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Everyone focuses on how the Super Soldier serum enhances his physical abilities, but lets not forget that his mind had to undergo some kind of enhancement as well. Case in point: Cap's ability to ricochet his shield is really no different than what Cyclops does with his optic blast. Yet, Cyclops, and not Cap, is considered a master of spatial geometry. Rogers has to calculate the trajectory on the fly each and every time with a concavo-convex metal disc approximately 2.5 feet (0.76 m) in diameter that weighs 12.5 lbs and absorbs kinetic energy with each impact. Don't know about you, but that's pretty impressive.
You should watch Beckham play soccer.
Or a hockey forward controlling the puck?
Of course a puck isn't as large and heavy...
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I have. He's good. And I can say that without being a fan of the sport. And though I don't watch it nearly as much as I would like, I enjoy a good hockey match.
They went to great lengths to show just how much Captain America's fighting capabilities improved between 3 films. First Avenger Cap is a far cry different from Avengers Cap, with Winter Soldier Cap being hands down the better fighter of the three versions. This was one of the things I hoped would be dealt with and was not disappointed by any means.
Cap has and always will be one of my favorite heroes. Seeing how well Winter Soldier has done makes me smile because there were many who said that a Cap movie wouldn't be as successful as the others. I find it very telling that of the phase 2 films, CA:TWS is the best of the sequels (Thor: The Dark World is a distant second followed closely by Iron Man 3). I just hope that Guardians of the Galaxy does just as well as Winter Soldier.
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This is how MARVEL's Civil War should have happened.
Well, I've just seen the Agents of SHIELD ep where it ties in with TWS. Not too shabbily done, but could've done with a cameo from Chris :-)
Seriously, it was obvious AoS was telling it's own story within the overall plot of the movie and so had to take place in a setting that interleaved, rather than collided with that of the film.
Still, it made me grin and even though I thought "This isn't too connected" my wife kept asking me "What's going on?" so I suppose it was really.
Any other comments would be spoilers from AoS, so I'll stop there - plus I think you guys are 2 weeks ahead at the minute? Let me know when you have another break.
I believe the super serum gave him the ability to telekinetically control round mettalic objects.Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? really? you're joking right?
Hear that woosh sound? That was just a bird. The joke went so far over your head it didn't even make a sound.
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Hear that woosh sound? That was just a bird. The joke went so far over your head it didn't even make a sound.I believe the super serum gave him the ability to telekinetically control round mettalic objects.Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? really? you're joking right?
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Yeah...back before they got their own studio to make movies, they sold off a ton of rights. A lot of them have clauses where basically if a movie isn't done with the property in X-amount of time, they revert back, which happened with the hulk and I think a few other properties. They have also bought back a few.There was a so awful its amazing 1994 fantastic four movie done at one point on a 10,000 dollar budget just to keep the rights. There's no reason they wouldn't do that with the different spiderman/x men movies.
This was on Red Letter Media just recently.
It is one of the paradoxes I've always liked in the concept of Marvel America, how one balances the potential of super powered chaos with personal freedoms.
The resentment/mistrust for (most!) powered people makes sense. I explained it to a friend who was a DeVry graduate and DC fan thus.
"You've spent what, 4 years in college getting your degree? How many late nights working? How much student loan debt? How long have you put off your family for this? And now you're competing in a field against people who are just as motivated as you.
"Now you're in an interview against Doug Ramsey. He's younger than you, hasn't had all the schooling, but luck in the genetic lottery means he's *at least* as good as you at computers, if not better. Plus, they can pay him less because he doesn't have all that college debt to deal with."
"That's a passive mutation. Now imagine a world where there are active mutations. People get scammed all the time. Add in telepathic nudges. Did your wife really just have a fling, or did she encounter someone with mind control. School shootings? Imagine if someone like Havok or Black Cannary went postal? What is a cop going to do, really, if Spiderman says frak it, and robs a bank? Marvel normals may love their Avengers, but it doesn't stop them from fearing them."
The problem with that stance, and why the X-Men have been opposing it for years, is that it's absurdly absolutist with a paranoid Us-Vs-Them attitude for seasoning. It pretty much claims that all metahumans are The Enemy, out to steal the innocence, livelihood, and lives of "hard-working, honest" muggles.
The fact that a@*&*&@s in real life have used this same justification for various discriminatory laws don't help one bit.
I don't think he's saying it makes it right (which it isn't), but rather that it makes sense (which it does).
That's a pretty important difference.
EDIT: for better word-choice.
I agree the Civil War was poorly executed, Mark Millar made some missteps in the main title, but it was actually the tie in series, particularly anything that JMS was allowed to pour his own political biases in to that really mucked things up. It's pretty awful when Mark Millar is, arguably, the most even handed writer on a particular issue.
Funny note: after Civil War they put out a What If comic where one of the scenarios had Cap decide to just talk things out and compromise with Stark rather than fighting. Predictably the whole Registration thing went smoothly and everyone was happy.
Civil War annoyed me on multiple levels. Though I DID love that What If. All the secret Ids and training being handled by the avengers instead of SHIELD was what I called for the first time the series mentioned. It was nice to be justified a bit. ;)
Civil War COULD have worked except for two things. 1) The writers didn't plan it out. Seriously... they wrote up a 'law' and every writer treated it completely differently. In one book it was 'register or retire'.... in the next it was 'Register or go to Jail.' In one, registration meant you were held accountable for damage done... in the next it meant you could be drafted by SHIELD to do any dirty work they needed done whether you wanted to or not...
They needed another weekend retreat or something to get everyone on the same page there, as it turned out, SHIELD became just fascist dictatorship who used villains as soldiers since the good guys wouldn't join... O.o
it was crap.
The 2nd problem was that one side would completely upset the status quo of comics in general. Turning the term 'super hero' into Government soldier taking orders from congress and not wearing masks anymore or having secret identities... REally kind of ruins comics for me. It was impossible to see both sides evenly. Logic is irrelevant there... comics are comics ;)
It was also annoying because it was MOSTLY unnecessary. Most heroes were already an Avenger or reserve Avenger at some point... and Nick Fury (the real one) already knew the IDs of everyone. He just kept it to himself and liked having some people to manipulate into fighting evil without being held responsible for them ;)
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Season 2 is a go.YEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
It has been spelled out more or less explicitly and certainly implicitly that superpowers are symbolic of the thngs we are good at that not everyone else is. Suddenly, the meaning of the government seeing this as dangerous and something they need to take control of upon pain of being imprisoned for life without a trial in a prison on Cu... Sorry, the negative zone... That is not a recipe for making both sides' views valid.
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Season 2 is a go.YEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
You need to meet whedon and have a good cry on his shoulder on how much you hate him and everything that came from him...
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There have been various attempts are more realistic handling/deconstruction of super heroes, but AFAIK all of them are on a far smaller scale than either the Marvel or DC universe. That simplifies the situation.
A pretty good example of a "realistic" handling of superheroes could be found in Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart. It's not his best work (the fact that it's aimed at young adults hurts the fun and limits character complexity some), but it has one of the best ending twists of all time, and like all of Sanderson's books, the affect that the superpowers have on the setting are very well thought out. If anyone is interested in that specific thought experiment, it's a very good book to check out.
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Yeah...I really have no idea what to expect from Guardians. Winter Soldier has encouraged me that they can take the Marvel movie experience and translate it to genres other than "super hero flick." Winter Soldier was "super heroes plus spy drama." Guardians of the Galaxy looks to be "super heroes plus comedy plus space opera." Marvel's track record has been exemplary - even the movies that aren't out-of-the-park home runs are still pretty good.
I'm hopeful...I am getting a strong Farscape vibe from Guardians, and it's been awhile since we had a good space opera. Also IMHO opinion...none of the Marvel movies have really been bad. I am not a huge fan of the Iron Man sequels, but even then it's more like they were "just okay". I can't say any of them have been "Spiderman 3" level of bad.
I'm hopeful...I am getting a strong Farscape vibe from Guardians, and it's been awhile since we had a good space opera. Also IMHO opinion...none of the Marvel movies have really been bad. I am not a huge fan of the Iron Man sequels, but even then it's more like they were "just okay". I can't say any of them have been "Spiderman 3" level of bad.
Then you haven't seen the current Spiderman movie. :(
Then you haven't seen the current Spiderman movie. :(
While Spider-man is a Marvel property, it's not done by Marvel Studios. It's been licensed to Sony (similar to all the X-Men movies being licensed to and made by Fox).
Correct me if I'm misinterpreting you, MMCJawa, but I got the impression the scope of "Marvel movies" to which you referred are those being put out by Marvel Studios and none of the other licensed properties. Is that a fair understanding? If so, I agree with you. =)
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I'm hopeful...I am getting a strong Farscape vibe from Guardians, and it's been awhile since we had a good space opera. Also IMHO opinion...none of the Marvel movies have really been bad. I am not a huge fan of the Iron Man sequels, but even then it's more like they were "just okay". I can't say any of them have been "Spiderman 3" level of bad.Then you haven't seen the current Spiderman movie. :(
I wouldn't say Amazing Spider-Man 2 was bad. It just wasn't good. I've thought about why I didn't like ASM2, while I thought CA2:WS was one of the best movies Marvel Studios has put out, rivaling even Avengers as my #1. What I came up with is that Sony and Fox are content with retelling their own spins on stories with the characters they are allowed to use, rather than taking these characters and giving us a new story.
In the new movie, it's clearly retelling the pivotal "Death of Gwen Stacy" story. And they did some good things in it. I liked that they set up Harry as the Green Goblin in their universe rather than Norman, and I liked that we still don't know who the shadowy guy from the teaser at the end of the first movie. I disliked that they moved the actual fall and death from the George Washington Bridge, but I know it's because they wanted to differentiate themselves from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and it's similar setup. Also, I thought they did a good job of showing why Gwen died - it wasn't the sudden jerk from the webbing, it was that Peter was just a second too late. It really is his fault. Well, the Goblin's, really, but Peter wouldn't hear you if you told him that. And I applaud the decision to keep the mask off the Goblin. Imagine Willem Defoe if he had played the Goblin sans mask!
And yet, I still didn't like it. I think the real reason for that is that for all the stuff that Sony did right in this film, they played it way too safe. They're rehashing the same old ground, rather than chart new territory. Compare this film and Sam Raimi's Spiderman. Both feature Peter facing the Green Goblin, and during the battle he loses the girl (literally in ASM2, figuratively in SM). For everything they're doing to stand apart from Raimi's movies, they're still living in the shadow of those films, and the character in general. It's definitely possible to revisit characters played in films past and have them surpass the original - Ledger's Joker being the prime example of this.
Marvel, on the other hand, seems to be doing everything they can to tell more original stories. Yes, we have plenty of ties back to the original stories - and Captain America: The First Avenger was probably the most egregious of these unoriginal stories - but by and large, they've been trying to tell fairly original stories, or at least tales drawn from a number of sources, rather than just one. And while it seems we're heading towards the Infinity Gauntlet, that seems much larger and more awesome than anything Sony or Fox is getting ready to release.
I'm hopeful...I am getting a strong Farscape vibe from Guardians, and it's been awhile since we had a good space opera. Also IMHO opinion...none of the Marvel movies have really been bad. I am not a huge fan of the Iron Man sequels, but even then it's more like they were "just okay". I can't say any of them have been "Spiderman 3" level of bad.Then you haven't seen the current Spiderman movie. :(
I still think the Doc Ock Spiderman 2 was my favorite spidey movie.
But the new one is easily my second favorite. Garfield's spidey is more the like the spidey in the comics. The introvert turned extrovert as soon as he slips on the mask. Lots of wisecracking, lots of mocking.
In this one... he's a lot more 'heroic' than I ever got from Toby's version.
And this is the best spidey costume ever shown on film. THAT boosts it a LOT in my opinion.
Honestly all the slamming on comic movies isn't looking a the whole scale. Spiderman 3??? That was a weak movie. Not BAD per se... Batman and Robin... Elektra.... Catwoman... STEEL...
C'mon... we can really dredge the bottom of the barrel if want to look for BAD movies. NONE of the spiderman movies have reached THAT level. For that matter before someone brings it up, neither did Daredevil. The worst those movies hit was 'Disappointing' or 'I had higher hopes...'
Personally, I think some of the WORST of the new breed of supermovies were the X-franchise. I really think X-2 was the only decent one of the bunch... but I'm still looking forward to the train wreck coming out in a few weeks ;)
Yep, I was differentiating MCU movies from Marvel movies made by other companies.
I actually haven't seen the most recent Spiderman, but the recent reviews I have read have kind of supported my initial concerns that Sony was trying to shove way too many plotlines into a single movie, in their attempt to get to the the big Avengers-esq Sinister Six movie as fast as possible, which they hope will earn them a billion dollars. At this point, I will catch it on rental.
The sad thing is that I really like the new casting of the spiderman movies. Andrew Garfield is a far better spiderman than say Toby Maguire, and his chemistry with Gwen Stacy/Emma Stone was great.
Marvel has taken a much slower approach, and hasn't had to really reboot any characters except the Hulk, whose origin story they (justifiably) skipped over. I also just feel they get the storylines. The characters come off as larger than life, and the approach to movies (different genre movies that just happen to feature super heroes) is really brilliant
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Yep, I was differentiating MCU movies from Marvel movies made by other companies.
I actually haven't seen the most recent Spiderman, but the recent reviews I have read have kind of supported my initial concerns that Sony was trying to shove way too many plotlines into a single movie, in their attempt to get to the the big Avengers-esq Sinister Six movie as fast as possible, which they hope will earn them a billion dollars. At this point, I will catch it on rental.
The sad thing is that I really like the new casting of the spiderman movies. Andrew Garfield is a far better spiderman than say Toby Maguire, and his chemistry with Gwen Stacy/Emma Stone was great.
Marvel has taken a much slower approach, and hasn't had to really reboot any characters except the Hulk, whose origin story they (justifiably) skipped over. I also just feel they get the storylines. The characters come off as larger than life, and the approach to movies (different genre movies that just happen to feature super heroes) is really brilliant
Well, one of the things about the extra plot... is that happens in the comics all the time. You have main plot... teasers, and a few cameos and build up for the next ones.
Batman and Robin crammed in a bunch of villains who were just sort of 'there' to say they were there. ASM2 had a lot of villains... but they had a bit of story. Honestly, characters like Rhino don't DESERVE a lot of screen time and what they did felt very comic bookish. I walked out all smiles.
I was very annoyed at the REASONS for the reboot. The whole 'gotta make a movie to keep the rights was pretty lame. Making it yet ANOTHER origin story was stupid all around. However I REALLY liked the end result.
I've seen a lot of people utterly dismissive of the new series before it ever came out JUST because of the 'why' it was made. The movie on its own was pretty cool.
Andrew Garfield is a far better spiderman than say Toby Maguire...Man, I just don't see this, and think precisely the opposite.
Toby did a good Peter Parker in the first one. Back in high school the nerd who was picked on... but as Spiderman? I don't think he had the lines or the attitude that he should have.
Even in the comics Peter was dweeby and puny parker for only a short time. After that he did start dating and had a job and had a bunch of friends. Everyone seemed to like him except for Flash and Jameson.
And that's kind of the way Garfield plays it. He's still awkward when talking to the girls, but the writing feels like a 'real' awkwardness. It reminds me of my high school conversations ;)
The conversations with him and Harry or him and Gwen just feel... more real.
And when the costume comes on... He's all puns and verbal backtalk. He jokes and banters to the point that the villains loose their cool. Just like in the comics. Toby never really did that. He had the "here's your change' quip in #2, but other than that... he was a much more serious Spidey.
Season 2 is a go.YEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
{slips MREs of BonChon chicken and bottled bubble tea into Freehold foxhole} Psssst! Help me start a Twitter campaign to get Alton cast as M.O.D.O.K. Seriously, he's got a perfect noggin for it... just before Sam Jackson splatters it with a railgun sniper rifle.
Part of the problem for me with Garfield, Phantom1592, is that he's just too pretty to be Spider-Man. I always imagined that Peter was quite average-looking, and Andrew is too much of a little hottie for my taste. It breaks verisimilitude for me.
I've seen him compared to Robert Pattison... but I think that was mostly the hair. Which... I think looks a bit weird.... but it ALMOST looks like they were going for that hair style he always wore in the 70's-80's... it was 'the peter parker' look...
As for average... Back in the ditko days he was pretty average... but by the time of the Gwen Stacy years... he really seemed to fall into that 'All heroes are handsome' comic book cliché. I LOVED a picture I saw once with Captain America, Hawkeye, Hank Pym, and a couple others all without masks... that was just the same blonde, wavy haired head shot used over and over again. It made me laugh.
I think Parker falls into the James Bond Category, Whenever he hits a film, he's portrayed by whatever is considered 'handsome' at the time. Most of the movies and cartoons and comics have had him portrayed as at least 'moderately' good looking.
Admittedly, I like the idea of nerd-done-good, but media rarely wants to put their money on ugly people ;)
Toby Maguire took the puny socially awkward nerd a bit too far...honestly it didn't seem like he gained any enjoyment at all from being Spiderman, and needed a strong regiment of antidepressants.
Garfield can pull off the smart ass that is part of Spiderman's identity pretty well. Maybe he isn't nerdy enough, but I will still take him over Maguire.
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you know, I loved Maguire, and I don't mind Garfield... both are pretty good actors... as long as they make Marvel movies I'll be happy... if you would have asked me 20 years ago, I would have been happy with any Marvel movie, and "who" was the actor or "which" studio made it... I would have been indifferent to that
But those real-life parallels haven't actually been superpowered. Haven't actually been hundreds of times tougher or stronger than their normal competition. Haven't been capable of destroying towns and cities singlehanded and taking on the army by themselves.
The problem with this kind of argument is a genre problem. Simultaneously trying to deconstruct and keep using the genres tropes doesn't work well. You can't both have superheroes and villains who fly around and beat each other up and try to conquer the world but otherwise don't have much effect on it, other than the casualty list, and at the same time try to deal with a realistic government/normal person reaction to that.
There is no such thing because it's an unreal situation. Not the powers, but the way those who have them use them and their effect on the world. You're so far from realism already, that trying to impose a realistic response just makes it worse.If you want to have realistic handling of comic book superpowers, either governments control enough supers to keep the others in line and supers are mostly either soldiers/agents or the equivalents for terror organizations like HYDRA, or the world has fallen apart into chaos of dueling supers or supers have conquered the world or at least carved their own empires out of it. In the first case, subtler supers are probably running everything from behind the scenes.
There have been various attempts are more realistic handling/deconstruction of super heroes, but AFAIK all of them are on a far smaller scale than either the Marvel or DC universe. That simplifies the situation.
The problem is that it's still punishing a large number of innocent people, or at least putting them under a baseless cloud of suspicion, for what is at best the actions of a few, and at worst baseless Nightmare Scenario-ism.
And for what, exactly? How could Mutant/Metahuman registration prevent Meta-crime anyway?
{slips MREs of BonChon chicken and bottled bubble tea into Freehold foxhole} Psssst! Help me start a Twitter campaign to get Alton cast as M.O.D.O.K. Seriously, he's got a perfect noggin for it... just before Sam Jackson splatters it with a railgun sniper rifle.Season 2 is a go.YEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
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To quote myself on the Joker issue:
[threadjack]I've always had a fun alternate character interpretation involving this:
The Joker is immortal. Not just in the sense that all comic book characters are really tough to keep dead, but actually in-universe unkillable. He'll always come back. I mean, look at how many times he's escaped certain death! And I mean really certain, not just "I can't believe anyone could survive that fall." kinda certain.
And Batman knows that. Which means, when you get right down to it, you can't stop the Joker, ever. All killing him does is delay him a bit. And, being really smart, Batman has done some math. The Joker takes longer to get out of Arkham than come back from the dead. So...logically, sending him to Arkham is the right thing to do.
There's a codicil to this involving the times he's been tempted to kill the Joker and why he didn't. Firstly it'd be the height of selfishness to do so, since that would cause more deaths in the long run, and secondly then he would've broken his one rule for nothing, potentially sending him down the slippery slope to villainy...just as the Joker probably wants.[/threadjack]
S$!*, meant to post that to the Agents of SHIELD thread, my bad.
Sorry for that utter non-sequitur, folks.
Lol..yeah, while a very interesting post, I was going where the hell did that come from?
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But that's not the problem at all. The problem is...But those real-life parallels haven't actually been superpowered. Haven't actually been hundreds of times tougher or stronger than their normal competition. Haven't been capable of destroying towns and cities singlehanded and taking on the army by themselves.
The problem with this kind of argument is a genre problem. Simultaneously trying to deconstruct and keep using the genres tropes doesn't work well. You can't both have superheroes and villains who fly around and beat each other up and try to conquer the world but otherwise don't have much effect on it, other than the casualty list, and at the same time try to deal with a realistic government/normal person reaction to that.
There is no such thing because it's an unreal situation. Not the powers, but the way those who have them use them and their effect on the world. You're so far from realism already, that trying to impose a realistic response just makes it worse.If you want to have realistic handling of comic book superpowers, either governments control enough supers to keep the others in line and supers are mostly either soldiers/agents or the equivalents for terror organizations like HYDRA, or the world has fallen apart into chaos of dueling supers or supers have conquered the world or at least carved their own empires out of it. In the first case, subtler supers are probably running everything from behind the scenes.
There have been various attempts are more realistic handling/deconstruction of super heroes, but AFAIK all of them are on a far smaller scale than either the Marvel or DC universe. That simplifies the situation.
The problem is that it's still punishing a large number of innocent people, or at least putting them under a baseless cloud of suspicion, for what is at best the actions of a few, and at worst baseless Nightmare Scenario-ism.
And for what, exactly? How could Mutant/Metahuman registration prevent Meta-crime anyway?
The situation in and of itself is not only realistic, it's happened before many times. Every time there's a mass shooting, up flares the Gun Control debates here in the U.S.. Every time there's a terrorist attack, talk inevitably shifts to those of the perpetrators' ethnic, political, and/or religious group.
In the comics, only the details (and arguably scope) are unreal. That's why it makes for such a powerful metaphor.
There is one notable difference if you expand it to all metahumans/heroes rather than just mutants: Some of them do have a factor of choice. The X-Men, Thor, Spider-Man and Hulk did not choose to gain their powers, but people like Iron Man, Cap, and Henry Pym did. Those people could and likely should have restrictions and/or registration.
that government forces are inept at best and corrupt at worst.
"Incapable" doesn't have to equate to "inept" - it merely means incapable. Otherwise, carry on. :)
Realistically, the good guys would lose once in awhile and they only need to lose once. Pretty much any government response would be justified.
This is entirely accurate, and the entire basis for Matt's comment that started this whole thing. It would be an entirely comprehensible - and, to some extent, justifiable - fear-based action on the part of people to force registration and other effects.
The biggest problem with all of this is, of course, telepaths - very high will saves, and also the power to influence all of those people without very high will saves.
It works as metaphor for various things: originally racism and later homophobia. It doesn't work when taken seriously as an in world thing where you debate the merits of Metahuman Registration or Sentinel programs or whatever in strictly in-world terms. Because that tears the covers off the metaphor and makes you realize how unrealistic the whole thing is.The problem is that it's still punishing a large number of innocent people, or at least putting them under a baseless cloud of suspicion, for what is at best the actions of a few, and at worst baseless Nightmare Scenario-ism....The situation in and of itself is not only realistic, it's happened before many times. Every time there's a mass shooting, up flares the Gun Control debates here in the U.S.. Every time there's a terrorist attack, talk inevitably shifts to those of the perpetrators' ethnic, political, and/or religious group.
In the comics, only the details (and arguably scope) are unreal. That's why it makes for such a powerful metaphor.
It really isn't because the core idea of the question still remains: Do you treat the whole as potential criminals due to the actions of a small minority? The answer (NO, if I gotta spell it out) does not change with the addition of superpowers, merely your methods of dealing with that minority.
IOW, Registration no (we just went over this), Sentinels yes (bigger threats mean a bigger response is needed), but you restrict them to a reactive role only: no rounding up/killing people just for being born different.
Sure, Gun Control comes up after some mass shootings. Terrorism brings up prejudice against the perpetrators ethnic/political/religious groups. The Marvel/DC universe have dozens of these events every month. Usually fights between the good guy and bad guy supers. Often leading to casualties, more often not although they really should. Almost always, the good guy really is saving the day and things would have been far worse without him. It's like the NRA fantasies were true and there were daily cases of good guys with guns having shootouts with gun wielding mass killers and saving lives on TV. Except more so, since it's almost always against bad guys the police/government can't handle.
Which is why the more realistic solution is A: recruit the supers (ala Savage Dragon and S.H.I.E.L.D.), and give the baseline agencies better stuff. Real life isn't limited by the need to make the superhero look good.
The better analogy wouldn't be guns, but bombs and fighter jets and tanks, regularly dueling it out in the streets, while the police and military could only use handguns. Some of them would have nukes too, but those would usually be averted at the last moment.
You underestimate the potential lethality of the world around us. You can literally walk into a supermarket and pretty much kill everyone there with just the stuff you find in it. And heaven forbid you're in a Wal-Mart. Every single person with a few guns is able to re-create Littleton, Sandy Hook, or both Fort Hood shootings.
Able. Which, by the way, does not necessarily equal willing or capable. Because most people, though they may be able to kill someone, often lots of people, the vast majority of us lack the desire, reason, or lack of empathy required to actually do it.
So yeah, when you're looking at the metaphor it works. When you extend the argument to actually deal with kids capable of blowing up cities or taking out armies,
But again, that's only the smallest percentage of the entire group, and and even smaller percentage that would even try.
but who have saved the world a dozen times over and try to debate what a realistic government or public response would be in that situation, it stops being at all realistic, because the world they're living in isn't realistic. How many times can your "baseless Nightmare Scenario" be realistically stopped by a longshot gamble at the last second? Because it happens in every other issue.
you don't actually read many comics, do you?
Realistically, the good guys would lose once in awhile and they only need to lose once.
Actually, if you actually read comics more often, you see that they do lose quite a few times.
And Evil doesn't quite have to win only once. Not realistically. If that were true, we'd be speaking German right now. Well, you'd be speaking German, I would've never existed.
Thing is, very few villains want to destroy the world/universe. Even fewer have the means to do it in one stroke.
You underestimate the potential lethality of the world around us. You can literally walk into a supermarket and pretty much kill everyone there with just the stuff you find in it. And heaven forbid you're in a Wal-Mart. Every single person with a few guns is able to re-create Littleton, Sandy Hook, or both Fort Hood shootings.
Able. Which, by the way, does not necessarily equal willing or capable. Because most people, though they may be able to kill someone, often lots of people, the vast majority of us lack the desire, reason, or lack of empathy required to actually do it.
That pretty much only takes into account full adult superheroes, well trained in their powers.
How many people can walk into a supermarket or walmart and kill everyone entirely on accident?
Cyclops loses his visor, everyone dies... Scarlet Witch spoke a couple words... genocide. Some are dangerous carriers of radiation or plagues...
NOT really the same thing as what 'normal' people can or would do...
I think one of my issues with Civil War... and registration, was it was ALREADY illegal to be a vigilante in Marvel. Many of the cops and officials may have looked the other way for the greater good... but how many times did the cops try to arrest Spiderman or Batman?
Putting on a mask and kicking butt in the street... was ALWAYS illegal. The ones who got away with it, had to jump through some hoops... like get government status with Avengers membership or something. The rest had to save the day and duck into an alley real quick.
The whole 'we should let the bad guys escape as the cops now only chase the good guys' thing was such garbage... It reminded me of the Tower of Babel story where batman could find fool proof ways to stop all his allies....
But Clayface and Joker keep getting away... Obviously his priorities were twisted ;)