Ferisar said:
Therumancer said:
But then again, that's often being done in the context and perception of the U.S. In recent years, it's increasingly hard to have pride for the U.S. on a scale, or, rather, within the demographics that may read these comics. Yeah, sure, Freedom and stuff, but given the -general- perception of the U.S. as being a military powerhouse that
does often use it, warranted or not, while giving the signals of being pretty paranoid creates a hard sell on characters that stand for idealism rather than for the their realistic depictions.
Similarly, it's not hard to have that occur on characters which aren't anywhere near the U.S. because their nation's perception by those same readers is a myth. Of course it's funny/admirable when a USSR Ruski superhero does "I Super Russian, Communism Gulag, hoho /tonguecheek" nonsense. It's all a myth to enjoy, even by someone who's from that country, because it gets exaggerated to the point of silliness, while providing the (majority) of readers from the U.S. and the such a very vibrant amusement park ride. At least that's my take on it based on what you've said. It's hard to have the same response be applied to multiple countries when those countries, globally, tend to be extremely different.
Also proooobably important to note that the majority of the "big" comics are written in the U.S. (afaik), thus the whole counter-culture response likely being fueled by being closer to home.
Or I'm just saying words. Who knows. I DON'T READ COMICS.
(Although Red Son was excellent)
No, I suppose there is some truth to what your saying. As I pointed out myself I believe it's largely that you have the left wing in the US controlling a lot of the media, and embracing a sort of socialist and "peace at any price" attitude. Political correctness has gotten to the point where in general you pretty much can't portray anything that isn't a Zombie, Space Alien, or white American as a bad guy without having someone inevitably get upset. You don't even have to get cartoonishly evil about it, just be accurate about who your dealing with for the most part.
A big part of my point though is that we generally don't do positive portrayals of patriots unless they come from other countries. Again there is a difference between some cartoonish "Boris and Natasha" portrayal of say Russia and how it's come across at times with say Colossus who has on a number of occasions done the whole "Russian Ultra Patriot" thing rather than simply being some Russian guy on the team without anything buffoonish being done with him.
As far as idealism goes, well the problem is less that, than the politics of those who largely control the media and produce/approve the writers feeling the need to use the media as what amounts to an attack platform for their own political agenda which is hardly patriotic.
For example, let's look at the basics of "The War On Terror". The left wing by and large embrace a peace at any price methodology and an unrealistic set of expectations when an actual war happens. The US going to war, no matter for what reason, or how well justified, is something it pretty much comes out to oppose. This lead to things like the whole "Civil War Event" being turned into an analogy for it, and Captain America pretty much going rogue as a result and fighting against the country, so the now-derailed storyline can try and make knocks on the whole US military industrial complex. What's more on the rare occasions when actual issues of terrorism linked to anything resembling the real world (as opposed to some fictional group like Hydra) Cap turns into a hand-wringer.
To put things into perspective, Captain America is a dude who is supposed to know about war, and what's more he's a guy who was a commando/black ops guy for all intents and purposes. Someone does something like 9/11 or whatever, realistically Cap is the guy who isn't going to be saying "let's coddle Muslims and pursue with with restraint" he's
the guy who is going to be saying "drop me and a bunch of commandoes into Iraq/Afghanistan/Where ever and I'll bring down the guys responsible when an army would fail. Granted the real world doesn't have Captain America (the world would probably be a much better place on a lot of levels with super heroes for this reason) but the guy would be cutting a swathe through The Middle East, making quippy now considered "racist" comments about the enemy to get under their skin (much like how he and Nick Fury would call the Nazis all kinds of names, starting with say "Krauts"). That's the proper ultra-patriotic Captain America reaction to these kinds of events. It's literally what he became Captain America to do, and did for years before the whole "Commie Smasher" bit which was retconned. Comics writers won't go there though because it intrudes on their "peace any any price" politics. Rather they prefer to blame the US, so instead weave a story that has Captain America acting out of character and pretty much attacking the government because golly gee, the government wants people to be held accountable for their actions. Although to be fair the finale of that event DID have Cap surrendering when he realized he had become exactly the thing the government was concerned about when he brought Namor and his army into it. But well... I'm rambling, if you haven't read it you don't know what I'm talking about.
To put things into perspective, the perception of the US as being some kind of aggressive military bully is largely perpetuated by Americans through the media and things like comics, and I mean when we say it, are our critics going to disagree to something that plays to their advantage? For the most part we spend trillions of dollars on military weapons we don't even use. It's the height of irony that we downsized our military based on the idea that if the US ever really went to war we would outright demolish any nation/culture that crossed us. We'd render opposing militaries obsolete so quickly, and wipe out so many civilians so quickly with our weapons, that our enemy would literally vanish overnight. Indeed we've got tons of bombs, missiles, and other weapons that can wipe out entire towns and villages without even having to go nuclear. Things like Daisy Cutters and Fuel Air bombs are horrifying. When we've actually intervened militarily though we've left all of this stuff off the playing field. For "The War On Terror" we were so moral that we pretty much tried to re-build a conventional military force, calling in reserves never intended to go overseas, building up armed hummers and such which we didn't have because we figured we'd never go in to fight man to man in a war like this, and all so moralists would be happy. We of course accomplished nothing. Yet of course those same moralists demonize the US from within the country and pretty much write the material for our international critics.
Arguably the whole point of a "Super Patriot" is to do what the US should be doing in events just like this. Captain America for example was literally designed as a wartime icon. Right now the guy should be portrayed as say punching out Russians on the Crimian front, leading commandoes into North Korea, thwarting Muslim nuclear scientists in Iran, or protecting Chinese civilians against the excesses and human rights violations of their government. Doing the things a real person/commando couldn't do because you know, he's a super hero. Part of why he sort of fell apart with the whole "commie smashing" thing is that he doesn't really work as well in a purely domestic sense. Rather the guy who spearheaded war against the Nazis under the current breed of writers is actually written as being some kind of borderline hippie protestor who in the big picture seems to spend as much or more time fighting the authorities as he does actual national enemies.
HOWEVER, that's kind of my point, some people, including the writers, find that kind of thing offensive and against their politics. Thus you don't see any heroes really doing that, if anything the "heroes" stop people from doing that
it seems. Someone showing patriotism for another country oftentimes critiques the US so it's allowed, but send Cap in to say kick Putin's teeth down his throat? Almost unheard of (though in World War II it was okay if he say punched Hitler or equivilents to third reich leaders).