Jupiter's Circle Volume 2 #2

[lordultimus]

Warning for racism

Comments

[lucean]

As I've been somewhat critical on Jupiter saga, I can't help to wonder if it is just my negative attitude of the work that makes that last page will incredibly tone-deaf. That is a genuine question.

[zachbeacon]

I mean it's hard to tell what's coming from the character and what's coming from the writer.

Assuming the former, well I think Skyfox is trying but he's a pampered rich kid at his core so he's bound to be a bit clueless at times.

[lucean]

Yeah, I think that is one huge problem.

But, and I realize this is we get in to the composition team and was there any other way to do this within the scope of the book, to me there is something really bizarre in casting a rich white guy as the central figure in the racial struggle. He's almost literally the white savior there, giving the minorities a permission to riot.

[super_fly]

Yep, bit of an OOF there.

[tcampbell1000]

Basically, this story belongs to the people in costumes, for better or worse. The state of race relations in the 1960s, and even economic inequality, is a backdrop: the real arc here is that Skyfox, the rich kid who never grew up, has superficially "grown up" and at the same time very much failed to grow up. He's struck a blow for a cause worth believing in, but it's obvious he hasn't thought through any possible consequences.

If he's thinking about the future at all, I'm sure he expects his old super-friends will keep sitting on the sidelines and no one will seek any reprisals against African-Americans for this escalation of the conflict. That's how it works, right? Hero shows up, he rights the wrongs, everybody cheers, the end. The only other time his immaturity cost him anything was just before he left the Union, and he seems to have recast that whole business in his mind as a heroic act of its own. You were just too good for those establishment tools, George! What incipient alcoholism and petty bullying?

[lucean]

While I get that approach, and I think it's a valid character arc, it still doesn't remove the probelms with this choice of an approach here.

To go with your view of the story, how would it be different if we saw it being African-American people driving those protests, to be the voice of the struggle, and have Skyfox swoop in to be on their side instead of positioned as also the voice and permission?

Again, to repeat myself, as a concept I think this is strong. In execution, it's really tone-deaf, at least to me.

[donnblake]

In many ways, I find this more compelling than the arguments in Jupiter's Legacy. Skyfox here doesn't seem to be acting out of some self-perceived superiority that says everything would be better if only he were in charge- he's correctly identified injustices in the system, and he's acting as an ally to the people affected by those injustices.

Millar did something similar with Thor in the Ultimates, in what I think was one of the most interesting changes that line made. Given where Legacy picks up, I take it the outcome of this will be similar to that, or the counterculture Avengers in Marvel Ruins.

[tinygaylaura]

Sky Fox here is doing both

A) What I would do if I had superpowers

And

B) What I'd like to see superheroes doing more often

Holy shit something Mark Millar wrote actually made me root for one of the protagonists

This is the first and quite possibly only time that has happened

The rest of the team are still pathetic and awful though

One is literally evil and couldn't even grow proper facial hair

And the rest of them are too pathetic to even be evil because evil at least requires having an opinion

[whatsmoothbeast]

If Millar was just a straight up bad writer he'd be a lot less frustrating to me. I don't think he is, though, he puts stuff out every once in a while that proves he's capable of producing some really good stuff.

I think a lot of (what I perceive as) the problems with his writing boil down to him playing to whatever he thinks his audience is.

[zachbeacon]

I've long considered Mark Millar the Michael Bay of comics.

He's amazing at pandering to thirteen year old boys but he tends to fall flat most other places. Every once and a awhile he surprises you though.

[silverhammerman]

I've really enjoyed seeing these posts and they've got me interested in reading the full series, thanks for posting.

It looks like the Skyfox stuff here is gonna somewhat addressing the issues a lot of people pointed out on the earlier posts of "why have these superheroes done nothing tangible" by showing what happens when they do try to address it. I'm getting shades of Cory Doctorow's novella "Model Minority" about a Superman analogue attempting to control systemic racism and police brutality.

[tinygaylaura]

I don't see any negatives to what Skyfox is doing here. Watching him fuck up these racist and fascist trash is incredibly enjoyable for me, probably the only enjoyable thing I've ever seen in a Mark Millar comic

This is the kind of thing I would like to see superheroes doing more. And I think the rest of the team are honestly pathetic for not siding with him and doing the same

[silverhammerman]

Oh I don't either, I meant more that I expect to see his observation about superheroes as defenders of the status quo proven true, given that by he's the only one doing stuff like this and he ends up considered as a supervillain by the time of Jupiter's Legacy. It's safe to say that we're probably supposed to be on the side of the cool anti-racist Batman who fucks, as opposed to the stifling complacency and complicity of the Union.

[tinygaylaura]

"Cool anti-racist Batman who fucks"

That description honestly sounds like the best thing ever and yeah I really wish this series was all about him instead of about the Union who are all just painfully boring honestly.

On a related note this is one of the reasons why I love heroes like Midnighter and Black Cat

The kind of heroes I root for are the kind who really don't give a shit about laws when they get in the way of doing what's right or getting what they want

[leahandillyana]

Good job Foxy! Shame he is the villain in this series.

[donnblake]

Only because he loses.

Or, well- I'm not quite sure how to read it when Millar does this. Like I mentioned up-post, there's a very similar beat in his Ultimates, with Thor, and it always seemed that his sympathies as a writer inclined more towards Thor than say, Captain America (whose writing, under Millar's pen, often seems to drip with contempt).

But that doesn't mean he actually allows Thor, or Skyfox, to triumph when he winds up stacked against the forces of the status quo.

[tinygaylaura]

From what I've seen of him in these scans, he's the hero I'm rooting for in this series. I like him more than any of the other characters in this book