Kiwi Farms on Super Heroes

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I really worry that decades of sanitized, simplistic black & white "capeshit morality" has warped the minds of many people. People that believe this shit and they vote.

People on both the Left and the Right have commented on how capeshit morality is horribly basic and has warped the minds of voting-age adults. I've seen more than a few a right-wingers deride the MCU as simplistic consoomer garbage bereft of substance, which trains modern minds to mindlessly consoom product and vote the way the celebrities want them to vote, whereas the left-leaning capeshit author Alan Moore has commented on capeshit fans being ''emotionally subnormal'' and calling the modern capeshit fantasy ''fascist''. People on both sides of the political aisle do not like folks having simple black-and-white morality having the power to vote, because the power to vote necessitates grasping nuances in the political and economic realities that someone with a childish, black-and-white view of the world does not have.

When it comes to someone like Linkara, his politics are informed by the social zeitgeist. He was conservative back then when conservatives had some sway, and he's an SJW now that he needs to keep his ''day job'' online. Someone like that can't explain in complex terms why they vote the way they vote, and it all just boils down to him supporting politics that is convenient for him. So he'll call Frank Miller a fascist even though the man disapproved of heroes working for the government like Superman, just because Linkara's chic leftist friends told him that Frank Miller is an evil right-winger. Never mind the fact that the man had his Batman beat up a government-sponsored Superman, nevermind the fact that his 300 comic had Leonidas anachronistically calling for an age of freedom, Linkara sees Frank Miller as a fascist because the comic-readers among the Online Left does.

Suffice to say, this is not the ideal kind of voter that the people who originally supported the idea of American Republicanism would want. They want the typical voter to look at things with a nuanced angle, to use their brains, not to just go along with the flow like sheep. This is why many of the early Enlightenment Philosophers were not in favor of democracy; most of them wanted an absolute monarch who had rational ideas in his head influencing his politics; they did not want the average bum to get the vote because they saw the average bum as sheep who are easily swayed by social movements.

 

[SecretMagicalGirl]

If you tell me Batman doesnt kill due to his code, that I don’t mind. I am fine with some characters not killing. Say Spiderman going full Punisher would feel wrong.

Its just when Batman, and DC comics fanboys by extension, like Linkara, think that anybody that kills is suddenly evil is when you lose me.

Not even Batman believes that because he works with Policemen. And they use use guns. They can and will shoot to kill in a shootout Or in a dangerous situation. Now they are evil too according to Batman? If that’s so Comissioner Gordon Must be as bad as the Joker, right ?

Not even using comicbook logic does it make sense.

Like everyone has said comic books use childish morality to be able to justify reusing popular villains. But it’s very out of touch of reality to attempt to think thats how real life should work.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

If you tell me Batman doesnt kill due to his code, that I don’t mind. I am fine with some characters not killing. Says Spiderman going full Punisher would feel wrong.

Its just when Batman, and DC comics fanboys by extension, like Linkara, think that anybody that kills is suddenly evil is when you lose me.

Not even Batman believes that because he works with Policemen. And they use use guns. They can and will shoot to kill in a shootout Or in a dangerous situation. Now they are evil too according to Batman? If that’s so Comissioner Gordon Must be as bad as the Joker, right ?

Not even using comicbook logic does it make sense.

Like everyone has said comic books use childish morality to be able to justify reusing popular villains. But it’s very out of touch of reality to attempt to think that's how real life should work.

My point exactly. The morality makes no sense, it only works in a kids' show where barely anyone dies. It's very immature, yet capeshit fans insist that these stories are mature, when they're using rules that were made for CCA-safe stories meant for children. For them to somehow act like this makes Batman the better man, then have the same Batman work with cops who use guns, really makes me laugh at how stupid and contradictory it all is.

And I wouldn't mind the no-kill code so much if capeshit fans weren't so upset over depictions of a Batman who kills. I mean, can't we have both? You can have the Adam West Batman who doesn't kill because his villains are silly goons, and you can have the Michael Keaton Batman who kills murderers. We had both back in the day, and nobody complained. I mean, some depictions of Optimus Prime has him not killing a soul, others have him killing Decepticons with no hesitation, but both depictions are fine, and Optimus still remains more stable and moral than comic book Batman 99% of the time.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

I've seen more than a few a right-wingers deride the MCU as simplistic consoomer garbage bereft of substance, which trains modern minds to mindlessly consoom product and vote the way the celebrities want them to vote,

This is because modern capeshit cultivates an us vs them mentality which can be leveraged by the politics of the day. It's not necessarily cause it's black and white, after all Frank Miller shit and some manga as well shows that in a realistic scenario black and white morality works. Right wingers also support black and white morality, they don't support modern capeshit cause it alienates them and makes people directionbrained.

whereas the left-leaning capeshit author Alan Moore has commented on capeshit fans being ''emotionally subnormal'' and calling the modern capeshit fantasy ''fascist''.

Moore and Brits in general call capeshit fascist because they're communists. They don't like the concept of somebody more powerful than them having a big impact on society, even a positive impact. I've elaborated on this in the sperg about comic books thread. Moore has literally called god a fascist because if a god exists then he will definitely act against the will of the people, which made me a bit depressed reading. Even people like Howard chaykin has called capeshit fascist because of similar reasons.

When it comes to someone like Linkara, his politics are informed by the social zeitgeist. He was conservative back then when conservatives had some sway, and he's an SJW now that he needs to keep his ''day job'' online. Someone like that can't explain in complex terms why they vote the way they vote, and it all just boils down to him supporting politics that is convenient for him. So he'll call Frank Miller a fascist even though the man disapproved of heroes working for the government like Superman, just because Linkara's chic leftist friends told him that Frank Miller is an evil right-winger.

Linkara was never conservative, he was a small town Christian like Lindsay Ellis. He hates Frank Miller because he's a libertarian most of whose stories are very black and white, with strong characters and "problematic" material. He even hates Garth ennis which is baffling to me cause Garth Ennis is a first generation reddit atheist and avowed left winger, just not a communist.

Suffice to say, this is not the ideal kind of voter that the people who originally supported the idea of American Republicanism would want. They want the typical voter to look at things with a nuanced angle, to use their brains, not to just go along with the flow like sheep. This is why many of the early Enlightenment Philosophers were not in favor of democracy; most of them wanted an absolute monarch who had rational ideas in his head influencing his politics; they did not want the average bum to get the vote because they saw the average bum as sheep who are easily swayed by social movements.

Modern politics is generally completely fucked and was fucked since the 1950s and 60s when Soviet infiltration happened and both parties started infighting. Nowadays you have the alt right retards who are deranged, the alt left retards who are deranged, center right and center left who are amicable and nuanced and the neocons/neolibs who are just corporatist puppets. People are mentally fucked over because social media amplifies things and the fact that things are getting so shit without any good changes makes people go crazy. Nuance generally doesn't mean you support bad ideas, the American civil war is a good example both sides had both good and bad ideas, confederates wanted freedom from a centralized authority and emphasis on property rights while they kept the slaves, the union wanted a top down Soviet style government where they exploited all the states but they wanted to free the slaves. Black and white morality comes from a constant push to only support good ideas and reject bad ones at any cost, if you have 100xp points invest all of it in good ideas minimising the possible bad effects, that's the central concept behind black and white morality.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

@Georgio Cocklord

This is because modern capeshit cultivates an us vs them mentality which can be leveraged by the politics of the day. It's not necessarily cause it's black and white, after all Frank Miller shit and some manga as well shows that in a realistic scenario black and white morality works. Right wingers also support black and white morality, they don't support modern capeshit cause it alienates them and makes people directionbrained.

The us vs. them mentality is the natural outgrowth of the black-and-white morality. One side is good, the other side is evil, therefore, it's us, the good guys, vs. them, the bad. Capeshit mentality has infected both sides, and while both sides have their people who complain about how bad capeshit is, even the people who complain about basic capeshit morality have adopted said morality themselves. Case in point, Alan Moore probably believes everyone to the right of Karl Marx is a fascist.

Moore and Brits in general call capeshit fascist because they're communists. They don't like the concept of somebody more powerful than them having a big impact on society, even a positive impact. I've elaborated on this in the sperg about comic books thread. Moore has literally called god a fascist because if a god exists then he will definitely act against the will of the people, which made me a bit depressed reading. Even people like Howard chaykin has called capeshit fascist because of similar reasons.

Which is kind of funny, because every successful fascist movement usually comes to power with the will of the people. God acting against said will would ironically land Him in the opposite playing team as a fascist group coming to power. Whether it be the Brown Shirts of Germany, the Black Shirts of Italy, or the Falangists in Spain, they came to power once they gained the support of the populace and they crushed their rivals.

Linkara was never conservative, he was a small town Christian like Lindsay Ellis. He hates Frank Miller because he's a libertarian most of whose stories are very black and white, with strong characters and "problematic" material. He even hates Garth ennis which is baffling to me cause Garth Ennis is a first generation reddit atheist and avowed left winger, just not a communist.

Well, there you go. If Garth Ennis was a Communist, Linkara might've given him a pass or openly supported him. But it still puzzles me that Linkara called Frank Miller a fascist, as if he doesn't understand that term. Fascists want a strong central government. Libertarians want the opposite. Hate Frank Miller for being a libertarian all you want, at least hate the guy for something he actually is. If Linkara described libertarianism as a flawed ideology then said that Frank Miller is wrong for following it, then that would be ten times more honest than calling him a fascist which he is not.

Modern politics is generally completely fucked and was fucked since the 1950s and 60s when Soviet infiltration happened and both parties started infighting. Nowadays you have the alt right retards who are deranged, the alt left retards who are deranged, center right and center left who are amicable and nuanced and the neocons/neolibs who are just corporatist puppets. People are mentally fucked over because social media amplifies things and the fact that things are getting so shit without any good changes makes people go crazy. Nuance generally doesn't mean you support bad ideas, the American civil war is a good example both sides had both good and bad ideas, confederates wanted freedom from a centralized authority and emphasis on property rights while they kept the slaves, the union wanted a top down Soviet style government where they exploited all the states but they wanted to free the slaves. Black and white morality comes from a constant push to only support good ideas and reject bad ones at any cost, if you have 100xp points invest all of it in good ideas instead of the bad, that's the central concept behind black and white morality.

It's more accurate to say that politics is fucked from the start. But yes, nuance is necessary to see the good in different sides, yet an us-vs-them mentality encouraged by things like capeshit kind of dumbs down the populace and makes them easier for the vipers on both sides to control. Which is ironic, since comics prior to the CCA used to be more nuanced, then the CCA baby-fied them to the point where the most dominant form of comic was American capeshit stories with very basic morality.

Thanks to comic fans who got used to said morality and adopted it as legitimate, capeshit kept that morality long after the CCA was gone, which was for the worse for the capeshit genre at large, since it becomes derided by fans of other genres of entertainment as something very plebian and immature. I wonder what will happen to the capeshit comic genre once that Gen X demographic dies out and you're left with millennials and Gen Z-ers who don't give two flying shits about comic books.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

The us vs. them mentality is the natural outgrowth of the black-and-white morality. One side is good, the other side is evil, therefore, it's us, the good guys, vs. them, the bad. Capeshit mentality has infected both sides, and while both sides have their people who complain about how bad capeshit is, even the people who complain about basic capeshit morality have adopted said morality themselves. Case in point, Alan Moore probably believes everyone to the right of Karl Marx is a fascist.

Not necessarily, us vs them is an optical game whereas black and white morality is just morality. The good vs evil split comes from optics and advertising, if you can portray the other side as bad then people will trust you more than them. Like I said earlier black and white morality is about supporting good ideas at any cost while minimizing bad ideas, some people have come to call it virtue ethics and others call it objectivism. Its the difference between doing good things and not doing bad things if that makes sense, the current state of politics involves not doing bad things instead of doing good things and those two are not the same.

But it still puzzles me that Linkara called Frank Miller a fascist, as if he doesn't understand that term. Fascists want a strong central government. Libertarians want the opposite. Hate Frank Miller for being a libertarian all you want, at least hate the guy for something he actually is. If Linkara described libertarianism as a flawed ideology then said that Frank Miller is wrong for following it, then that would be ten times more honest than calling him a fascist which he is not.

Leftists see any authority figure as fascist no matter how justified their reasoning is or how good their actions are. So even if Batman is a good person who does good things, hes inherently evil because he has more power than anybody and mustve done something evil to get that power which is how I presume they view it. Also a lot of Frank Miller hate I presume comes from his portrayal of female characters as authentically empowered yet vulnerable instead of the fake feminist tripe which is being pushed nowadays, which I will say is much better than any female character Linkara could ever write.

It's more accurate to say that politics is fucked from the start. But yes, nuance is necessary to see the good in different sides, yet an us-vs-them mentality encouraged by things like capeshit kind of dumbs down the populace and makes them easier for the vipers on both sides to control. Which is ironic, since comics prior to the CCA used to be more nuanced, then the CCA baby-fied them to the point where the most dominant form of comic was American capeshit stories with very basic morality.

Pulp prior to the CCA was a lot more nuanced but I think since the inception of comics they were always kids stories. The CCA didnt actually make them worse, Ive read some of those Tales of Suspense and Captain america comics, its not that good and is very one dimensional. Also this is something Ive had saved for a while but its very funny considering how nuanced pulp stories are in their philosophical worldview.
https://archived.moe/co/thread/132563707/

 

[SecretMagicalGirl]

I feel that I should point out the idea that “heroes killing is bad” is not even a western Superhero idea. When I said it’s basically just DC Fanboys I mean it.

It’s pretty much just DC Comics in general, and people that only consume superhero cartoons that have popularized the idea. Specially Batman comics and cartoons. Not even Marvel comics is as self Righteous about it.

The avengers, for instance, are perfectly fine with Killing. Captain America? He is literally a soldier, and a world War 2 Veteran, of course he will kill if he must. He would have killed Hitler if he could have. Thor? He kills frost giants and monsters all day. He is a god. Iron man? He has a huge body count and often goes for the kill. Black Widown and Hawkeye were described by Tony as “master assassins”.

Even in the MCU they all have huge kill counts. They all tried to Kill Thanos. And this is a sanitized version for the masses.

It’s pretty much only people that only consume Batman, and specially Batman cartoons that believe this.

Again nothing wrong with heroes that don’t kill Like Spider-man, or Batman. But going to the extreme of taking your morality from children media and taking it as an absolute truth, like Lewis does, is extremely sad.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Again nothing wrong with heroes that don’t kill Like Spider-man, or Batman. But going to the extreme of taking your morality from children media and taking it as an absolute truth, like Lewis does, is extremely sad.

I do though, The Dark Knight Returns is my Thus Spoke Zarathustra and one of my introductions to Nietzsche basically. It even has the same plot framework, Batman is like Zarathustra and comes out of retirement to tell people that their world is fucking dying and they must work to protect it or die to corruption. He is the godlike figure who comes to them in an age of decay to show them what they are capable of if they believe and work towards a better world.

 

[The tired cat]

because Ennis likes to be offensive for shock value, and Lewis hates being shocked and offended because his tastes are bland. In his reviews, he gets pissy whenever writers push the envelope in terms of violence, gore and brutality. For Garth, that's the punchline. Lewis said on one panel that he didn't like Preacher because of Arseface. The character's face looks like an ass, so that's his name.

I think its becuase Ennis cannot write for shit, so edgy shit is all he has left.

Of course Lewis deludes himself he is better than Garth Ennis because the man is edgy. And yet his character Homelander is extremely popular today to the point he shows up in big name video games, and a succesful Amazon prime series.

I think Homelander became popular thanks to the Amazon series, not because of the comic which was and still remains badly written garbage. Franky, I wouldnt even say Garth is "edgy" he's just a hack writer who can only do shocking/crass things because he cannot write at all.

 

[SecretMagicalGirl]

I think Homelander became popular thanks to the Amazon series, not because of the comic which was and still remains badly written garbage. Franky, I wouldnt even say Garth is "edgy" he's just a hack writer who can only do shocking/crass things because he cannot write at all.

I think there’s some confusion when I criticize Lewis for feeling smug from “acceptable targets” like Garth Ennis, or Rob Leifeild. And yes even Doug Walker. I am not saying they are good. I am saying even those low hanging fruits are far superior to him.

Linkara is akin to a homeless person, living on food stamps, that looks down unto “mere“ millionaires not being as rich as Billionaires. Maybe. But he deludes himself if he thinks he is even close to their level.

They, even at their worst, are still better than him at his best.

 

[The tired cat]

I think there’s some confusion when I criticize Lewis for feeling smug from “acceptable targets” like Garth Ennis, or Rob Leifeild. And yes even Doug Walker. I am not saying they are good. I am saying even those low hanging fruits are far superior to him.

Linkara is akin to a homeless person, living on food stamps, that looks down unto “mere“ millionaires not being as rich as Billionaires. Maybe. But he deluedes himself if he thinks he is even close to their level.

They, even at their worst, are still better than him at his best.

Ye, okay that makes more sense. Though, with Doug its always hilarious, because whenever Lewis pimped his view numbere and then mentions Doug, whos numbers WAAAAY outpace his.

Some edgy writers are making art for the sake of expression, but Ennis strikes me as someone who does edgy shit because he has pent-up aggression inside. And the Boys is a prime example of it. Superheroes are supposedly a major threat in this world......until a bunch of soldiers in black armor or airplanes with special missiles show up and roast the shit out of them. Why the hell does the world even need the costumed clowns if a bunch of soldiers or pilots can easily kill them or do their job for them, I don't know. It made the whole ''SUPERHERO REVOLUTION'' plotline near the end completely stupid when the military just annihilates them without a second thought.

I dont think its pent up aggression, I think Ennis is a guy who never left his tween-fedora-no mah edge isnt a phase mom-mental stage. Everything this guy ever wrote reeks of shit a tween kid would write for his edgy webcomic. This is a guy whos forever stuck in the 2003 era and just doesnt move on from it.

 

[skykiii]

Also a lot of Frank Miller hate I presume comes from his portrayal of female characters as authentically empowered yet vulnerable instead of the fake feminist tripe which is being pushed nowadays, which I will say is much better than any female character Linkara could ever write.

Quite the opposite actually--whenever bringing up Frank's portrayal of women, his common complaint is that Frank seems unable to think of women without also thinking of sex--his women are always sex-workers of some variety, or else sex figures into their storyline.

In the All-Star Batman and Robin videos he also derides Frank's portrayal of Wonder Woman as a bitch who slaps men aside while saying "out of my way, sperm bank!" Although, he called that "what someone who doesn't understand feminism thinks a feminist is."

And about Garth Ennis, I think its possible that he really does just hate the man's edgelord writing. Maybe I just want to believe that because I myself don't like Ennis. A few pages back someone talked a lot about how Ennis ruined the Punisher (one of the few comics that actually wasn't dogshit).... very much agree there.

It’s pretty much only people that only consume Batman, and specially Batman cartoons that believe this.

Its amazing to me that Batman has so much pull with nerds when he's pretty much the epitome of bad writing.

In fact, I've noticed this--and this is gonna sound like contrarian bullshit, but please hear me out before you award a sticker--that the more fundamentally retarded something is, the more it will develop a dedicated group of followers. This is how you get people declaring that a stupid My Little Pony reboot is the best thing ever.

In a lot of ways, Punisher pre-Ennis was the character I want Batman to be. He kills, but he also has nuanced morals and a capacity for compassion--one of the best arcs is this one where he actually becomes a mob boss. He admits up front he had originally planned to kill them but he came to see them as people and genuinely like them, so instead he just tries to ensure their activities don't harm anyone who doesn't deserve it and tries to flip their organization into helping him fight other mobs--a mutually beneficial arrangement. Batman would never do something like this.

Best of all, Punisher isn't deluded. He's angry, but he's admitted several times he knows his war on crime is ultimately pointless and that he's really just hoping that someone puts him out of his misery and reunites him with his family. All these little differences just make Frank Castle way more compelling of a character.

Part of the reason why I've always seen the no-kill rule as bullshit is because kid me grew up with heroes that did kill. Luke Skywalker. Goku. Rambo. John Matrix. Characters that are far more morally upright than Batman that have killed more bad guys for less of a reason other than they were on the opposing team. And that didn't turn them crazy.

Sorry, I meant to comment on this earlier but.... one of those heroes you named is not like the others.

I'm referring to John Rambo. If you wanna talk about heroes who have killed and are not crazy, he's not the example you wanna use (granted, he's damaged for a whole host of reasons... but the entire point of his character is that he is damaged).

Well, if you put it at the metric of ''capeshit stories'' then yes, the DCAU is a gem in a pile of shit, since it's far better than most capeshit stories, and most capeshit fans consume exclusively capeshit stories 99% of the time. The DCAU is LEAGUES AHEAD of most capeshit stories, so it makes sense that capeshit fanboys see it as the Holy Grail of superhero works. They don't notice works like Cowboy Bebop, The Big O, or Gurren Lagann which are far more entertaining and mature.

But in reality, the DCAU was just filler that Cartoon Network watchers used to fill in the times between DBZ runs. It's what they watch when they wait for the next episode of DBZ, Gundam, or Naruto. The DCAU had a place along with the 2003 TMNT, Teen Titans, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Grim and Evil, Kids Next Door, the Transformers cartoons, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and the Genndy Tartakovsky cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, and the 2003 Clone Wars shorts. I know, because I was a kid when that was a thing, and that is exactly what we did. The DCAU was fine as kids' entertainment went, but they weren't as hardcore on the battles as DBZ was, nor did they have the maturity of the anime films and miniseries showing up on Adult Swim.

What makes the DCAU over-hype worse for me is.... well, I'm a child of the 1980s, and I had to spend years hearing capeshit fans say that nothing in the 1980s was good, that it was all marketing-driven shlock (and capeshit isn't, apparently) that never did anything noteworthy with plots, characters, general settings, art, etc....

.... Even to this fucking day, I still hear people insist that there was this black void of bad quality cartoons from the end of the Chuck Jones era of Looney Tunes all the way until Batman and Animaniacs made animation "good" again. Except as an avid fan (I hate the word "consumer") of animation, I've seen first-hand this is hogwash and tends to be propped up by people who either haven't actually seen the shows in question (and are just believing whatever someone else says) or are going exclusively off of memes.

Just to use ONE example--a claim I often hear is "BTAS is good because it was the first cartoon since the 1960s to use realistic firearms." Okay, even if I understood why exactly this is any sort of standard of quality... a lot of eighties shows did that. One example that comes to my mind is this episode of Bravestarr where John Watson, in an emotional moment, actually opens fire on Moriarty. Its right near the beginning of the episode.

In fact, everything BTAS was praised for was something most cartoons of the previous decade were doing, and often doing better. BTAS had a style down pat, and had good actors... but not much else. The writing wasn't there, with not only the afformentioned problems but also often feeling like they ended before anything had even really happened.

...... Yeah I know this is coming off as "old man venting about a long-ago case of nerd rage," I'll stop for now.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

@skykiii

Its amazing to me that Batman has so much pull with nerds when he's pretty much the epitome of bad writing.

In fact, I've noticed this--and this is gonna sound like contrarian bullshit, but please hear me out before you award a sticker--that the more fundamentally retarded something is, the more it will develop a dedicated group of followers. This is how you get people declaring that a stupid My Little Pony reboot is the best thing ever.

I'm going to sound really fucking condescending when I say this, but that's because most comic nerds are low-IQ dweebs. They believe Batman is a super-genius because the story keeps calling him a super-genius, and he defeats enemies who are stated to be super-geniuses, even though the way the plot has him win is just reliant on him pulling something out of his ass to defeat the enemy and saying that it was all due to him preparing for it. Linkara is a few levels above the average comic nerd, but not by much.

Capeshit tricks work on modern audiences rather easily. Especially comic book fans. They fall for that shit all the time and think Batman is smarter than someone like Light Yagami because he outfoxed some idiot who was described as a super-genius in a comic book written for teenagers. Capeshit plots, 99% of the time, are not that smart. Whenever they have a "genius" character, they'll just put him in an inescapable situation, then he'd just pull out something that saves him, and then they say that he was anticipating that the enemy would do that, so it's all according to plan.

Batman's genius is basically the writer just writing Batman to be smarter than the rest of the cast, or giving Batman a last-minute McGuffin that allows him to win the day, and they explain it as him being smart. It's basically the Bat Shark Repellent trick all over again, except they tweak it to have him beat everything from super-genius villains to cosmic gods like Darkseid. And it really doesn't work when you compare it to plots that are actually smart. I already gave an example of this in the SW thread, but I'll repeat it here.

Spoiler: HEIR TO THE EMPIRE

At one point in his campaign, back in the trilogy of novels named after him, Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Galactic Empire had to force a shielded world to surrender, and he did so by having a cloaked ship slip past the enemy's shield before it activated, firing at the enemy world from inside said shield, then he has an Imperial Star Destroyer in orbit fire at where the cloaked ship is, in the same direction that the cloaked ship is firing at, with the shield protecting the cloaked ship, all to make it look like he has a new turbolaser weapon that can shoot past an enemy shield. The ruse works, and the enemy surrenders to his protection rather quickly, and he accepts them into his fold.

That's A) using your tech and gadgets intelligently, B) fooling the enemy into thinking that you're stronger than you actually are, and C) being magnanimous enough that people will consider surrendering to you because they know they'll be OK and that you won't just fuck them over after they surrender to you.

The enemy thinks that Thrawn has a new toy that can shoot past a shield, because their untrained goober eyes and scanners see Thrawn's ISD firing at them, and the land where the direction it's firing at is being shot at by something they can't see, so they logically assume that it's Thrawn's ship firing at them with a gun that can shoot past a shield. So they raise the white flag to surrender, because that's the only thing they could reasonably do if Thrawn did have such a weapon.

Now, what I just described to you in the spoiler tag is a plotline made for a book that continued the story of a movie franchise made for 12-year-old kids. It really isn't that smart, all things considered. It's something you'd expect in a YA novel. But I've yet to see a capeshit plot be as smart as that. I mean, no Batman comic is going to top that in terms of being smart. And yet it's a space war book meant for young adults, not a treatise on warfare written for generals and scholars of war.

Hell, not even Watchmen was that smart. They were all crying about the impending nuclear war between America and the Reds, yet Ozymandias just discovered a way to annihilate an entire city while making it look like it wasn't done by a human, but rather, by an alien enemy force. He could've made two copies of his psychic squid, sent one squid to Moscow, and another to Beijing, decapitating both of America's major enemies in one blow, while keeping America's hands clean and giving it the opportunity to rebuild the world since now, America's the only superpower left, and the other two superpowers just got decapitated by exploding alien squids. Alan Moore never thought of how he just gave Ozymandias a sure-fire way to win the Cold War for America, because he was too busy bitching about how America's eagerness to fight the Cold War would end in nuclear annihilation.

So yes, for all the people jacking off to how smart Watchmen was, the solution to all their ills was right there, and Ozymandias chose to be a dick and not win the war he could've easily won with a few button presses.

Sorry, I meant to comment on this earlier but.... one of those heroes you named is not like the others.

I'm referring to John Rambo. If you wanna talk about heroes who have killed and are not crazy, he's not the example you wanna use (granted, he's damaged for a whole host of reasons... but the entire point of his character is that he is damaged).

I suppose I should've used Optimus Prime. He and Luke Skywalker have killed tons of enemies, yet they retained their moral compasses. And they're still more morally righteous than Batman ever was. Luke and Optimus are shining beacons of light and hope personified, yet they have no problems sending entire armies to their graves, as opposed to Batman, who shits bricks over someone who wants to kill a mass-murderer like the Joker.

What makes the DCAU over-hype worse for me is.... well, I'm a child of the 1980s, and I had to spend years hearing capeshit fans say that nothing in the 1980s was good, that it was all marketing-driven shlock (and capeshit isn't, apparently) that never did anything noteworthy with plots, characters, general settings, art, etc....

.... Even to this fucking day, I still hear people insist that there was this black void of bad quality cartoons from the end of the Chuck Jones era of Looney Tunes all the way until Batman and Animaniacs made animation "good" again. Except as an avid fan (I hate the word "consumer") of animation, I've seen first-hand this is hogwash and tends to be propped up by people who either haven't actually seen the shows in question (and are just believing whatever someone else says) or are going exclusively off of memes.

Just to use ONE example--a claim I often hear is "BTAS is good because it was the first cartoon since the 1960s to use realistic firearms." Okay, even if I understood why exactly this is any sort of standard of quality... a lot of eighties shows did that. One example that comes to my mind is this episode of Bravestarr where John Watson, in an emotional moment, actually opens fire on Moriarty. Its right near the beginning of the episode.

In fact, everything BTAS was praised for was something most cartoons of the previous decade were doing, and often doing better. BTAS had a style down pat, and had good actors... but not much else. The writing wasn't there, with not only the aforementioned problems but also often feeling like they ended before anything had even really happened.

Again, you're dealing with people who didn't see much things outside of capeshit. These are the same people who would unironically praise Batman in the comics as a deep, enthralling story, while ignoring things like Cowboy Bebop or The Big O because they're not US capeshit. The DCAU stands as a holy grail to them, because it's capeshit, but it's smarter than 90% of the capeshit plots out there, which means that in the eyes of the capeshit fans, it might as well be the nectar of the gods.

Capeshit as a whole is market-driven schlock; they spared the Joker because they wanted to keep using the character, and more than half the decisions made with characters like Superman and Thanos are market driven. Why did they kill Superman? Because his comics weren't selling. Where did Marvel get the idea for Thanos? They ripped off Darkseid, who was a popular DC villain. Comic stories that were seen as dramatic and deep were actually conceived of in the most cynical manner. DC noticed that Superman comics weren't selling, so they pulled out a spiky grey version of the Hulk and had that thing kill him. Marvel wanted to rip off a DC villain, so they chose to rip off the strongest one to make their own.

Hell, speaking of the 1980s, the 80s shows like G1 Transformers and GI Joe were rather wholesome and provided a better excuse for the no-kill code than the DCAU ever did-because Cobra Commander and Megatron practically had an army of kooky buffoons; half their job description was keeping the kids in line at Cobra Command or Decepticon HQ. So no one cries foul over Optimus or Duke not killing the shit out of them, because why would they? At least in those shows, a no-kill code makes sense, because nobody has died. So if anything, 80s shows made the silly no-kill rule work well within the story, because neither side killed anyone.

And it made perfect sense when, in the G1 Transformers movie, people started dying, and the kid gloves were off; both sides were ready to kill, and neither side held back.

 

[skykiii]

Hell, speaking of the 1980s, the 80s shows like G1 Transformers and GI Joe were rather wholesome and provided a better excuse for the no-kill code than the DCAU ever did-because Cobra Commander and Megatron practically had an army of kooky buffoons; half their job description was keeping the kids in line at Cobra Command or Decepticon HQ. So no one cries foul over Optimus or Duke not killing the shit out of them, because why would they? At least in those shows, a no-kill code makes sense, because nobody has died. So if anything, 80s shows made the silly no-kill rule work well within the story, because neither side killed anyone.

The funny thing about this is to my memory, neither of those cartoons actually had a no-kill rule--the bad guys just always happen to survive. I'm sure every time GI Joe blows up a Cobra base, they're not exactly worried that Cobra soldiers will die in the explosion.

One thing I always liked about Transformers in particular is Megatron was not a typical villain, but actually had seemingly just his own weird ethics and sense of honor. To me a moment that sticks out is in the three-part episode "The Ultimate Doom" where at one point, Megatron has to turn into a gun and allow Optimus of all people to fire him to destroy a thing and prevent worldwide catastrophe.... and this was entirely Megatron's idea.

One more thought I had about the whole no-kill thing BTW....

...... I always feel like the best stories, for children or adults, always contain something you can learn from and actually apply to your life. Like say what you will about how corny those eighties PSAs are, G.I. Joe teaching how to tread water or Filmation's Ghostbusters explaining that you shouldn't dwell on past mistakes because you can't change what happened yesterday are way more everyday useful.

Lets face it, most people are never, ever gonna be in a situation where they would even have to consider killing someone. So besides all the idiocy around the no-kill rule, its also just a thoroughly vacuous piece of philosophy that has no significance to the reader.

And really, in a wider view, that's a problem with capeshit. They might be fun escapism at times but they don't say anything or really have any relevance once the story is over. And I think on some level capeshit fans know this, because I've noticed any time I see an article or essay analyzing a superhero comic, it always focuses on how it makes the work itself so multi-layered Case in point, in the novelization of Knightfall (or at least the copy I have) there's forewards and afterwards that talk a lot about what kind of "person" Batman is and how the story utterly "redefines" him and that's apparently why its significant....

...... Problem is, its not significant if that's all it does. Oh, it makes us question our understanding of a franchise character? That presupposes that you even give a damn about Batman at all. By contrast (and this is probably a massively unfair comparison), Don Quixote invites a lot of massive food for thought about the role morality plays in our everyday lives, helps open the door to further enlightenment on the matter, and with its main character both demonstrates the use of positive values but also how you can easily cross the line from being someone who genuinely wants to help, to being an obnoxious asshole who is just making things worse. All of these are useful things to consider, and none of them rely on you being absolutely in love with Quixote himself.

Yeah I know... I seem to have an inability to shut up.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

there's aliens and time travel and magic and elves and an evil math equation that lets you warp reality.

can someone else please chime in and tell me if I'm insane or not over this? how the fuck does the DC universe portray itself as taking place in the real world? i feel like I'm losing my mind here reading this shit.

DC Universe is based on the real world. The aliens, time travel etc. are deviations from the real world, but anything that's not explicitly stated to be different from the real world or can be inferred to be different from the real world is the same as in the real world. It doesn't have to be said that murder is illegal in the DC Universe because it's illegal in the real world. It doesn't have to be said that gravity works the same as in the real world, but all instances when it doesn't work like in the real world should have an in-universe explanation for why it differs.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

@skykiii

The funny thing about this is to my memory, neither of those cartoons actually had a no-kill rule--the bad guys just always happen to survive. I'm sure every time GI Joe blows up a Cobra base, they're not exactly worried that Cobra soldiers will die in the explosion.

That's because the no-kill rule was baked into the story naturally; they don't need some twat continuously pontificating about how they shouldn't kill the bad guys even though the bad guys try to kill them. They don't need to turn it into something that gives them a shallow sense of moral superiority. People just don't die because it's a kids' show, and it just makes sense that the Cobra soldiers bail out of their tanks and planes when those things blow up.

That's the difference between a story that naturally has a no-kill rule, and a story that shoddily justifies a no-kill rule. GI Joe and G1 Transformers makes it work, whereas Batman comics have to keep justifying it even though the villains have killed people left right and center, and common sense dictates that if you're dealing with a murderer that can't be permanently imprisoned or reasoned with, you put him down.

...... I always feel like the best stories, for children or adults, always contain something you can learn from and actually apply to your life. Like say what you will about how corny those eighties PSAs are, G.I. Joe teaching how to tread water or Filmation's Ghostbusters explaining that you shouldn't dwell on past mistakes because you can't change what happened yesterday are way more everyday useful.

Lets face it, most people are never, ever gonna be in a situation where they would even have to consider killing someone. So besides all the idiocy around the no-kill rule, its also just a thoroughly vacuous piece of philosophy that has no significance to the reader.

And really, in a wider view, that's a problem with capeshit. They might be fun escapism at times but they don't say anything or really have any relevance once the story is over. And I think on some level capeshit fans know this, because I've noticed any time I see an article or essay analyzing a superhero comic, it always focuses on how it makes the work itself so multi-layered Case in point, in the novelization of Knightfall (or at least the copy I have) there's forewards and afterwards that talk a lot about what kind of "person" Batman is and how the story utterly "redefines" him and that's apparently why its significant....

Capeshit is essentially the cotton candy of entertainment. There really is no message there outside of the basic shit of ''don't be an ass.'' It's not like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Narnia that teach Christian values such as putting your faith in God over worldly things like technology, or bearing the burdens of the world, or sacrificing yourself for the sake of the world just like Jesus Christ did. Even when it's Christian, capeshit is just like ''oh look at how Christian Superman is because he's depicted as a good Christian.'' Instead of something like LOTR where the hero Frodo, despite how small he is, he's willing to bear the burden of the Ring because he knows he's the one who can, showing how even the smallest among us in real life can make a difference if we chose to bear the burden.

And the things they really take a stand on, like the no-kill rule, makes no fucking sense. As you said most people are not going to be in that situation, where it's kill or be killed. But when someone is in such a situation, then yes, that rule makes no fucking sense. If we're to take Batman seriously when he mouths off about the no-kill rule, every cop who put down a mafioso, a gangbanger, or a rapist with a gun would suddenly be called into question as somehow being less moral than a guy who breaks people's arms and legs for a living, who constantly fails to protect people of the city he lives in. Which is fucking pathetic.

And as you said, the way they keep talking about Batman like he's some deep character is fucking hilarious. His most defining trait, the no-kill rule, was added just as a corporate gimmick to make him more palatable to the masses; it wasn't a development made from a genuine desire to make the character stand for something, but rather, it was made so that this pulp hero who started off being a killer can be sold to little kids whose parents don't like killers. The comic fans keep acting like this is all deep stuff, when in reality, when you look behind the facade, it's all just a cynical ploy to sell comics. Then the comic fans like you said have the gall to blast the 80s as being full of market driven schlock, as if the stuff they worship isn't market-driven schlock.

...... Problem is, its not significant if that's all it does. Oh, it makes us question our understanding of a franchise character? That presupposes that you even give a damn about Batman at all. By contrast (and this is probably a massively unfair comparison), Don Quixote invites a lot of massive food for thought about the role morality plays in our everyday lives, helps open the door to further enlightenment on the matter, and with its main character both demonstrates the use of positive values but also how you can easily cross the line from being someone who genuinely wants to help, to being an obnoxious asshole who is just making things worse. All of these are useful things to consider, and none of them rely on you being absolutely in love with Quixote himself.

Don Quixote was written as a love letter to Spain's medieval chivalric past. It was written in a time when gunpowder and large national armies were slowly making knights obsolete, but the writer wanted to celebrate what was good about Spain and its history with the culture of chivalry and the knight's honor code. They were taking the piss out of it sometimes, but they still showed genuine respect for said culture, and the work as a whole was a Spanish love letter to an age and a culture that had passed away.

Batman comics, by comparison, are written by people cynically selling a product to dumb kids, who dress up silly things like the no-kill code as if it was some form of high conviction, when in reality, it was added so that the parents don't throw a shit fit about the comics that little Timmy is reading afterschool. Said comics don't really seek to honor anything other than some vague legacy about a character that's lasted so long, despite the fact that for the longest time, he's just another face made to sell cheap comics to kids. I'd say the reason why the DCAU Batman became so iconic was, aside from the fact that he's the Batman most nerds today grew up with, is because the writers for him had some passion for his character, misguided though it may have been. It was far less cynical and by-the-numbers than the average Batman comic book, hence why it became a gem in the mud in the eyes of capeshit fans.

Was it any surprise that comics surrendered to the SJWs? Especially with how cynical the comics industry has always been-it makes sense. SJWs were becoming a thing, SJW mentality took over a good chunk of the youth in the college campuses, so the comic companies, who need to sell comics to dumb kids, saw that the dumb kids were into leftism these days, so they gave the funny-books over to leftist twats to turn them into bully pulpits for Leftism.

This is why you get morons like Linkara who today scream about how fascist Frank Miller is. He's doing that because it's what the manchildren nowadays are into; screaming about fascism and right-wing extremism. Even though Frank is a libertarian who in essence is the opposite of a fascist, Linkara just calls him one because Lewis' chic leftist friends told him that Frank is one. Comic fans who embody their characters and are unable to move on are, at the end, driven by the social zeitgeist. An old friend of mine lamented the fact that comics back then actually preached against Communism, nowadays comics preach for the socialists against the rich, even to the point that a capeshit game like Gotham Knights has Bruce Wayne come back from the dead to whine about rich people, even though they all probably went to the same fucking country club.

 

[Falcon Sebben]

Has Lewis actually opined on the show? I don't think I've heard anything from him about the show and its current success. Nor have I heard anything from him concerning the Boys' sister show, Generation V, or Invincible, another gory superhero show peddled by Amazon. Between Homelander, Omni-Man, and all the evil/dark superheroes and anti-heroes popping out recently, it would be interesting to see his take on it, whether or not he supports it.

"The Boys" is a more realistic view of how supers would be in the real world. A bunch of frat boys who could literally kill you with the barest thought and sure they wind up saving the day but in their downtime? They'd be out of control. Tried to read the comic, didn't appeal to me. Watched some episodes of the show and it was better but not a great show. It's something to put on when there's nothing else.

In the case of Lewis? He probably wouldn't like it, or say he doesn't like it, because all the heroes are douche-bro alphas and he's a soyboy beta cuck. Exactly the kind of people that douche-bros would have beaten up in high school.

Its noticable, for example, in his reviews of the Punisher issues where Frank becomes a black man. For once in his career he doesn't whine about Frank's methods or about a no-kill rule and even admits a lot of Punisher's actions are pretty sound. He's also never gone on a tirade about Wolverine or other heroes who don't have a strictly defined no-kill rule and was even okay with them in his Infinity Gauntlet review.

I think in that case for heroes like Wolverine or the Punisher is that they're made to be the anti-hero type that is willing to kill to get the job done. But they're not mindless killers just going off and murdering whomever. Yes they're psychotic but Wolverine would also backhand you across the room if he saw you hurting a puppy and Frank Castle won't kill you unless he feels you deserve it. So there's some morality going on there.

I am fine with some characters not killing. Say Spiderman going full Punisher would feel wrong.

Going full Punsiher would be wrong but Spider-Man is Marvel's favorite punching bag. He's always getting dumped on. It's almost endemic at this point. But push him too far and he will literally wreck your shit. He put the fear of God into Wilson Fisk who always thought of Spider-Man as a putz. Until he almost killed Peter's Aunt May and Peter lost his mind. He breaks into prison, beats Kingpin bloody and then threatens him saying that all it would take is a count of three, he releases his webbing and shoots it into Fisk's nose and down his throat. He's holding the man up by the skin of his chest at this point. Counts to two and then throws him to the ground. The message is obvious. Mess with him or his loved ones and he will kill him. There are no more second chances. And the moment Aunt May dies... he's coming.

And then they had to go and erase that from history. One of the most badass moments in Spider-Man history. Gone.

I do though, The Dark Knight Returns is my Thus Spoke Zarathustra and one of my introductions to Nietzsche basically. It even has the same plot framework, Batman is like Zarathustra and comes out of retirement to tell people that their world is fucking dying and they must work to protect it or die to corruption. He is the godlike figure who comes to them in an age of decay to show them what they are capable of if they believe and work towards a better world.

Great story that really helped to cement the character of Batman as a force to be reckoned with.

 

[Targeted Individual]

Captain America? He is literally a soldier, and a world War 2 Veteran, of course he will kill if he must.

Cap is a hypocrite and a faggot.

 

[skykiii]

Cap is a hypocrite and a faggot.
View attachment 5444930View attachment 5444931View attachment 5444932

Once again this is the most recent post in a topic. I already answered once, but short version Cap is actually in the right here. Cap is essentially Frank's CO in this instance and Frank just flagrantly flaunted his disregard for Cap's orders or authority, which could lead to problems down the line if Cap didn't put him down.

Though like I said I hate how Ennis turned Punisher into this mad dog killer. The Frank of the 80s and 90s would not have been this trigger-happy.

 

[Whatevermancer]

I refuse to believe that there's a significant amount of people whose worldview was altered by capeshit. Dunno about you, but I watch action flicks not to learn life lessons, but to be entertained. Yes, I want to see the heroes overcome difficulties and emerge victorious in the end. And yes, I also want to see good guys defeat the bad guys for the 1488th time already cause in reality the "villains" often ruin lives of millions of people, face no repercussions, live happily and die of old age surrounded by their loved ones.

If I wanted to learn something, I'd read a book instead.