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The Marvel-ous Culture
Jon Bernthal as “The Punisher” (Marvel Studios)
I am not an aficionado of comic books. I can not argue the merits of Marvel vs. DC. The only comics-based movie I can attest to seeing in the theater was Superman with Christopher Reeve and that was in a whole different universe called “1978.” Fast forward 40 years and my wife suggests we sit down and watch a Netflix series called The Punisher. She hooked me with the words “former Marine.”
OK, I’m in. But first, we have to watch another Marvel/Netflix offering called Daredevil where the protagonist, Frank Castle, is introduced. To put it bluntly, these two series are blood porn. They are violent beyond brutality and after a period of time, like sexual pornography, they are incredibly desensitizing — both in the portrayal of the violence and in the casual manner in which human life is snuffed out.
In a nutshell, these programs are also glorifications of vigilantism and the concept of justifiable revenge. If someone were to suggest that these shows had the slightest impact on the emotionally immature and mentally unstable who then seek to act out their own fantasy revenge scenarios through mass murder you can bet that there would be cries of censorship and laments about artistic freedom. A $300 million rights fee and $40 million production budget per series lament. While the leftists in Hollywood have no problem casually dismissing codified constitutional rights for you and me, they see no problem hiding behind the Bill of Rights provided there are millions (or billions) of dollars on the table for them.
Of course, everything about Hollywood seems to be contradictory. The product they push has one huge unifying theme: America and her institutions are corrupt to the core. Almost unfailingly they depict the government at all levels (including the CIA, the FBI, Homeland and local law enforcement) as being corrupt, business is corrupt, the military is corrupt … and then their political message is almost also unfailingly that we need more government, bigger government, more government entanglement in business and, oh yes, only the police and military should have guns. They push these ideas of entrenched government corruption and wonder where all these whack-job Second Amendment Types get their silly paranoid ideas.
They want you to dismiss their product as fantasy unless their fantasies advance their politics. It’s all harmless fun, right? And here, let me say something “profound” while I quote a Harry Potter line like it’s Holy Scripture. It’s maddening. Perhaps before Hollywood demands anything from us, they should demand something more from themselves.
Published in Culture
They did that?
That’s vile.
Yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverdale_(2017_TV_series)
Sorta. At the same time that the comic book stories were being written for a more adult audience, the characters were being marketed for children in other media like film and television.
For example: The very dark Death of Superman storyline in the comics was released at the same time as the very campy Lois & Clark tv show and also the Batman Animated Series.
People are no longer introduced to these characters by reading the comic books. They’re introduced to the characters in film and television, and then some of them start buying the comic books.
Also, both DC and Marvel run parallel lines of comic books starring the same characters which are targeted for children, which don’t take place in the mainstream comic book continuity. If you prefer the lighter tone of the pre-1980s comic books, then you are free to pick up copies of those versions of the comics.
The point: Comic books, and superhero stories in general, don’t have to be one thing or the other. There’s plenty of room for stories targeted for all sorts of different audiences.
Oh good. Evil business man/corporate overlord. That’s much more realistic.
The two most dreaded words in entertainment: Gritty reboot.
Terrible tv show, but I think the recent “adult-oriented” Archie comics that have been published since 2010 are, generally, pretty good. The Life With Archie series where they had two parallel storylines exploring a life where he married Veronica and a life where he married Betty was really interesting, and some of the stuff Mark Waid has written for the New Riverdale comics has also been pretty good.
Hypothesis: The problem with the tv show is that it’s made for teens rather than adults.
It’s not realistic, but it is more realistic than an evil supergenius living in an abandoned subway station stealing nuclear missiles for a real estate scam.
I could not describe the few episodes I watched as being made for teens, but maybe it changed later.
Or, maybe it’s a good thing to show how a universe where superheroes exist would inevitable be a pretty terrible and terrifying place, because it potentially helps us to appreciate our own universe a bit more.
“Metropolis gets destroyed? That’s not in keeping with the true spirit of Superman!”
Good! The “true spirit” of Superman is for ordinary people to delegate responsibility for their own wellbeing to an alien in tights!!! That’s hardly something that should be encouraged!
Better to show the absurdity of hoping for a ubermensch to show up and solve all your problems for you, because that road always leads to ruin.
Heh. I’ve enjoyed ‘Riverdale’ so far precisely because of that; I describe the show as “a violation of my childhood….and I like it!”
At least (except for one episode) it hasn’t (yet) become hyper PC like the modern comics. But yeah, anybody going in hoping for anything other than a subversion is in for some disappointment.
But then, the Punisher* is my favorite Marvel character, so perhaps I’m just perverse.
*I don’t consider it morally superior for Spiderman to send Carnage off to jail every time, knowing its a virtual certainty that he will be able to escape and murder thousands of people again.
That would make a great comic – Punisher mowing down agents of the CCA.
Dammit, it took me three weeks to get the lease for the abandoned subway station finalized and now you’ve spoiled my world domination!
Fortunately, I have a line on an abandoned amusement park as a back up.
It’s not Spidey’s fault. And it’s not even Carnage’s fault. Carnage is the real victim here, being compelled to kill and kill again by the forces and confines of the world he was born into.
Why the heck doesn’t the mayor of New York in the Marvel release a kill list of the most dangerous horrible sadistic villains? Then he can say to the heroes. “Do what you will. You have no legal ramifications to killing carnage, the Green Goblin and some of the more murdery villains.”
In the real world, if honest-to-goodness superpowered evil aliens like Carnage showed up and started murdering people indiscriminately, it would not be treated as a law enforcement issue. It would be the impetus for martial law.
Yep. And he’d run through the appeals process over the course of two decades. Meanwhile we’d lose all our guns….
If I recall correctly Lex Luthor became president of the United States as a GW Bush analog.
Marvel is insufferable when they do their SJW schtick. The whole Civil War didn’t make any sense. Leftists are for gun control, superpowers are way more dangerous than guns. Ergo Leftists should be for Superpower control. Leftists also distrust the cops but trust the Federal government.
So why in the world did the Marvel writers hate the Superpower registration act? Because they hated GWB and how Sept 11 forced them to confront the reality that Western Civilization isn’t the bad guy.
What do you guys think?
Insufferable and tone-deaf, as when they tried to make anti-mutant sentiment the same as racism (as I recall Kitty Pride said something like, ‘Gee, Michael, are you an [N-word]?’) and later mutant-phobia as an analogue to what gays claim to experience. And of course the Superpower registration act is predated by the registering of mutants.
Marvel tossed aside their pro-America cred when Cap became Nomad and have been very confused ever since.
To a certain extent though, the government(s) aren’t the point. The point is to isolate the hero for drama and angst. Whether we do that through corrupt cops (Daredevil), corrupt media (Spiderman), or corrupt government at large, it is still just a story trope in a subtly-challenged genre.