Captain America and Magneto on bigotry, and freedom of thought.

[ozaline]

From X-men vs Avengers. Scans taken from this blog

Comments

[beardedjellybean]

That's right Magneto, not every human being is a dick.

[freezer]

It's 616!Marvel. Yes they are.

[beardedjellybean]

.........Yeah I forgot about that. Steve Rogers at least is not a dick.

[ozaline]

Hail Hydra!

[freezer]

If that whole mess doesn't turn out to be Red Skull-induced shenanigans, I shall be (more) upset.

[ozaline]

I'm sure it is.

[beardedjellybean]

Shit. Ahhhhhh, Peter Parker isn't a dick?

[kalanyr]

One More Day.

[beardedjellybean]

I still think Joe Quesada was the biggest dick of all in that situation but yeah I see your point. Ummmmmm ok, Kamala Khan might make some bad decisions but she's way to nice to be a dick.

[kalanyr]

I really can't disagree with the Joe Quesada part at all.

[ozaline]

Kamala is Inhuman these days Inhuman is code word for "mutants that Disney owns the film rights to," therefore she can not be held up as an example of a non-dickish homo sapiens.

MJ really wanted out....

[7dialsmystery]

...so can you blame Peter for wanting his mother-figure back?

[ozaline]

Peter is kinda a dick, all those "pranks," he pulled on JJ

[beardedjellybean]

Yeah ok I can't really argue with that, but in fairness JJ is a worse dick even if he isn't that bad of a guy.

[freezer]

Pete can be a dick. But (mostly) only to those who have it coming.

[espanolbot]

His uncle died because he was a dick to a security guard. You'd have thought that Peter would have learnt his lesson after that.

[hotfoot]

You're right, he should have arrested JJ for creating what was it, three different super-villains?

Pretty sure JJ is responsible for some assaults, property damage, etc.

[ozaline]

Sure JJ can be awful too but webbing him to his chair snd stuff doesn't make the world safer.

[tigerkaya]

No.

[sadoeuphemist]

That honestly doesn't seem like it proves anything at all. An anti-mutant bigot can believe that it's wrong to mess with people's minds, and then still maintain the same position even after his bigotry has been removed. Captain America could have easily been a huge bigot, for all Magneto knows.

[ozaline]

It proves the opinion wasn't just informed by hatred and a desire to hold onto that hatred though.

[sadoeuphemist]

I don't see how that matters, though. No one's opinion is informed solely by hatred. Even a hardcore bigot is going seek out information that reinforces their viewpoint. You could imagine an anti-mutant bigot who gathers incidents of mutants being destructive. And then even if you magically remove all their bigotry, all the information they're aware of is still going to point towards the conclusion that mutants are destructive.

[ozaline]

Okay cause Magneto thought Cap couldn't possibly think ending bigotry was a bad idea unless he, himself, was a bigot... but then he saw he was wrong. simple!

[sadoeuphemist]

Yeah I'm saying this is real dumb logic on Magneto's part.

[super_fly]

So I guess Magneto was a big fan fan of Evel Knievel back in the day.

[laughing_tree]

Interestingly, this series' ending was altered by editorial interference. In the planned version, Magneto secretly did use the mind control technology, but only to influence the world courts to pardon him during his trial. The series ended with him harboring the secret that he'd done so. This was the period when Magneto was reformed, so to readers (and to Magneto himself) it would have been an ominous sign that he might be beginning to backslide. Claremont nixed that ending, not being a fan of it.

[janegray]

And thank goodness for it, that alt ending sounds terrible. The one they ended up using is much better.

[laughing_tree]

How so?

[janegray]

Because I think an ending that focuses on character development and pushes the story forward with a genuine take on redemption and atonement is infinitely better than an ending that can be basically boiled down to "lol, you thought all the things he went through changed his mind and convinced him to become a better person in an impressive redemption arch that gave you powerful emotions, but silly reader we can't have that, Status Quo Is God!"

[laughing_tree]

Do you realize that even in the published version Magneto ends up using mind control on the world court to get them to let him go?

[janegray]

...Really?

Welp, that goes it then. I always thought they let him go because of legit reasons (like he was instrumental to defeat a worse villain or something), I had no idea mind control was involved.

:(((

[icon_uk]

He did defend the court against an attack by the Fenris twins (Who were framing him for various mutant attacks), and also later defended an unconscious Fenris against a rock wielding, slightly hated-fuelled Jim Jaspers, so he was acting relatively heroically at the time.

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

That was the first trial of Magneto back in Uncanny X-Men #199 & #200.

I've been bingeing my way through the back catalog of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men and just yesterday listened to the episode talking about the series these scans came from.

[icon_uk]

Yup, that's the one.

Jay and Miles is well worth a binge, one of the few podcasts I follow (and not just because they have a definite fondness for Doug and Warlock, though that certainly helps),

[icon_uk]

Well, influence certainly, but not quite mind control. (It's a Claremont comic, there's a difference between the two)

He removed the mutant bigotry from one of the judges who was clearly anti-mutant in their attitude, but he did not alter the judges memories, freedom of choice, or understanding of the facts of the case. So the decision to acquit him was one that was reached by fair and equitable assessment of the evidence, without influence by irrational hatred.

The moral dilemma Magneto was left with was that he would now never know if he would have been acquitted WITHOUT the removal of the bigotry, whether the judge COULD have overcome their baser reactions.

[janegray]

He removed the mutant bigotry from one of the judges who was clearly anti-mutant in their attitude, but he did not alter the judges memories, freedom of choice, or understanding of the facts of the case. So the decision to acquit him was one that was reached by fair and equitable assessment of the evidence, without influence by irrational hatred.

Oh! That's different then, and much much better! Thank you :D

[ozaline]

Also that judge was itching for a war between humans and mutants, and and Magneto assumed a guilty verdict was going to spark that war, but at the end he realized an acquittal was also fanning the flames of hatred, so he wasn't sure if he had impacted the sentence, and if he did if he had not brought the world one step closer to a race war because of it.

[laughing_tree]

Well, uh, for certain values "fair and equitable assessment of the evidence."





(Images taken from http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/x-men_vs_the_avengers_1-4.shtml)

[zylly]

I like to imagine most of the people in the crowd are going "...that explanation doesn't make any sense!"

[locuatico]

Cap may be HYDRA but that doesn't mean he discriminates. His hatred of humanity is equal :)

[stubbleupdate]

What we should learn from the racists

[panelsarewindows]

I was wondering about this actually, given all the hubbub that's arisen from the reveal, are Hydra still actually Nazis? It was my belief that they were more using the nazi regime for their own purposes in the comics, and that's definitely how it's portrayed in the MCU. I'm not saying Hydra are GOOD by any stretch of course, it's just I've seen many people saying 'Caps now a Nazi' or how the new issue is anti-Semitic, amd I was wondering how much truth there was to that.

[locuatico]

They are nazies. the comics may want to pretend they are a fascist cult older than nazism. they are still nazies (or to put it another way: instead of being the deviation of a real-life fascist group. they are a fictional fascist group that allied itself with a real-life fascist cult). Marvel may want to spin it any way they want. they made Cap a Nazi.

[deh_tommy]

Technically speaking, Steve Rogers apparently supports a group that once supported Nazis, like the Russians and Japanese did.

[locuatico]

Because Marvel decided to change HYDRA to som sort of "ancient group". in practical terms, they still nazies. i don't care how much Marvel wants to pretend their retcon of them not being "really" nazies has validity. HYDRA are nazies.

Granted, I'm biased towards the new comic, but still

[deh_tommy]

I think that Hydra, in comics, have stopped being Nazis a long time ago and are now more akin to a grassroots terrorist cell, usually recruiting new members from the downtrodden and disenfranchised than using overt brainwashing or proper propaganda.

That probably doesn't make anything better, but still.