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In retrospect were Soviets the real heroes of Marvel Comics?

In retrospect were Soviets actually the real heroes of Marvel Comics?

  • Da

    Votes: 56 73.7%

  • Nyet

    Votes: 20 26.3%
  • Total voters
    76
Mr BreaksIt said:
It occurs to me that, despite having posted here, I've not actually voted. So here's my two cents: Marvel Soviets want to destroy the West, which includes the very evil seeming Canada and America, and the very authoritarian Marvel U.K.

It also includes the rest of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand (despite geography), and various African nations (presumably including Wakanda). If we can prove that these countries are evil in the Marvel continuity, then we can call the Soviets at least justified.
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Well, I'm like 80% sure Wakanda is withholding the cure for cancer. So there's that.
 
Generalissimo said:
Deliberately withholding a cure to cancer is morally reprehensible?
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Well it's certainly a dick move. There's not even a 'they're not ready' argument, because the only person whose life expectancy it could possibly decrease is Deadpool. It's not like the oh-so-easily weaponized vibranium or any of the dozens of high-tech pieces of gear Wakanda's got lying around, where it would make war bloodier and whatnot.
 
Mr BreaksIt said:
It also includes the rest of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand (despite geography), and various African nations (presumably including Wakanda). If we can prove that these countries are evil in the Marvel continuity, then we can call the Soviets at least justified.
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Wait, now I'm wondering about New Zealand's superhero-ing history. Does it even exist? I'm hoping that it's something adorably mundane. :3
 
I try not to give too much thought to Marvel having any sort of sensible history. Same goes for DC. There lies the way to madness.
 
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BobTheNinja said:
Why DO so many major countries in the Marvel Universe act so goddamn evil? I mean, I haven't read the comics myself, but hearing about the shit they pulled is pretty horrifying. The fact that Canada is among them is especially insane to me.
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There are, I think, at heart two primary halves to the problem.

First is how comics quietly endorse Great Man Theory. There's lots of writers in the comics industry that lean left or right as far as politics go, but a fairly common theme is how The Man holds one down. No surprise; a lot of people in the comics industry are freewheeling artsy types to begin with, and lots of capeshit is aimed at kids, teens, and young adults who identify with stories where the hero bucks authority. Hence, authority is dicks, or just incompetent, and the hero needs to find ways to overcome or work around authority to Get The Job Done. It's adversity on the cheap.

The second half of the source is the God of Status Quo. Realistically, a world with Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym (and so on) would rapidly cease to resemble our own as technological advances proliferated rapidly, accelerated further by contact with alien species and whatnot. Except comics are a medium that needs to remain accessible to the grab-off-the-shelf crowd, so the worlds of DC and Marvel are expected to remain a fair resemblance to the real world. So we get continual handwaves, excuses, memory wipes, resets, reboots, etc as the reason Earth doesn't suddenly accelerate into becoming the capitol of a local interstellar community.

Hence, over time you get governments full of assmongers that never quite seem to fall over despite the horrific bullshit they pull on a regular basis. There's always a general someone can pull out of the ether to head up the new Axe Babies for Genetic Research Project. Then this links into a third problem - one-upmanship. Comics needing to continually tell bigger, more vivid stories in the search of sales figures think up crazier and crazier shit for the villains to pull until you have to wonder how there's not some cosmic wizard piling stuff on top of the box containing the universe to keep the sheer ludicrousness of the billion-car-pileup of evil from escaping. Of course, at a glance it goes out the window for this or that story that decides it wants to have some decent guys from the government or military (status quo), but it remains lurking in the background, in the wiki, a veritable legion of creeping, festering evil awaiting its next colleague.
 
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Were the Soviets the real heroes? I don't know if America and Canada being stupid evil means the Soviets were good.

So... maybe?
 
Oh I am slain! said:
Wait, now I'm wondering about New Zealand's superhero-ing history. Does it even exist? I'm hoping that it's something adorably mundane. :3
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Some few characters of that nationality.

New Zealanders

A mutant half brother of Nightcrawler.
A tourist who got kidnapped by the Canadian government and turned into Weapon X.
Greystone of X-Factor.
A henchman of Doctor Demonicus.
A neighbour of Spiderman.
A henchwoman of the Mandarin.
And a guy who apparently warrants no kind of explanation about who he is in the article about him.

Also, Hydra had a base there.

 
Seems like they're no better or worse than anyone else in the marvelverse. They opposed the western countries for selfish reasons, and did a lot of the same fucked up things as their opponents.

Stofsk said:
Why do Hydra make their bases unambiguously evil looking

Like

Who signed off on that and went 'Yeah the neighbours won't complain'
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Its almost as if comics are dumb.
 
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Mr BreaksIt said:
MARVEL's U.K. seem pretty much on the side of righteousness as far as I can tell.
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Marvel Queen Elizabeth II also is Marvel Canada's head-of-state.
Monarch of the Maple Crown shares a degree of culpability in affairs of her throne?

Mr BreaksIt said:
It occurs to me that, despite having posted here, I've not actually voted. So here's my two cents: Marvel Soviets want to destroy the West, which includes the very evil seeming Canada and America, and the very authoritarian Marvel U.K.

It also includes the rest of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand (despite geography), and various African nations (presumably including Wakanda). If we can prove that these countries are evil in the Marvel continuity, then we can call the Soviets at least justified.
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Marvel Australia and Marvel New Zealand are damningly allied with Marvel America.
That and they share a head-of-state with Marvel Canada.
Sharing a Commonwealth alongside Marvel Canada is fairly suspicious.
Legitimate targets for Marvel Soviets' global worker's revolution!
 
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Generalissimo said:
Marvel Queen Elizabeth II also is Marvel Canada's head-of-state.
Monarch of the Maple Crown shares a degree of culpability in affairs of her throne?

Marvel Australia and Marvel New Zealand are damningly allied with Marvel America.
That and they share a head-of-state with Marvel Canada.
Sharing a Commonwealth alongside Marvel Canada is fairly suspicious.
Legitimate targets for Marvel Soviets' global worker's revolution!
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So the Anglosphere's primary components are the center of evil government in the Marvel universe.

...

I blame Morgan Le Fay (or Merlin, alternatively)

she probably magicked England and its extensions into being run by people like herself :V
 
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Kuja said:
There are, I think, at heart two primary halves to the problem.

First is how comics quietly endorse Great Man Theory. There's lots of writers in the comics industry that lean left or right as far as politics go, but a fairly common theme is how The Man holds one down. No surprise; a lot of people in the comics industry are freewheeling artsy types to begin with, and lots of capeshit is aimed at kids, teens, and young adults who identify with stories where the hero bucks authority. Hence, authority is dicks, or just incompetent, and the hero needs to find ways to overcome or work around authority to Get The Job Done. It's adversity on the cheap.

The second half of the source is the God of Status Quo. Realistically, a world with Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym (and so on) would rapidly cease to resemble our own as technological advances proliferated rapidly, accelerated further by contact with alien species and whatnot. Except comics are a medium that needs to remain accessible to the grab-off-the-shelf crowd, so the worlds of DC and Marvel are expected to remain a fair resemblance to the real world. So we get continual handwaves, excuses, memory wipes, resets, reboots, etc as the reason Earth doesn't suddenly accelerate into becoming the capitol of a local interstellar community.
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Which ties into ubermenschen. The idea is that ubermensch is supposed to be a person that lives by their own code, made necessary by a society where existing codes have broken down, and ultimately leads, either literally or by example, society to adopt a newer more viable code. Great Man Theory means that comics wholly endorse ubermenschen as necessary and justified in their illegal actions due to a dysfunctional society unable to handle problems through legal channels... but Status Quo is God means that the ubermenschen can never lead to a newer more functional society. Which leaves comic book settings trapped in an eternal provisional dictatorship of the ubermensch. Well more like anarchy than dictatorship but still...
 
firefossil said:
Which ties into ubermenschen. The idea is that ubermensch is supposed to be a person that lives by their own code, made necessary by a society where existing codes have broken down, and ultimately leads, either literally or by example, society to adopt a newer more viable code. Great Man Theory means that comics wholly endorse ubermenschen as necessary and justified in their illegal actions due to a dysfunctional society unable to handle problems through legal channels... but Status Quo is God means that the ubermenschen can never lead to a newer more functional society. Which leaves comic book settings trapped in an eternal provisional dictatorship of the ubermensch. Well more like anarchy than dictatorship but still...
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Especially since there's no great reason that superheroes could not work within the law, such as by becoming police officers.

Whilst The Annihilation Score was not a very good satire/parody of superhero fiction, it did take the logical (and consistent with the series) step of taking people with superpowers and employing them as Special Constables.
 
RedDwarfIV said:
Especially since there's no great reason that superheroes could not work within the law, such as by becoming police officers.

Whilst The Annihilation Score was not a very good satire/parody of superhero fiction, it did take the logical (and consistent with the series) step of taking people with superpowers and employing them as Special Constables.
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Barring a few teams of heavily scrutinized but tolerated Vigilantes, this is basically how it works in Worm as well. Basically all the most powerful and famous (American and Canadian at least) Heroes are Government Law Enforcement employees.
 
RedDwarfIV said:
Especially since there's no great reason that superheroes could not work within the law, such as by becoming police officers.

Whilst The Annihilation Score was not a very good satire/parody of superhero fiction, it did take the logical (and consistent with the series) step of taking people with superpowers and employing them as Special Constables.
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Generalissimo said:
Unlike morally bankrupt and woefully disorganized western capitalist scum. . .

. . . great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had such a system in place~! :p
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As I've said before, Marvel's U.K. does basically that. That's what MI13 is.
 
Murazor said:
And a guy who apparently warrants no kind of explanation about who he is in the article about him.
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Mal Rossi, a New Zealander who was in Việt Nam with the Australian Army Training Team Việt Nam, training the RVN in demolitions. Rossi was caught in the Tet offensive and eventually shot in the leg, but he and Hazzard banded up, got out of town and managed to acquire a radio and get some evac. After the war Rossi found work as a demolition expert within the mining industry, but couldn't adapt back to civilian life and ended up with a major drinking problem. Hazzard came to recruit him and helped him beat his addiction so he could work as their explosive ordnance specialist.
At one point Mal, furious that his sister was going out with a New York City biker, enlisted Hazzard and the Priestess and told them that she had been kidnapped by bikers. After some vicious fighting, Hazzard discovered the truth and clashed with Rossi, who realised that he had been wrong and apologised to his allies (and presumably to his sister). - See more at: Mark Hazzard - Marvel Comics New Universe - Merc
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Mark Hazzard - Marvel Comics New Universe - Merc
 
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