I wanted to be nice, I really REALLY did, but if this is what it's going to be, then this is how it will be. I wanted to simply let it go at that, and let you go and review how things are really done in the world, and how things have hiccups and the like, but you won't do it. If you want to hold this to some odd fantasy level, then allow me to counteract, because this isn't a case of "I told you so", not in the slightest. Allow me to explain why.
And everyone held all the superheroes to impossibly beyond superhuman standards regarding Stamford. That didn't seem to stop people from making a law about it. That didn't seem to stop you from agreeing with the standards set.
They didn't hold superhumans to any standard before Stamford, and the ONLY standard they held them to afterward was simply to go along with Registration and get trained. There WAS no standard beyond that. They didn't expect them to fly them to work, they didn't expect them to cook their eggs, they didn't expect anything but for them to get training. The average person acknowledges mistakes. The standards for superhuman activity are simply to pass Avengers basic training, and provide adequate superhuman activities with the possibility of being called into other duties.
Am I annoyed that the Initiative is even here? Of course. Did I go into reading the comic with the full intent of picking it apart? Of course! Am I wrong? I've yet to see how. Frankly though, I'd consider my attitude right now to be less hurt pride and more "I TOLD YOU SO."
You argue obviously from the point of hurt pride only by the point of how hard you're picking it apart. We'll definitely go to another comic called Runaways, where you were desperately defending something that has no explanation, yet you're more than willing to blast something that HAS a rational explanation.
Because, didn't I call it? Isn't this exactly what I said would happen? "There's always going to be a Stamford, because Stamford represents the chink in the armor, the exception to the rule. So making laws based on 'Stamfords' is senseless." So here we are, and accidents are still happening despite the fact that specific measures were taken to prevent these accidents. Superhumans are registered and young heroes are taken into training and, guess what, sht still blows up. I never expected it to go smoothly. I always expected something to go wrong, and not just because comic book logic demands so. What I didn't expect was for something to go wrong so soon and so drastically and due to simple mistakes that could have been effortlessly fixed, such as "Maybe we should have understood their powers better" or "Maybe they shouldn't all be standing in the same room when we're trying to understand their powers better."
This one is funny, because I've already made the exact same argument you just made AGAINST you originally when I was talking how this was meant to prevent the mass majority of Stamfords from happening. You said it was impossible to prevent it, and I said that event was, but large events in entirety are impossible to prevent. This is such event as the one I said was unavoidable.
However, you're pushing a single training accident as the entire crux of an argument that couldn't even begin to build itself around that. THIS is where I call the bias from, because when bias argumentalist enters the ring, the person who's biased tends to start reaching for anything and everything to validate themselves, no matter how little sense it may make when reread. Especially when they're making odd comparisons.
The fact that you're taking the idea that "nothing will happen" so absolutely literally blows my mind. That you have to give it no room so you CAN argue against it is so appaling to me, that I really can't say much else other than the "What do you mean 'I told you so' when you obviously don't understand the situation at hand?" bit.
I mean, you use that last bit about not understanding their powers.
Take a guess about what the hell they were DOING? I mean, any guess? Because the way you make it sound, as what they WANTED them to do was blow each other apart. You obviously forgot they were training originally, then obviously forgot what training was about, and you're continually not even looking at it past a bias of "Government done ****ed up". So excuse me when I say you don't get it.
Though with the part I boldened, I've kind of already said and agreed with.
I'm not remotely convinced that this is one of those tragic accidents where bad things just happen no matter what you do and there's nothing you could have done to prevent it, which is the sort of accident that I actually expected to happen throughout the course of this series thereby showing that horrible things will still happen no matter how prepared you are or whatever. No, this could have been prevented, and prevented easily. This wasn't the result of unhappy circumstance, this was the result of carelessness. And carelessness is exactly what the SHRA was created to deal with. So when it doesn't do its job, I think it's pretty far to accuse it of not doing its job.
While the severity of this accident should have been contained immediately (from this, you will recieve zero argument from me. Gauntlet should have jumped in right away, and summoned some backup and containment), this was not unavoidable. I'm going with the idea that you do not understand a phobia, or the idea of actual enlistment. While I know you haven't enlisted (anybody who has knows way better than to make comments like these, and those who have definitely don't want to speak up or lest be consumed by this void horrible), that's NO excuse for how you're treating this. Because it wasn't carelessness, it was *Points to a gigantic neon sign that reads TRAINING ACCIDENT* a TRAINING ACCIDENT. Believe it or not, nobody's perfect, and you wanting them to be only reveals that you have hurt pride, and are looking for any excuse to rub it in their face that they messed up.
A single training accident that was fairly unavoidable (definitely go look up the definition for a phobia and military training excercizes in groups and enlistment), it's HARDLY something on the Stamford level where the situation was absolutely controllable, and people made dumb ass decisions.
While you put up good points in most other places BW (and that's why I love arguing with you), here, you're reaching, hard. It's blatantly obvious this is hurt pride and bias. Because only hurt pride and bias would want a reason to say "I told you so."
