Marvel 2017: You can lead a horse to Kung Fu but you can't make him kick.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Marvel 2017: You can lead a horse to Kung Fu but you can't make him kick.

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Wanderer: Nov 5, 2006; our every move is the new tradition

rantmo posted:

Just because Nazis will co-opt anything they can get their hands on doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to give them want they want.

I'm not defending the Internet moron brigade. I'd like to make this clear.

However, this isn't a valid criticism. Not only are these people not getting what they want (i.e. Cap's HYDRA is significantly less racist and sexist than the Skull's), but as I said, this line of argument, when taken to its natural conclusion, is an argument against doing anything at all. It's an argument that you shouldn't make horror movies because some people will root for the monster.

There's plenty of ground to cover when it comes to the myriad failures of Secret Empire, but this particular point of contention isn't supportable. Spencer, for all his faults, isn't responsible for what assholes do with the text once it's out in the world.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 00:24

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 09:08

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Youâre telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

Wanderer posted:

I'm not defending the Internet moron brigade. I'd like to make this clear.

However, this isn't a valid criticism. Not only are these people not getting what they want (i.e. Cap's HYDRA is significantly less racist and sexist than the Skull's), but as I said, this line of argument, when taken to its natural conclusion, is an argument against doing anything at all. It's an argument that you shouldn't make horror movies because some people will root for the monster.

There's plenty of ground to cover when it comes to the myriad failures of Secret Empire, but this particular point of contention isn't supportable. Spencer, for all his faults, isn't responsible for what assholes do with the text once it's out in the world.

Yeah but he is allied with nazis such as sin, crossbones, and Zola

# ? Apr 26, 2017 00:26

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

BrianWilly posted:

1) Showing the "bad guys" losing in, like, probably the very last issue of this year long storyline (which also included the main Captain America book) doesn't suddenly omit all those issues where the "bad guys" were shown being edgy and hardcore and badass and smart and powerful and pulling one over on all those dense clueless liberal "good guys," except in this case the bad guys are people who directly abetted in the Holocaust and not the guys who stole forty cakes.

2) This is during a time in the world where antisemitic rhetoric is seeing a startling resurgence -- or maybe just coming back into the light again after hiding away for a bit -- and Holocaust denialism, vandalism of public Jewish spaces, and outright physical violence being more and more common occurrences.

3) Readers in general have been consistently burned by Marvel's consistently tone-deaf depictions of moral or social narratives throughout their events (Civil War: police states are great!) (Civil War II: police states are great!) (IvX: Cyclops is loving HITLER). Jewish readers, in particular, have good reason to not to trust Marvel to be respectful and tactful of their issues. Any such complaints or concerns have been responded to with derision or misunderstanding on Spencer's part, which only makes people angrier and more wary. (Maybe as a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you like)

4) Indeed, Marvel and Spencer's go-to insistence that Hydra are totally not Nazis at all and you're just being nitpicky if you say they're Nazis just further makes them come across as tone-deaf and bullish on the matter, on top of (probably unknowingly) mirroring the talking points of actual real life Nazis who've been trying to rebrand themselves as something different for years.

5) "I don�t care if this gets undone next year, next month, next week. I know it�s clickbait disguised as storytelling. I am not angry because omg how dare you ruin Steve Rogers forever. I am angry because how dare you use eleven million deaths as clickbait."

6) Spencer's work with Sam Wilson Captain America, which generally turns him into a centrist apologist who couldn't believe that he himself was ever that much of an annoying liberal activist or something and occasionally fights literal "social justice warriors" on college campuses throwing bombs and internet slang, doesn't really make that fanbase particularly fond of him.

7) In a world where an X-Men artist is literally sneaking secret antisemitic propaganda into books that are supposed to celebrate diversity and civil activism, can you really blame people for being antsy about a comic book that reveals Captain America was a secret Nazi all along and is making Stormfront cream themselves.

Spencer's a loving idiot, so I'm not surprised he's denying Hydra's ties to the Nazis. Again though, I'm having a hard time seeing how a story where the Nazis literally rewrite reality, but still lose (obviously this might not be the case and Spencer might screw it up, in which case sorry guys) is somehow anti-semetic or pro-Nazi.

I might be misunderstanding it, but I think I really fundamentally disagree with your first point. If there are going to be any stakes to any story, then the villain has to be at least somewhat competent and successful. SE would be 100x worse than it already is if Nazi Cap was just a mustache twirling dipshit that lost over and over again for a year.

PST posted:

Nazis aren't having to warp the meaning. Marvel have made their meaning entirely clear both in the comics and interviews and it's that Captain America is and always has been a Nazi (technically Hydra but that's like saying fascists that love Hitler aren't technically Nazis).

The symbol of American perseverance, created by two Jewish guys who took a bold early stance against Hitler a year before America entered the war has been turned into a fascist.

Add in the tone deaf poo poo like Marvel encouraging and rewarding people who dress as Nazis and the whole thing is a loving clusterfuck.

Edit: According to the writers, the truth is that Captain America was always a Nazi and that the allies used a cosmic cube to rewrite history so he wasn't and they won. And somehow left in the holocaust...

So yes, their new version is that he has always been a Nazi. Just read the comics or google it given there are dozens of places this is discussed including this thread.

Maybe there's something I missed, but according to the summary stuff in SE#0 (which I just read, thanks to this thread) Red Skull used Kobik to rewrite reality so that Cap was always a Nazi. They're not retconning anything, especially since it's basically guaranteed he's going to beat up the top Nazi and go back to being a good guy in a few months.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 00:46

Shirkelton: Apr 6, 2009; I'm not loyal to anything, General... except the dream.

As far as Nick Spencer is concerned, he has turned Cap back into a good guy already.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:08

Wanderer: Nov 5, 2006; our every move is the new tradition

fadam posted:

Maybe there's something I missed, but according to the summary stuff in SE#0 (which I just read, thanks to this thread) Red Skull used Kobik to rewrite reality so that Cap was always a Nazi. They're not retconning anything, especially since it's basically guaranteed he's going to beat up the top Nazi and go back to being a good guy in a few months.

Yeah, it's as much "Cap has always been a HYDRA agent" as the Age of Apocalypse was "Charles Xavier has always been dead."

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:16

frodnonnag: Aug 13, 2007

fadam posted:

Spencer's a loving idiot, so I'm not surprised he's denying Hydra's ties to the Nazis. Again though, I'm having a hard time seeing how a story where the Nazis literally rewrite reality, but still lose (obviously this might not be the case and Spencer might screw it up, in which case sorry guys) is somehow anti-semetic or pro-Nazi.

I might be misunderstanding it, but I think I really fundamentally disagree with your first point. If there are going to be any stakes to any story, then the villain has to be at least somewhat competent and successful. SE would be 100x worse than it already is if Nazi Cap was just a mustache twirling dipshit that1 lost over and over again for a year.

Maybe there's something I missed, but according to the summary stuff in SE#0 (which I just read, thanks to this thread) Red Skull used Kobik to rewrite reality so that Cap was always a Nazi. They're not retconning anything, especially since it's basically guaranteed he's going to beat up the top Nazi and go back to being a good guy in a few months.

The problem is the implications that the allies lost ww2 but rewrote it via a cube, you have that backwards.

There's also implications behind that such as the holocaust. And other major tragic events that aren't explained or even handled.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:17

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

frodnonnag posted:

The problem is the implications that the allies lost ww2 but rewrote it via a cube, you have that backwards.

There's also implications behind that such as the holocaust. And other major tragic events that aren't explained or even handled.

Okay so maybe I'm confused, but I was under the impression that all the reality warping was the result of Kobik and Red Skull. So the bit in SE#0 that shows the Allies rewriting WWII with the cosmic cube was actually in and of itself a rewrite of reality by Red Skull, which then makes all the weird poo poo involving the holocaust make a little more sense because a Nazi is responsible.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:24

Poor Miserable Gurgi: Dec 29, 2006; He's a wisecracker!

fadam posted:

Spencer's a loving idiot, so I'm not surprised he's denying Hydra's ties to the Nazis. Again though, I'm having a hard time seeing how a story where the Nazis literally rewrite reality, but still lose (obviously this might not be the case and Spencer might screw it up, in which case sorry guys) is somehow anti-semetic or pro-Nazi.

I might be misunderstanding it, but I think I really fundamentally disagree with your first point. If there are going to be any stakes to any story, then the villain has to be at least somewhat competent and successful. SE would be 100x worse than it already is if Nazi Cap was just a mustache twirling dipshit that lost over and over again for a year.

Maybe there's something I missed, but according to the summary stuff in SE#0 (which I just read, thanks to this thread) Red Skull used Kobik to rewrite reality so that Cap was always a Nazi. They're not retconning anything, especially since it's basically guaranteed he's going to beat up the top Nazi and go back to being a good guy in a few months.

According to Spencer, Red Skull wanted to "improve" Cap by making him HYDRA. Spencer has said what actually happened was Kobik returned him to his original state, which was a HYDRA double agent who had his identity erased in WWII when the Allies were the first to develop and use a cosmic cube to win the war that they had been losing. It may turn out that this isn't really the new Marvel continuity, and was just Kobik having to go all the way back to Cap's childhood in rewriting history to make him HYDRA. Or it may not, which means the 'real' history is that the Allies rewrote history to win but left the Holocaust.

Either way, one of the big problems I have right now is that Cap isn't really being written as a villain. Reading CA: Steve Rogers made him out to be a misled antihero, despite being thr set up to a story where he kills a bunch of people to create a fascist dictatorship.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:26

frodnonnag: Aug 13, 2007

fadam posted:

Okay so maybe I'm confused, but I was under the impression that all the reality warping was the result of Kobik and Red Skull. So the bit in SE#0 that shows the Allies rewriting WWII with the cosmic cube was actually in and of itself a rewrite of reality by Red Skull, which then makes all the weird poo poo involving the holocaust make a little more sense because a Nazi is responsible.

Right, a nazi is responsible, just not a comicbook supervillan.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:27

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

Poor Miserable Gurgi posted:

According to Spencer, Red Skull wanted to "improve" Cap by making him HYDRA. Spencer has said what actually happened was Kobik returned him to his original state, which was a HYDRA double agent who had his identity erased in WWII when the Allies were the first to develop and use a cosmic cube to win the war that they had been losing. It may turn out that this isn't really the new Marvel continuity, and was just Kobik having to go all the way back to Cap's childhood in rewriting history to make him HYDRA. Or it may not, which means the 'real' history is that the Allies rewrote history to win but left the Holocaust.

Either way, one of the big problems I have right now is that Cap isn't really being written as a villain. Reading CA: Steve Rogers made him out to be a misled antihero, despite being thr set up to a story where he kills a bunch of people to create a fascist dictatorship.

This was my impression. I'll concede that if the other interpretation turns out to be what actually happened, then Spencer really screwed up (more than usual, anyway) and the whole event is hosed.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:28

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

EDIT: Whoops, quote is not edit.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 01:30

Adun: Apr 15, 2001; Publicola; Fun Shoe

fadam posted:

This was my impression. I'll concede that if the other interpretation turns out to be what actually happened, then Spencer really screwed up (more than usual, anyway) and the whole event is hosed.

Event is hosed

# ? Apr 26, 2017 02:18

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

Adun posted:

Event is hosed

Yeah, but Skull rewrote history to make them rewrite it. The original non-rewritten history should still be the one we've had in comics for almost a century.

I hope so anyway.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 02:27

X-O: Apr 28, 2002; Long Live The King!

My understanding is that this scene with the Allies using the Cube isn't the actual reality, it's still the Kobik re-written reality and is the excuse for why Captain America was never working for Hydra interests until after his run in with Kobik during Pleasant Hill. Basically it's a band-aid for why all the Captain America stories from the last 50 years still happened exactly the same way even though his origin was hosed with by Kobik. It's a clumsy band-aid though.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 02:29

Manatee Cannon: Aug 26, 2010

I just think that turning cap into a nazi, even a fake one, is a real dumb thing to do unless you have some point to make by doing it,which I don't believe to be the case. I don't think the author has much to say here; this is just a really poorly timed shock value event designed to get people talking about marvel comics, even if what they have to say isn't exactly positive. that's all hydra cap has been to me so far and it's not a story line I'm interested in or appreciate much

# ? Apr 26, 2017 02:50

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Oh how I long for the days when the worst part of bringing back Young Cap was the dumb costume and shield.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:00

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

If this thing's gonna last all year, can we get a Secret Empire/gently caress Nick Spencer dedicated thread?

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:01

X-O: Apr 28, 2002; Long Live The King!

Teenage Fansub posted:

If this thing's gonna last all year, can we get a Secret Empire/gently caress Nick Spencer dedicated thread?

There's no need for a separate thread.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:01

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

Well, I'm sick of hearing about it one issue in, almost to the point of not wanting to open the thread.

I don't think anyone's mentioned that Nick Fury #1 and I don't think it was the comic's fault.
Spencer's eating up all the screen time.

Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Apr 26, 2017

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:05

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

Nick Fury #1 is so good you'd almost believe DC published it :banjo:

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:12

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

Well, it's pretty darn Midnighter thanks to ACO

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:14

Roth: Jul 9, 2016

Yeah, I loved Nick Fury. The art was really stylish, and it felt like a nice fun adventure.

Also pretty cool that it was about Nick Fury being up some Hydra goons.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:16

X-O: Apr 28, 2002; Long Live The King!

Teenage Fansub posted:

Well, I'm sick of hearing about it one issue in, almost to the point of not wanting to open the thread.

I don't think anyone's mentioned that Nick Fury #1 and I don't think it was the comic's fault.
Spencer's eating up all the screen time.

I mentioned Nick Fury and how awesome it was thank you very much.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:17

Roth: Jul 9, 2016

Also pretty bummed that Moon Knight seems to be ending soon. Not as much of a bummer as Nova, of course, but yeah.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:20

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

Lemire is departing. I'm into it ending over Cullen Bunn taking over or something.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:22

fadam: Apr 23, 2008

The whole book was great, but the title panel was my favorite:

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:22

Roth: Jul 9, 2016

Teenage Fansub posted:

Lemire is departing. I'm into it ending over Cullen Bunn taking over or something.

I've found Cullen Bunn's comics to be generally enjoyable, but I really doubt he could deliver anything like Lemire's run.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:23

rantmo: Jul 30, 2003; A smile better suits a hero

Nick Fury #1 was tight as hell, everything was basically perfect with it.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:36

SMP: May 5, 2009

What's up with nu-Nick Fury these days? Did the good as hell Ultimate Nick Fury survive the jump or are they sticking with the hilariously forced 616 black Fury?

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:36

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

It's

Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Apr 26, 2017

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:38

Blockhouse: Sep 7, 2014; You Win!

Teenage Fansub posted:

It's Nick jr.

is the villain of this book going to be Face

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:39

X-O: Apr 28, 2002; Long Live The King!

SMP posted:

What's up with nu-Nick Fury these days? Did the good as hell Ultimate Nick Fury survive the jump or are they sticking with the hilariously forced 616 black Fury?

It's the same 616 Fury that's been there for years.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:39

Manatee Cannon: Aug 26, 2010

so far as anyone knows, ultimate nick fury is as dead as the rest of his universe

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:58

bobkatt013: Oct 8, 2006; Youâre telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

Manatee Cannon posted:

so far as anyone knows, ultimate nick fury is as dead as the rest of his universe

Only 3 survivors from the ultimate world - Maker, Miles, and Wolverines son

# ? Apr 26, 2017 03:58

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

bobkatt013 posted:

Only 3 survivors from the ultimate world - Maker, Miles, and Wolverines son

Also Miles Father, Ganke, Boom Boom, and Miles Mother despite her already being dead.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 04:01

Manatee Cannon: Aug 26, 2010

thor's hammer is around too and someone picked it up recently. plus there was that guy from jessica jones that went crazy. oh, and bombshell (tho she's been used for literally nothing but cameos in miles' book a couple times). maybe more but idk

you can safely assume anyone that hasn't been specifically shown off as being dead, but they could always bring any of them in whenever they felt like it

# ? Apr 26, 2017 04:00

X-O: Apr 28, 2002; Long Live The King!

bobkatt013 posted:

Only 3 survivors from the ultimate world - Maker, Miles, and Wolverines son

Uh, Miles has a whole supporting cast that got transferred over.

Also there's a subplot in Jessica Jones about random people waking up in another universe after Secret Wars.

# ? Apr 26, 2017 04:01