Will Marvel`s fear of change and age eventually destroy them?

[The Overlord]

Manga's more popular with everyone, my friend. Anime, not so much in America, but the manga industry is doing about ten times better than the comic industry in America, despite the fact that readership of everything in America (except, probably, the internet) is steadily dropping year after year.

Ultimately irrelevant, it doesn't matter how well comics do in relation to manga, its how well the character concepts do. manga is still completely niche, well Hollywood movies are not.

More people know who Batman is then say Goku, because Batman has several big movies he has starred in and Goku, doesn't. Heck at this point the general public knows more about a previously unknown character like Iron man, then they do about any anime character.

 

[CBG]

Destroy Marvel? It also extends to DC, arguably to a lesser extent.

Decades down the road, would I enjoy reading the same established characters, slightly older but still as they were? Truthfully, no.

 

[Harlekin]

"Is doing"? They did COIE once. Since then, all of their efforts have been either neutral or PRO-multiverse/hypertime. Especially right now.

I'm referring to their current Silver Age kick with the resurrections of Hal Jordan and Barry Allen. Heck, as far as I'm concerned, they could've left Wally where he was too. Not because I dislike him (I love him), but I thought it was a great moment for the legacy to pass on.

 

[Red Mask]

It always bothered me how the technology in Marvel and DC is never seen utilized on a national level. They only reflect the real world's advances like cell phones and the Internet.

IMHO, why don't they already have space migration? Marvel is understandable because Earthlings are afraid of what's out there. But for DC it's a reasonable development. Heroes like the Green Lanterns can protect space immigrants. But in Marvel, why don't empires like the Kree and the Skrulls just inhabit planets like Mars? They can terraform it. It's stategically good for an army base against Earth. They've got the Eternals on Titan, the Inhumans on the Moon, etc. So why don't these alien empires just inhabit other worlds in the solar system?

 

[The Question]

Because most of them already have their own territories, and terraforming takes time, effort, and money.

 

[BrianWilly]

Looks like someone's been playing Spore.

 

[YJ1]

I refuse to contemplate comic time continuity. For example, there's no way in my mind that Cap was thawed out in the 90's. He saved President Ronald Reagan when Reagan was poisoned and turned in to a lizard! (Only after Cap refused to run for president himself in 1980 after being approached as a third party candidate!)

Then, Reagan pardoned the Hulk!

This gave him time to tell Superman what to do.

 

[Red Mask]

Because most of them already have their own territories, and terraforming takes time, effort, and money.

For DC, that's not a problem. They've already shown there are numerous inhabitable planets for humans to go to. They definitely have the technology to transport hundreds of people at a time. In Marvel, well I think alien races should just move to the solar system. Have them populate planets like Mars instead of us.

 

[BrianWilly]

I would love to see something like the resurgence of the Age of Exploration in DC as it pertains to outer space; that'd be a really interesting "event direction" to take the line in for a year or two.

But funding a space colony of any kind would still be a ginormous endeavor. We're basically talking about creating a new city, country, or world that's light-years away from any actual Terran jurisdiction. Who's going to shell out the money and labor for a project like that which will almost certainly have no revenue for decades if not centuries? The government? I dunno about the fictional DCU, but our real life space programs have been basically hemorrhaging money for the last decade or so.

They'd have to start small. Terraforming the moon might actually profitable in the longterm -- potentially an alternate fuel source -- especially considering that the League has already set up shop there.

Most aliens in DC and Marvel tend to think of Earth as a backwards mudball populated by overpowered meddlers (DC) and genetic timebombs (Marvel). Not that they don't wind up coming here in battalions anyway, but there's nothing really too appealing about this sector to your run-of-the-mill galactic empire.

 

[The Question]

For DC, that's not a problem. They've already shown there are numerous inhabitable planets for humans to go to. They definitely have the technology to transport hundreds of people at a time. In Marvel, well I think alien races should just move to the solar system. Have them populate planets like Mars instead of us.

Why? Why would the Shi'Ar or The Kree have any interest in our territory of space? And why would more expansionist races like The Skrulls out the time, money, and effort into terraforming Mars when they can just go to war with us like they already have?

 

[BrianWilly]

As for...

It always bothered me how the technology in Marvel and DC is never seen utilized on a national level. They only reflect the real world's advances like cell phones and the Internet.

...I believe this page pretty much answers it. As much as I am...iffy...on Millar, he does come up with some great explanations as far as this goes. There was also a Millar run in Wolverine where Reed, Tony, and Hank basically came up with a solution to world hunger...if only the world government would actually get around to implementing it effectively.

Mark Waid's FF run also had companies like Apple and Revlon pay Reed millions of dollars for him to not release his inventions -- blackberries that run on N-space tech and a permanent solution for acne, etc -- that would put them out of business in a second.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

So, basically,the Marvel world sucks because its governments are run by a**holes. Hmm, I guess Marvel really is grounded in reality.

 

[BrianWilly]

The way it was actually worded was less dickish than how I put it, but it does basically boil down to the eggheads being able to grow their damn food for them out of thin air and the world governments being all "But the politics!" Not too different from when Thor was like, "I'm giving you free energy, for free," and everyone was like "HAX!!"

 

[The Question]

Really isn't too far off from the truth. All sorts of technology, transportation technology being the stuff I've heard about the most, has been held back from production because it would lose various companies money if it were made.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The way it was actually worded was less dickish than how I put it, but it does basically boil down to the eggheads being able to grow their damn food for them out of thin air and the world governments being all "But the politics!" Not too different from when Thor was like, "I'm giving you free energy, for free," and everyone was like "HAX!!"

Goddamn cabal. Thor would've made Earth super-awesome if not for them and Iron Dick.

 

[Aristotle]

Mark Waid's FF run also had companies like Apple and Revlon pay Reed millions of dollars for him to not release his inventions -- blackberries that run on N-space tech and a permanent solution for acne, etc -- that would put them out of business in a second.

Reed took cash payments to not transform Earth into a finer world?

HOW DO YOU PEOPLE CALL HIM A HERO?

I would love to see something like the resurgence of the Age of Exploration in DC as it pertains to outer space; that'd be a really interesting "event direction" to take the line in for a year or two.

I'd love to see that happen, with an end result of us getting our Manifest Destiny shoved right up our asses. It would be a nice rebuttal to generations and decades and centuries of white European hegemony and arrogance.

But funding a space colony of any kind would still be a ginormous endeavor. We're basically talking about creating a new city, country, or world that's light-years away from any actual Terran jurisdiction. Who's going to shell out the money and labor for a project like that which will almost certainly have no revenue for decades if not centuries? The government?

Superheroes have rebuilt cities in a matter of days. They could build new ones pretty fast too, and with built-in revenue producers like factories, farms, shopping complexes, energy solutions, etc.

I dunno about the fictional DCU, but our real life space programs have been basically hemorrhaging money for the last decade or so.

Only because they haven't gotten proper funding. When you don't fund a program enough to make anything solvent, everything you do give it just goes to waste.

 

[Aristotle]

Fair enough.....name one. The only one i can think of is the genocidal cycle in the balkans area and even that is not as powerful as the holocaust.

Well, it should be. But you want more recent tragedies on the level of the Holocaust?

1) Pol Pot
2) Vietnam (I know, I know, it's badwickedevil to update World War II characters to Vietnam, I don't care)
3) Afghanistan vs. Russia vs. USA
4) USA vs. democracy in South America
5) USA vs. democracy in the Middle East
6) USA vs. democracy pretty much everywhere that non-white people live
7) Tibet
8) Just about anywhere in Africa, but apartheid South Africa could be good. Yeah, son, make him black. I said it.
9) Growing up black in the USA.
10) Growing up Hispanic in the USA.

Do these things currently have the cultural cachet and instant sob-story power that the Holocaust does? No. But they should. And as long as they don't, the entire Holocaust-remembrance movement is a ****ing joke. The point is to remember the Holocaust so oppression never happens again. And yet right here in the USA, we forget that lesson at least annually. We need to start treating all tragedies with the weight they deserve, including the ones that we start. The Holocaust has been allowed to be such a historical turning point because Americans didn't commit it, and because the Nazis lost.

I'm sorry. I'm just very bitter about the cheapening and devaluing of the Holocaust into nothing more than a literary device, while the entire purpose of remembering it is lost.

 

[Aristotle]

Thats a completely different circumstance.

A choice is a choice is a choice. Don't skirt the issue. You conservatives always like to talk such a big "free-will, individualism, free-thinking game," so don't back out of it now (although flip-flopping is another classic conservative technique--see the current corporate welfare policy as opposed to anti-poor people policy.) And make no mistake, as a defender of capitalism, you are automatically conservative.

Wheres the incentive though?

Really? A Marvel fan arguing that ethics only matter when there's a selfish reason or incentive? Could that have been any more expected?

Frankly your analogies are all irrelevant and needlessly sensationalist.

Whatever. I'm only arguing that capitalism as it's currently configured is greed, and that greed is a choice.

Making spider-man isn't anywhere near similar to having a gun at your head.

It's an analogy. It exists to illustrate a point. No matter the circumstance, a choice is a choice.

Making spider-man doesn't require a higher ethical code

Let me see if I got that right. Ethics only matter when everyone's watching, when everyone else thinks they matter. Ethics only matter when they're expected of you. Well, I call ********. Ethics always matter. And Marvel is a corporation like any other. They have no less ethical obligation upon their behavior than any other corporation or individual.

being in business to make money is not unethical, if it works properly it's actually very very ethical

Being in business to make money is not unethical inherently, no. Being in business to make more money than you need...now THAT is embarrassingly and painfully unethical and greedy. And completely typical.

 

[Aristotle]

Artificially generated reasons? All I see are people who have actual, granted fairly minor, complaints with a fictional universe they have an investment in.

"Minor" is exactly right. If these were TV fans, these concerns would be something that would maybe be talked about for five minutes on a slow weekend. Because the medium is successful. But comic book fans have been programmed for so long to think of their medium, and particularly its hallmark genre (superheroes) as inferior, that they've become self-haters. They'll say anything (and frequently do) to distance themselves from the medium and certainly from the superhero form (which subconsciously distances one from the public perception of the entire broad medium) in the hopes that they can avoid the dreaded "fanboy" category and be accepted into mainstream circles. It's ****ing dumb. I'm as mainstream of a guy as you can get, and I am unashamed about my love of superhero comic books. Trade paperbacks sit on my bookshelf next to Anarcho-Socialist manifestos, subversive histories, and liberation theology books. I push my friends to read comics (and succeed.) We don't have to be self-loathing. We won.

Really isn't too far off from the truth. All sorts of technology, transportation technology being the stuff I've heard about the most, has been held back from production because it would lose various companies money if it were made.

Nicotine-less tobacco. Renewable super-energy solutions. Public transportation solutions for intercity and intracity travel. Marijuana. The list goes on.

 

[The Question]

Reed took cash payments to not transform Earth into a finer world?

HOW DO YOU PEOPLE CALL HIM A HERO?

He took cash payments to not mass produce acne cream and blackberries. I would think he takes the money he's paid to not release the inventions that really don't matter in order to fund the projects that do.

"Minor" is exactly right. If these were TV fans, these concerns would be something that would maybe be talked about for five minutes on a slow weekend. Because the medium is successful. But comic book fans have been programmed for so long to think of their medium, and particularly its hallmark genre (superheroes) as inferior, that they've become self-haters. They'll say anything (and frequently do) to distance themselves from the medium and certainly from the superhero form (which subconsciously distances one from the public perception of the entire broad medium) in the hopes that they can avoid the dreaded "fanboy" category and be accepted into mainstream circles. It's ****ing dumb. I'm as mainstream of a guy as you can get, and I am unashamed about my love of superhero comic books. Trade paperbacks sit on my bookshelf next to Anarcho-Socialist manifestos, subversive histories, and liberation theology books. I push my friends to read comics (and succeed.) We don't have to be self-loathing. We won.

I honestly don't see it. None of this if self loathing. It's not liking something and not being afraid to admit it. Some people don't like the lack of lasting change in mainstream comics. They think it leads to bad, repetitive, stagnant storytelling. And the reason they're so passionate about it is because, unlike "TV" fans who, for the most part, have only been watching the shows they like for a few years, with those shows being entirely self contained, fans of mainstream comics have been with these characters, who all exist in one large universe that the readers have intimate knowledge of, for decades, and have some kind of emotional investment in the characters and the world they live in. They shouldn't hold off their complaints and be grateful that the medium exists because "we won" (a concept you've defined very vaguely, by the way). If we've won anything, we've won the right to question the artistic integrity of individual works or groups of works within the medium.

 

[Aristotle]

Tech doesn't exist in a vacuum. Blackberries powered by whateveritis mean other items powered by whateveritis. We all know Reed Richards could transform the world inside six months with his research. Why hasn't he?

Because somebody paid him.

 

[The Question]

Tech doesn't exist in a vacuum. Blackberries powered by whateveritis mean other items powered by whateveritis. We all know Reed Richards could transform the world inside six months with his research. Why hasn't he?

Because somebody paid him.

That's an assumption, one that I don't see much of a basis for. Time and time again, Reed is shown trying to use his technology to improve the lives and safety of the Earth. Anti-Galactus defense systems, cures for arthritis. The only instance he was shown getting paid to not mass produce tech was for inventions that, in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. That's not being a sell out. That's knowing when to pick your battles. It's more important to potentially save humanity than cure acne or make it easier to CEOs to cancel appointments.

 

[Aristotle]

I could reiterate that even small technological advances lead to greater ones, but you don't seem interested in that.

 

[The Question]

I could reiterate that even small technological advances lead to greater ones, but you don't seem interested in that.

And I could mention that Reed could use the money he gets from not mass marketing the small advances in order to pursue the greater ones, but you don't seem to be interested in that.

 

[Aristotle]

But where are these greater inventions? This is a guy who can whip up a "Beat Anybody" weapon in hours!