Post-September Post-Political Marvel

[jackolover]

Can we say the Dark Ages of Marvel Comics (2006 - 2017) were characterised by challenging the classical super heroes with ethical conundrums on a continuous basis? So from CW1 to Secret Wars to CW2 one challenge after another was used to bog down our heroes with heavy burdens to prove their worthiness to being heroes?

For a long time there had been the overhanging question of why vigilantes were allowed to operate for over 50 years, while the laws of the land would not normally tolerate this sort of bahavior in a real world. So I can see how at some point, Marvel could want to face this dilemma, face-on, and let the Universe work it out: to resolve why MU USA governments accomodated these super powered vigilantes in an environment unlike any in the real world.

Then, this becomes the question.

Has Marvel successfully explained why the MU USA government does tolerate the free exercise of action by super heroes?

To me, the USA governments have had ample opportunity to outlaw SH's, but have consistently gone back to the trough, without a concerted mind frame that rejects SH's. I cannot find anywhere, where the SH's were definately banned outright from interceding, so I have to conclude SH's are now fully credentialed to operate freely in the MU. I think this whole period of trying to make SH's justify their being allowed to operate in the MU has been fully exhausted and nobody is going to have any argument whether an SHRA or Project Wideawake should ever be introduced again. That book is closed. Hallelujah!

Let's get on with what makes SH's great again.

(I think all the Dark Age in Marvel Comics was due to 9/11 and its negative reaction on the population, that even made Stamford, the CW1 trigger, an issue in the first place).

[Wolverine12]

As strong as the conventional military is in the US, it can't stop Thanos. That and other villains of that type are the reason teams like the X-Men and Avengers are allowed to operate. They generally don't try to change laws or govern people they only help when needed. I think if the heroes got into actual politics it might be different.

[JamJams]

Has Marvel successfully explained why the MU USA government does tolerate the free exercise of action by super heroes?

SHIELD is a government sanctioned organization that employs superheroes. The other superheroes and villains in the country are under their jurisdiction to apprehend or allow to continue what they are doing. That was explained back in 1951.

I have nothing to add on whatever commentary you added about your dislike of comics from 2006 - 2017.

[Cowtools]

I don't think 2006-2017 has been a 'dark age' for Marvel.

I find it interesting that, during that period, Marvel has published plenty of stories about superheroes being inspirations for dozens of new legacy characters who represent a more diverse and politically aware future. That's not 'dark'.

[jackolover]

SHIELD is a government sanctioned organization that employs superheroes. The other superheroes and villains in the country are under their jurisdiction to apprehend or allow to continue what they are doing. That was explained back in 1951.

I have nothing to add on whatever commentary you added about your dislike of comics from 2006 - 2017.

1951? What happened in 1951? Or are you thinking of 1961?

I did not think I expressed a dislike for comics from 2006 - 2017. Let me state it clearly, I loved all the Dark Age from 2006 - 2015. But I disliked 2016 - 2017.

[jackolover]

I don't think 2006-2017 has been a 'dark age' for Marvel.

I find it interesting that, during that period, Marvel has published plenty of stories about superheroes being inspirations for dozens of new legacy characters who represent a more diverse and politically aware future. That's not 'dark'.

That's true. While yes, heroes still operated during that time, it was under a lot of duress.

From 2006 - 2011, the super hero renegades were outlawed and hunted. From 2011 - 2015, heroes were being assaulted with Fear Itself, AVX, AU, Infinity, AXIS, and the Incursions, all destroying their credibility and making them look like spoiled little children with their infighting. That's why I call it a Dark Age.

[JKtheMac]

It is indisputable that we have been in a dark age for a long while. The only dispute seems to be exactly how we chart that age. In many ways this is all a consequence of the wave of British writers moving into US comics in the late 80s and early 90s. But their influence took a while to sink in and effect the zeitgeist.

Writers that had cut their teeth on 2000AD and their ilk were exploring darker themes and reflecting the darker politics of the times. In the UK the science fiction has often contained a darker dystopian edge and the writers would have been encouraged by the success of dark scifi/fantasy themes breaking through into TV in shows like Dr Who, Saphire and Steel and Blake's Seven.

It is exaggerating to entirely blame the UK, as shows like V picked up on a certain amount of that darkness, cross-pollination has always been important. Exaggerating or not, deconstruction and structural approaches to writing began to take hold in comics.

Seemingly obvious ideas like Batman and The Joker are reflections of each other, or Batman and Superman represent Darkness and Light started to take hold. Such ideas buried themselves deep into the consciousness of a direct market audience ripe for more adult themes in comics. They held out a promise that comics were like mythology, and as such should be taken seriously. This was deep analysis beginning to take over the narrative.

Watchmen had dared ask questions that had been percolating in UK comics, where do the lines of responsibility lie, how would these heroes affect the culture around them, and these questions settled in beside the mythological approach as "realistic and adult" ideas. Moore brought the deep structural approach, and writers began to copy at least the method.

The deconstruction idea that the conflict could be internal within the heroes was also huge in general media, look at detective shows from the 90s and 2000s. The flawed detective that has to battle the alcoholism or depression partly brought on by their job. Sticking with Batman, the darkness of Gotham becomes symbolic and reflective of Batman's psyche. Psychology joined with mythology and deconstruction to produce the package we would now recognise as Dark Age comics. Perhaps first seen fully realised in Arkham Asylum.

We could equally call this period post-modern because these are the ideas that drove comics in this direction. It just so happens Comics + Post Modernism => Dark & Mythological

[ed2962]

I don't believe Marvel going to be "post-political".

[Mike_Murdock]

If people think 2006-2017 was the only time Marvel was political, they should read Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, or Ann Nocenti.

[ed2962]

If people think 2006-2017 was the only time Marvel was political, they should read Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, or Ann Nocenti.

They should read Stan Lee!

[JKtheMac]

All I think this means is less overt political reflection on current events. I can't imagine Cotes dialling the politics in, but I can imagine slightly more opaque, less on-the-nose writing from Spencer. Marvel is a political animal. If this is remotely true it is not going to be a major shift.

The problem is the behemoth in comics culture that is 'realism', which was partly driven by a need to be taken seriously and partly as a pitch towards Movies and TV. The real world is political and colouring stories with politics is one way to give a veneer of seriousness.

We are moving into a less self conscious era of fandom. We don't need things to be quite so real, and we are embracing fantasy. Some, including Morrison, believe this is a cyclical process.

Morrison frames the dark Age as 1970-1995 in Supergods.

[JKtheMac]

@jackolover
If you haven't read into the various cultural cycle theories before, you may have fun comparing the various comic eras to The Sekhmet Hypothesis ( including The Hare Hypothesis & Life Scripts) / Strauss–Howe Generational Theory. At best they are light hearted reflections of historic cycles, and they do offer some insight into pop culture even if they lack scientific rigour. Morrison apparently tends to favour the former as a tool to help guide what will be profitable to write.

[jackolover]

@jackolover
If you haven't read into the various cultural cycle theories before, you may have fun comparing the various comic eras to The Sekhmet Hypothesis ( including The Hare Hypothesis & Life Scripts) / Strauss–Howe Generational Theory. At best they are light hearted reflections of historic cycles, and they do offer some insight into pop culture even if they lack scientific rigour. Morrison apparently tends to favour the former as a tool to help guide what will be profitable to write.

I will take note of your references and look into it. I have seen some dark cycles just in Marvel Comics from Frank Millers Daredevil in the 1980's, and I understand the concept of comics becoming Darker.

What I am proposing is that Marvel was not so much doing more Frank Miller in the 2000's, but Marvel changed its emotion. It revolutionised the super hero genre because of 9/11 and abruptly veered over to the other side of the road, not just in decompression, but the whole premise that super heroes were trusted and respected, which they were, as they were institutionalised into the Marvel Universe in a pretty firm state that was untouchable. Along comes the emotional overload we know of as 9/11 and that firmness was shaken out of its dormancy, and deposited naked out on the grass, if you will, whereas it once had certainty before, of being fully clothed and secure in its house.

This time before 9/11 is what I think Marvel want to return to in "Generational" I think they want to pick up the naked and exposed Marvel super heroes and put clothes back on them and put them back into that secure house they thought they were once inside.

I think the heroes made their own mistakes, (Thor's Reigning, FF's Authorative Action, and Nick Fury's Secret War all happened at the same time nearly derailing America and the world), until the time when Civil War was upon them, so it wasn't just the change in prespective of the public from out of a vacuum. It was here where that trust aspect eroded in the public conscience when they asked Spiderman and Steve Rogers "where were they when the planes hit the Towers". The heroes couldn't stand up to the scrutiny of that questioning.

[JKtheMac]

This is why cultural cycle theories can be interesting, because they reframe events into broader pseudo-historic movements. In Strauss–Howe Generational Theory the events of 9/11 would shifted into the next era (our era) and the War on Terror. The actual event occurs late in the unravelling era and the theorists would suggest this was why the events had such a big impact. Happening while the seemingly solid notions of the previous two generations were being questioned.

The very act of looking fresh at super-heroes and wondering if they had become too dark and unheroic becomes part of the unravelling and questioning that turned them dark in the first place. This coincides with a mainstream intrusion of post-modernism into our culture. Post-modernism had been around for a while but it was really into its stride at this time. We were already programmed to use those narrative tools to reflect upon the meaning of these symbols and overturn them.

What this theory would then suggest is we are now in an artistic/adaptive period, where we begin to reframe our notions of reality in more creative and sometimes confusing ways. We won't necessarily come up with solutions for a while and the world will feel very unstable, but artists and creatives will revel in that very instability. Interestingly this era is also supposedly an era of institution over individuality. The creative processes will be mainstream and corporate, which leads into the Marvel Cinematic explosion and Disney going from strength to strength. It helps explain why huge franchises are emerging in cinema.

(Some may argue the current political situations may suggest the era is only now changing, slightly later than the theory predicts. Indeed Time recently argued this.)

Eventually this very act of creativity and expression will lead to new cultural notions which will get picked up and combined with the surety of idealism at some point down the line and new cultural paradigms will emerge. What this means for Superheroes is debatable. As they are primarily a phenomenon of this Saeculum (starting circa 1942) they may have no place in the future cultural landscape, or like westerns they may be adapted to help the transition before fading.

Perhaps superheroes are just a reflection of the era of the superpowers, and as we move into the next cycle of history they will feel less relevant.

[DurararaFTW]

The Dark Age of comics is already defined as the timeperiod when they were killing all their major heroes in the 90s.