No Right Answer: Superman vs Captain America - Most Patriotic Superhero

Firefilm

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Adam McClain said:
You know what? I'm done watching you guys. Too many times you have eschewed the basis for your show in place of a shameless view grab tactic. Last week's Game of Thrones bit was a real eye opener. Not about THAT series, but about you. You will do anything just to get some extra views. If your show can't compete based on it's own merits and content, without stooping to low brow tactics like stirring up people just for the views, then perhaps your show isn't good enough to survive. For a show that's so desperate for views, can you really afford to lose anymore to these sophomoric shenanigans? When Jim or Yahtzee stir people up, it's because they have SOMETHING to say. You guys do it because you have NOTHING to say.

At any rate, I'm out. You hacks.
Who said we were stooping? We've always been sophomoric!
 

Godhead

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May 25, 2009
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Man, I'm digging that Ravens glass. Maybe we could get Ray Lewis to be Cap's VP.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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Sorry I wasn't really paying attention. I was too busy polishing my hockey stick.
Adam McClain said:
You know what? I'm done watching you guys. Too many times you have eschewed the basis for your show in place of a shameless view grab tactic. Last week's Game of Thrones bit was a real eye opener. Not about THAT series, but about you. You will do anything just to get some extra views. If your show can't compete based on it's own merits and content, without stooping to low brow tactics like stirring up people just for the views, then perhaps your show isn't good enough to survive. For a show that's so desperate for views, can you really afford to lose anymore to these sophomoric shenanigans? When Jim or Yahtzee stir people up, it's because they have SOMETHING to say. You guys do it because you have NOTHING to say.

At any rate, I'm out. You hacks.
Wow somebody's taking this waaaaaay too seriously.
 

ExtraDebit

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At least Captain America knows what is like to be weak and powerless. Of the two, captain america definitely have more empathy towards american citizen more, also he stands for freedom and justice.

The ONE time superman lose his power in the movie you know what he did? He went and spend his sweet time with his girlfriend. Steve Rogers were weak and powerless and you know what he did? He tried and tried again to sign up to fight the nazies.
 

Thick Mclargehuge

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But...Cap WAS president for a time.

Well, Ultimates Cap (whose a bit different than the 616 version) but I think it's still worth noting.

I'm glad to see Captain America winning this one, as I feel he is far and above a better 'American' ideal than Superman.

Cap's real 'superpower' is his character. All of his good villains challenge Captain America on his ideals and morals.
 

Chris Pranger

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Adam McClain said:
"You know what? I'm done watching you guys. Too many times you have eschewed the basis for your show in place of a shameless view grab tactic. Last week's Game of Thrones bit was a real eye opener. Not about THAT series, but about you. You will do anything just to get some extra views. If your show can't compete based on it's own merits and content, without stooping to low brow tactics like stirring up people just for the views, then perhaps your show isn't good enough to survive. For a show that's so desperate for views, can you really afford to lose anymore to these sophomoric shenanigans? When Jim or Yahtzee stir people up, it's because they have SOMETHING to say. You guys do it because you have NOTHING to say.

At any rate, I'm out. You hacks."
What bums me out the most is that if we do an episode based around something topical that we really do care about (I had just finished watching Game of Thrones and was fired up to talk about it), it's assumed we're just doing it to stir up controversy or get attention. I'm not about to knock Jim or Yahtzee because they're awesome, but damn are they lucky that the whole point of their shows is "being topical."

If our lack of a serious discussion is bothering, I would recommend watching one of our more toned-down episodes, such as the Suicide Special or some of the other episodes we have coming up. I can't get too deep into specifics, but we do have some active changes in the works regarding more serious topics mixed in around lighthearted evergreen debates (by which I mean we have a handful actually filmed and waiting to queue up mixed in with what fans generally expect).

Essentially, I'm sorry to see you go but I can understand if our show just doesn't strike you where you'd like it. Thank God for Jim! :)
 

lowkey_jotunn

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Feb 23, 2011
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... why are we having a Cap vs Supes debate, and drinking out of a Spiderman glass, and a Baltimore ravens glass?

Get some Captain America and Superman glassware. Make sure it's clean (I hear that your glasses are filthy) and do the spit take challenge proper like.

P.S. The whole "everything special about you came out of a bottle" thing was BS in avengers, and it still is. Or do we not remember Stanley Tucci's speech in First Avenger?
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Gorfias said:
Batman and Cap have fought!


There was company crossover too. I think it was a draw between the two. Can't remember the name of the series. Stuff like, Wolverine kick's Lobo's butt happens too. Big red guy trying to settle an argument with a big blue guy.

Superman is a leader for the JLA. He deserves props. I think he has the power, character and experiences to be a better leader than Cap.

Course, depends upon the genre. The movie characters in a heads on: Cap wins big time. Comics: Superman.
Yes the two fought at the end of the so called "Amalgam Era" and the fight was never concluded. The two godlike beings basically looked at all of the creations and decided they were all beautiful and not to bother to go through with the whole "only one world can survive" thing and just ended it. It was less a draw than the duel that was never fully resolved due to the needs of the story.

The lead up to the fight when you had the two universes meeting (without being combined) and they were battling each other's rogues gallery in brief snippits was more amusing. There was a scene of Bane about to snap Cap's back "Knightfall" style only to have Cap's shield richochet and nail him in the back of the head... and stuff like that done to be cute. :)
 

Happiness Assassin

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Didn't Superman at one point renounce his American citizenship in protest against the US government? I couldn't help but be reminded of that when watching this.
 

Therumancer

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On the issue of the this episode it was quite amusing, to be honest it didn't help that it couldn't be kept deadpan. A joke like this is only really funny if your not making it clear your joking around and trying to be snarky.

That said if you were to ever seriously bring this up, to be honest I don't think you can really say there is a real patriotic American super hero. As was pointed out Superman is more global, and I believe it made news at one point that he renounced US citizenship to officially be "the world's hero" so to speak. Even the "Justice League Of America" became "Justice League International" and later just "The Justice League", and I believe they relocated it's HQs to the moon so symbolically it wouldn't be operating out of any specific nation. When it comes to Captain America, I'd flat out said he's no longer really worthy of the title. To put it bluntly the guy has been an outright traitor on a number of occasions, and it's not just that he disagreed with America, it's the fact that he as a rule has turned almost immediately to a version of terrorism when he disagrees. He doesn't generally try and work within, or reason with the system seriously it's like "Mutant Registration Act, okay, I'll go out and lead a violent insurgency".

Now for those reading this far I'm going to point out two important things to this subject which are kind of sad. Some might want to skip to the second point which has to do with irony.

1: In the US we have the media, including comics, largely controlled by the roughly half of the population that tends to think that the very idea of nationalism is wrong, at least when the US does it. A sort of counter-culture having become a major social force and largely being in control of the media. Basically someone being really patriotic about the US and it's principles, and actually putting our interests, culture, and point of view forward aggressively is something the media tends to mock, and characterize in a bad way. Basically the only time "patriotism" is generally depicted as being good is when it's patriotism by what amounts to counter culture, working against the wishes of those with a
strong national agenda.

When it comes to Captain America for example, it should be noted that one of the big things that happened is that the character was de-patriotized. We had Cap for a while running around beating up commies and fighting to defend the nation and promote it's own culture and interests. This was later retconned by later writers to be a Cap imposter who was also depicted as being insane. Largely because the whole crusade against socialist/communist philosophy in the US failed. Nowadays while Cap does still sort of work for the government at times, he spends as much if not more time pretty much working against it one way or another, due to the fact that the guys writing comics are largely from the 50% that might not realize it but their idealogy comes down to the only way to be American is to pretty much hate anything actually American and try and subvert it.

Whether that's right or wrong overall, I won't get into here, just keep that in mind when I come to point 2:


2: The big irony of current comics is that the most patriotic comic characters in American comics are the ones from other countries. I mean seriously it's seen as being perfectly okay to show Colossus going home in some universes, becoming what amounts to the new head of the USSR, donning the hammer and sickle, and kicking butt for mutants and commies. Oddly nobody in comics or otherwise has an issue with this, or when he just in general spouts off about how great Russia is periodically, despite this being a guy who is literally attending a US based private school. We have The Black Panther (and some of his associates) arrogantly going around talking smack about how awesome his nation is, sometimes while grabbing a free lunch at Avengers HQs (though to be fair a lot of the time he's not around as he's presumably trying to be a responsible head of state). We've got Captain Britan running around affiliated with his country's black ops at times and beating the Union Jack into people's faces, sometimes even in parallel universes being shown as say "King Britain" embracing a sort of fascist militant spirit sort of like Colossus, and still generally being considered a good guy while he does it. If you keep going you'll pretty much see tons of cases of non-American heroes showing the flag, being witty and nationalistic, and periodically getting facist futures where "X" is now the focus of events pretty much and they are still the good guy. If an American acts the same way as a general rule it's a lead in to something bad, or being set up for a punchline. You generally don't see any futures with say Steve Rogers ruling the last remnants of humanity in the final battle as "Emperor America" and having it be seen as a good thing (well as far
as those kinds of futures go) in the same way.

In recent years it could be said, that with Superman resigning US citizenship the most patriotic the character has actually been was when he was reinvented as "The Red Son" for an elseworlds story... acting as a "Good Russian". Granted that story went in some weird places, but it's still darkly amusing superficially when you think of patriotism. Furthermore when DC had Lex Luthor elected President of The United States in their main continuity you have to say that as a whole they are being about as anti-patriotic and engaging in as much counter-culture US bashing as possible rather than rallying behind the country even in it's bad times or when you disagree as patriots are supposed to do (trying to turn things around, but still doing your duty, without becoming a counter-culture rebel).

Now, again, I won't get into government morality, or what's good or bad here, I'm just saying that the US is probably the least patriotic/nationalist country on earth despite pretensions to the opposite by the counter culture. Our media and pop-culture, even stuff like comics, that you'd expect to be patriotic, haven't been for decades, as they largely use iconic characters in red white and blue like Captain America to take the piss out of the country more than anything. It's all about whining, complaining, and tearing things down, as a general rule the US really doesn't rally. What's more by positively showing patriotism to other nations and cultures that in a way also takes another chunk out of the US.

I will honestly be surprised if we ever see a genuinely patriotic big time super hero, who isn't being set up for a joke, or to be used to ultimately make some kind of Anti-US/US-culture joke. At the best right now patriots can only be supporting characters, or anti-heroes (like Nick Fury).
 

xrogaan

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That "What?!" at the end made me burst in laughter. And yes, I agreed totally with Kyle.

What is America anyway? It is not just the USA, so is it not a bit presumptuous to be called "captain america" when he should really be called "Captain USA"? And by the way, the most patriotic Superhero for that country would be some idiot with the catchphrase "god bless us all.". That what's your politicians do anyway.
 

Ferisar

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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 realistic depictions. (if not depictions, at least parallels)
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)
 

Therumancer

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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).
 

VanTesla

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SilverStuddedSquirre said:
Gorfias said:
Batman and Cap have fought!


There was company crossover too. I think it was a draw between the two. Can't remember the name of the series. Stuff like, Wolverine kick's Lobo's butt happens too. Big red guy trying to settle an argument with a big blue guy.

Superman is a leader for the JLA. He deserves props. I think he has the power, character and experiences to be a better leader than Cap.

Course, depends upon the genre. The movie characters in a heads on: Cap wins big time. Comics: Superman.
So Batman fought Cap to a standstill. Spider-Man Killed batman, my takeaway: Spider-Man > Cap or Bats.
Well in the civil war arc of marvel comics Capt was doing good damage to Pete when they faced off for a few seconds when you consider that at that time Parker had the Iron Spider Armor which enhanced his attack capability and resistance. Also during that time Pete had more control over his spider powers in that he could create his own webbing from his body, his strength was higher than his original self, and he had a deeper understanding and control over his spider senses. Both fought not to kill though and both where holding back so it still is unknown who would have won the fight. Cap did leave after a certain point, but before that he was still fighting and hitting Spider-Man while his shield was webbed and the only injury he received was a small cut on his cheek that Spider-Man got off from one of his mechanical stingers.

I do think in a statistical match up Spider-Man wins with no question, but as most people know in comics and in many cases in life they are not the absolute outcome. Also Capt has the advantage in battle tactics, fighting skill, and has faced foes that are more skilled and powerful than Spider-Man and came out ahead. If we are using old school Spider-Man that value on his victory would be even less likely than the fight where he had more control over his spider abilities and the Iron Spider suit. Capt can also take much more of a beating than I would say is even possible for Batman since he has survived punchs from characters that are in the 100+ ton range and survived. Batman did get hit by Superman and live but Supes was not trying to kill him and held back enough even though it did do a huge amount of damage as his ribs and the place he was hit where caved in... Also Capt can lift about 2 tons, he can heal minor wounds in just a days time, major wounds like a shattered body in about a weeks time, can dodge gun fire to where he can see the bullets coming individually, and Spider-Man in the fight stated that one of Caps punchs feels like multiple blows instead of just one punch.

p.s. Sorry for the long winded post it is late and I'm a bit out of it so I think I will go to sleep now...