Strange Adventures #5 - "On the other hand"

[laughing_tree]

I was falsely accused of faking my CIA past which is crazy because I didn’t fake it. I remember the utter feeling of helplessness and frustration of being accused of something I didn’t do and having to prove who I was. That emotion was very much on my mind when I was constructing this. Adam might be a little more guilty than I was. Or maybe he’s not as guilty as I was, I guess we’ll find out. -- Tom King

Comments

[zachbeacon]

I am super amused by the "Superman isn't bipartisan thing"

I wonder if it's the fact that he's willing to denounce white supremacy or that he has a very public feud with a former president.

[magnetoisright]

I assume that they hate Superman because he's not willing to go on live television and call murderous nazi terrorists "Very Fine People"

Also the idea that heroes should be "Bitpartisan" is absolute nonsense and sounds like the trash you hear from bigots and morons who say that superheroes "Shouldn't be political"

I want heroes to be political and I want them to stand for womens rights and LGBT rights and against all forms of racism and bigotry.

And I definitely don't want heroes who have any respect for the fascist pit of evil that is US government or who have any interest or desire in working with it or taking orders from it.

[zachbeacon]

I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows superheroes like Hawk, Dove, Hawkman, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are completely apolitical.

Joking aside, heroes like Superman and Captain America exist almost solely to express their creators politics. Golden Age Superman used to beat up slumlords...until the US got into WW2 and he started getting used in anti-Japanese propaganda.

[deh_tommy]

Heck, you’d be forgiven for thinking Captain America is nationalistic pro-America propaganda at first glance (I know I certainly did), but his stories have surprisingly been consistently critical of American government, policies and societal problems.

[zachbeacon]

I mean that version of Cap exists in the form of characters like 50s Cap, USAgent, and Ultimate Cap but the original Captain America exists for the same reason Casablanca does; a bunch of artists wanted to shame the US into joining the war against the Nazis.

I can only assume the people who claim that politics in comics are a recent phenomenon suffered some kind of head injury when an unread copy of the Howard the Duck Omnibus fell on them.

[lordultimus]

Those versions of Cap are mostly criticism of that sort of mindset.

[zachbeacon]

Mostly. Since 50s Cap was meant to be Steve until he wasn't I think he's debatable. I could certainly see the same people who think Rorschach is the hero in Watchmen embracing Ultimate Cap.

[silicondream]

"You think yourself somehow better than the people of Rann. Because of your heroes and your gods and your strength."

Well, I mean...

glances at the history of the DCU in basically every continuity

...are you saying we aren't? Who has the better track record for coping with invasions here?

If Alanna was from Daxam or Oa or even Cairn, she'd have a point. But the Rannians are literally so shitty at fighting that a randomly-selected human became their planetary champion almost immediately.

And no, the Rannians don't have weapons beyond our comprehension. The Controllers have weapons beyond our comprehension. The Rannians have laser guns. By interstellar DCU standards, they're hicks.