Superman Quits America, Fox News Readers Take the News Badly
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
And this is what's wrong with American politics. We whine and complain about how the Democratss and Republicans in Washington can never seem to agree on anything, but how can they when THE PEOPLE THEY ARE WORKING FOR are like this?
If anything, Superman is trying to protect America by doing this. If Superman ever had to attack another nation's military personnel to protect civilians, it could be interpreted as an act of war and draw the United States into a long and costly military conflict. This allows Superman to act freely without having to drag the United States into a bunch of nasty crap every time he has to beat somebody up.
But no, we don't take the time to think about the implications of these things before we talk about them. We just read, "Superman Renounces his US Citizenship" and say "OMFG AMERICA-HATEING LIBERALZ ARE TRYIN TA DEXTROY MAH PATRITIZM FUUUUUUUKKKKKKKK1111!!!1!!1".
We Americans need to be more responsible with our freedom of speech.
Because if you help anyone other than America, it means you hate them.
I think we can openly see that these people are fucking idiots.
I think we can openly see that these people are fucking idiots.
Tasteless, and fans have a right to be upset about this kind of thing. I hope they are smart enough to remove it from continuity and apologize, but I doubt that will happen.
Right now this seems like an inflammatory stunt specifically intended to garner attention for Superman and DC comics. It's similar to how they derailed the entire "Civil War" storyline at Marvel to turn it into a then-current commentary on US policy despite a very long build up.
A lot of politically correct liberals love this kind of thing, but while vocal, I don't nessicarly think they represent a majority. Even among the PC crowd what amounts to hardcore Anti-US sentiment is not exactly popular.
People can sit there and claim it's being misunderstood all they want, but people have to understand that characters like Superman and Captain America are supposed to be jingoistic culture heroes. Other cultures have their own, for example there are plenty of examples in Manga with characters that are very Japan-centric and extol the virtues of that culture above and beyond all others, while promoting it's interests as best for humanity (even if they are disturbing to outsiders at time). Like it or not, Superman is our version of this, and one of the reasons WHY this pushes buttons is because it's kind of saying that we're unworthy of having such a cultural hero, and by having Superman renounce citizenship, as opposed to just re-affirming his desires to protect the entire planet, it's putting an undeniably inflammatory spin on things.
Of course a lot of it comes down to wars being unpopular, especially long wars, and without war powers being invoked the door is open for TONS of criticism, and the media (including comics) is by and large going to take a strong anti-war, anti-policy that caused the wars approach, which is not nessicarly a good thing. Arguably characters like Superman should be seen as blitzing Middle Eastern countries, the way super heroes were shown wiping out Nazis during "World War II", however a differant approach to media control has lead to a differant, and actually fairly predictable, attitude among the media. Truthfully, I think in the long run comic companies are going to regret a lot of things they have been pulling for the last decade or so if they don't start making some serious efforts to reverse the trend.
One thing that makes the situation with Superman paticularly distasteful is that it's actually using real world individuals and situations, in a world where they shouldn't be transpiring. Marvel had some issues with this to an extent as well, but I won't get into it. These earths are not our own, and simply put the problems inherant in things like "The Middle East" make no sense, given the alien invasions, occasional planetary decimation, and of course super villains who have been terrorists on a level far beyond what we're seeing here. Iran/Iraq/etc... should be far differant, and of course US policy should be more concerned about issues like how we've oh... had General Zod running countries. At least Marvel occasionally remembers their mythology right by occasionally remembering that nations like Latveria are conceptually going to be a bigger deal and replace the threats present in our real world. After things like say "World War Hulk" I very much doubt people in The Marvel Universe, including those in The Middle East, would be worrying about bickering. Not to mention that both in DC and Marvel there are guys who can kit bash clean energy sources out of a wristwatch, a tin can, and parts from a little girl's talking doll... Conflict that involces things like fossil fuel resources just don't make sense when half the goverments are deploying robots that work on solar energy cells, or onboard cold fusion reactors the size of a cell phone battery.
At least when DC/Wildstorm went on it's US Bashing rampage through "The Authority" they had at least developed the US a lot differantly. At that point things like I/O, invading Daemonites, transdimensional forces, and of course the revelation that The President was more or less a patsy since there were like 60 levels of clearance in the US goverment above him, not to mention temporal prisons where we stored dangerous super villains in pre-historic times and so on, at least made it practical. What's more while it did get into the issue of third world intervention in a general sense, it didn't start ranking on real world politics that would have had no validity at all in a world with leaders like Kaizen Gamorra . They also at least acknowleged that conflicts wouldn't be quite like they are now, by having the Doctor's successor pretty much bring about Mid-East peace in like 15 minutes, without bringing US bashing into it...
Also, it's important to understand that while "The Authority" took over the US goverment briefly, half the point was that what they did was wrong, and what's more the realized it. Through other titles like "Stormwatch: Team Achilles" which were around at the same time, they also provided a somewhat balanced position by showing that while the US was a giant group of bastards, it was that way for some very good reasons. The Authority might be a group of avenging politically correct heroes, but they aren't always right in their ideals, and can admit it. While it's been a while they also had a big fight between te relaunched Stormwatch: Prime, and The Authority over differances in principle, though they ultimatly got it out of their system and went to introduce a major villain to his spleen.
As I said, I doubt it will happen, but we can hope that the DC officers have a bout of lucidity that lasts long enough for them to fix their main continuity where the whole Superman thing is just a groaner.
... also someone should bash them over the head with continuity by asking what "Ali Ben Stein" thinks about all this. People tend to forget that while a "joke", "Young Justice" pretty much established that he's a dominant force in the region... and umm, I think that shows that the current geo-political situation is nothing like the real world when Ben Stein is running the show. It might not be BETTER mind you, but still a valid point, and it means that they have the wrong leader calling the shots, and I'm not sure if Tehran would still be a major city.
Right now this seems like an inflammatory stunt specifically intended to garner attention for Superman and DC comics. It's similar to how they derailed the entire "Civil War" storyline at Marvel to turn it into a then-current commentary on US policy despite a very long build up.
A lot of politically correct liberals love this kind of thing, but while vocal, I don't nessicarly think they represent a majority. Even among the PC crowd what amounts to hardcore Anti-US sentiment is not exactly popular.
People can sit there and claim it's being misunderstood all they want, but people have to understand that characters like Superman and Captain America are supposed to be jingoistic culture heroes. Other cultures have their own, for example there are plenty of examples in Manga with characters that are very Japan-centric and extol the virtues of that culture above and beyond all others, while promoting it's interests as best for humanity (even if they are disturbing to outsiders at time). Like it or not, Superman is our version of this, and one of the reasons WHY this pushes buttons is because it's kind of saying that we're unworthy of having such a cultural hero, and by having Superman renounce citizenship, as opposed to just re-affirming his desires to protect the entire planet, it's putting an undeniably inflammatory spin on things.
Of course a lot of it comes down to wars being unpopular, especially long wars, and without war powers being invoked the door is open for TONS of criticism, and the media (including comics) is by and large going to take a strong anti-war, anti-policy that caused the wars approach, which is not nessicarly a good thing. Arguably characters like Superman should be seen as blitzing Middle Eastern countries, the way super heroes were shown wiping out Nazis during "World War II", however a differant approach to media control has lead to a differant, and actually fairly predictable, attitude among the media. Truthfully, I think in the long run comic companies are going to regret a lot of things they have been pulling for the last decade or so if they don't start making some serious efforts to reverse the trend.
One thing that makes the situation with Superman paticularly distasteful is that it's actually using real world individuals and situations, in a world where they shouldn't be transpiring. Marvel had some issues with this to an extent as well, but I won't get into it. These earths are not our own, and simply put the problems inherant in things like "The Middle East" make no sense, given the alien invasions, occasional planetary decimation, and of course super villains who have been terrorists on a level far beyond what we're seeing here. Iran/Iraq/etc... should be far differant, and of course US policy should be more concerned about issues like how we've oh... had General Zod running countries. At least Marvel occasionally remembers their mythology right by occasionally remembering that nations like Latveria are conceptually going to be a bigger deal and replace the threats present in our real world. After things like say "World War Hulk" I very much doubt people in The Marvel Universe, including those in The Middle East, would be worrying about bickering. Not to mention that both in DC and Marvel there are guys who can kit bash clean energy sources out of a wristwatch, a tin can, and parts from a little girl's talking doll... Conflict that involces things like fossil fuel resources just don't make sense when half the goverments are deploying robots that work on solar energy cells, or onboard cold fusion reactors the size of a cell phone battery.
At least when DC/Wildstorm went on it's US Bashing rampage through "The Authority" they had at least developed the US a lot differantly. At that point things like I/O, invading Daemonites, transdimensional forces, and of course the revelation that The President was more or less a patsy since there were like 60 levels of clearance in the US goverment above him, not to mention temporal prisons where we stored dangerous super villains in pre-historic times and so on, at least made it practical. What's more while it did get into the issue of third world intervention in a general sense, it didn't start ranking on real world politics that would have had no validity at all in a world with leaders like Kaizen Gamorra . They also at least acknowleged that conflicts wouldn't be quite like they are now, by having the Doctor's successor pretty much bring about Mid-East peace in like 15 minutes, without bringing US bashing into it...
Also, it's important to understand that while "The Authority" took over the US goverment briefly, half the point was that what they did was wrong, and what's more the realized it. Through other titles like "Stormwatch: Team Achilles" which were around at the same time, they also provided a somewhat balanced position by showing that while the US was a giant group of bastards, it was that way for some very good reasons. The Authority might be a group of avenging politically correct heroes, but they aren't always right in their ideals, and can admit it. While it's been a while they also had a big fight between te relaunched Stormwatch: Prime, and The Authority over differances in principle, though they ultimatly got it out of their system and went to introduce a major villain to his spleen.
As I said, I doubt it will happen, but we can hope that the DC officers have a bout of lucidity that lasts long enough for them to fix their main continuity where the whole Superman thing is just a groaner.
... also someone should bash them over the head with continuity by asking what "Ali Ben Stein" thinks about all this. People tend to forget that while a "joke", "Young Justice" pretty much established that he's a dominant force in the region... and umm, I think that shows that the current geo-political situation is nothing like the real world when Ben Stein is running the show. It might not be BETTER mind you, but still a valid point, and it means that they have the wrong leader calling the shots, and I'm not sure if Tehran would still be a major city.
and a comic book characters matters in what way exactly??? im not sure on this, so please correct me if i am wrong, but hasn't the demographic for comics shifted from being to kids, to young adults exclusively... i.e people who shouldn't be impressionable and are capable of forming their own opinions regardless of media...then again i could be wrong about that too
How many people "upset" over this actually read a Superman comic book? I'm going to guess, few to none.
For starters, superman isn't american anyway(he's an alien folks), superman is a fictitious character so why fuss about it, he lives in a city that doesn't exist and as far his story is concerned it makes sense that he would cut ties with one specific region. How can he defend the world globally when he's tied down to one country?
The internet award of reason goes to this guy.lSHaDoW-FoXl said:
So superman was created by a Canadian. I never knew that, thank you. That knowledge now makes this situation humorous and ridiculous to me and all the people who are shouting anti-American seem even more idiotic now.
Indeed. Superman has defended parts of the world before, along with the Justice League, the Justice Society, and ect. It's been going on for years, despite their names ending with "...of America".Sir John the Net Knight said:
Even though Superman has been having a rough time lately, I will admit this is a bit extreme.
It's one thing to make a political/social statement the basis of a plot, in this case Superman being tired of being tied to the US's actions, but it's another to use real figures in the world, something DC doesn't do very often, to help make such a case.Brad Shepard said:
The guy's going through a rough time, but this kind of action from him is at best juvenile.
You won my "high five of the week"cWg | Konka said:
I think this is a delightfully new, fresh storystep. Superman is, as the name implies, "above men". He is not bound by any obligation to a country or even planet. He's so awesome and strong, he could take over the US of A, and then the world, if he could be bothered.
To quote Dr. Manhattan, the other superman: "The worlds smartest man means no more to me than the worlds smartest termite." The quote sort of goes for Superman as well.
Can I ask all nerdom how Supes actually GOT his American citizenship?
Being that he's not only alien (in both senses), but will NEVER have to undergo a citizenship challenge and...for all senses and purposes...will never need a citizenship?
Or you could just point out that neither Superman, Metropolis or DC's America actually exist?
But then, you could just point out that DC have just had a thousand dollar National Advert for free...
By the way...of the 100 possible questions asked, using our universe, Superman would fail a huge number of them - given the divergent timelines.
The second panel was released a year after Kennedy died...
Being that he's not only alien (in both senses), but will NEVER have to undergo a citizenship challenge and...for all senses and purposes...will never need a citizenship?
Or you could just point out that neither Superman, Metropolis or DC's America actually exist?
But then, you could just point out that DC have just had a thousand dollar National Advert for free...
By the way...of the 100 possible questions asked, using our universe, Superman would fail a huge number of them - given the divergent timelines.
The second panel was released a year after Kennedy died...
