Can Captain America even admit that even HE has a dark side/flaw to him ?

[XPac]

Well it effectively makes comicbooks antidemocracy propaganda. You pretty much have to give up on voting and just hope The Rightful King and his Paladins shows up to save you.

THis is where the comic book world and the real world need to differ.

In the real world I'm absolutely a believer in proper checks and balances. But if I lived in the marvel universe and a giant world eating alien landed on my front yard then screw the red tape... government and public should get the hell out of the heroes way so they can save the earth. We can worry about laws and princpals later, when we're all alive to worry about it.

It's not that laws and principals don't matter, in regards to the heroes... it's that on occasion they need to take a backseat to more immediate practical concerns. I'm not talking about heroes stopping bank robbers or anything like that. But at a certain point, YES you lose your vote in things and need to step aside for the rightful kings and paladins to save you because that's all you can do. It's as simple as that. It has to work that way.

[capandkirby]

Well it effectively makes comicbooks antidemocracy propaganda. You pretty much have to give up on voting and just hope The Rightful King and his Paladins shows up to save you.

In the real-world, if we had all the huge and tremendous threats that comicbook heroes face, we'd be under martial law anyway, just by happenstance, because we'd be in a constant state of Threatcon Delta.

[Michael Watkins]

And if villains saved the world every 3 months, they'd probably get more latitude too.

so then they should give the reigns back to Hydra-Steve. he was more proactive about saving people and maintaining order. i forsee several world-ending events in the near future. War of the Realms is next, iirc. mutants are currently being kidnapped, altered, and sent out to kill other mutants. There's a nation state of costumed villains thriving out there. Doctor Doom invited Galactus to attack the planet. so what's the difference between now and the Secret Empire era?

[XPac]

so then they should give the reigns back to Hydra-Steve. he was more proactive about saving people and maintaining order. i forsee several world-ending events in the near future. War of the Realms is next, iirc. mutants are currently being kidnapped, altered, and sent out to kill other mutants. There's a nation state of costumed villains thriving out there. Doctor Doom invited Galactus to attack the planet. so what's the difference between now and the Secret Empire era?

No, they shouldn't give the reigns back to Hydra-Steve because Hydra Steve was containing the very heroes who are needed to protect the earth. When the War of Realms does happen mankind will be glad that the super hero community isn't trapped in the dark dimension or out in outer space, because those are the best people to deal with it.

Yes, Hydra Steve had an army of super villains.. an army that regulary loses to the heroes they face, so that's hardly a step up. If Hydra Cap legitimately was more capable of protecting the world than every other hero he attempted to imprison I might be willing to entertain the notion but that's clearly not the case.

[Agent Z]

That's not what I said at all. You misinterpreted my words. I said...



There was a "BUT" in there and a lot of words after it. Context. I'm a Cap fan, of course I expect politics in my comics. BUT our world is different from their world. WE don't have alien invasions on the daily, we don't have transdimensional beasts attacking us on the weekend. We don't have a cosmic cube that decides to change reality on a whim, just in time for summer holidays. We don't have Nightshade trying to turn people into werewolves and/or change male heroes into females to ring in the New Year. We don't have Ultron. We don't have Kang (mores the pity), we don't have Thanos (thank god for that), we don't have Red Skull (although some real-humans come awfully close), we don' t have Celestials (that we know of...). My point? In that world, with all of those things, a group of superpowered heroes existing to fight all of these things is entirely reasonable. That these heroes would have the leeway to fight these threats in their world, also reasonable. And necessary to the freakin plot. That 'good' characters exist to fight the evil is the genre. It's exactly what this genre is. Therefore hating on heroes for being good, and/or hating on a group like the Avengers for doing exactly what they were created to do, which is fight serious threats of the magical, mystical and paranormal kind, is absolutely ridiculous and I question why those doing it are even here. If one wants real-world law that exists separate from magical, mystical and paranormal threats, and great, super powered heroes rising to defeat them with truth and justice on their side, the tv show Law and Order is probably on syndicate somewhere.

No one is "hating on the heroes for being good". What is being criticized is how the characters and stories can end up informing the views of the people who read them and in many ways not for the better. That fiction can influence people's thinking in subtle or overt ways is pretty much a fact of life.

For instance, the t.v. series 24 repeatedly showed torture as an effective way to acquire information. This had notable ripples in real life such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia advocating for torture to be legalized and U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan imploring the producers to stop airing episodes with torture being effective because it was giving recruits some nasty ideas.

Now the creators of 24 probably aren't pro-torture. Their goal first and foremost was to entertain. They likely didn't think of how their show will be viewed and the messages it will send. The world they created was just as fictional as the Marvel Universe. But it's still important to be careful of what messages your stories send, unintentionally or not.

To bring this back to Captain America and the Avengers, when they have stories about how they are usually in the right more than everyone else and anyone against them is either a villain or an idiot, no matter how justified their grievances might be, it feeds into some pretty ugly world views.

I mean, have you ever wondered why superhero comics seem to attract such awful people into their fandoms?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I mean, have you ever wondered why superhero comics seem to attract such awful people into their fandoms?

Even stuff like Watchmen has awful people in their fandoms, including people who glorify Rorschach, Comedian, heck even Ozymandias. And that's Watchmen the big deconstruction story intended to make the arguments against superheroes that you and others cite, and which had the opposite effect. And as per Zack Snyder's recent comments, continues to do so. A story that brings to light in a specific context the self-righteous and self-justifying attitude of superheroes in particular Rorschach and Ozymandias ultimately created whole sections of fans who thought "Rorschach is right" and so on.

So that's not a good argument.

If anything I can't imagine Captain America fans doing anything like that, for one thing Captain America while important inside the Marvel universe was never by himself a major player compared to the X-Men, Spider-Man and others. Heck most people first came to know Cap thanks to his appearances in Daredevil stories (Born Again most famously), Wolverine stories and Spider-Man stories. He was never totally successful and popular among the public even if he produced a lot of great stories across the ages from some top talents (Kirby, Steranko, Engelhart, Stern, Waid, Brubaker).

So Cap fans have less "blood" on their hands than Watchmen fans do. Look on ye deeds ye lowly and accept that ye are the laughing stock...

[TheCape]

I mean, have you ever wondered why superhero comics seem to attract such awful people into their fandoms?

Big fandoms has horrible and enttitled people in general, is not only comic books. Harry Potter, Naruto, The Last Airbender are also full with those. The bigger a fandom is, the more toxic it becomes.

[Michael Watkins]

No, they shouldn't give the reigns back to Hydra-Steve because Hydra Steve was containing the very heroes who are needed to protect the earth.

he was containing the villains and keeping order by not letting a bunch of unsanctioned "do-gooders" roam about ignoring the law.

When the War of Realms does happen mankind will be glad that the super hero community isn't trapped in the dark dimension or out in outer space, because those are the best people to deal with it.

they only care about Midgard because of the interference of people like Thor.

Yes, Hydra Steve had an army of super villains..

most of them were in a suspended sleep state or on the other side of the darkforce dome, actually. unlike Osborn, he saw them as a potential disruptive element. he had an army of soldiers and his Avengers, sure.

an army that regulary loses to the heroes they face, so that's hardly a step up. If Hydra Cap legitimately was more capable of protecting the world than every other hero he attempted to imprison I might be willing to entertain the notion but that's clearly not the case.

i'm not sure who you are referring to. these "heroes" they faced are the run, hiding underground, or actually working for Stevil. they needed a cosmic cube to turn things around. the most active threat (Black Widow) was dispatched by Stevil, himself.

[capandkirby]

No one is "hating on the heroes for being good". What is being criticized is how the characters and stories can end up informing the views of the people who read them and in many ways not for the better. That fiction can influence people's thinking in subtle or overt ways is pretty much a fact of life.

For instance, the t.v. series 24 repeatedly showed torture as an effective way to acquire information. This had notable ripples in real life such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia advocating for torture to be legalized and U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan imploring the producers to stop airing episodes with torture being effective because it was giving recruits some nasty ideas.

Now the creators of 24 probably aren't pro-torture. Their goal first and foremost was to entertain. They likely didn't think of how their show will be viewed and the messages it will send. The world they created was just as fictional as the Marvel Universe. But it's still important to be careful of what messages your stories send, unintentionally or not.

To bring this back to Captain America and the Avengers, when they have stories about how they are usually in the right more than everyone else and anyone against them is either a villain or an idiot, no matter how justified their grievances might be, it feeds into some pretty ugly world views.

I mean, have you ever wondered why superhero comics seem to attract such awful people into their fandoms?

Again, the theme of "good vs. evil" is prevalent in literature since the dawn of literature. I already gave examples in Beowulf and The Odyssey. Same thing. A heroes journey. Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Star Wars. I can go on. Each of these stories has a clear "hero" who is in the right, and a clear villain who obviously isn't. No one is questioning the influence of these stories on modern society, so why then are comic books an exception?

I have an issue with people using fiction as a excuse for real-life violence. I was still in college when Columbine happened, in fact, I was interning at a museum for extra credit in a Physical Anthropology class. At the time the incident was being blamed on the influence of video games. And here I was, working at an exhibit that featured Medieval torture devices, devices so violent and horrible it's the stuff right out of a Hellraiser movie, and mankind had invented these things, in real life, before video games, television or comic books where a gleam in anyone's eye. Fiction didn't create violence, it's always been there. The onus is not on comic books to have to put a disclaimer in front of the book saying "everything in this book is fiction, please do not mistake it for reality", the onus is on readers to be mature and intelligent enough to separate fiction from reality. And if they cannot then they need to see a psychiatrist and get that checked out.

Nor do I believe in censorship. When I was in high school a group of parents took exception with several books on our reading curriculum. One of these books was Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men because it contains a mercy killing. And yet, Steinbeck's writing, all of it, not just Of Mice and Men, is a snapshot into a certain time in history: The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. To deprive students of it is depriving them of a glance at what life may have been like during that very problematic time in our history. When attitudes weren't progressive and some where downright wrong, particularly towards the mentally ill. We need to know about it so we can learn to be better. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Here's the thing: comic books have been under fire for "inciting violence" and "unwholesome" ideas before. During the 1950's. In fact, it was suggested that they were "communist propaganda" during the Red Scare. As a result this thing called the Comics Code of Authority was birthed into existence. And it almost totally ruined comics for good. It took the Silver Age to save them, but only with severe cunning on the creators parts to get around the CCoA (Lee and Kirby were brilliant men for more than one reason). And in fact the Comics Code of Authority are also responsible for the comics LACK of progression. For example, the Comics Code of Authority, in the 1980's, determined that the depiction of homosexual relationship was not wholesome content, and forbade it. During a time when AIDS was killing people left and right and everyone falsely attributed it as a 'gay disease' and homophobia was at an all-time high. Writer J. M. DeMatteis was writing Cap at the time, and he decided that the Cap book, being a political book and being a progressive book, should address this problem with a story of tolerance. But he couldn't do it directly, because of the Comics Code of Authority. So even though it was heavily, heavily implied that Arnie Roth was gay and that he had a common-law husband Michael whom he'd lived happily with for many years, DeMatteis couldn't outright call Arnie gay. In fact it would take well over a decade for Marvel to do so.

Censorship is not the answer, blaming fiction for real-life events and/or views is not the answer, the onus lies on readers to be responsible with that they have read and to separate fiction from reality, if they cannot, then they are the ones at fault, point-blank, period. People need to put on their big boy/girl pants, and be personally accountable for their attitudes and their deeds. It is not the responsibility of comic books to babysit.

[XPac]

he was containing the villains and keeping order by not letting a bunch of unsanctioned "do-gooders" roam about ignoring the law.



they only care about Midgard because of the interference of people like Thor.



most of them were in a suspended sleep state or on the other side of the darkforce dome, actually. unlike Osborn, he saw them as a potential disruptive element. he had an army of soldiers and his Avengers, sure.



i'm not sure who you are referring to. these "heroes" they faced are the run, hiding underground, or actually working for Stevil. they needed a cosmic cube to turn things around. the most active threat (Black Widow) was dispatched by Stevil, himself.

If the do gooders roaming around end up saving the earth 3-5 times a year, then let them roam. Simple as that.

[capandkirby]

Even stuff like Watchmen has awful people in their fandoms, including people who glorify Rorschach, Comedian, heck even Ozymandias. And that's Watchmen the big deconstruction story intended to make the arguments against superheroes that you and others cite, and which had the opposite effect. And as per Zack Snyder's recent comments, continues to do so. A story that brings to light in a specific context the self-righteous and self-justifying attitude of superheroes in particular Rorschach and Ozymandias ultimately created whole sections of fans who thought "Rorschach is right" and so on.

So that's not a good argument.

If anything I can't imagine Captain America fans doing anything like that, for one thing Captain America while important inside the Marvel universe was never by himself a major player compared to the X-Men, Spider-Man and others. Heck most people first came to know Cap thanks to his appearances in Daredevil stories (Born Again most famously), Wolverine stories and Spider-Man stories. He was never totally successful and popular among the public even if he produced a lot of great stories across the ages from some top talents (Kirby, Steranko, Engelhart, Stern, Waid, Brubaker).

So Cap fans have less "blood" on their hands than Watchmen fans do. Look on ye deeds ye lowly and accept that ye are the laughing stock...

Cap was a major player during the Golden Age (at one time outselling Time Magazine) but did take a backseat during the Silver Age, this is true. Again, a large part of this hearkens to the Comics Code of Authority and the 1950's depiction of Captain America, which almost ruined the character.

Also, it's hilarious to me that anyone would imply that Cap fans are the jerks. In my experience it's been the complete opposite. When I first came to this website, in particular, Cap was the punching bag of Iron Man and Cyclops fans, who were exhibiting little to no regard for the fact that tastes vary and being considerate of other's tastes and preferences should be a thing for anyone with even a remedial grasp of common courtesy and manners. They were the ones exhibiting very rude, very inconsiderate behavior. Same for other places as well, I lasted maybe a month on Tumblr because the character hate being passed around was the most immature and psychotic thing I had ever been privy to, and considering that I was in the Star Trek fandom when the first Reboot was released and OG Trek fans (except myself) were NOT PLEASED™ and also the Star Wars fandom when Phantom Menace hit, that's saying something, because I've seen my share of fandom drama.

[Michael Watkins]

If the do gooders roaming around end up saving the earth 3-5 times a year, then let them roam. Simple as that.

they don't have a say in it. and Captain America knows that. he's ok with them not having a say. that's why Civil War was fought.

[capandkirby]

they don't have a say in it. and Captain America knows that. he's ok with them not having a say. that's why Civil War was fought.

No, Civil War was fought because the SHRA and how it was being enforced was unreasonable and responsible for a slew of human rights violations, starting with Cap being shot at by SHIELD before the damn thing was even passed. This, early on, violated his right to Due Process AND it displayed the fact that SHIELD was perfectly willing to commit extrajudicial killings, something that the UN AND the United States has banned. To Cap, who had lived through Nazi Germany, this was the beginning of Hitler's reign of terror all over again. The warning signs were there. First they come for...

[MichaelC]

Which is a perfect example of why comics are authoritarian propaganda. They have the people who are fighting for democracy and accountability commit atrocities, meanwhile the people fighting so they can continue to perform coplike and soldierlike roles without the regulation and accountability to democracy that keep cops and soldiers in check are petting puppies.

[XPac]

they don't have a say in it. and Captain America knows that. he's ok with them not having a say. that's why Civil War was fought.

Government could TRY and have a say it in ... but more often than not they give the heroes a lot of latitude because again, they are a necessity. You only want to bite the hand that feeds you so many times.

As far as the general public goes yeah ... unless they wanna step up and try to stop Thanos or Dormammu, might as well step back and let the heroes take care of it.

The system they have essentially is the best they can do given the situation.