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Juan Jose Colin Arciniega
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6413
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| Posted: 18 March 2009 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | 1
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I have never read Squadron Supreme!
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Deepak Ramani
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 85
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 6:26am | IP Logged | 2
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Ed Aycock wrote:
| Of course,
Moore never says that Veidt's plan would work in the long run. |
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Moore goes to considerable lengths to show that it might not work. There is every attempt to equate Veidt with the marooned sailor from the pirate comic, there is the comment that "nothing ever ends," and there is the final scene with the smiley face hovering over Rorschah's diary.
None of this means that Veidt's plot will be discovered, but Moore is certainly providing reasons to think it's not nearly as infallible as Veidt thinks it is.
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Al Cook
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Posts: 12736
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 6:52am | IP Logged | 3
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QUOTE:
I think I read that Alan Moore's whole reasoning behind the
Watchmen was that he thought the concept of heroes is a dangerous one.
That there are only people, that do some good and some bad things
throughout their lives, and to put any perosn on a pedestal and "hero-
worship" them is a bad idea. |
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Which makes him exactly the wrong person to be writing superhero comics.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133318
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 7:31am | IP Logged | 4
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A rot that has been infecting superhero comics for a long time now: I
cannot conceive of characters who are more noble than / am!
Sadly, it infects pros and fans alike.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7786
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 7:32am | IP Logged | 5
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If I lived in Metropolis (remember, that was a stipulation in my earlier post) I think I'd probably expect Superman to care as much about my loved ones as he does for his own
************************************************************ ************************
Why? Superman does as much as he can to help civilians but to begrudge him a personal life and all that brings - priorities - is a bit unfair.
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Fred J Chamberlain
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4036
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 7:36am | IP Logged | 6
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>A rot that has been infecting superhero comics for a long time now: I
cannot conceive of characters who are more noble than / am!
Wow. I can't conceive of a Peter Parker who didn't mess up, make some big mistakes, yet remain more noble than I, that I would be interested in reading about.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133318
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 7:41am | IP Logged | 7
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If I lived in Metropolis (remember, that was a stipulation in my earlier post)
I think I'd probably expect Superman to care as much about my loved ones
as he does for his own
++
Why? Superman does as much as he can to help civilians but to begrudge
him a personal life and all that brings - priorities - is a bit unfair.
••
Why would you assume Superman has a "personal life"? Batman, Green
Lantern, Green Arrow, the Flash, Hawkman, etc, run around with masks on.
Obviously they are hiding a portion of their lives. Superman appears in
public with his face exposed for all to see. Logically -- without knowing
things the readers know but the characters don't -- he must be Superman
all the time.
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Fred J Chamberlain
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4036
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 7:43am | IP Logged | 8
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Exactly. Many characters in the DC universe have assumed that Superman was Superman all of the time over the years.
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Wayde Murray
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 October 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 3115
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 8:29am | IP Logged | 9
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James wrote:
Superman does as much as he can to help civilians but to begrudge him a personal life and all that brings - priorities - is a bit unfair.
As I said earlier, yes, absolutely, it would be unfair to Superman. But so what? Try this. Imagine yourself in the situation I'm describing: you live in Metropolis, Superman is an everyday part of your existence, and you lose your child to an accident (she dies trapped in a fire, or by going over a cliff in a schoolbus, or any of a hundred different things that you've read in the Daily Planet that Superman deals with on a regular, ongoing basis). Your child just died, and Superman didn't do anything to save her. You're telling me that you would be okay with Superman being treated as a beloved hero, that you would chalk your kid's death up to just being "one of those things"? That you would rationalize it as acceptable because he was probably busy that day? Really?
I think that if Superman existed in a "real world" setting, anyone who ever had a tragedy occur in their lives would be upset that Superman didn't help them. This would become bitterness when they read or heard about Superman helping someone else, then it would become anger when Superman was hailed as a hero. After all, he's no hero to you and your family. Multiply that perfectly reasonable emotion by the number of tragedies that Superman couldn't possibly prevent, and you'd end up with a sizable portion of the population hating him for what he didn't do, as opposed to praising him for what he did do.
This doesn't even take into account the unreasonable people who would blame him for not preventing the economic downturn that led to their factory laying them off, or blaming him for the cancer they suffer because they think it was caused by him flying around shooting his X-Ray vision all over the place.
One of the necessary conceits of the form is that superheroes are viewed as heroes by the general public living in the superhero universe. Apply the slightest bit of cynicism to that and the whole structure falls apart, because reasonable people in that universe would find fault with what the hero didn't do, and unreasonable people would blame the hero for the things they imagined they had done. There can't be a "man behind the curtain" in this. In fact, there can't even be a curtain. Putting superheroes in the "real world" destroys them as heroes completely.
Edited by Wayde Murray on 19 March 2009 at 8:31am
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 8:59am | IP Logged | 10
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Whether I assume he has one or not, I still wouldn't begrudge him a personal life. Nor would I blame him for everything, possibly because I get pretty irked by a blame culture anyway. Case in point - someone trips on a pavement and then sues the council. Come on, watch where you are going.
Reasonable people would celebrate the good that has come from heroic actions. Unreasonable people would do anything less.
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David Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 9:20am | IP Logged | 11
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Wayde Murray wrote:
| One of the necessary conceits of the form is that superheroes are
viewed as heroes by the general public living in the superhero universe. Apply the slightest bit of cynicism to that and the whole structure
falls apart, because reasonable people in that universe would find
fault with what the hero didn't do, and unreasonable people would blame
the hero for the things they imagined they had done. |
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Be careful about throwing around these kind of blanket "rules." Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater, I'd suggest reading some forty year-old comics such as Spider-man and X-Men. Slight cynicism, slight tweaking of genre conceits, and slight irreverence are part of what made Stan Lee's stories so interesting.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133318
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 9:31am | IP Logged | 12
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Whether I assume he has one or not, I still wouldn't begrudge him a
personal life.
••
Now you're changing the equation.
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Topic Closed)
