Text 13392, 140 rader
Skriven 2007-04-09 06:39:27 av Vorlonagent (16837.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Attn JMS: The five stages of grief and  "FALLEN SON: THE  DEATH OF 
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"Carl" <cengman7@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:zOSdnSNFDrUMRIrbnZ2dnUVZ_syunZ2d@comcast.com...

>> It puts him in the same bind as Superman.  They're both anachronisms, 
>> throwbacks to a less-harsh way of looking at the world.  In postmodern 
>> thinking, especially the cynical stuff, nobility is an illusion of 
>> appearance, not a character attribute.  Innocence is equated to blindness 
>> and is not highly valued.  The comics companies naturally think that a 
>> postmodern Thor or Superman would sell better and look for ways to update 
>> the characters, none of which have worked that well.
>>
>
> Why does "Good" have to equate to blind or innocent?

It doesn't.  But it is often equated, especially by the hyperintellectual, 
world-wearly cynics out in the art world.  Innocence is considered to be not 
viewing the world "as it truly is".  The best therapy for such an individual 
is a dose of reality.  The last shread of noble knighthood in Spain, Don 
Quixote de La Mancha has to be confronted by the Knight of Mirrors and be 
reduced to his "real" state, a half-mad petty noble.

The real world does not welcome true good, it crucifies it.  Or if you 
prefer, puts a bullet through its head.

It's an old tale and an old problem.

Right now, we seem to have a taste for heroes that reflect the harsher world 
in which we live.  Our comics writers and artists certainly have a taste for 
reflecting it back to us.  I have a limited taste for that sort of stuff. 
Anything can be good if done with art and finesse.  I like Watchemen and 
Dark Knight Returns, but not most examples of style of writing that they 
spawned.

Alan Moore and Frank Miller led.  That's why their stuff is made into movies 
(not always good movies, mind you...).  Chris Cleremont led when he wrote 
X-Men.  That's why we see much of his plots and characters echoed in the 
X-Men movies, and very little of the 20-year welter of garbage that Marvel's 
mutant population has become.


> If comics evolved to an adult genre, then of course more sophisticated 
> themes have to be reflected.  I assume Marvel didn't employ JMS to write 
> fairy tales and children's books.  Still, if you're going to have a 
> universe with immortal gods, aliens and super powered beings, why is that 
> universe reduced to the the worst of the real world?  Can't a few be 
> noble?  Does everyone have to be dragged down even in comics?
>
> Is that why they killed Cap?

I am not 100% sure, but I am 85% sure.  Or maybe that stetement is 85% 
correct.  Yes.

Steve Rogers is out of touch with his times, perhaps hard to write for.  His 
is a world of right and wrong not shades of gray and the character isn't 
someone you can mold.  It's who he is.  Wolverine is cynical enough to 
massage to fit the moment.  He's easy to write for.  Ideally, so would a 
Captain Wolverine America.   The fact that Wolverine couldn't get a spark 
out of a green lantern ring powered by genuine nobility is not important.

There are potential politcial commentary overtones to Civil War and Captain 
America's death, also, as there is with much that passes for art right now.


>> Comics used to belive in Santa Claus but somewhere drifted over the line 
>> and kept going.  Put another way, the Punisher today has the same 
>> attitudes and methods as when he was a Spider-man villain.  He didn't 
>> change but the world did, making him a hero now.
>
> So the Marvel universe is filled with super-powered, postmodern, 
> everything is gray types.
> A hero is a villian is a hero...it just depends on from the perspective 
> you're looking at it from.

You got it.


> Give Paris Hilton a bra that shoots energy bolts and she's an Avenger?

Only if she sells.

You gotta admit there'd be plenty of room for equipment...


>> If you haven't read DC's "Kindom Come", I highly recommend it.  One of 
>> its subtexts is a discussion of exactly this tendency in comics.
>>
>>>>> I heard that now Iron Man has become an egomaniacal control freak?
>>>>
>>>> I'm hoping it will turn out to be the alternate-universe Tony Stark but 
>>>> yes. He was the driving force behind the registration law that 
>>>> triggered the civil war.
>>>>
>>>> Pity too.  I liked Iron Man too.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Are there any good guys left?
>>>>
>>>> I'm afraid you'll have to define that.
>>>
>>> Cap's dead.  Iron Man seems to have lost some of the shine on his
>>> armor.  Thor had been reduced to a powerful butt-kicker before
>>> his rest.  I don't think they'd make Spiderman a bad guy (way too
>>> popular and making money in movies), but if Marvel decided that
>>> Thor couldn't even be noble (or did you say "Moral") then who
>>> in the Marvel universe stands for anything?    Is there any character 
>>> that's
>>> looked on as anything more someone in a costume with powers?
>>
>> I don't know.
>>
>> Spider-man's probably as close as you get.
>>
>> Everybody else seems as lost in the postmodern world as the readers of 
>> comics often are.
>
> Well, Marvel apparently has enough readers that like this direction.

Plenty that buy it at least.  And many of those don't realize there's 
anything else.

Soceity will rediscover nobility.  It may not be our society, but *a* 
society will.  No dark age lasts forever.  Nor any period of 
hyper-intellectual, self-satisfied cynicism.


-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent

"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."

"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones
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