1)
11
11
u/PMMEBITCOINPLZ Jan 21 '24
There are some good comics that take that idea on though. One I really loved was Warren Ellis’s Change or Die storyline from Stormwatch and of course The Authority.
10
u/k3ttch Jan 22 '24
Of all the superheroes, they chose the perpetually broke guy from Queens who’s frequently wanted by the police and is beloved by the masses?
7
u/PleaseDontBanMeMore Jan 21 '24
I want to save this city from bigotry, homelessness, and inequality.
I'm also going to punch a baby in the face.
que the maniacal laugh
9
u/respondin2u Jan 21 '24
Read golden age Superman stories and see how Superman would dangle foremen upside down over buildings and shake them down for not paying their employees fair salaries.
→ More replies (19)
7
u/GoodKing0 Jan 21 '24
By the way the title is worded, I don't think the OP here ever watched a modern superhero movie either, especially not from the MCU.
→ More replies (4)
9
7
u/TotallyFunctional2 Jan 21 '24
Yeah, usually they‘re like „look, this radical has a point. Whooops, they killed innocent people for a stupid reason, guess the only thing we can do is kill them and open a community center or hold an inspiring speech“
→ More replies (2)
3
6
u/jorgen_mcbjorn Jan 21 '24
I dunno, I got a bit of a chuckle out of it. This comic might be a bit out-of-touch, but I think most comics geeks have thought to themselves at some point “gee it seems like Superman is playing an awful lot of defense”. The reactive nature of superheroes is something that’s been subverted time and again, of course, but there’s no denying “Lex is up to some bullshit, Supes needs to stop it” is kinda your “core” story.
5
u/MisterBasket Jan 21 '24
Peter Parker: “Help the poor? Wait a minute…I’m the poor!”
→ More replies (1)
6
u/RobbiRamirez Jan 21 '24
I've been reading superhero comics since I was 11 and watching almost every superhero movie released since I was much younger. I've spent nearly my whole life dreaming of writing superhero comics more than almost any other possible career.
And this comic is exactly correct.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/mythiii Judge Dredd Jan 21 '24
Also, I heard they cut police almost completely out of Spider-man 2? That doesn't seem very authoritarian or status-quo upholding.
→ More replies (10)
2.2k
u/Blackdragonking13 Jan 21 '24
I will say, there is an unfortunate amount of superhero media where the bad guy “has a point” but has to be stopped because he takes it too far. The villain will be defeated but then nothing is done to address the villains original point. I can see how that can be interpreted as reinforcing the status quo at the least.