Ultimates #12

[history79]

Comments

[thehood]

Really liked this issue.

By the way, does this mean Carol is admitting she was in the wrong?

[erikred]

Since this is written by Al Ewing and not BMB, magic 8-ball says no, or rather, not in a way that will stick.

[thehood]

Except this issue is set after the final issue of Civil War II, so BM isn't a factor, he won't be writting Carol after that.

[erikred]

...also a good point.

[burkeonthesly]

I'm just going to be tickled for a while by how appropriate it is to refer to him as BM. I must be a third grader or something.

[owlbrigade1]

It would have been more effective if it had been Carol instead of Doom. Everyone knows Doom likes to hop on the facist overlord express every so often, there is no impact there with Doom just having done what Dooms inevitably do.

Having it be Carol though, one who always wanted it to be for the greater good and got there by a series of incremental steps, all reasonable on their own, each only slightly more stringent than the one before it, all showing you can climb Mount Doom in a thousand tiny on a stair paved with good intentions. That even a saint can become a devil if they don't watch what they are doing. That would have been much more effective.

The old if we do X, is it so unreasonable we take it a tiny bit further and do Y, and if we do Y why is it so unreasonable to do Z when it is only a little more, and so on. That is what needs to be explained with this sort of storytelling. Just hauling out a generic dictatorship and saying, yeah okay you had good intentions but here is what a bad guy does is more likely to reinforce the beliefs of the person who claims that because their intentions are good then no bad outcome is possible from them.

Okay, I'm ranting now, sorry.

[scorntx]

Well, America does say she's showing Carol this to give her something to punch, not to prove a point.

[thehood]

It was both, it was to show her how bad things could have gotten and to give her something to punch.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I think the point is less that "Doom's gonna Doom" and more that for good or ill, Carol won't be around forever, and there's always the next guy to worry about. In this case, she basically paved the road for said next guy to take over via her methods and infrastructure.

[owlbrigade1]

Maybe I'm cynical, but I always think that you don't need to worry about the next guy not when the person in the job already can still end up abusing the power just as badly through a series of small steps. I've seen it happen too many times and in too many places. I think saying that one person is fine because they have good intentions but the next guy might be worse lets person one off the hook too much and dilutes the message. Only comic book villains leap into facism in one step, in the real world we tip-toe into it all on our own and I think CW2 was the perfect missed opportunity to show that.

[lyricalswagger]

It's pretty much the same argument that Gruenwald made in Squadron Supreme. You can't rely upon society being able to use the tools you gave them just because you thought you were acting responsibly.

[coldfury]

Damn, Ewing just used the old Squadron Supreme argument on Civil War II, which I hadn't even thought of. It's the one that Nighthawk used to demonstrate why the Squadron taking over the Earth was a bad idea.

Boiled down:

Even if you set aside all the arguments for why all these things are a very bad idea, which is a very big if, and accept them on the basis of trusting the person in charge. It boils down to the only check and balance being the person in charge. You have this terrible thing that people DO NOT AGREE ON, and the person's argument boils down to "Come on, it's me, would I really let it get that bad?" "What about the next person?"

That's a great take.

[burkeonthesly]

Wasn't that also the underwriting theme of Dark Reign in the wake of the first Civil War? "Okay, so Tony's in charge of SHIELD now, and he can protect his friends' identities, which was his secret plan from the start (maybe?)... but he's just been ousted, and now the Next Guy in the big chair is Norman Frickin' Osborn." As great as Chavez made her argument with this alternate world that's a little farther down the slippery slope, couldn't it have been made just as well with the phrase, "hey, remember a couple years ago?"

[thehood]

Wouldn't have worked as well. Plus Carol asked her to take her 5o this universe.

[stolisomancer]

It's probably more of a Charlemagne argument, really.

[lyricalswagger]

I am 99.44% sure this was a deliberate callback to Squadron Supreme.

[starwolf_oakley]

There was something like this in CABLE AND DEADPOOL during CIVIL WAR. Only Cable and Deadpool went to talk to George W Bush.

[scorntx]

Cable went to talk to Dubya.
Deadpool went to the toilet.
(Hey, you try being cocooned in duct tape for hours, see what happens!)

Then Dubya was all "yeah, don't care, that's Future America's problem".

[lieut_kettch]

America, you don't hit Carol with CHAIRS. You hit her with CARS.

[scorntx]

You hit her with a car if you wanna take her out.
America was just making a point.