State Your Opinion on a Character

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Haha, I think so too. It's certainly not a negative, anyways...

A touch of Moral Objectivism, anyone?

witz_art_ditko2.jpg


Mr.A
 
Ah, one of Ditko's crazy ass objectivism characters. :o
 
Mr. A is basically The Question stripped of personality of charisma, having it replaced with insane political dogmatism.

I know that the deemphasizing of The Question's objectivist views when he became a DC character is somewhat controversial among comics fans who are objectivists, libertarians, or concerned with keeping as close to the original vision of the creator as possible, but I would argue that what made this possible in a way that was palatable and true to the character was the fact that he had a clear and distinct personality and motivations from his inception that were actually interesting and engaging, and the shift of his political views and general philosophy to something more complicated and less sure or confident came about through natural character development that was justified over the course of the narrative.

This would not be possible with Mr. A, as the only thing that defined him is that he is an objectivist. That makes for a fairly lousy character.

I, myself, am not an objectivist or a libertarian as I find the idea of total self sufficiency to be fallacious, short sighted, and damaging to society. We are pack animals. We have evolved to desire and depend on the companionship and aid of others. Every aspect of human society as we think of it is the result of some kind of cooperation or codependency between large groups. Also, sometimes circumstances outside of someone's control cause them to have problems that they can't solve through their own means, in which case their should be institutions in place to help them out because I think it's unfair to punish someone for not being self sufficient when it's not their fault.

The philosophy of objectivism and, to a lesser extent, libertarianism, breeds callousness and a generally self serving and sociopathic outlook on life, which isn't something I think is healthy or desirable.

My reason for bringing this up is that I also think Mr. A is very unrealistic. A true objectivist hero wouldn't be a clean cut uber-man, he'd be a fanatical homeless sociopath who was constantly holding all those around him in contempt.

Basically, Rorschach is the realistic objectivist hero.
 
Yeah, you've reminded me of that great bit of jonathan Ross' "In search Of Steve Ditko" documentary where Alan Moore says Ditko once said to him:

"Oh, yes, Rorschach, he's like Mr. A, only he's insane,"

:hehe:
 
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Great idea to post that character, and a good post by The Question.

I have never read any Mr A material. It never found its way to Denmark, but I would really love to find out more about him. Of course I mostly associate Ditko with Spiderman and Dr. Strange, but after reading about his devotion to Ayn Rand's philosophy, I have been dying to read comics which expresses those views.

Ayn Rand's ideology is as far away from mine as humanly possible. From what I have read from the Ayn Rand Institute's website, it seems to me to be a weird blend of cyniscism and outright madness. I like Ditko though, and I respect his work, and would like to understand his views, even though I vehemently detest them.

That's also how I feel about John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, who are among my favorite actors, but politically very far away from anything I can root for (I know Clint is a moderate compared to Duke, but . . . ). I also tremendously enjoy Al Capp's confrontation with John Lennon in Toronto, being a fan of both, where I find Capp hilarous in all his anti-hippieness.
Right wing musicians rub me the wrong way though (Nugent, Toby Keith, etc.), and for some reason I cannot look past their views, or even become fascinated by them like I can with film or comics artists.

That was a bit of a detour, but I would really like to read both Mr A and The Question, and find out what they are really about.
 
Great idea to post that character, and a good post by The Question.

I have never read any Mr A material. It never found its way to Denmark, but I would really love to find out more about him. Of course I mostly associate Ditko with Spiderman and Dr. Strange, but after reading about his devotion to Ayn Rand's philosophy, I have been dying to read comics which expresses those views.

Ayn Rand's ideology is as far away from mine as humanly possible. From what I have read from the Ayn Rand Institute's website, it seems to me to be a weird blend of cyniscism and outright madness. I like Ditko though, and I respect his work, and would like to understand his views, even though I vehemently detest them.

That's also how I feel about John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, who are among my favorite actors, but politically very far away from anything I can root for (I know Clint is a moderate compared to Duke, but . . . ). I also tremendously enjoy Al Capp's confrontation with John Lennon in Toronto, being a fan of both, where I find Capp hilarous in all his anti-hippieness.
Right wing musicians rub me the wrong way though (Nugent, Toby Keith, etc.), and for some reason I cannot look past their views, or even become fascinated by them like I can with film or comics artists.

That was a bit of a detour, but I would really like to read both Mr A and The Question, and find out what they are really about.


Mr. A stories are really hard to track down, Holmberg but there are books on Steve Ditko out there to check out, here's one:

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Stran...9216/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334250349&sr=8-1

:)
 
Anyways! New character!

Again, someone a bit more popular (not that that ever seems to make a difference here! :hehe:)

Optimus_Prime_by_markerguru.jpg


Optimus Prime
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Anyways! New character!

Again, someone a bit more popular (not that that ever seems to make a difference here! :hehe:)

Optimus_Prime_by_markerguru.jpg


Optimus Prime
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Optimus Prime. Where to begin??? He's been one of my all-time favorite Autobot characters amongst the many others in that universe. Always the fearless leader willing to go into harm's way to rescue a fellow a friend no matter if he/she is a robot or human. I've never liked the version that Michael Bay brought to big screen & never will. If I were to rank the top 10 non DC/Marvel heroes, he'd certain occupy a spot on my top 5. :up:
 
Greatest hero ever that has pistons.

Captain America with mud Flaps.
 
He never really did it for me. Big robots are sort of boring...

Anyway! New character time!

2a7zltf.jpg


Ghostbusters
 
LOVE Optimus Prime (though I hated all 3 movies).

LOVE Bill Murray, but didn't like Ghostbusters :o
 
You... you don't like Ghostbusters, RH?
 
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Wow...can't believe someone didn't like Ghostbusters...(although since ya like Murray you're halfway there...)

I don't mind Optimus Prime..not a robot-kinda guy all that much and I just never really got into the Transformers too much. I DO like the description Anubis had on him though...that sounds pretty fair to me!

Ghostbusters were great in the feature films...I can't say I've read much of their comics, (I know..I know...a pattern is forming here, lol), so I can't say much about that medium. I know I didn't care for the animated series all that much, and really lost any possible desire when Slimer was the featured character. If the comic series was in the same slighty-askew take that the movies had I bet that could have been some decent stuff.
 
That's Random Havoc for you. His opinions are......his own, that's for damn sure.

The Ghost Busters are awesome.
 
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to not like Ghostbusters in the state of New York.
 
Punishable by a plunger to the neither regions. :o
 
The first Ghostbusters movie is one of my favorites and the second one's pretty good. I've never read any of the comics.
 
Hey, so it's been a while since we've had a female character hasn't it?

Anybody read...

1725786-jennifer_blood_by_tim_bradstreet.jpg


Jennifer Blood
 
Afraid to say I have not even heard of the character before..but she kinda looks like an old girlfriend I had back in the day. So that's a decent enough start! :up:
 
It's Garth Ennis' (relatively) new book. It's actually a really fun idea. Basically:

"What if The Punisher was the perfect suburban housewife and mother during the day and a merciless, mafia killing vigilante by night?"

Thoroughly entertaining stuff.

JenBloodAnn01-Cov-Chen.jpg
 
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