InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "No, Alf, no!"

cyberghostface (cyberghostface) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-29 11:22:00

Entry tags:

char: spider-man/peter parker, char: wolverine/logan/james howlett, creator: joe kelly, creator: phil jimenez, publisher: marvel comics, title: amazing spider-man

Two panels from Amazing Spider-Man #595...
Hopefully this is okay with the new legal limits as it's 1/4 of a page...

Speaking as someone who leans pretty hard on the Left and is a huge supporter of Barack Obama, I really thought this was a bit out of place. I don't think political digs of either side should be present given the title. It's hardly the worst thing that's in the issue (Jonah Sr being a Marty Stu to Osborn while Jonah Jr is warming up to him despite their history takes that piece of the cake), but it did annoy me a little.

Thoughts?

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daningram
2009-05-29 12:22 pm UTC (link)

"Millar was very clear about this in interviews."

If you've read his Authority, you'd know just how conservative Millar is. If Iron Man's side was the good guys, Hill wouldn't have attacked Captain America illegally, wouldn't have come down on Patriot like the Fist of God, Stark wouldn't have created a cyborg clone (without Thor's consent) that killed Goliath, wouldn't have thrown heroes into the Negative Zone, wouldn't have attacked Spider-Man and sure as hell wouldn't have recruited villains like Venom, Bullseye and Deathstrike.

The writers insisted that there were no right or wrong sides, even when Reed argued in favor of government witch hunts. They were far from fair and balanced ;)

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	tavella 2009-05-29 12:55 pm UTC (link)
	I've read plenty of Millar's Authority; it's power-worshipping fantasy. That doesn't make it 'liberal'. Again, Millar and the Marvel editors were very, very clear on their views in interviews: Tony was the hero and Steve was wrong. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

daningram
2009-05-29 01:01 pm UTC (link)

No, what made Millar's writing liberal was them overthrowing dictatorships, Bush licking Magneto's feet (in Ultimate X-Men), the Authority slaughtering a secret committee representing the G8 nations, throwing a Cheney stand-in into Iraq. And don't get me started on his Ultimates...

I know what the editors said. But they were either lying (which is standard fair) or have very messed up ideas about being objective.

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box_in_the_box
2009-05-29 01:26 pm UTC (link)

I know what the editors said. But they were either lying (which is standard fair) or have very messed up ideas about being objective.

Actually, allow me to suggest a third way perspective here, which might actually reconcile your position and mine.

Millar believes himself to be a liberal - on this, I think that you and I can agree. The problem is, and this is where I'm coming from, he's not really. He may not like Bush or Cheney - and indeed, you provide rather overt proof that he doesn't - but when it comes to his politics, as they express themselves in his character dynamics (as opposed to his relatively simplistic declarations of OMG X IS WRONG in his stories), he really agrees much more with Bush and Cheney than he doesn't.

Again, with the exception of his runs on Superman Adventures and The Flash, neither intelligence nor compassion nor any sort of morality ever prove decisive in winning the day; rather, it's always the guy who's not just STRONGER, but MEANER, who's going to win.

This is why his Doom, and pretty much every other supervillain written by Millar, is so one-dimensional, because he wants his "heroes" to be completely unrestrained fascist bullies, and the only way he can justify this is by making their enemies almost literally INHUMANLY evil. Millar villains have NO redeeming virtues, because that way, no matter how bad his "heroes" get, he can say, "Well, they're only that bad because they HAVE to be!"

Short of Frank Miller, Mark Millar is the most overtly might-makes-right proto-fascist superhero writer I've ever seen, except that, unlike Millar, Miller is actually SELF-AWARE about it.

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colonel_green
2009-05-30 11:08 am UTC (link)

I wouldn't say that's a contradiction. It's cynical. Millar believes that the world we live in, and thus the world he writes about in exaggerated form, is a place where the biggest bastard wins; hence, most of his heroes (apart from his lighter works, like his run on Fantastic Four), who are either liberal bastards (The Authority) or parodies of conservatives. The end of Ultimates 2's "Grand Theft America" is a perfect example of the latter; Millar constructs the whole "Ultimates vs. Liberators" as Bush-era interventionist foreign policy vs. the backlash. Now, the backlash consists primarily of regimes even worse than Bush's biggest excesses, but the Bushites win not because of morality, but through shear bloodymindedness. The story ends with Ultimate Cap, who up until that point was basically distilled anachronistic jingoism, learning the lesson that preemptive strikes and government-funded heroes are a bad idea, and they go independent and international.

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colonel_green
2009-05-30 11:12 am UTC (link)

Relatedly, his works have a strong recurring theme of dealing the superhero-as-overman, and how that sort of power affects morality. In most of his stories, possessing that sort of power leads to the heroes becoming ruthless and dictatorial. How this is depicted varies; he's clearly drawn to the idea of a single man shaping history through force of will (compare Luthor in Superman: Red Son and Iron Man in Civil War).

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	box_in_the_box 2009-05-29 01:36 pm UTC (link)
	And as for this ... No, what made Millar's writing liberal was them overthrowing dictatorships [...] ... Yes, because it's not like CONSERVATIVES have ever used this as a justification for preemptive unilateral invasions of other countries OH WAIT NEVER MIND (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	daningram 2009-05-29 01:44 pm UTC (link)
	I'd concede the point, but I remember how the Republicans bitched and moaned about Clinton's actions in the Balkans. Plus, the dictatorships that Authority disposed were in Asia, Tibet and Chechnya, among others. There was nothing preemptive about it either. The Authority had the power and so did it. Iraq was actually left alone, judging from an offhand comment. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

box_in_the_box
2009-05-29 01:55 pm UTC (link)

I'd concede the point, but I remember how the Republicans bitched and moaned about Clinton's actions in the Balkans.

Yes, because conservatives have never applauded their own for doing something they'd already condemned the opposition for doing ... like, say, being a WORKING mom, or a SINGLE mom -

OH WAIT NEVER MIND

I'll concede your points about the specific countries, but again, that's where Millar's liberal pretensions come in, I think (because EVERY fashionable white college liberal is obligated to care about Tibet, even though most of them don't really).

Point being, though, as I said, Millar THINKS he's a liberal, because he likes to swear and make fun and include lots of sex and violence in his stories, but if you've ever read the fiction of John Ringo (OH JOHN RINGO NO) or, God help you, Bill O'Reilly (yes, Bill-O has written stories which include "steamy" sex scenes, and yes, it's just as horrifying as you'd imagine), that's not really a disqualifier for being a conservative. Hell, Ted Nugent has made an entire living out of being a "rock-and-rock conservative," and to me, Millar has much more in common with Nugent than with any liberal, because Millar is an Entitled White Male who thinks his OMG RIGHTS R BEIN OPPRESSED when people come down on him for saying things like, "I've never seen black retarded people before, so I always thought they didn't exist" (and no, I am not making this up, although I wish I was").

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daningram
2009-05-29 05:21 pm UTC (link)

As much as I would like to believe otherwise, hypocrites and morons are not limited to conservatives.

Simply because he sees no way to convey his political beliefs without the use of violence does not make him conservative. The Right hardly has a monopoly on the use of violence, though IMO they are more likely to resort to it first.

Millar wouldn't be the first writer to stumble when doing a political message. I remember a Warren Ellis comic, Jack Cross that had the character defending the constitution and comparing 9/11 to just jamming a stick into a computer, emphasizing the importance of human rights. Nice message, if you forget that he literally shot off a man's finger to get information.

Millar just drops the ball on a regular basis. But that doesn't make him Right Wing by any means. Just that he likes violence and doesn't think.

If Millar were Right wing, I think his final arc of Ultimates would have ended differently, and Superman Red Son wouldn't have been such a glowing depiction of communism.

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daningram
2009-05-29 01:09 pm UTC (link)

Killing secret members of the G8, throwing a Cheney stand-in into Iraq, Bush licking Magneto's boot and don't even get me started on Millar's Ultimates...

At the end of the day, Millar is deeply liberal but lacks the ability to convey any of these principles to a conclusion in his stories. 'Might makes right' is how Millar ends his stories and it often undercuts his message.

I really don't care what the editors said, as it's their job to push the product. During Civil War, they said that no side was right or wrong, and when it ended, they said that Stark was right. See the conflict there?

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box_in_the_box
2009-05-29 01:07 pm UTC (link)

Mark Millar and Tom Brevoort both flatly stated that "Civil War proved Tony Stark right." There is no room for debate on this subject. Both the writer and the editor of the event have made it clear, to the point of openly insulting those who disagree with them, that the pro-reg side was morally justified in everything that it did, and that it deserved to win.

And actually, in spite of his liberal pretensions, I DO think Millar is a conservative, because in his worldview, the only way to win a fight is by being more evil than your opponents. Yes, the pro-reg side did evil things, but Millar doesn't just support them in SPITE of those things - he supports them BECAUSE of those things, just like the fans of Jack Bauer in 24 love his character BECAUSE he uses torture, because much like Dick Cheney, Millar believes that brutality should be one's FIRST resort in a fight.

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daningram
2009-05-29 01:17 pm UTC (link)

Or, ya know, he doesn't know the moral implications of his writing or lacks the ability to finish his stories.

IMO, it's the emphasize that matter more than the actions. Under Millar, it's the politics that get emphasize. That the heroes won because of superior firepower is something that he often overlooks or flat out ignores.

I don't condone torture, for instance, but really don't care when it shows up in my entertainment. The only time it annoys me is when writers call it out and laud it's effectiveness or how it's justified in that situation.

Same with Millar. The nuance of that is really lost on him, IMO. He compared his Ultimate Avengers vs. X-Men to the United States' war in Iraq because of 9/11. But if one went with his metaphor, then there was an actual link between Al qaeda and Saddam when there wasn't one in reality.

Just because a writer knows the defination of a metaphor doesn't mean they can use it well.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-05-29 01:25 pm UTC (link)
	I actually don't think that you and I are that far apart on this issue, but I'll address that in another reply post. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aaron_bourque 2009-05-30 04:31 pm UTC (link)
	conservative, because in his worldview, the only way to win a fight is by being more evil than your opponents. . . . (Reply to this) (Parent)

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