Black Panther: World Tour - Part 4

[history79]

Comments

[crinos]

See, this just makes me want to do a My hero Academia crossover where Japan looks at all this bullshit going on in the US, then looks at their country with their like 2% crime rate thanks to All Might, and they're like "Hey, any of you American Heroes want to relocate over here we'd be happy to have you."

Then cue a mass fucking exodus of heroes to Japan while America gets conquered by HYDRA in like a week.

[spider_man6]

That is legit a great idea and a fantastic meta way to criticize all of the "geniuses" who supported the act. I may actually want to write this now.

[crinos]

I'm actually working on this big crossover fanfic with a bunch of different hero franchises, and trying to build it so the history works in real time.

Basically this universe includes the Incredibles, so basically Civil War is what caused Bob and Helen and a bunch of other heroes to retire. The Avengers split up, each with their own teams. The Justice League went international and became a UN institution, Wonder Woman reminds the US Government she's an ambassador, Superman renounces his US citizenship and declares himself "A citizen of the world", Batman formed the Outsiders and was like "You want me? come find me."

And of course Japan takes a look at All Might and is like "Yeah you know what good luck with all that noise."

Of course my version makes the whole thing a bit more civil: The Avengers never really come to blows, no heroes brawling in the streets, not Clor, no gulags, no supervillain hit squads. But as a result Japan becomes the big epicenter of super hero activity alongside the US. And of course eventually the registration laws get relaxed, it becomes less "You HAVE to register" and more "If you register you get all these perks like Government backing, equipment, protection from liability, etc). The Avengers reunite, the Justice League goes back to being an American institution, The Incredibles and other heroes come out of hiding and begin operating again.

[buxnalaus]

Isn't one of the key points of My Hero Academia that everyone is registered, though?
If anything, the government of Japan would be giving Tony and SHIELD pointers on how to best institute government mandated registration, testing, and licensing of all supers.

[spider_man6]

I guess, but at least they don't need to publicly reveal their identities, right?

[buxnalaus]

I don't think so, no. Or at least the heroes work in tandem with local police, who protect their loved ones and families.

But the Registration Act didn't require anyone to publically reveal their ID either. Spider-Man just did that because the crossover was poorly written.

Ultimately though, the world of My Hero Academia is one that is unabashedly Pro-Registration and routinely extols the virtues of that through its narrative.

[crinos]

Well secret Identities aren't really a thing in MHA. I think the closest is All Might keeping his small form a secret because he doesn't want to disappoint his fans.

As for registration, yeah its a thing, but in a lot of cases the heroes seem to just look the other way on unregistered heroes. I mean in Vigilantes (the spin off prequel) we see Eraser, Ingenium, and a bunch of other heroes working alongside vigilante hero Slider and his friends without really a passing comment on it.

[mastermahan]

The reason for secret identities is still there, though. Nana Shimura could have used one.

[crinos]

Well she did try and protect her kid by giving them up for adoption, but that ended up going really badly for everyone for reasons I wont get into because they are massive spoilers.

[zachbeacon]

They're registered in the sense that most people are registered. Your powers might show up on a background check or medical records but otherwise people just like their lives.

Unlicensed vigilantes are still illegal but no one is getting drafted or arrested just for HAVING powers like in Civil War.

[commodus]

Isn't MHA one of those things were 99% of the characters are children?

[crinos]

Well the focus is on the kids, but there are plenty of adult characters as well: The teachers at their school (who are all professional heroes in their own right) the various local heroes who the kids have apprenticeships under, just local heroes who are around, and of course the top ten heroes (Most of whom have just shown up briefly, but a few of them, such as the rabbit girl Miriko, have gotten their own badass moments in the comics).

[locuatico]

anime? yes.

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, I don't think Japan is a likely country to invite a whole lot of foreigners - superpowered or not - to come and live there.

[donnblake]

This should, probably, be something akin to a declaration of war between the US and Wakanda. But then, they've let Latverian heads of state get away with considerably worse. (Well, one in particular).

I do wonder what the people of Wakanda think of their king declaring that he's going to go live in the US until they get all their nonsense sorted.

[crinos]

Well I mean its not like its the first time T'challa has just moved to America to deal with this stuff. I presume there's some sort of council or parliament or the like that runs things while T'challa is off super heroing, and he just checks in once a day to make sure everything is still running and to handle king stuff. I mean its the digital age I imagine he can Discord most of that stuff.

[deh_tommy]

Why did no one other than Mark Millar actually seemingly want to portray both sides fairly? Iron Man and the Pro-Regs were nowhere near as vile in the actual book as they were in the Civil War tie-ins.

[zachbeacon]

Mark Millar's book had the Pro-Reg side using an illegal prison, a super villain army, and a faulty Thor clone.

Plus he showed Hill trying to arrest Cap BEFORE the law was passed.

[jlbarnett]

the thing I heard was, the writers thought the pro-reg side was so obviously right they needed to give the anti-reg side some points. Only it turned out almost no writers really thought it was a good idea, and even the fans who agreed with the pro-regs in theory thought actually doing it was a terrible idea so the pro-regs end up looking like monsters

[crinos]

The problem is that they put Captain America on the Anti Reg side.

Any side that has Captain America on it is automatically the right side. He's the moral compass of the Marvel Universe (Usually, when he's not being turned into a Hydra agent by cosmic cube bullshit).

Its kind of like how all those stories where Superman goes bad end with the world going south for everyone. Superman is the moral compass of his world. I recently reread the original Superman vs. the Elite story, and I remember that Manchester Black's reaction to Superman pretending to snap and kill his team was to break down crying at the horror of Superman going bad. Manchester Black, the most cynical, hard hearted smug, "you're an out of touch old dream" guy in the room, and he breaks down crying at the thought of a Superman who kills, because deep down even he can't believe he would do such a thing.

A world where Captain America or Superman are in the moral wrong is a world that has some serious problems, and that's not just me saying that you can see it in those worlds where they DO go bad.

[zachbeacon]

I think initially they counter it a bit by having Spider-Man on the other side but ultimately it made the Pro-Reg side look worse. OMD/BND editorial meddling not withstanding, I see Spider-Man as a guy who will always do the right thing ... eventually.

If Spidey and Cap are on opposite sides of the conflict then you have a story where there are no good guys or bad guys.

If Spidey changes sides in the middle of the conflict and joins Cap then its a story about how Spidey was tricked by the villains but joined the heroes after seeing the error of his ways.

[crinos]

Well the thing is, Spidey is always gonna be that dumb kid who looks before he leaps. It doesn't matter how old he gets or how mature he actually is, that's public perception of him, that's how the writers see him, ultimately that's how they want him to be too (remember this was the lead up to one more day for Spidey, since the writers felt him being married made him "too old" and thus unrelatable, and hoo boy did Enter the Spiderverse put the lie to that theory by giving us the most relatable Peter Parker ever in the form of doughy mid life crisis divorced garbage person Peter B Parker, but I digress).

Peter joining the Pro Red side (And his outing of his identity to the public, which wasn't even required by the SHRA but he did it anyway because Peter is a goddamned idiot) was depicted as a bonehead move that ultimately only put Peter's family at risk (I own a comic where is a bunch of villains going after Aunt May and MJ, including the famous scene where Aunt May poisons the Chameleon), culminating in Aunt May being shot. It was basically seen the same way it was depicted as quite literally in the civil war movie: A Naive kid was suckered in by Tony's honeyed words about responsibility and a shiny new hi tech suit. The only difference is the comic Peter eventually realized he had fucked up and joined the right side. Movie Peter.... well in the MCU Civil War things are a bit less cut and dry, but I do blame Civil Wat for the Thanos snapping, since I think if everyone had been on the same page they would have been able to beat Thanos, but again I digress.

TL;DR: Peter being on the pro reg side always felt like an act of naivete on Peter's part rather than attempt to make the Pro reg side more morally correct.

[starwolf_oakley]

They never gave Captain America an endgame or real goal. So, maybe he was right but we don't know what he really wanted. And what, if he beat up Iron Man that would solve everything?

[crinos]

I think Cap's plan as it were was to just show the Government they couldn't keep the heroes down by utterly decimating the Pro Reg heroes in a big battle. Basically make the cost of trying to enforce the SHRA outweigh the benefits of having it.

Also destroying the super hero gulag was high on Cap's list as well.

[jlbarnett]

Cap was alive during Prohibition, an era where showing that a law written into the Constitution was ineffective got it removed from the Constitution. Showing the government couldn't stop them from doing what's right and they couldn't hold them would undermine the law, plus there's so many Americans who are reflexively anti-government eventually public opinion would have shifted

[zachbeacon]

I heard that too. Between that and pretty much everything about Ultimate Cap, I get the impression Millar doesn't have a very high opinion of Americans

[remial]

yes, but Mark Millar licks goats

[cyberghostface]

Personal attacks against writers aren't allowed.

[zachbeacon]

Tell that to the Nextwave people.

[deh_tommy]

That’s actually a reference to a cover for Nextwave.

[remial]

I was quoting the cover of Nextwave, not making a personal attack

[scorntx]

Would that include the bit where Tony and Reed and Skrull Pym built a killbot-clone of Thor which blew a giant hole in Goliath and they were all "nah, nothing wrong here. Clor was just acting like a cop would"?

Or where they got a team of killers including Lady Deathstrike and Bullseye and sent them after their former friends?
Or throwing people into another dimension without trial or chance of parole?

[remial]

or putting Norman Osborn in charge of the Thunderbolts

[deh_tommy]

They were rightfully ashamed of robo-Thor. Even then, I believe Tony didn’t say “Clor was acting like a cop would, so it’s all good”, he said “Clor was acting like a cop would, something that we’ll make sure never happens again”.

I’ll give you the Thunderbolts, but the book made that fairly clear Tony was rather reluctant in using them, and that he was shut down/overruled by Maria Hill in their handling.

The Negative Zone prison was meant to be a temporary measure until they found a better way to contain them. Captain America was meant to have a trial, so that stands to reason the others would have, too.

I’m not saying they were right or that they were justified, I’m just saying the tie-ins overly demonised Tony and the Pro-Reg heroes.

[shadowseeking]

There was a problem with treating both sides fairly.
Namely, the Pro-Reg was just flat out wrong.

[zachbeacon]

RE England: Brian voted for Brexit, didn't he?

Also, him demanding the return of a cultural artifact is pretty funny. What's the John Oliver line about the British Museum being an active crime scene?

RE America: Is Hill involved in this plan? it seems like they came up with a terrible idea of dealing with a tricky diplomatic situation and then had someone look at it to try to make it worse.

[jlbarnett]

Course Brian actually has a point the way way Marvel Britain's magic works, and even with Wakanda being overpowered in universe there's always the chance that OtherWorld is involved which means you're screwing with multiversal stuff

[zachbeacon]

Isn't the Ebony Blade tied to Merlin? That almost guarantees OtherWorld is involved.

Still, if they don't want the sword going overseas then maybe they should stop letting Americans have it.

(Though I assume that both the Black Knight and Radioactive Man from this series are fakes)

[scorntx]

Don't think "any chance you'll give it back" really counts as a demand as such...

[zachbeacon]

Just because he wants the assassin's weapon back doesn't mean he has to be rude.

[endis_ni]

Sure it does. It's much like putting "Regards" instead of "Kind Regards" in an email, or that "I beg your pardon?" which suggests someone's about to get a smack.

[mazway_75]

Didn't they eventually do that bit where Tony wipes his mind and gets a "reboot" from pre-Civil War and reading what happened with "what the HELL was I thinking" attitude?

It's hard to keep up with Marvel.

[cyberghostface]

They did but they also had him say "I would do it again".

[shakalooloo]

I didn't think mutants had to register with the Act. In the main Civil War book, aren't the X-Men staying out of it because the matter doesn't affect them at all?

[deh_tommy]

The tie-ins to Civil War either forgot or embellished details to make the Pro-Registration side (and Iron Man in particular) look worse than they were. Don’t get me wrong, they were still bad, but not to the extent the tie-ins made them out to be.