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Why not ask him to do something easier -- like not breathing?

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Whether or not she was an actual supermodel, there is no doubt that she is considered one of the most beautiful women in the MU.

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The supermodel element is but one of the things that rob Parker of his "everyman" status. He is also a famous photojournalist.

Matt - "I better stop on the Spider-Man discussion lest Dave Phelps joins in and it's an all-out war!"

Nah.  Not in the mood.  But thanks for thinking of me. :-)

QUOTE: Stripped of the authoritarian mechanisms of State Communism and put in an "opposition role", however, Communism presents itself as completely egalitarian (i.e. opposed to sexist, racist or nationalist agendas) , anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and somewhat anarchic. Not unlike the groups protesting the WTO, eco-terrorists and the like. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Communist bigwigs transformed themselves into oligarchs and "privatized" national industry into their own hands. Most of them were post-ideological and only preoccupied with the power they attained from being "Communist". As they were able to retain or reclaim power after communism, there would be no need to seek to reassert communism, as that would actually deprive them of the benefits of ownership that they now enjoyed.

The same sort of rent seeking behavior can be applied to any group in power.  There were plenty of Nazis who joined the party only to gain power after Hitler seized control of the government.  The top leadership though was always ideologically based.  None of this has anything to do with comic book villainy.

Stripped of power, Communists remain what they have always been - a violent revolutionary group who will not hesitate to murder and kill.  Which is traditionally how modern Nazis are portrayed.

QUOTE: Also, for the rich and powerful there is no psychological incentive to embrace an ideology that basically tells them they're parasites and should divest themselves of their wealth and power.

I don't understand what the rich and powerful have to do with anything?  Besides, there have been plenty of "fellow travellers" in the rich and powerful who were affiliated with Communism.  Plenty of lawyers, artists, academics, doctors, and other elites were sympathetic and even agents.  Even rich people were supporters like Armand Hammer.

Besides, historically the great barons of capitalism in Germany did not support Hitler except a few who did so for other reasons.  National Socialism is almost as hostile to free enterprise as Communism even though Hitler turned down much of that rhetoric as the price of taking power.

QUOTE: Nazism, however, would flatter them with an ideology of "specialness and purpose".

Communism has similar psychological benefits to the people who adhere to it.  The idea that you are part of a special vanguard at the forefront of history.

QUOTE: Communism bestows no benefits on their leadership (such as most super-villains would crave) except when it's a mass movement that is at the control of a state. The only time a vast and secret communist conspiracy was able to sustain itself was in the fight against fascism from the Spanish Civil War to the end of WWII. After that external enemy was defeated, the Communist Resistance drifted apart. And even then, those people were motivated to oppose the unbearable prospect of fascism, not by a desire for totalitarian rule or to establish themselves in superior positions.

It depends on the nature of the super-villain.  Those whose concern were purely monetary or benefit derived would not be attracted.  But not everyone who can be labeled a villain desires that.  There are people who are not influenced by wealth, but by their vision of the world and want to create it, even though it means they must (temporarily to be hoped) suffer for it.  Magneto is a classic example of a villain with an ideological bent.  If all he wanted was money or power, he could easily portray himself differently than as a leader of an underground mutant force.  One could create any number of similar ideological villains of radical left wing politics.

QUOTE: White Power groups, however, seem to have unlimited staying power.

Yes, but as a distinct fringe.  And as yourself said, the same politics (and sometimes pathology) that inspired Communism in the past is behind much of the anti-globalization movement, eco-terrorism, and other fringe groups that sometimes resort to violence.  There is nothing inherently more evil about the radical right than the radical left.  People who are attracted to violence and millenarian apocalyptic scenarios belong to both groups.  For every right wing terror group that can be named, I can easily name left wing terror groups like those that plunged much of Europe into terrorism in the 1970s.

QUOTE: What I'm saying is that just because Nazism and Communism were both bad, does not mean that they can be used the same way in fiction. They are widely disparate philosophies whose only similarity is the basic structures and self-sustaining policies of an authoritarian system, which can also be seen in other dictatorships and theocratic rule.

Except that they can both be used.  It is only cliched thinking and political correctness that accepts that Nazis are somehow still a legitimate villain but that Communism or radical left wing political moments are not.

QUOTE: Once you remove the framework of the Authoritarian State from them, they behave quite differently

Then how exactly did Communists come to rule an authoritarian state in the first place?  Why did these people create dictatorships in every country they seized power in - embrace mass murder, gulags, and totalitarian censorship?

Most of the classic Marvel Communist villains are heavily indebted to the governments which sponsored them.  It's probably best that most of them be portrayed as remaining agents of those governments rather than the ideology they once represented.  This at least is easy to do as long as Russia is run by someone as loathsome as Putin.  It was a bit harder when people viewed the Russian government as making mistakes, but sincerely attempting to liberalize.

But this doesn't mean that all past Communist villains are best served that way.  Instead, they could become part of some "secret global conspiracy" of radical left wing politics, perhaps even affiliated to some degree with those countries who still remain Communist. 

Whether we like to admit it or not, there are still plenty of people who are willing to excuse the tyranny of the Cuban government, act as apologists for Hug Chavez destroying Venezuela, and even justify the North Korean government.

There is no reason why a talented, creative writer could not create a convincing series of such villains.

MJ was an established, successful model at the time of her marraige to Peter. Her sister's kids mention seeing her on TV in pantyhose commercials. (Aunt May must not have been tuned to that channel...) She mentions at one point that Calvin requested her specially for a shoot as she is his favorite model, and is seen rushing to a limo he has sent for her. Bruce from Hollywood gives her a ferrari with plane tickets to his villa in the South of France in the glovebox to convince her not to marry Peter. Famous designer Willi Smith sends her an original gown as a wedding gift. Her send-off party is held at "a private uptown club, an exclusive jet-set mecca where the rich and famous gather to honor one of their own..."

Peter himself laments, "Sometimes I forget the world Mary Jane is used to, the glamour, the excitement, the money..."

Peter himself soon came out with a successful coffee-table book of his photography and for a time, the two were in the chips. 

MJ's career took a nosedive when she rejected the advances of an obsessive billionaire who put the kibosh on her high-class fashion work and had them kicked out of their posh upscale apartment.

The writers may have later contrived to inflict the couple with the "old Parker luck," but MJ was a living the high life at the time of their marraige.

Peter did in fact marry a supermodel.

"Then how exactly did Communists come to rule an authoritarian state in the first place? "

Every major communist coup has its roots in a reaction to oppressive right wing or aristocratic tyranny resulting in a mass uprising. Now, these mass uprisings were not "communist" per se. They were revolts against unbearable conditions. Communists assumed leadership and provided an alternative that seemed to answer grievances.

Right-wing coups, however, tend to overthrow democracies.

"Why did these people create dictatorships in every country they seized power in - embrace mass murder, gulags, and totalitarian censorship?"

In Communism it's called "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat". In theocratic and right-wing ideologies it has different names. It's about rooting out "wrong-thinking" people. In the US it was called McCarthyism, though luckily that didn't get as far as mass murder.

I'm not excusing communism, but it's not really as you describe it.

"Communism has similar psychological benefits to the people who adhere to it.  The idea that you are part of a special vanguard at the forefront of history."

To rich people? No. To rich people, communism (or even socialism) takes the form of what some call "liberal guilt". A sense of having wealth, power, privilege and not "deserving it", and compensating through commitment to a socialist agenda (whereby they, in their own minds,  become "deserving" of their wealth, power and privilege). You find a lot of this with Christian Socialists.  

"National Socialism is almost as hostile to free enterprise as Communism even though Hitler turned down much of that rhetoric as the price of taking power."

National Socialism isn't hostile to Free Enterprise per se. It has an elitist world view in which the excellence of the succesful individual is celebrated just as much as in capitalism. The conflict was that capitalism has a global perspective and places profit above national needs. The Nazis needed a strong national industry and they needed to create a stable middle-class. For companies, profits would be most important, so placing jobs and factories in other countries or trying to squeeze wages down to the minimum would be in their best interests. That is the conflict.

The problem the Nazis had with businessmen wasn't based on anti-capitalism (Elitism, competition etc. were all cherished parts of Nazi ideology) but on nationalism. It's the same as when any modern politician would complain about jobs going overseas, illegal aliens in the workforce or the vanishing of the middle class due to a loss of jobs or a lowering of the real wage.

Don't let the word "socialism" in "National Socialism" fool you. It is not in any way related to other forms of socialism.

"Historically, Communism was a "secret global conspiracy" whose adherents often kept their membership secret while Nazis and Fascists were quite open about their intent. "

Mainly because communist ideas were cracked down on quite heavily and fascist ideas were widely accepted. But another thing history has shown us is that communists were often so contrarian and anti-authoritarian that they would split into smaller and smaller factions constantly at odds with eachother. With communist regimes, however, there were sufficient "pragmatists" that it was possible to create large groups willing to take orders and get along.

And let us not forget that for a long time in the 30s and 40s, it was a vital necessity for communists to stay secret. And in the 40s to 60s, even the most peaceful communists were ostracized, blacklisted and persecuted. Not for their actions but for their words and political beliefs. In ways that right-wing extremists were not.

Yes, communists and nazis could be equally violent, but they operate in a different context. Nazis celebrate wealth, power and an ideal of a pure white race. Communists rail against wealth and power and promote the ideal of global communism.

Stripped of the war machine of a totalitarian Communist State, communists are hard to distinguish from animal rights activists, eco-terrorists, war protesters, anti-corruption or anti-WTO protesters. And in countries that still have small communist parties, that's often where they recruit.

Stripped of State power, Nazis are hard to distinguish from Neo-Nazis, White Power groups, the Ku Klux Klan, Anti-government militias and various hate groups.

That is the difficulty of modern portrayals of communist villains. If you say "White Power" you don't need to explain how that makes someone a villain. If you say "Eco-terrorist" you need to explain how you use the term and exactly how they're a villain.