Superpowers don't kill people. Supervillains kill people.

[shirenomad]

A recent Shortpacked got me thinking about Marvel's Civil War crossover arc, and I realized something weird. Let me share it.

For those who missed out on the whole business, it starts with a second-string group of superheroes chasing down a batch of villains. Somewhere in the middle of the fight, there's a nasty superpower reaction: end result is the detonation of an entire city block, including a bunch of schoolkids. It turns out later that there was a lot more going on there -- the heroes were set up -- but in the meantime, it looks like neither side was giving a crap about who got caught in the crossfire.

In reaction, there's an immediate demand for accountability among heroes, led by Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), and a law gets pushed through. All heroes must now register with the government, providing your real name and a list of your powers, if they want to continue their heroism. The new law doesn't require them to reveal this information to the world, just whatever department of the government gets put in charge, but Tony deliberately unmasks on live TV to "set the example."

Captain America, meanwhile, resists the whole idea as a trampling of civil liberties. As it turns out, this is a valid concern, as those with powers who refuse to register are rounded up and arrested (whether they intended to continue hero-ing or not) and those who do register are conscripted to help with the roundup. Eventually the whole matter gets ugly, people get shot, heroes go into hiding, etc. etc. Civil War, like they said.

Okay, now let's talk about the weird part. Civil War quickly makes two statements: Cap's side is the side of justice and patriotism and all that is good (given the results, understandable, although they push it to strawman levels), and Tony's side is the side of the right wing (huh?)

Let's transplant the initial situation into real life. A bunch of bank robbers (drug cartel members, mafia, terrorists, whatever) are running around, guns blazing. SWAT team pursues, fire fight starts. Gas line gets hit in the chaos, BOOM. Lots of civilians die. Tragedy? Definitely. But which political party is going to be first to scream that:
1) We need more accountability in law enforcement!
2) We need tighter controls on the possession and use of lethal weapons!

Hint: it's not the Republicans.

Comments

[chubbypanda.livejournal.com]

You did NOT just use some of my favorite comic book characters to illustrate a political point against my party. If it weren't for your devilishly handsome good looks, I'd kick your ass right now.

[shirenomad]

You did NOT just use some of my favorite comic book characters to illustrate a political point against my party.

*points* Marvel started it.

[tozetre.livejournal.com]

Marvel's been doing that a lot. Their standard line is sticking up for the underdog, no matter who that is. X-Men, for example, has been the ultimate, and often club-over-the-head metaphor for underdogs. In the Golden Age they references Jews and blacks, in the 80's and 90's it was homosexuals... but then in the 90's (maybe sooner, but then for sure) it also started being about left-wing politics, not just by accident of defending the underdogs but because of editorial bias. It's happened more and more as the American "art scene" has become politically homogenized in a sort of weird mirror-of-McCarthy movement.

There's still a couple of guys that stick right, but they're harder to find. I recommend Doug Tennapel, if you're interested. He did Earthworm Jim and his recent Trades have excellent stories about courage and sacrifice and wonder.

[tozetre.livejournal.com]

*finds you from comments on Irony's blog*

On the weight of your insightful comments (which happened to agree with mine, making them particularly insightful), and this post (with which I agree on all points quite vehemently), I think you are neat as sliced cheese. I hope you don't mind my keeping an eye on you with flisting, because it seems you post interesting things that I would like to read. I may or may not add your jabber account to my list and try to talk to you in the future, since the odds of there being something terribly, horribly wrong get higher and higher the more you post awesomeness. At this point I suspect you of being some kind of closet Satanic Communist and possibly a leper.

[shirenomad]

Oddly, given your icon, the Transformers theme came up on my playlist as I was reading this. I'll take it as a sign. :D

Hope you'll pardon me for not being as prolific a writer as you seem to be.

(And I am way better than sliced cheese. I am like a solid block of cheese that you can slice yourself to your desired thickness!)

[tozetre.livejournal.com]

Less "prolific," more "constantly raging, out loud, at everything."

Mmmm, tasty DIY cheese-block. You're like the Linux of dairy products in a world of Microsoft processed cheese slices.

[shirenomad]

...err, did I make you lactose intolerant or something?

Normally I wouldn't complain about being pulled from a friends list -- it's your journal, after all -- but now I can't reply to your posts, so I thought I'd make sure it was intentional...

[tozetre.livejournal.com]

Ey wot? How'd that happen?

Well, that explains why I wasn't seeing your posts on my flist. Weird. Fixed now.