How much do Superhero based comic books influence our opinions with politics and war?

Hi I have a big favour to ask everyone on here. I always come on here and read comments on topics (never have been brave enough to comment until now)but I want to get opinions from you guys for a survey I made for my dissertation, which I decided to write about politics and war within comics. With Batman and Captain America being main focus points.

Could I ask you take a look at this survey and fill it out for me, it takes no longer that 5 minutes. I really value everyones opinion!

[url]https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6C5NZSS[/url] Here's the link.

Please feel free to leave any comment, or if you want to give me your opinion on my question for my dissertation.

[FONT=Garamond]How much do Superhero based comic books influence our opinions with politics and war?[/FONT]

Thank you everyone!

[QUOTE=mve86;1506593][url]https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6C5NZSS-[/url] Here's the link.[/QUOTE]
Just a heads up, the - at the end of the link causes an error. When I remove it, then I can reach the survey, so you might want to fix it. :)

Anyway, interesting survey. I took it, but ultimately my answer boils down to "not one bit." I just take them as comic books, and they don't influence my opinion on anything.

Thank you for filling out the survey! I have fixed the problem now so thanks for letting me know about that too.

I find your opinion very interesting, when I asked other people's view they admitted that some comics did sway there opinions and agreed it had some influence and attitude towards politics.

Thanks again!

Filled the survey. :) Though I was surprised that you did not include the X-Men in your questions about comics and politics because to me, they are the big franchise with the most socio-politically charged central theme. I have been following them since roughly age 6-7, so they played a big part in helping me identify instances of discrimination in real-life at that age. In the premier episode of the 90's cartoon, Storm pretty much underlines the basic logic behind discrimination, [I]"Humans fear anyone who is different!"[/I] or something along those lines, and at that formative age, that was the most simple and least ambiguous manner in which anyone could explain to me about why bigotry takes place. Also, the X-Men did play a big part in getting me to value the significance of diversity and positive media representation.

On an even more intimate level, I took most of my cues from Spider-Man on concepts such as personal responsibility and basic human decency.

Superhero comics and movies never influenced my views on war however.

Hope the feedback helps.

Oh wow, I love your post. Truthfully I was planning to create a survey dedicated to X-Men ( Plus ones on graphic novels such as V for Vendetta and Watchmen) because I completely agree with you. X-Men really hits the nail on my subject and I can't just sum up all my questions into one or two really without getting a broader list of feedback. But I was a bit weary I would put people off with all theses surveys I post at once.However you have changed my mind and I shall post it up in a few days to see what feedback I get.

Thank you for the feedback. I really do value your comment! :o

Interesting topic, I'll fill out the survey when I have time.

It's always interesting to me when someone who is a diehard x-fan is against diversity in comics or annoyed with it in life. Or, when a lifelong Captain America fan is xenophobic or wants to clamp down on freedoms. But, different people read the same material and get different lessons out of it.

Here is a comment I made on reddit regarding Civil War:

"The SHRA is arguably unconstitutional and should not be obeyed. It suspended the writ of habeas corpus, it is a bill of attainder, there are no arrest warrants personally issued by a judge and there`s undue delegation of legislative powers, and a violation of separation of powers- in the form of conditional pardon (which should only be available as an exercise to the chief executive and not to SHIELD or anyone else especially Stark). This is the reason I preferred the Caps position in the civil war and why I hated Stark. Though, the story did not focus on this since legal arguments are dry and boring, Stark should have at least, and she-hulk too, addressed these flaws. I would have petitioned for a preliminary injunction early on, if I were cap."

Also, SHIELD itself and its personnel invades the territorial jurisdiction of other states in violation of International Law although the U.S. has violated almost all International Law regarding this matter. Somehow in between, laws of peace turn and become laws of war in an instant.

I have yet to see the International Community label some group of villains as a belligerent community. Which speaks a lot about probably the absence of an organization similar to the United Nations.

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As to Batman's Universe, the judiciary is a failure because these supervillains are always sent to an asylum. Let me remind everyone that the judge is the one who personally determines (in my country's jurisdiction) whether an accused in criminally insane (yeah, there is no medical condition called insanity). Insanity is a legal term and is a defense available to an accused. In this case, the supervillains should have been sent to a prison or penitentiary and Amadeus Arkham stripped of his position as director or head of the Asylum because these supervillains almost always escape confinement.

It seems that no supervillain was penalized with finality of capital punishment in the whole Batman series. That would offset Batman's non-kill principle and is actually a desirable outcome.

Somehow, I get to think how stupid Batman is because he keeps sending these supervillains to the Asylum at the protest of the employees of Arkham Asylum. The villains should be sent to a prison and not an asylum/sanitarium.

Statistically speaking, the number of deaths that occurred in Gotham is so high that it makes me wonder why the place has not been subjected to a Martial Law or why is there an absence of a public outcry for death penalty.

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At the end of the day, those are comics, not real and is narrow in scope.

Superhero comics to me are escapist power fantasies. They reflect nothing whatsoever on the realities of war or crime even though a few of them obviously have the trappings of a political story like Cap or Iron Man.