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i addressed this above, wasn’t hating on comics, but thanks
Actually, Cap fighting fascists and authoritarians started on Dec 20, 1940. Captain America #1 is dated March 1941, but the practice was to predate books so they’d stay on the newsstands longer. It arrived on newsstands on Dec 20, 1940. The US didn’t declare war on Germany until Dec 11, 1941. He sided with students in the Vietnam protests and was clearly anti-Nixon. In the comics, Nixon (the leader of the Secret Empire) committed suicide right in the White House when caught. Steve Rogers quit being Cap after becoming disillusioned with the government after Watergate. He again had “government problems” during the Reagan admin.
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The power of hatred can outstrip the power of logical and consistent thought.
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Love the new avatar!
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Yes, can’t go wrong with books over comics.
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I personally like the remake of “4400” (nee “The 4400”) and liked both the movie and the television series “Alien Nation” as they all do a good job of telling an “action / science fiction / cop buddy / whatever” story, but introduce quickly “thinly veiled” social issues of religion, gender, ethnicity, orientation, etc. without beating anyone over the head. It makes conversations with people who aren’t so open to change much easier: We can ease from the “Hey, that was a cool power / special effect / dumb plot device / illogical decision by that character” conversation to the “Well, what if Binnaums were real?” which would segue naturally into non-binary gender issues, etc.
Interesting that Thor, technically a Norse god, would bow to Christ.
And that an alien (Superman) would do the same.
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“All Quiet on the Western Front” is somehow in that vile mix of wood pulp and word salad. I guess even a broken clock, etc.
…and my world grows just a touch dimmer.
Thanks for the shot of reality.
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There are still lots of people in the world who are not bigots, so don’t fret. We just need to stop expecting institutions built to uphold the ruling order to save us. As long as we assume that association with particular institutions are inherently left wing or progressive, we’re going to keep falling into that trap. I think it’s best to look at what people do in the world and judge them on that, not on where they work or what organizations they are associated with. This is the same problem I find with people making assumptions about people who are religious, that they are all just like the right wing white evangelicals or the prosperity doctrine types, when many people of faith are out there doing the hard work of helping people and making the world a better place with little or no fanfare.
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“where Magneto’s Holocaust ties are made explicit”
Yeah… except that was not one of Claremont’s and Dave Cockrum’s better ideas. It was pretty stupidly offensive, in fact, even if not meant badly. Imagine if a fully masked mutant villain already known for enslaving humans was revealed as Black, and it turned out (in a story arc meant to develop him beyond his previous shallow characterization) that he was an immortal born in 19th century as a slave on a plantation, and his experiences as a slave even helped shape his turn to slavemaster villainy. Most decent people would rightfully be offended.
Yeah, Claremont was trying to turn him into a sympathetic and even heroic character, but it was still a mess given the character’s history. (Note: Claremont’s own background doesn’t earn him a pass on this terrible idea.) And of course Marvel later insisted on reverting that turn to heroism, making things yet worse.
And then there was edgelord Grant Morrison in 2004 having Magneto herd humans into crematoria. FFS, even if Marvel later retconned Xorn as not really being Magneto, how did anyone at Marvel at the time think that okay?
Because only “good” people were impacted by the Holocaust?
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I don’t know. Maybe the problem of identifying with the oppressor is too complicated for some readers?
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Please stop using Black American trauma as a way to make your point - self serving kapos and overseers exist, in all communities.
Internalized self-hatred is one of most insidious forms of bigotry.
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See Clarence Thomas, Herschel Walker, Omarossa, Dave Clark, Candice Owens, Herman Cain, Stacey Dash… the list goes on and on.
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Also… that does not undercut the trauma of something like the history of American enslavement or racism, or living through something like the Holocaust… It doesn’t just traumatize the people who are “sinless” as it were and that’s why we should oppose those extreme forms of oppression… we should oppose those extreme forms of oppression (and less extreme forms of oppression… all forms of oppression) because it’s just wrong. Someone who society deems “evil” for whatever reason should not be subjected to oppression either and those who suffer oppression and go on to do hurtful things to others also still deserve compassion for their trauma, even while holding them accountable for the trauma they inflict…
Anyone, everyone should read Primo Levi, as he gets at that issue pretty well. I think part of the problem is how Hollywood deals with stuff like the Holocaust - many hollywood films have sanitized the event and taken out the very specific thing that Levi works to bring out, that the holocaust and systems of imprisonment (both “legitimate” and illegitimate, like concentration camps) create their own internal logics and push the incarcerated to be complicit in their own brutalization, which helps to create a sense of shame that many survivors can never fully leave behind. Hollywood films tend to focus on those who sacrificed to save others or who went to their deaths with a kind of stoicism. Less discussed are the people who fought back (Jews who escaped and joined the Partisan movements) or made terrible choices to survive. But Levi points out how many of those latter were the survivors of such brutality…
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You mean like how Killmonger adopted violent extremism in response to centuries of racist oppression against Black people?
Personally I find villains who have a legitimate grudge a lot more interesting and relatable than villains who are just evil for the sake of being evil.
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No, not only good people. But without googling, how many significant Marvel characters can you think of who are Holocaust survivors? Despite being a fictional character, Magneto is the holocaust survivor many kids and even quite a few comic fan adults are most familiar with. The Primo Levi comparison is thus utterly absurd.
