Fantastic 4 # 562--spoilers to follow

[Blader5489]

That's certainly a reasonable point of view which doesn't address the merits of said fundamental disgust at all.

It wasn't a point of view, it was a recommendation. I'm not saying Dread's opinion of the MU is totally wrong (though I don't agree with it entirely), but that he shouldn't bother with Marvel if he dislikes it so much.

I read Invincible Iron Man this week. Maria Hill has been fired, she's just a normal civilian now. A team of HAMMER agents, under Osborn's orders and wearing his colors of green and purple, break into Hill's home, shoot at her without provocation, and finally strike her unconscious after she just surrendered to them. There's no reason given for why she is being brought in, they never read her any rights, nor indeed do any of the agents ever actually indicate that they even know what they are bringing her in for. On the plane ride back, two of the agents receive a message from Osborn telling them to murder Hill immediately. They begin to comply, with absolutely no reluctance or distaste or even surprise at being told to execute an unarmed, unresisting prisoner on a plane for reasons that were never given, by a man that they know to have been murderously psychotic not so long ago, all the while wearing the colors he wore when he kidnapped and murdered a teenage girl. (Hill escapes, barely, by crashing the plane.)

And these are normal Marvel universe citizen soldiers. They are not supervillains, they are not mentally unstable, they are not henchmen, they are not foreign gestapo, these are ordinary US citizens with a job that they do, we are given utterly no indication that they are meant to be representative of anything other than an average modern government agent.

So I certainly think it's a defensible claim at the least when Dread, or anyone else, expresses "fundamental disgust" with the world of Marvel comics at the moment. It's absolutely not anything that Marvel hasn't brought on itself and knowingly so.

Now hold on...are you trying to tell me that a government paramilitary organization that operates in a semi-clandestine manner and doesn't always adhere to the letter of the law in order to accomplish their goals, no matter how dirty it may appear, would arrest and attempt to execute someone without any form of due process?

HAMMER is not a police department comprised of average Joes. They are more akin to the CIA, where members have been in the "business" for years, who operate in a realist manner that doesn't always jive with the idea of rule of law, and who are less concerned with reading someone their Miranda rights and more concerned with killing terrorists as effectively as possible. Surely, when we have black ops like this occurring in the real world, it's not so difficult to accept it happening in fiction.

 

[The Overlord]

I don't mind Doom having a master. I mean, Doom is heavily into the mystical. No way he could get any leeway with that without paying respects to a god or two. Honestly, I've always thought that Loki should be Doom's patron god, but that's just me.

Doom is the guy who told a bunch of Demon lords from Hell to go **** themselves, he never lets anyone to have dominion over him, why would he have a master?

 

[roach]

Now hold on...are you trying to tell me that a government paramilitary organization that operates in a semi-clandestine manner and doesn't always adhere to the letter of the law in order to accomplish their goals, no matter how dirty it may appear, would arrest and attempt to execute someone without any form of due process?

HAMMER is not a police department comprised of average Joes. They are more akin to the CIA, where members have been in the "business" for years, who operate in a realist manner that doesn't always jive with the idea of rule of law, and who are less concerned with reading someone their Miranda rights and more concerned with killing terrorists as effectively as possible. Surely, when we have black ops like this occurring in the real world, it's not so difficult to accept it happening in fiction.

someone has been watching too much tv.
This the problem Marvel had with Shield and now with Hammer. What are they? Are they the US government organization or a UN org? Are they the worl police like Interpol or atop secret spy organization?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

HAMMER is a US organization. The US pulled its funding from SHIELD, which apparently resulted in SHIELD's collapse, and created HAMMER. From what I can tell, both SHIELD and HAMMER are military peacekeeper sorts of deals with covert ops arms. So they're both soldiers and spies.

 

[Blader5489]

someone has been watching too much tv.

Someone is awfully naive.

(hint: it's you)

 

[moraldeficiency]

Before his presidency, Luthor was never publicly convicted of any crimes. Never, ever, ever. There was a lot of suspicions and maybe some accusations, but never any proof of any corruption or wrongdoing. None. Because Luthor was a genius intellect and criminal mastermind who covered his tracks so well, absolutely none of the good guys could ever find him legally culpable for anything. The fact that Superman could never conclusively pin anything on him was a source of much stories and frustration for the character for most of his post-Crisis years. The public knew Lex Luthor solely as a successful businessman, inventor, and philanthropist for twenty years of post-Crisis history right up until he got ousted from office, after which he's spent more time in jail than out.

Compare that with Norman Osborn, whose dressing up in a garish Halloween costume and first-degree murder of many, including the daughter of a NY police chief, is and has been public knowledge.

That's certainly a reasonable point of view which doesn't address the merits of said fundamental disgust at all.

I read Invincible Iron Man this week. Maria Hill has been fired, she's just a normal civilian now. A team of HAMMER agents, under Osborn's orders and wearing his colors of green and purple, break into Hill's home, shoot at her without provocation, and finally strike her unconscious after she just surrendered to them. There's no reason given for why she is being brought in, they never read her any rights, nor indeed do any of the agents ever actually indicate that they even know what they are bringing her in for. On the plane ride back, two of the agents receive a message from Osborn telling them to murder Hill immediately. They begin to comply, with absolutely no reluctance or distaste or even surprise at being told to execute an unarmed, unresisting prisoner on a plane for reasons that were never given, by a man that they know to have been murderously psychotic not so long ago, all the while wearing the colors he wore when he kidnapped and murdered a teenage girl. (Hill escapes, barely, by crashing the plane.)

And these are normal Marvel universe citizen soldiers. They are not supervillains, they are not mentally unstable, they are not henchmen, they are not foreign gestapo, these are ordinary US citizens with a job that they do, we are given utterly no indication that they are meant to be representative of anything other than an average modern government agent.

So I certainly think it's a defensible claim at the least when Dread, or anyone else, expresses "fundamental disgust" with the world of Marvel comics at the moment. It's absolutely not anything that Marvel hasn't brought on itself and knowingly so.

I'd say the only reason he was never convicted is the DCU citizens are equally as stupid as those at marvel. "I'm turning myself in because all that evil stuff done by lex luthor wasn't really me but my evil clone." I mean??? Biggest genius on earth and the best he had was 20 year old soap opera devices? They bought that released him and then made him president. Oh and all this was after luthor also faked his own death. At least osborn isn't running for president.

SHIELD or HAMMER now is in no way comprised of ordinary US citizens soldiers, it's a specialized military organization with very dubious activites from it's inception and with a chain of command that makes the director the absolute controller of the organization, also it's not only US citizens but a multinational group. And for the most part everyone there hated Hill. Since when does SHIELD read people their rights? I must have missed all those issues of NF:AOS cause the ones I read SHIELD came down on people hard, fast and left few prisoners.

 

[fifthfiend]

Someone is awfully naive.

(hint: it's you)

I agree with BladHGNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGHHHH

Spoiler

Seriously roach, turn off the TV and read a history book sometime.

 

[Franklin Richards]

So this guy has a master?

 

[roach]

I agree with BladHGNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGHHHH

Spoiler

Seriously roach, turn off the TV and read a history book sometime.

so there has been evidence that the CIA has assassinated US citizens on US soil?

 

[Dread]

Well...they didn't, really.

I'm talking about recently. When you have several heroes rebelling against the law, and their actions resulting in collateral damage and deaths + the Hulk drops in the middle of NY, causes wanton destruction and places the blame on the Illuminati + the Skrull invasion--the end result is a very negative image of superheroes in the public eye.

Then maybe you should just stop reading Marvel comics, if you have such a fundamental disgust with it.

If they didn't accept Venom, how about the others? I mean I know Bullseye usually kept out of the public eye and that's fine. I mean, Penance looked like a monster and Radioactive Man was dressed as a CAPTAIN PLANET villain. Moonstone was the only one who looked heroic, and if a normal superhero team is assumed by the public to be hopelessly evil if even one of them has any blemish on their record, what about a federal team like the Thunderbolts who were hopelessly corrupt? I mean I get that Ellis was on a "Americans elected Bush, therefore they are all evil and stupid" kick, but after a while it gets too far.

Funny you should mention World War Hulk, because it helps my argument. The Hulk has for over a decade real time been considered an unstable menace at best. Whether he has actually killed people or not in his rampages (no two writers seem to agree), he has endangered plenty of them. Just because Hulk accuses heroes of something, they should believe him? Would the public honestly BLAME Iron Man or Mr. Fantastic or Dr. Strange for booting Hulk off world considering all the towns and cities he has trashed? If anything, they should have been more supportive.

And what happened in WWH? The heroes performed a successful evacuation. Sure, other side titles got on a liberal kick and said the feds deliberately left poor people to die, and some people got left behind in the chaos. But the point was that the superheroes, unregistered or not (such as Spider-Man) pitched in and evacuated at least over 75% of Manhattan Island, an amazing feat. They eventually BEAT THE HULK. Iron Man's satellite beam thing defeated him. The heroes won! They even had Damage Control fix the island and whatnot. Superheroes helped in those efforts.

In real life, 7-8 years after 9/11, the average NY citizen STILL has some more respect for fire fighters than they used to prior to 2001 because of 9/11. In Marvel Life, superheroes basically responding to a similar light are immediately distrusted as evil villains a few weeks/months later.

To be fair, this dynamic with Marvel citizens is not new; the Brotherhood of Mutants used to be terrorists who robbed businesses and once attacked Washington; they were cheered as Freedom Force with no attempt to hide their identities; the same Blob that used to be a terrorist was now a federal hero with a clean record. It defies belief that the same citizens that are overly critical and mistrusting of any and every superhero always seems to swallow every villain they see. Just in the Joe Q tenure, it has gotten more exaggerated, I believe. And that isn't always a good thing. Drama is one thing, I get that. But there is a sense of moving too far.

I'm not disgusted enough about it to quit Marvel comics. But it is something in the back of my mind that annoys me.

Busiek in a way used Mr. Sheldon to bring this up in MARVELS. The man was disgusted that the public was quick to turn on the Fantastic Four, then beg them for help when Galactus was about to eat everyone, then immediately afterwards turn on them again, to the point where he screamed, "WHAT DID YOU PEOPLE WANT? THE WORLD TO ACTUALLY END!?" Later on, Sheldon comments on the Avengers leaving to fight a war in space, "It would serve us right if they never came back. We didn't deserve them." In some ways that is how I feel about the situation sometimes.

The point is that Millar is wrong in thinking that Doom would have any masters.

Before his presidency, Luthor was never publicly convicted of any crimes. Never, ever, ever. There was a lot of suspicions and maybe some accusations, but never any proof of any corruption or wrongdoing. None. Because Luthor was a genius intellect and criminal mastermind who covered his tracks so well, absolutely none of the good guys could ever find him legally culpable for anything. The fact that Superman could never conclusively pin anything on him was a source of much stories and frustration for the character for most of his post-Crisis years. The public knew Lex Luthor solely as a successful businessman, inventor, and philanthropist for twenty years of post-Crisis history right up until he got ousted from office, after which he's spent more time in jail than out.

Compare that with Norman Osborn, whose dressing up in a garish Halloween costume and first-degree murder of many, including the daughter of a NY police chief, is and has been public knowledge.

That's certainly a reasonable point of view which doesn't address the merits of said fundamental disgust at all.

I read Invincible Iron Man this week. Maria Hill has been fired, she's just a normal civilian now. A team of HAMMER agents, under Osborn's orders and wearing his colors of green and purple, break into Hill's home, shoot at her without provocation, and finally strike her unconscious after she just surrendered to them. There's no reason given for why she is being brought in, they never read her any rights, nor indeed do any of the agents ever actually indicate that they even know what they are bringing her in for. On the plane ride back, two of the agents receive a message from Osborn telling them to murder Hill immediately. They begin to comply, with absolutely no reluctance or distaste or even surprise at being told to execute an unarmed, unresisting prisoner on a plane for reasons that were never given, by a man that they know to have been murderously psychotic not so long ago, all the while wearing the colors he wore when he kidnapped and murdered a teenage girl. (Hill escapes, barely, by crashing the plane.)

And these are normal Marvel universe citizen soldiers. They are not supervillains, they are not mentally unstable, they are not henchmen, they are not foreign gestapo, these are ordinary US citizens with a job that they do, we are given utterly no indication that they are meant to be representative of anything other than an average modern government agent.

So I certainly think it's a defensible claim at the least when Dread, or anyone else, expresses "fundamental disgust" with the world of Marvel comics at the moment. It's absolutely not anything that Marvel hasn't brought on itself and knowingly so.

True points. I might also add, though that when Iron Man was commanding the "Cape Killer" units, they almost seemed happy to shoot at and pummel superheroes. Granted, they weren't ordered to execute captives who surrendered.

I agree with you in spirit, but you could fanwank a few explanations for the HAMMER agents' actions. Norman could've hand-picked some like-minded bastards within HAMMER. Whenever you have a major authoritative organization, you're bound to find some people inside who are practically begging to be corrupt or already are corrupt. Two normal citizens who became agents to uphold the law might not murder anyone, but two cracked bastards who went on to become two crooked agents looking to brutalize others with the law as a convenient cover would.

HAMMER is a US organization. The US pulled its funding from SHIELD, which apparently resulted in SHIELD's collapse, and created HAMMER. From what I can tell, both SHIELD and HAMMER are military peacekeeper sorts of deals with covert ops arms. So they're both soldiers and spies.

Yeah, HAMMER is U.S. funded to replace SHIELD. The preview for AGENTS OF ATLAS noted that Norman Osborn at least hired longtime mafia thug Man Mountain Marko and gave him an ATF badge and unit to command, so there may be some sense of Osborn hiring people who are hardly the paragons of morality. That said, I do think the situation, as written, sometimes moves into a level that is a hair away from absurd parody.

 

[fifthfiend]

so there has been evidence that the CIA has assassinated US citizens on US soil?

I guess I'm only aware of the abundant evidence of the CIA killing, assassinating, and torturing people in any country that isn't the United States of America and the willingness of the FBI to illegally spy on US citizens on US soil but no you're right the notion of them ever just going ahead and killing a US citizen is just IMPOSSIBLE! TO! CONTEMPLATE!

 

[The Question]

Doom is the guy who told a bunch of Demon lords from Hell to go **** themselves, he never lets anyone to have dominion over him, why would he have a master?

Because there's no way he'd garner any mystical power without kissing a little supernatural ass, and a true mystic would recognize spiritual forces larger than them, seeing as how that's kind of the very essence of most mystical religions.

 

[fifthfiend]

Because there's no way he'd garner any mystical power without kissing a little supernatural ass, and a true mystic would recognize spiritual forces larger than them, seeing as how that's kind of the very essence of most mystical religions.

There's just a whole lotta facepalm goin' around today.

 

[Dread]

There's just a whole lotta facepalm goin' around today.

I've noticed.

 

[The Question]

I'm not saying that it's the perfect characterization for Doom. I'm just saying that it's not an unreasonable assumption to draw about the character.

 

[fifthfiend]

I've noticed.

I thought I was saving these for maybe the once in a while occasional drop, but I just keep turning around and going "no, there is yet another statement so dumbfounding that I can only respond to it with photographs of people undergoing physical agony in reaction to other people's words."

I'm not saying that it's the perfect characterization for Doom. I'm just saying that it's not an unreasonable assumption to draw about the character.

If we take "unreasonable" to mean "diametrically opposed to like single other characterization of the character, as demonstrated right here in this thread," then I'm going to go ahead and say that it is maybe a bit unreasonable.

 

[Blader5489]

If they didn't accept Venom, how about the others? I mean I know Bullseye usually kept out of the public eye and that's fine. I mean, Penance looked like a monster and Radioactive Man was dressed as a CAPTAIN PLANET villain.

Judging people by their appearances? Tsk tsk tsk.

Penance and Radioactive Man are actually good people underneath their costumes (well, Penance was ****ed up, but he means well). And Bullseye didn't just usually keep out of the public eye, he was kept completely a secret, even from the government; Norman wasn't supposed to have Bullseye a part of the team.

Moonstone was the only one who looked heroic, and if a normal superhero team is assumed by the public to be hopelessly evil if even one of them has any blemish on their record, what about a federal team like the Thunderbolts who were hopelessly corrupt?

It has been a while since I read Ellis' run, but I'm pretty sure the media did bring up issues of how reliable the Thunderbolts really were, being comprised of former and current supervillains. They didn't blindly accept the T-bolts as a legitimate force for good, as you're insinuating.

I mean I get that Ellis was on a "Americans elected Bush, therefore they are all evil and stupid" kick, but after a while it gets too far.

What? Oh man, no. That wasn't the point of his Thunderbolts run at all. Hell, there was no point to it. Ellis said he was just writing it for fun and that's exactly what it was. There was no underlying political commentary to it. And if Ellis was going to make some point about Bush being elected = Americans are stupid, I think he would've done it a bit earlier than 2007.

 

[fifthfiend]

And if Ellis was going to make some point about Bush being elected = Americans are stupid, I think he would've done it a bit earlier than 2007.

Spoiler

...Okay yeah I know it did mostly end up being about that it's a bad idea to kill the President, even if he is a prick.

 

[Blader5489]

Okay, fine. But my point is...Ellis isn't very subtle. When he's trying to make some kind of social or political commentary, it's pretty obvious. Having read his Thunderbolts run (which Dread didn't) and knowing that Ellis admitted to writing the book solely for fun, I don't think there was any political message to it.

 

[fifthfiend]

Okay, fine. But my point is...Ellis isn't very subtle.

Spoiler

Which is to say, point conceded.

 

[Blader5489]

Not conceded, just supplemented.

I don't think Black Summer was about "Americans are stupid and evil because they voted for Bush." But I could be wrong, as I've been trying to repress my memories of reading that book.

 

[The Overlord]

Because there's no way he'd garner any mystical power without kissing a little supernatural ass, and a true mystic would recognize spiritual forces larger than them, seeing as how that's kind of the very essence of most mystical religions.

That's not what Doom did in the Unthinkable arc, when some demon Lords granted him new powers and at the end of the arc they asked that he recognize their help in defeating the FF and Doom told them to go screw themselves instead.

Seriously don't you know anything about Doom?

 

[The Question]

That's not what Doom did in the Unthinkable arc, when some demon Lords granted him new powers and at the end of the arc they asked that he recognize their help in defeating the FF and Doom told them to go screw themselves instead.

Seriously don't you know anything about Doom?

I understand plenty about Doom. I was just saying that it's not the single most appalling idea anyone could ever have for the character.

 

[BrianWilly]

At this point this should probably go in that Norman Osborn thread, but whatevs.

I agree with you in spirit, but you could fanwank a few explanations for the HAMMER agents' actions. Norman could've hand-picked some like-minded bastards within HAMMER. Whenever you have a major authoritative organization, you're bound to find some people inside who are practically begging to be corrupt or already are corrupt. Two normal citizens who became agents to uphold the law might not murder anyone, but two cracked bastards who went on to become two crooked agents looking to brutalize others with the law as a convenient cover would.

Now hold on...are you trying to tell me that a government paramilitary organization that operates in a semi-clandestine manner and doesn't always adhere to the letter of the law in order to accomplish their goals, no matter how dirty it may appear, would arrest and attempt to execute someone without any form of due process?

HAMMER is not a police department comprised of average Joes. They are more akin to the CIA, where members have been in the "business" for years, who operate in a realist manner that doesn't always jive with the idea of rule of law, and who are less concerned with reading someone their Miranda rights and more concerned with killing terrorists as effectively as possible. Surely, when we have black ops like this occurring in the real world, it's not so difficult to accept it happening in fiction.

Very true, HAMMER is far from comprised of ordinary citizens. In fact, most of HAMMER is comprised of former SHIELD agents, and particularly so when you consider that the organization has been around for a few weeks old at most at this point. SHIELD, and now HAMMER, are the Marvel universe staples of what prototypical government soldiers are supposed to be like. Were we not supposed to believe that the members of SHIELD were supposed to be the good guys, not too long ago? Are you trying to tell me that these people are going to have no qualms whatsoever about shooting their prior director in the face? 'Cause of, I dunno, WAR TERRORISM WAR or whatever?

See, it's the portrayal of the act that's the crazy here, not necessarily even the act itself. These guys don't have the slightest reticence about the act, they don't say anything like "Sorry lady, but orders are orders" or "The Director wants us to do what?...but...fine. I really need this job." or even something as little as "Man, I hate this part" or anything suggesting that popping a cap in the back of a prisoner's head isn't somehow standard procedure. No, how they actually react is something like "New order's come in. Kill her? Okay then, let's get to it, we haven't got all day." Seriously, read the issue, I'm paraphrasing but not exaggerating.

Again I reiterate, the comic doesn't give us any indication at all that these are anything but regular HAMMER agents doing regular HAMMER things. They are not the exception as far as the story was concerned, they are the norm. Even if we explain away that the two random guys on the plane that just happened to be completely cracked bastards -- again, something that is in no way suggested by the story -- what about every single other agent that's just coincidentally going to be a cracked bastard from here on out in these comics? Because I guarantee, this is not going to be the only time.

I'd say the only reason he was never convicted is the DCU citizens are equally as stupid as those at marvel. "I'm turning myself in because all that evil stuff done by lex luthor wasn't really me but my evil clone." I mean??? Biggest genius on earth and the best he had was 20 year old soap opera devices? They bought that released him and then made him president. Oh and all this was after luthor also faked his own death. At least osborn isn't running for president.

The stuff you're talking about with the clone is right after the DCU went through a Crisis where people from alternate universes -- and the alternate universes themselves -- showed up at everyone's doorsteps. So I personally didn't think it was particularly stupid for anyone to accept "clones" as a rational explanation at that point. It also happened during 52, a series in which Luthor was arrested at the end. He ran for president years before that.

SHIELD or HAMMER now is in no way comprised of ordinary US citizens soldiers, it's a specialized military organization with very dubious activites from it's inception and with a chain of command that makes the director the absolute controller of the organization, also it's not only US citizens but a multinational group. And for the most part everyone there hated Hill. Since when does SHIELD read people their rights? I must have missed all those issues of NF:AOS cause the ones I read SHIELD came down on people hard, fast and left few prisoners.

Ah, and which issues of SHIELD, Captain America, Iron Man, the Initiative, or any other series about SHIELD did you read, exactly, where you saw agents who unflinchingly murdered unarmed, restrained, and unresisting prisoners while en route to base? No really, I'd like to know this, so I can rag about that series as well.

Oh wait "they hated Hill." I guess that means they would shank her, then. Or because of WAR. Or something.

 

[BrianWilly]

Because there's no way he'd garner any mystical power without kissing a little supernatural ass, and a true mystic would recognize spiritual forces larger than them, seeing as how that's kind of the very essence of most mystical religions.

Right, but...Doom doesn't garner any mystical power precisely because he doesn't kiss supernatural ass. Doom is a ****** magician. It's never been any different. The one time he had even a little bit of mystic esteem is when he flagrantly cheated by using his tech, and even then he only got second place.