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Since I’ve been reading book upon book about the Progressive movement and WWI for my graduate history class, I’ve inwardly been comparing Civil War to a variety of real life political things, not just to recent US politics (I generally try not to draw too many links between comics and current politics, even when I know the writers intend me to—comics are my happy place, and I get a surfeit of wank about the current administration from my fellow fans).
Anyone remember the WWI-era Espionage and Sedition Acts? They made the Patriot Act look like something drawn up by the ACLU. Remember the imprisoning of socialists and radicals and the lynching of German immigrants during WWI? The internment camps in WWII? Is Guantanamo Bay really the only thing the negative zone prison reminds you of? I mean, if you’re going to hate on Reed Richards and Tony Stark, at least be creative. Everyone jumps on the “this is just like the Bush administration, if the Bush administration had flying aircraft carriers and access to alternate dimensions” bandwagon, or the “they’re like fascists” bandwagon (or, for extra credit, the “Bush is a fascist” bandwagon). Where’s the angry fan diatribes comparing them to the Progressive Movement radicals who supported the oppression of immigrants during WWI? Or, you know, to Vichy France. Or… well, I’m not surprised no one’s comparing this to the actual Civil War, since that would make the anti-registration side the Confederacy, and trying to picture Luke Cage as a Confederate breaks the brain.
But if the registration apparatus gets renamed the “Superhumen’s Bureau,” I will squee with geek joy, and ditto if the word “Reconstruction” appears in any title. And if I were writing, those superheroes switching back over to the pro-reg side would have to swear a “loyalty oath.” And the terms “copperhead” and “scallawag” would probably pop up somewhere, too.Oh, all right, I admit it—I really wanted Civil War to be an AU limited series set during 1862. I think that would rock even more than 1602 did.
I tend to view Marvel-verse politics as their own internal system, one that’s only tangentially related to real life. Yes, Marvel-verse has Al Qaida and 9/11 and various other reflections of contemporary reality, but they also have supervillains, superheroes, and numerous countries and government agencies that don’t actually exist.
The real world has no parallel for Atlantis and Wakanda (powerful monarchies ruled by superheroes?), or for Latvaria (Cold War relic ruled by an iron-fisted dictator with a robot army and magical powers?), and the real Soviet Union never had anything like the Winter Soldier or Titanium Man (they probably would have, if flying powered armor or cyborg assassins were actually possible, but they’re not, and they especially weren’t possible during the 1960s).
SHIELD and theaeromarine helicarrier also don’t exist in real life, because—if nothing else—not even the US government could afford SHIELD’s operating budget. I mean, come on, just imagine what it must cost to power the helicarrier for one day, let alone indefinitely.
And likewise, the issue of superpowered vigilantes and what to do about them can’t map perfectly onto any real-world political struggle. Mutant issues can make a pretty good parallel for the civil rights and gay rights movements (and McCarthyism, with “lists of known mutants in the US Government”), but you eventually run into the dilemma that these are people who can blow things up with their eyeballs, crush cars with their bare hands, and fly. They usually didn’t ask for these abilities, they generally use them for the greater good and make tremendous sacrifices in the process of doing so, but they can still blow things up without the benefit of explosives. For all the blatant hatemongering of various anti-mutant groups like William Stryker, who murder children claiming that they are abominations in the eyes of god (which the Religious Right would totally do, if mutants existed in the real world, or possibly I’m letting my violent anti-Evangelical bias get away with me) the fact remains that superpowered battles do create collateral damage.
Granted, the damage is usually worth it, since destroying a couple blocks of New York to keep Galactus from eating the planet is definitely a fair trade, but the general public never care about the apocalypse you averted last week. Once Galactus has been gone for a few days and the rubble remains, they only care about the rubble, and about finding someone to blame for it. And that someone is never Galactus.
Middle America fears and hates anything and anyone who is different, as most humans in general do. And they resent and fear superheroes for having power and abilities they don’t. (Marvel’s consistent depiction of this is one of the things that’s always made their universe feel more real to me than DC, where superheroes don’t have to face picket lines carrying “Muties go Home” signs. In real life, people would agree with Lex Luthor that Superman was too dangerous to be allowed to exist. And they’d accuse Wonder Woman of promoting lesbianism and undermining the American family).
Hence Stryker. Hence Project Wideawake. Hence Madripoor. Hence the anti-mutant regime from Bishop’s alternate future.
And to be a devil’s advocate, I feel compelled to point out that the alternative to Tony Stark’s self-destructive little shell game would probably have been something like Project Wideawake. There’s no debating that he sold his soul, but he didn’t do it for power and money—he did it to prevent what he saw as an even worse outcome. Whether or not he was right remains to be seen (I’m personally rooting for everyone to get back on the same side, the public to calm down from their McCarthyism-like superhumans-scare, and registration to go away).
That said, it will be interesting to see how the common people of Marvel react when they realize they’ve traded a network of loosely-organized and unofficial vigilantes for a superhuman army. Because, yeah, the 50 State Initiative is intended to deal with domestic disasters, like the National Guard does, but the National Guard also tends to get sent to Iraq a lot.
I give it a year, tops, before the whole Initiative thing is scrapped and registration quietly fades away. (Hey, anybody remember that whole Onslaught thing? And how quickly it went away once Heroes Reborn was finished running?).
Unless they kill off Steve, in which case, God knows what unfixable DC-style mess thigs will end up in
Anyone remember the WWI-era Espionage and Sedition Acts? They made the Patriot Act look like something drawn up by the ACLU. Remember the imprisoning of socialists and radicals and the lynching of German immigrants during WWI? The internment camps in WWII? Is Guantanamo Bay really the only thing the negative zone prison reminds you of? I mean, if you’re going to hate on Reed Richards and Tony Stark, at least be creative. Everyone jumps on the “this is just like the Bush administration, if the Bush administration had flying aircraft carriers and access to alternate dimensions” bandwagon, or the “they’re like fascists” bandwagon (or, for extra credit, the “Bush is a fascist” bandwagon). Where’s the angry fan diatribes comparing them to the Progressive Movement radicals who supported the oppression of immigrants during WWI? Or, you know, to Vichy France. Or… well, I’m not surprised no one’s comparing this to the actual Civil War, since that would make the anti-registration side the Confederacy, and trying to picture Luke Cage as a Confederate breaks the brain.
But if the registration apparatus gets renamed the “Superhumen’s Bureau,” I will squee with geek joy, and ditto if the word “Reconstruction” appears in any title. And if I were writing, those superheroes switching back over to the pro-reg side would have to swear a “loyalty oath.” And the terms “copperhead” and “scallawag” would probably pop up somewhere, too.
I tend to view Marvel-verse politics as their own internal system, one that’s only tangentially related to real life. Yes, Marvel-verse has Al Qaida and 9/11 and various other reflections of contemporary reality, but they also have supervillains, superheroes, and numerous countries and government agencies that don’t actually exist.
The real world has no parallel for Atlantis and Wakanda (powerful monarchies ruled by superheroes?), or for Latvaria (Cold War relic ruled by an iron-fisted dictator with a robot army and magical powers?), and the real Soviet Union never had anything like the Winter Soldier or Titanium Man (they probably would have, if flying powered armor or cyborg assassins were actually possible, but they’re not, and they especially weren’t possible during the 1960s).
SHIELD and the
And likewise, the issue of superpowered vigilantes and what to do about them can’t map perfectly onto any real-world political struggle. Mutant issues can make a pretty good parallel for the civil rights and gay rights movements (and McCarthyism, with “lists of known mutants in the US Government”), but you eventually run into the dilemma that these are people who can blow things up with their eyeballs, crush cars with their bare hands, and fly. They usually didn’t ask for these abilities, they generally use them for the greater good and make tremendous sacrifices in the process of doing so, but they can still blow things up without the benefit of explosives. For all the blatant hatemongering of various anti-mutant groups like William Stryker, who murder children claiming that they are abominations in the eyes of god (which the Religious Right would totally do, if mutants existed in the real world, or possibly I’m letting my violent anti-Evangelical bias get away with me) the fact remains that superpowered battles do create collateral damage.
Granted, the damage is usually worth it, since destroying a couple blocks of New York to keep Galactus from eating the planet is definitely a fair trade, but the general public never care about the apocalypse you averted last week. Once Galactus has been gone for a few days and the rubble remains, they only care about the rubble, and about finding someone to blame for it. And that someone is never Galactus.
Middle America fears and hates anything and anyone who is different, as most humans in general do. And they resent and fear superheroes for having power and abilities they don’t. (Marvel’s consistent depiction of this is one of the things that’s always made their universe feel more real to me than DC, where superheroes don’t have to face picket lines carrying “Muties go Home” signs. In real life, people would agree with Lex Luthor that Superman was too dangerous to be allowed to exist. And they’d accuse Wonder Woman of promoting lesbianism and undermining the American family).
Hence Stryker. Hence Project Wideawake. Hence Madripoor. Hence the anti-mutant regime from Bishop’s alternate future.
And to be a devil’s advocate, I feel compelled to point out that the alternative to Tony Stark’s self-destructive little shell game would probably have been something like Project Wideawake. There’s no debating that he sold his soul, but he didn’t do it for power and money—he did it to prevent what he saw as an even worse outcome. Whether or not he was right remains to be seen (I’m personally rooting for everyone to get back on the same side, the public to calm down from their McCarthyism-like superhumans-scare, and registration to go away).
That said, it will be interesting to see how the common people of Marvel react when they realize they’ve traded a network of loosely-organized and unofficial vigilantes for a superhuman army. Because, yeah, the 50 State Initiative is intended to deal with domestic disasters, like the National Guard does, but the National Guard also tends to get sent to Iraq a lot.
I give it a year, tops, before the whole Initiative thing is scrapped and registration quietly fades away. (Hey, anybody remember that whole Onslaught thing? And how quickly it went away once Heroes Reborn was finished running?).
From:
no subject
Also, nice thoughts on how Marvel politics are not real world politics - I wish more people would realize that. There may be analogs, yes, but Marvelverse has it's own, very distinctive political world, some parts of which simply can't be paralelled to our own.
Captain America 27 is coming out in June. I'm pretty sure he's going to be okay.From:
no subject
"Hey," I want to say, "remember how when the Guantanamo Bay scandal was making the front page of the New York Times, insurgents in Iraq were beheading civilian prisoners and broadcasting their executions on live television, and yet that was always below the fold, if it made the front page at all."
And then free-association brings back my desire to slap Cindy Sheehan's "trading on my dead son's memory as a cheap political tactic" face, even though that's only tangentially related, and I start grinding my teeth and unfairly associating the commenter who's just brought up Guantanamo with Micheal Moore, again for no good reason.
Because every now and then, I am forceably reminded that, while I'm pretty liberal compared to most of America, compared to fandom-at-large, I'm conservative.
From:
no subject
I think that may be part of why I come out on the opposite side of certain issues in Civil War that most of the readers seem to.
From:
no subject
Granted, registering for a gun is an entire order of magnitude away from registering as a member of a minority group that regular people have been known to lynch and crucify on the X Mansion's lawn.
From:
no subject
The thing with Superhuman registration is that it's about both registering as a minority and a weapon - and that it's about preventing the call for widespread mutant/minority registrations.
The real question for the upcoming months is going to be where people draw the line between registering as a weapon and registering as a minority.