Champions #2

[lordultimus]

Comments

[zachbeacon]

Weird call to draw the one girl exactly like Moon Girl...but she is there with Discount Kid Omega so why not.

[beyondthefringe]

I assumed it WAS Lunella, somehow deciding that the smart thing to do was side with the government.

I'm so disappointed in everyone going along with this law, like Timeslip--way to remember a character exists and turn her into a stooge. That always works out so well in these plots.

[zachbeacon]

I thought it was her too until did a second pass and saw she had a different name.

Yes, famous rule follower, Lunella Lafayette. That is why I did a second pass.


I know that Marvel has been trying to replicate the commercial success of Civil War since it happened but this entire event seems like that CW She Hulk tie-in issue where the remaining New Warriors turn on each other. Obviously the She Hulk issue was superior because it wasn't needlessly drawn out and there was no one named Safe Space or Doomscroll or whatever.

Though Hindsight Lad is still pretty bad.

[super_fly]

"This is getting bad." "Really bad."

Exactly my thoughts, kids.

Oh wait, you're not talking about the story event?

[scorntx]

"Really bad."
The next generation of heroes, and their keen political insight.


And is the whole Outlawed thing still going? Hasn't the senator responsible turned out to be a shapeshifter or robot or time-traveler or alien or strawman or whatever yet?

[beyondthefringe]

It probably would have been over with and forgotten by now if not for COVID. As it is, we still have a Power Pack and a New Warriors mini, as well as whatever's going on in Champions, Ms Marvel, and Miles Morales. So... 3 months of regular comics to go and whenever the minis are released, plus fallout.

[zachbeacon]

I thought the NW mini got canceled along with some of the Empyre tie-ins.

[beyondthefringe]

I think it's still in the works, since I haven't seen any official cancellations. It's a shame that people reacted with such visceral dislike to such stellar concepts like Snowflake and Safespace, as I have a suspicion Kibblesmith is going to pull some sort of twist out of the whole thing.

Eh, we'll see.
Maybe.

[zachbeacon]

Have you been huffing internet gas?

Seriously though, the NW pitch reads as pretty obvious parody.

Political extremists don't understand parody.

[beyondthefringe]

I was being a little sarcastic about the "stellar concepts" bit.

Seriously, I was/am interested in seeing what Kibblesmith has planned for this storyline. He's proven to be a decent and interesting writer with his take on Loki and Lockjaw, so I suspect that we shouldn't take the premise at face value and that the new characters wouldn't be -as- cringey as they appear on paper.

I still hope they're all Skrulls trying to infiltrate the hero community and just really misreading current cultural trends and buzzwords. That would be hilarious. "See here? The humans keep using these words, Snowflake and Safespace. And we all know that their costumed champions love their silly codenames."

[zachbeacon]

I meant no offense. I just wanted to poke fun of "internet gas" while I can because I don't think this comic is ever coming out. Even putting aside some of the more dubious new characters, I wasn't especially sold on it because the classic NW seem to largely be on the wrong* side of this but I think the writer is funny enough that it might have worked.

*"Wrong" being relative, of course. IRL masked vigilantes (let alone teenage ones) are terrifying but I think comic stories tend to fall apart if you apply too much real world logic. Making Night Thrasher a narc is certainly the wrong choice FOR THE CHARACTER; it was a mistake when they did it with Justice and I sure don't need anymore "edgy" Speedball.

Have you seen Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes? It wasn't a very good cartoon but the Skrull episodes were hilarious because the writers went in that exact direction with them.

[beyondthefringe]

I forgot that "internet gas" was one of the new New Warriors powers. Heh.

[thehood]

It wasn't, not officially at least and the Union is still coming out too.

[panthyr]

Didn't we learn anything from the first (two) Civil War(s)?

[starwolf_oakley]

Yes. Like, "We *could* say this was the Hate-Monger's fault but where's the fun in that?"

[zachbeacon]

Marvel learned they can make a lot of money with the first one. They haven't quite figured out how to replicate it though so we've had to endure AvX, IvX, Minority Report 2, Axis, Secret Wars, Secret Empire, Empyre, Civil War Jr, and any other hero vs hero crossover I'm forgetting.

[donnblake]

World War Hulk, arguably, although Hulk throwing down against other heroes wasn't anything particularly new.

[zachbeacon]

Well the Illuminati had it coming but, yeah, that one slipped my mind.

I did intentionally leave off a bunch of mutant stuff because MOST modern X-Men crossovers are about them moving and/or fighting among themselves and it all starts to run together. Just assume "X-House of X-Age of X-Days of Messiah Schism Forever Wars X" is implied.

[thehood]

I think that had more to do with it being a continuation of Planet Hulk and people wanting to see the Green Scar get revenge on the Illuminati.

[silverhammerman]

The character is a teenager, so there's some leeway, but the first speaker on the megaphone really isn't using "scab" as an insult correctly. Unless trade unions have entered the playing field at some point, I don't think anyone on any side of this conflict can be called a scab.

Additional point, Kamala's Law doesn't really make sense if she's still both alive and vocally against the law. The whole idea behind naming a law after someone is to evoke them, and if it's evoking someone who's denouncing it that makes no sense. The name only makes sense if she's dead or in support of the law, but that's not the story Marvel is looking to tell.

I do appreciate the efforts this event is making to do a version of Civil War that is in any way politically coherent, but it's still deeply nonsensical (Kamala's Law is way too reasonable, it only requires that a teen hero be sponsored by an official mentor, which is an incredibly low barrier in the highly connected modern Marvel Universe!) and it's a bit tasteless to try to connect it with real life activism. If Marvel wants to do a story about BLM or youth climate activism they should have the guts to actually do that, rather than just coopt protest imagery.

[lordultimus]

Kamala's not vocally against the law. Her parents don't want her to be a target, so she just gives a "no comment" to anyone that's not friends or family.

I do note the weirdness that both sides of the argument are using terms associated with left-leaning arguments (Pro-law using gun control and school shooting patterned arguments).

[t209]

Pretty ironic that Marvel are leaning liberals yet their superhero politics tend to be Libertarians (like "good guys with guns" argument). Even Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme did have that tone, where the "last straw" of the team turning into authoritarianism was taking away guns from civilians (aka "But if we don't have guns, but police and army have them...stop repressin' me, WRRRY" type to get angry about).
For some reason, Japanese seems to portray superhero registration as a positive thing (especially My Hero Academia, especially the Vigilante spin-off, and the main issue they addressed were Superheroes being self-centered to aid less-fortunate communities).

[tripodeca113]

What exactly are these loss of freedoms that are being forced upon non-superheroes teenagers? That seems like pretty important information. Is it explicitly part of the law? Is it stepping outside of the legal boundaries?

Because honestly, being a teenage superhero is incredibly dangerous, and should be regulated, if not straight up banned.

I was going to complain about the use of Ageism, but apparently it's an all encompassing word for age based discrimination, and not just the elderly which it is most commonly used for.

[crinos]

As I recall, in the issue they introduced this law, they had armed police knocking on Moon Girl's door to take her away from her parents when she was just sitting there with them.

Honestly this feels like the SHRA again where its so vague you can't actually pin down what its supposed to be so the writers can go as over the top as they like.

[lordultimus]

The teens are forcibly sent to a reeducation facility (the people who run it's words, not mine) without trial, treated as prisoners, and the facility itself in-universe is compared to Japanese relocation camps.

[scorntx]

Oh, wow.
And here I didn't think we'd have a contender against that time in Civil War II: Electric Boogaloo where Carol saw nothing wrong with one of her supporters dressing like a member of the Hitler Youth for total screaming lack of subtlety.

[beyondthefringe]

And honestly, the woman teaching the re-education class is about as subtle as Dolores Umbridge. I mean, if she's not evil in disguise, then the writer needs to dial it back a little. Or a lot.

And um... okay look.
The heroes that are being captured and re-educated are
a Black girl (Starling)
a Jewish girl (Bombshell)
an Indigenous girl (Snowguard)
a Hispanic girl(Locust)

And in this same issue, Ewing compares the class to the schools where Indigenous children were stripped of their culture -and- concentration camps. So this isn't even as subtle as Civil War where they just sent all the unregistered heroes to a secret prison in another dimension...

On the surface, asking underage heroes to have an appropriate adult mentor isn't a bad thing, and it could even work. Half of them already -do- have mentors or adult friends and connections via the Avengers or Fantastic Four, and it would have been a great way to see older/more experienced heroes step up. Imagine Spider-Man signing up as a mentor via an Avengers-run program, to sponsor Miles, for example.

Hell, imagine bringing back Avengers Academy, which was a pretty good concept until they fucked it over by following it with Avengers Arena.

Instead, this is another heavy-handed government is bad, regulation is evil, kick down doors to arrest the violators before they do anything, hero community fights among itself thing which it's clear which side of the argument we're supposed to support.

[scorntx]

... didn't the Avengers already try mentoring young heroes before? And then they got fed up with their treatment and split off to form the Champions?

Those Champions? Those three teenagers right there?

[beyondthefringe]

Yeah, well...
no one ever said it was going to be -successful-.

[t209]

Well, remember when people complain about Marvel being SJW-pandering...yeah, the thing is that there's a concept called "commodification of fetishes" as stated by Zizek.
Unfortunately, the writers are okay in explaining social issues but they have issue to trying to blend in with comic book settings or lack any comic book knowledge (also maybe lack of coordination since New Warriors here are "bad guys" while the book might go for nuanced route). Consider that Ewing is a black woman, she should have realized that she just demonized police accountability, which has become an important issue due to recent police brutality (also the same thing why Tony Stark killing an unarmed black man and buried him in tarps and chains without any repercussions as a good thing...without irony).
I mean there's a reason why current people--especially "anti-SJW" who only pick things without contexts while complaining that SJW did it also--assume that She-Hulk is some sort of poor attempt to appeal to new audience.

[thehood]

Speaking of Snowguard, isn't she from Canada? I don't get how C.R.A.D.L.E can arrest teen heroes that aren't from the US.

[lordultimus]

That's par for the course for these acts.

[scorntx]

Good ol' Carol, mindlessly enforcing a law on someone it doesn't apply to as she's yelling at her to stop.
(Wasn't Silverclaw still a legal minor at the time as well?)

[deepspaceartist]

I mean, you're not actually exempt from the laws of the country you are in just because the laws in your home country are different. Like, if an American went to the UK they would still be subject the the gun laws of the UK even though they're more restrictive than the US's. So if Snowguard wants to hero in the US she has to abide by any relevant US laws.

[juniper6]

Yes.

[mastermahan]

Fucking seriously? I know Marvel civilians are notoriously stupid, but how did they write that law?

"We should stop teenagers from picking fights with murderous superpowered felons unless they have adult permission."

"That's a really good idea, actually. Teenage superheroes die a *lot*, and they come back a lot less. We could even name it after one of the dead ones everyone knows, like the X-Statix kids."

"No, we're going to name after a living girl who refuses to involve herself."

"Okay, I'm sure there's a good reason for that. What happens if someone breaks the law? Please don't say you send them to a Negative Zone prison without a trial."

"Of course not! We send them to a reeducation camp without a trial."

"...the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Look, we have all these empty camps from when the country was overthrown by Hydra, which no one talks about even though it was just months ago. We should use them for something."

[beyondthefringe]

Technically, I don't think any of the X-Statix were really kids... and plus, they're probably all back and living on Krakoa by now. :)

But yeah. Imagine if this storyline had been sparked because some new, untrained, inexperienced teen superhero (gets powers, puts on costume, goes to fight crime) died in a splashy, tragic way, and then afterwards, everyone learns that DYNATEEN was really the child of a powerful Senator, who then uses all of their political sway to institute a law regulating underage superhumans so no other parents might experience what they've gone through. And of course the law is blown out of proportion and mismanaged because the political system DOES that (or Red Skull blah blah blah).

Simple, human, reasonable. Something to address the concept of underage vigilantes who go out there without training or experience and wind in over their heads, in a way that isn't completely over-the-top and hamfisted.

[zachbeacon]

Unrelated to any of this but now I'm kinda annoyed that OF COURSE the X-Statix people are back now because that was one of those rare series where death actually meant something.

Y'know, with all the mutant celebrities I wonder why no one has tried to create a TV or steaming network built around mutant-based content.

Aside from Mojo, I mean.