Months ago ‘I Look Down on Young Women with Kids and I’m Not Sorry’ was published. It was written by Chrissy Stockton under the pen name “Amy Glass.” My wife read some of it out loud to me last weekend and asked what I thought. I told her that it required a blog post, even if the original piece was released in January. Besides, sometimes feminist drones get really upset and say things about me like: “I want to boil his nuts in Aunt Trudy’s cast-iron chicken pot and set a match to his wiener until it explodes like a cigar,” which also provides a window into their soul.
Let’s start from the beginning:
Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.
Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average. And here’s the thing, why on earth are we settling for average? …
You will never have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids.
Indeed, any two fools can have kids. That is easy. But it is difficult to be a father and a mother. It is hard to shape and mold young hearts and minds and spirits so that little human beings grow up to become productive members of civil society. One could make the argument that being an “exceptional” mother and father is society’s most important task. Ms. Stockton confidently crosses “exceptional” off the list for young married women, even though she’s never even been in love. Sad.
Let’s say you want to have a husband and kids and a job that pays enough for you to be comfortable. That’s an achievable dream for most of my peers, the upkeep of a relationship with an easy to moderate job can work for a woman. You can balance. However, there’s people like me who don’t like middle ground, it’s not for everyone. I don’t want to be a latte, I want to be an espresso. I want all of something, or I don’t want it at all.
Ms. Stockton obviously considers herself a “successful” woman, or at least on her way to being a success, so we must deduce from her own statement that she has never fallen in love. How is it that a woman who has never been in a loving relationship — especially a loving marriage — is so sure about what is possible for those couples? If a mother is doing what truly makes her happy, why is her life any less “successful” or “exceptional” than Ms. Stockton’s? Answer: It isn’t. Ms. Stockton just fashions herself an intellectual espresso-in-progress when in reality she’s more like drip-brew coffee.
In the case of Amy Glass, a pen name is justifiable. Amy Glass did not (and cannot) destroy anyone’s life by publishing “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry.” It can make people feel bad, yes. It can make people rage, yes. But it can also lead to a massive, weeks-long discussion about the merits of the argument, rather than the merits of the person who published it. This distinction—exactly how the pen name is used—is crucial.
Then she says of her core beliefs:
I think of all my opinions as in transit. None of them are destinations: stagnant, immobile things that don’t change. I’m human—I have all sorts of ideas, and not all fall in line with one grand, value-consistent philosophy. Like Whitman, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Ms. Stockton pats herself on the back for not destroying someone’s life, and then brushes off the fact that she says mean and hurtful things that she might not even believe a month, a week, a day or even a few hours after hitting the publish button. Why? Because she “contains multitudes.” I agree: her mind houses the belief that she’s smarter than the young married woman next to her while also possessing deep wells of vapid pseudo-intellectual psychobabble.
If the nonsensical ramblings of this self-absorbed single woman sounds like a philosophy major to you, then give yourself a hand.
Ms. Stockton, OMG-Philosopher extraordinaire, is the author of PhiLOLZophy:
A popular question in philosophy is “How do I know I exist?” That seems really boring though. How about, “How can I use logic to get over my ex?” If you really love wisdom, you love it in all situations—you don’t need to be spoonfed unsolved problems in philosophy, because you’re already analyzing the US Weekly you’re reading or your kinda significant other. Sarah Heuer and Chrissy Stockton are writers living in Minneapolis who are determined to do something more interesting with their philosophy degrees than talk about dead white guys.
The picture is becoming so much clearer now: A female philosophy major who has never been in love — who has convinced herself that she can’t be successful and in love — finds out after graduation that a.) being able to quote Plato’s The Republic is nice but it isn’t particularly a marketable skill, and b.) she may not have the chops to be a “philosopher king.” She soothes her inner frustrations by lashing out at women who are in truly loving relationships before moving on to denigrating “old white men” — intellectual giants — who would “L-O-L” at “PhiLOLZophy.”
I hope that one day Ms. Stockton does fall in love. I hope that she enters into a healthy marriage. When that happens she’ll see ‘I Look Down on Young Women with Kids and I’m Not Sorry’ for what it really is — shallow self-centered tripe. There’s something deliciously ironic about a philosopher who doesn’t see that she’s The Allegory of Cave vivified. I’m confident that one day an older and wiser version of Ms. Stockton will see the light.
Marvel Comics is paralyzed by political correctness. One needs to look no further than Tom Brevoort’s response to an inquiry about Frank Miller taking a crack at Captain America.
Read Mr. Brevoort’s words — “I don’t think, for example, we’d have gone with Holy Terror as a Captain America story” — and then go to any reputable news source and examine the stories coming out of Iraq and Syria right now. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is doing everything within its power to bring about an Islamic caliphate in the heart of the Middle East, Iraq is imploding, Syria is a terrorist breeding ground and the president of the United States is so desperate for help that he needs Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to help stem the violence.
A relevant publisher would see such glaring national security threats and say: “This is a subject matter that a Captain America comic book must address.” Sadly, that is not the case at Marvel Comics. The character who punched out Hitler won’t take on radical Islamic extremists because that might offend somebody.
Militants from the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (Associated Press)
Let us turn to one of last week’s most interesting national security headlines. The Daily Beast reported June 14:
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi walked away from a U.S. detention camp in 2009, the future leader of ISIS issued some chilling final words to reservists from Long Island. The Islamist extremist some are now calling the most dangerous man in the world [said]: “I’ll see you guys in New York,” recalls Army Col. Kenneth King, then the commanding officer of Camp Bucca.
Hmmm. This seems like a pretty bad dude. He’s got a huge bank account, an army of men willing to die for him, and his organization has left a trail of dead bodies all across the Middle East. Oh, and he just-so-happens to hate America — but somehow Marvel doesn’t want ask the kind of tough questions “Holy Terror” addressed — in a Captain America comic no less? Pathetic.
When one reads excerpt’s from Frank Miller’s “This Old Cloth,” Mr. Brevoort’s answer becomes even more spineless:
Then came that sunny September morning when airplanes crashed into towers a very few miles from my home and thousands of my neighbors were ruthlessly incinerated — reduced to ash. Now, I draw and write comic books. One thing my job involves is making up bad guys. Imagining human villainy in all its forms. Now the real thing had shown up. The real thing murdered my neighbors. In my city. In my country. Breathing in that awful, chalky crap that filled up the lungs of every New Yorker, then coughing it right out, not knowing what I was coughing up.
For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to face an existential menace. They want us to die. All of a sudden I realize what my parents were talking about all those years.
Patriotism, I now believe, isn’t some sentimental, old conceit. It’s self-preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation’s survival. Ben Franklin said it: If we don’t all hang together, we all hang separately. Just like you have to fight to protect your friends and family, and you count on them to watch your own back.
So you’ve got to do what you can to help your country survive. That’s if you think your country is worth a damn. Warts and all.
No black ops for Cap in Syria. No black ops for Cap in Iraq. No black ops for Cap in Afghanistan. No black ops for Cap in Pakistan. But Marvel is all about Captain America taking on the tea party.
These days, Marvel doesn’t push the envelope at all. It puts out a press release every time it does something easy (e.g., the company creates a superhero that allows guys like Mr. Brevoort to chortle on about diversity, as if readers haven’t been bashed over the head with how awesomely-awesome diversity is since they could barely walk). Unfortunately, Marvel has not explored what it means when the desire for diversity allows the world to turn a blind eye to the most illiberal individuals and organizations on the planet.
Holy Terror is at times raw, confusing, and poignant. Sometimes it angers (do you think that might be intentional?). It also makes anyone who reads it wonder why it had to be written in the first place. Fans of Holy Terror know why, and some of us aren’t afraid to talk about it. Critics of the book liken any frank (no pun intended) discussion of Islamic terrorism to an attempt to make it synonymous with Islam as a whole. Again, whose fault is that? Perhaps we should ask Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film director to whom Frank Miller dedicates the book. Or not…because he’s dead, slain by Islamic radicals.
Tom Brevoort likes the idea of having Frank Miller write Captain America tales — provided he turns in politically correct milquetoast pap. While the world focuses on very real, very evil bad guys, Marvel gives the green light to “Cap vs. Tea Party.” Readers got a heaping helping of weird Bush administration allegories with “Civil War,” but suddenly the burning desire to keep readers politically abreast of real-world headlines cooled just around 2008… How convenient.
If you want a thought-provoking read, tell Marvel to reach out to Frank Miller about writing Captain America. If you like self-congratulatory fare masquerading as ground-breaking diversity, then do nothing; Marvel has mastered that act.
An ISIS terrorist executes an innocent man in Iraq. Meanwhile, over in America, Marvel editors get nostalgic for the time they courageously had Captain America take on … the tea party.
Chuck Dixon and Paul Rivoche took to the The Wall Street Journal this past weekend to address an issue that guys like myself, Hube at Collossus of Rhodey, and Avi Green over at The Four Color Media Monitor have been spotlighting for ages: moral relativism in the comics industry.
Over the years, fewer and fewer superheroes had a functioning moral compass, and the result is that these days its often difficult for to distinguish between the hero and the villain. As the industry lurched to the left, conservative voices were elbowed out. The result: A politically correct schizophrenic comic book market, where creators see themselves as “social justice warriors,” one day, and writers with no social responsibility the next — usually when a cultural event turns the nation’s attention towards moral relativism practiced in much of the entertainment community.
In the 1950s, the great publishers, including DC and what later become Marvel, created the Comics Code Authority, a guild regulator that issued rules such as: “Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal.” The idea behind the CCA, which had a stamp of approval on the cover of all comics, was to protect the industry’s main audience—kids—from story lines that might glorify violent crime, drug use or other illicit behavior.
In the 1970s, our first years in the trade, nobody really altered the superhero formula. The CCA did change its code to allow for “sympathetic depiction of criminal behavior . . . [and] corruption among public officials” but only “as long as it is portrayed as exceptional and the culprit is punished.” In other words, there were still good guys and bad guys. Nobody cared what an artist’s politics were if you could draw or write and hand work in on schedule. Comics were a brotherhood beyond politics.
The 1990s brought a change. The industry weakened and eventually threw out the CCA, and editors began to resist hiring conservative artists. One of us, Chuck, expressed the opinion that a frank story line about AIDS was not right for comics marketed to children. His editors rejected the idea and asked him to apologize to colleagues for even expressing it. Soon enough, Chuck got less work.
The superheroes also changed. Batman became dark and ambiguous, a kind of brooding monster. Superman became less patriotic, culminating in his decision to renounce his citizenship so he wouldn’t be seen as an extension of U.S. foreign policy. A new code, less explicit but far stronger, replaced the old: a code of political correctness and moral ambiguity. If you disagreed with mostly left-leaning editors, you stayed silent.
Messrs. Dixon and Rivoche note that there have been bright spots over the years (e.g., “Maus,” Pixar’s “The Incredibles,”) but that a.) those creative endeavors are generally apolitical, and b.) they are now the exception rather than the rule. They conclude that most modern comics send the message: “in a morally ambiguous world largely created by American empire—head left.”
Perhaps the most recent glaring example of the industry’s moral relativism came from Marvel’s Spider-Man scribe, Dan Slott.
Here’s what moral relativist Mr. Slott said during the start of his run on Superior Spider-Man in an interview with Newsarama:
Nrama: With Superior Spider-Man, you’re writing Doc Ock as a lead character for really the first time, and a more long-term Doc Ock story than has really been seen before. We’re seeing the character put in very different situations, interacting with totally different characters. What kind of task has that been — approaching his mindset and his attitude in the position of a lead character?
Slott: He’s trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?
Yes, that’s right. Dan Slott actually asked if a man who tried to incinerate 6 billion people was any more annoying than Hawkeye in his very early days as a villain.
Slott continued:
Slott: Also, when you look at Doc Ock, he was so much like Peter Parker. Peter Parker, if he didn’t know the lessons of power and responsibility, that teenage nerd would have grown up to be an Otto Octavius nerd, with the same kind of, “I’m going to make them pay.” This is the flip of that. This is Doc Ock getting to go back in time and be as young as Peter Parker, and have force-fed into him this sense of power and responsibility. He has that lesson from Uncle Ben in his core. That was Peter Parker’s parting gift to the world — I’m not going to leave the world a villain, I’m going to leave them a hero.
So either Dan Slott was lying in his interview, or he forced Peter Parker to make one of the dumbest superhero decisions of all time. If Dan Slott’s “hero” had Uncle Ben’s lesson embedded in his core, Inception-style, why did he blow a guy’s face off at point blank range or engage in Nazi-like torture practices? Great “gift to the world,” Mr. Slott.
The funny thing about moral relativists is that when the culture spins out of control they refuse to take any responsibility for the disgusting cultural mosaic they’ve helped to create. It’s always the fault of someone else.
In the mind of a moral relativist like Dan Slott, the creative work he puts out into the world has zero effect on his reading audience aside from being innocuous “entertainment.” In the mind of a moral relativist like Dan Slott, he can make an American cultural icon into a genocidal maniac “Spider-Man” for over a year, have that character blow a guy’s face off and engage in Nazi-like torture, and then say with a straight face that what he does for a living has no effect on our cultural consciousness. It’s a great defense mechanism: “Hey, I ‘just’ write comics. Don’t look at me.”
Dixon and Rivoche end their piece by saying that they “hope conservatives, free-marketeers and, yes, free-speech liberals” will join them in entering the field with a renewed sense of purpose. Conservatives may have an uphill battle when it comes to getting their work seen through traditional outlets, but modern technology has helped level the playing field. If you’re a conservative or libertarian writer with a story that’s been sitting in your head for years, get it out of there. Crack open your laptop or go old school with a typewriter. Do whatever it takes to get your story one step closer to reality. Start that snowball rolling downhill and see where it takes you. The same thing goes for artists and musicians.
There’s an old saying that the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist. In a similar vein, the greatest trick moral relativists play is convincing people that what they read and listen to on a daily basis is incapable of warping their minds in dangerous ways.
If you see yourself as a creative conservative or libertarian individual, you owe it to yourself and your community to share that gift with the world. The ideological battle may be a long tough slog, but it’s one that is worth fighting.
Tom Cruise may be getting older, but that hasn’t stopped him from giving 110% in every role. With ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ it’s paid off. Director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) makes use of a solid screenplay (based on “All You Need is Kill,” by Hiroshi Sikurazaka), in addition to Cruise’s and Emily Blunt’s acting chops to create a product worth checking out. It’s impossible to ignore the ‘Groundhog Day’ jokes, but ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is no joke.
One element of ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ that makes it so good is Cruise’s ability to sell his transformation from self-absorbed public relations officer Major William Cage into a legitimate hero. Minutes into the movie Maj. Cage is informed that he’ll participating in a D-Day-type invasion that he helped sell to the world — and he isn’t happy. His response to the direct order given General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) is to try his hand at blackmail:
“I appreciate the confidence, general. I do this to avoid doing that. I was in ROTC in college, the war broke out, I lost my advertising firm — here I am. I do what I do — you do what you do, but I’m not a soldier, really. … General, I just inspired millions of people to join your army, and when the body bags come home and they’re looking for someone to blame, how hard to you think it would be for me to convince people to blame you? I imagine the general would prefer to avoid that. … I would prefer not to be filming acts of heroism and valor on that beach tomorrow.”
The general responds by having Cage arrested. As Cruise’s character tries to flee he is knocked out, only to wake up at a staging area for the next day’s big battle. Each time Cruise’s character dies throughout the movie, he is jolted into consciousness at that location; there he meets Master Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton). The no-nonsense NCO puts Cage in his place:
“You’re a coward and a liar putting your life above theirs. The good news is there’s hope for you, private. Hope in the form of glorious combat. Battle is the great redeemer.The fire and crucible in which the only true heroes are forged. The one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind of parasitic scum their were going in. … I envy you, Cage. Tomorrow morning you will be baptized — born again.”
Farell’s words are prescient — Cage is born again many times, and the sergeant’s assertion “through readiness and discipline we are masters of our fate,” becomes one of the major themes running throughout the movie. “You might call that notion ironic, but trust me…you’ll come around,” he tells Cage. It takes countless “deaths” for him to realize the wisdom embedded within the quote, but eventually it takes hold.
Cage needs help if he’s going to save the world from invading aliens, and Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), also known as the “Angel of Verdun,” fills the role. At one point in time Rita shared Cage’s ability to “reset” with each death, but lost the power. Between the two of them, they slowly and methodically go about figuring out how to save humanity from the alien “Mimics.” Overall, Blunt delivers — she is believable as a woman who could slice and dice her way through deadly tentacled aliens.
What made her character even more interesting was that as Cage began to learn more about her (and become more attached) with each death, she still managed to keep her guard up. No matter how many intimate details Cage knew about Rita, he would never truly know her until she decided that she knew him enough to relax and present him with her “real” self — the one behind the tough-talk soldier exterior.
Like ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past,’ Cruise’s ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ wants us to know that people can change. It is possible to turn a cowardly liar into a courageous hero. It is possible to overcome seemingly impossible odds. “Through readiness and discipline we are masters of our fate.”
There is a treasure trove of positive messages in ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ that, coupled with Cruise’s ability to carry a film, make it worthy of your time. Movie money used on seeing ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ in theaters is money well spent. If you like science fiction movies, give it a chance. You’ll be glad you did.
‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ may be the most important superhero movie of all time. I don’t say that lightly. Those whose blood pressure is starting to rise should take note: I didn’t say it was the “most fun” or “action packed” movie of all time — I said it may be the most important film ever.
Right out of the gates director Bryan Singer lets the audience know he’s created a movie about big ideas. When the first thing a director asks is “Does free will exist?” he’s given himself a tall order to fulfill:
Charles Xavier: The future…a dark desolate world. A world at war. Suffering and loss on both sides. Mutants and the humans who dared to help them fighting an enemy we can not defeat. Are we destined down this path, destined to destroy ourselves like so many species before us? Or can we evolve fast enough to change ourselves, change our fate? Is the future truly set?
Everything from the visuals and the narration to the music by John Ottman says: “This movie has gravity. Leave now if you just want a mindless popcorn flick.”
How many of us yearn to be able to go back in time and visit our younger selves — to talk some sense into them? What price would you pay for a single attempt to impart wisdom and knowledge on your reckless youthful counterpart — who wouldn’t listen to anyone — because maybe, just maybe, he’d listen to you? What if you could go back in time and convey something to your younger consciousness that would save all sorts of pain and suffering that you — although you wouldn’t ever admit it publicly — caused friends and loved ones? What if you’ve created a “dark desolate world” for yourself, but you knew there was a moment in time that could set things on a very different path? Would you risk ripping your consciousness into a million pieces for a chance to travel through space and time to set things right?
These are all very deep questions, and the actors tasked with making it all real to the audience do a magnificent job. James McAvoy, Hugh Jackman, Peter Dinklage, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Evan Peters and basically the entire cast all do a commendable job. Everyone who was required to provide emotional weight to movie comes through in the clutch, and the end result is a movie worth watching many times.
In addition to the covering free will, ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ covers redemption. The turning point in the film (major spoilers ahead — you have been warned) comes when young Charles finally comes face-to-face with his older self.
Young Charles: So this what becomes of us. Eric was right. Humanity does this to us.
Old Charles: Not if we show them a better past.
Young Charles: You still believe?
Old Charles:Just because someone stumbles and loses their way, it doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. Sometimes we need a little help.
Young Charles: I’m not the man I was. I open my mind and it almost overwhelms me.
Old Charles: You’re afraid, and Cerebro knows it.
Young Charles: In all those voices…so much pain.
Old Charles:It’s not their pain you’re afraid of — it’s yours. And frightening as it can be their pain will make you stronger if you allow yourself to feel it. Embrace it. It will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It’s the greatest gift we have that can bear pain without breaking, and it’s born from the most human power: Hope. Please Charles, we need you to hope again.
Can you forgive yourself for all the mistakes you’ve made? Can you forgive your friends and loved ones for the pain they’ve inflicted upon you? Can you forgive humanity for all the injustices it’s inflicted upon itself? Can you find strength in pain and then use that strength to make the world a better place? These are all questions asked by Singer, and the end result is a movie that aims — and largely succeeds — at affecting those who are willing to let it do so on the deepest of philosophical levels.
In short, the evolution of Charles Xavier over the course of the film from a broken man and into the hero who would lead the X-Men to a better tomorrow is nearly flawless. Along the way you might even forget that you’re watching “just” a superhero movie and find yourself welling up inside. For much of the movie you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Yes, fans “know” how it’s going to end (another movie is on the way, of course) but the writing, acting and directing are so good that it’s easy to get lost in it all and say, “Wow, they might not pull this out.”
Luckily, Professor Xavier regains his hope at a pivotal point in the film.
Hank McCoy:There’s a theory in quantum physics that time is immutable. It’s like a river — you can throw a pebble in and create a ripple, but the current always corrects itself. No matter what you do the river just keeps flowing in the same direction.
Wolverine: What are you trying to say?
Beast: What I’m saying is, what if the war is inevitable? What if she’s meant to kill Trask? What if this is simply who she is?
Charles Xavier:Just because someone stumbles and loses their way it doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. No, I don’t believe that theory Hank, and I can not believe that is who she is. Ready the plane. We’re going to Washington.
If you get a chance to see ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ in theaters, I would highly suggest making the trip. It’s rare for a movie to work on so many levels, and the fact that it’s an X-Men film makes this longtime Marvel fan very happy.
Editor’s Note for regular readers: I know I mentioned not being able to pay to see this movie, given the storm clouds hanging over the director’s head. I went to the movie theater with every intention of paying for Godzilla and then walking into X-Men: Days of Future Past, but the theater turned out to be about the size of my bedroom. There was no way I could pull it off without creating an awkward scene, so I allowed a friend to pay for me. I still don’t feel right about it, so if Mr. Singer’s legal issues do not turn out in his favor I will make a donation that would in all likelihood meet his accuser’s approval.
Peter Parker went out like a punk — twice — by writer Dan Slott, so it’s only fitting that he would get a punk homecoming. If you’re an Amazing Spider-Man fan who has been waiting for over a year to get a steroidal cheese-ball version of of Peter Parker back in tights, prepare to give Mr. Slott a pat on the back.
For a mere $5.99 (Can someone tell me why digital copies are just as expensive as buying in-store?), Peter Parker fans get to see the real deal take on some two-bit villains, lose all his clothes, get called an “idiot” by Mary Jane (the same character whose IQ dropped about 50 points in order to make Superior Spider-Man work), and have his secret identity exposed because Doc Ock’s love interest, Anna Maria, has seen him naked. Yes, you read that right. (But hey, “nothing happened” … despite the fact that Doc Ock was going to ask her to marry him after two months.)
Feeling warm and fuzzy now that Peter Parker is back? If not, here’s another one: the radioactive spider that bit Peter and gave him his powers also apparently bit another woman before finally dying. Perhaps if Dan Slott stays on the title long enough we’ll find out that a second radioactive spider was present that day, and it bit two more students, which would fit in nicely with his upcoming “Spider-Verse” plans (i.e., Why waste time exploring Peter Parker when readers can just get lost in countless Spider-Men? Who needs character development when you’ve got tons of spider-powered people swinging around?).
Question for Dan Slott and the editors at Marvel: Why do you hate Mary Jane? Why do you take every opportunity you can to turn her into a dumb b**ch? Why do you take a character who should be Peter Parker’s supermodel Linda Cadwell (i.e. Bruce Lee’s wife) and turn her into a one-dimensional bimbo? Why do you have to rub salt in the wounds of fans who believe Peter and MJ are meant to be together — every chance you get? Are you mean and spiteful man-boys, or just tone deaf morons?
But I digress. Back to Amazing Spider-Man #1, the issue where Dan Slott decided the best way for Peter’s secret identity to be revealed to Anna was through a cheap turn of events that left him naked — and then in a web diaper — in front of the entire world. It’s actually rather fitting I guess, because Dan Slott is once again “exposed” as a writer who lacks the intellectual depth and breadth to take Peter Parker to the heights he truly deserves.
If you’re a fan of Peter Parker, you should cheer because he’s back. If you’re a fan of Peter Parker, you should cringe because Dan Slott is still in control of the character’s short-term destiny. Amazing Spider-Man #1 is an issue that was long overdue, but it also was yet another case of Team Slott over-promising and under-delivering. With six months of issues like this, sales will drop to levels no barrage of variant covers can save. Instead of realizing that a writer who isn’t up to the task of growing and developing Peter Parker is to blame, the same predictable crowd will fault the character. At that time, expect calls for the “return” of Superior Spider-Man.
If you don’t have a lot of disposable income, don’t spend $5.99 on this book. Check out ‘Winter Solider’ while it’s still in theaters, or possibly the new Amazing Spider-Man movie if someone you trust liked it.
Bonus:
Those who follow this blog regularly know that Dan Slott is particularly sensitive about observations of Superior Spider-Man’s affection for genocidal maniacs and their tactics — despite the fact that the character said he wanted to transcend “Hitler, Pol Pot and Khan” in terms of evil perpetrated upon the world — shortly before body-snatching Peter — and despite the “full blown Nazi-like torture/experimentation on his victims,” that predictably took place before the series ended (Bleeding Cool’s words — not mine).
“In today’s Superior Spider-Man, the character goes a little further. Into full blown Nazi-like torture/experimentation on his victims. By ripping out teeth and fingernails,” (Bleeding Cool).
Given that sensitivity, why is it okay for Dan Slott to write Marvel Universe New Yorkers who believe Superior Spider-Man was a “jack-booted thug,” but it’s out of bounds to then talk about the implications of being a “jack-booted thug”? Ask a group of history lovers what group they think of first when they hear the phrase “jack-booted thug,” and nine times out of ten you will get the Nazis. You might even get an embarrassing goose-stepping demonstration.
It is downright strange for Dan Slott to use that phrase — that very loaded phrase, with all the images it conjures up — in his book, especially since he went on a massive YouTube meltdown that he ultimately tried to scrub from existence. It’s almost like he subconsciously knows my criticisms are incredibly accurate, or that he wants me to call him out so he’ll have an excuse to go on more incoherent tirades.
The Marvel Universe has “Damage Control” and so too does Dan Slott, apparently. When Mr. Slott can’t do it himself, the “Dan Slott Damage Control” (D.S.D.C.) is always willing to pick up his mess. Luckily, it has no power here.
If you want honest and frank reviews of Amazing Spider-Man, head back here any time there are major developments. If you want weird rants that will be deleted by Dan Slott or Slott-friendly moderators (e.g., Marvel’s Orwellian message boards) when he refuses to save himself from himself, those sites are readily available as well. More power to you. Either way, I’m happy to spend $5.99 if it will mean some extra cash in your back pocket.
Check the YouTube page ‘Superior Spider-Man Panel SDCC 2013’ so you can see evidence of Dan Slott trying to scrub, scrub, scrub away as much evidence of his recent YouTube meltdown as possible.
Slate’s Reihan Salam wants you to know: You’re a “racist” if you’re attracted to people who look like you. The great thing about his piece is that if that conclusion bothers you, reading past the headline is unnecessary. It’s titled: ‘Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race? Yes.’
Take OkCupid, for example — the dating service run by hypocritical CEO Sam Yagan, who recently engaged in character assassination because Brendan Eich once donated to an anti-gay marriage bill … even though he donated to a staunchly anti-gay marriage politician. The site asks a number of questions to figure out what type of person you’re physically attracted to. To race-obsessed Slate writers, that makes those **cough**white people**cough** who are attracted to a mate who looks like them “racist.”
One of OkCupid’s questions reads as follows: “Would you strongly prefer to go out with someone of your own skin color/racial background?” I was struck by the not inconsiderable number of people who answered “yes”—including some people I know “in real life,” many of whom are hilariously self-righteous about their enlightened political views.
Keep in mind that OkCupid users can skip a question with ease. The people who answered this question had every opportunity to pass it by. What I found surprising about the fact that a fair number of people answered that they would indeed strongly prefer to go out with someone of their own skin color/racial background was not that this phenomenon exists in the world. …
In The American Non-Dilemma, Nancy DiTomaso argues that persistent racial inequality in the United States is not solely or even primarily a reflection of racism and discrimination. Rather, it reflects the fact that whites tend to help other whiteswithout ever discriminating against or behaving cruelly toward blacks and other nonwhites. As long as whites tend to dominate prestigious occupations, and as long as they control access to valuable social resources like access to good schools, the fact that whites, like all people, will do more to help family, friends, and acquaintances than strangers will tend to entrench racial inequality, provided that white people choose to associate primarily with other whites.
To the liberal mind, white people who do not discriminate towards minorities — who do not think cruel thoughts about them at all — are still “racist” if the color that they find most attractive is what they see when they look in the mirror. To liberals like Suey Park, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in a white person’s mind — their skin has determined their fate: “racist.”
To the liberal mind, it is “racist” to help your family, friends and acquaintances if you are white because white people “dominate prestigious occupations.”
Yes, even though the writer acknowledges that “all people” help those who are in their immediate circle of friends and family, we must constantly monitor non-discriminatory white people because they “control access to valuable social resources.”
What is more likely holding back black people in Chicago: white Americans who are really nice — who just so happen to be attracted to someone who looks like them — or the fact that blacks are slaughtering each other in the streets like something you’d find in the Middle East?
At least nine people were killed and at least 36 wounded in Chicago over the Easter weekend, prompting a newly formed federal unit to step in to help tackle the city’s pervasive culture of gun violence.
In a Monday statement, a prosecutorial unit called the Violent Crimes section said it will put its full focus on how to use federal statutes to combat Chicago’s endemic gang and gun problem, giving the city its nickname “Chiraq.” The shootings over the weekend brought the total number of suspected homicide this year to 90, two less than during the same period last year.
These record numbers come despite the fact that it appears the city is finding creative ways to lower it’s murder rate. Need to get rid of crime? Don’t call it crime. Genius!
Toxicology tests showed she had heroin and alcohol in her system, but not enough to kill her. All signs pointed to foul play. According to the young woman’s mother, who had filed a missing-person report, the police had no doubt. “When this detective came to my house, he said, ‘We found your daughter. . . . Your daughter has been murdered,’ ” Alice Groves recalls. “He told me they’re going to get the one that did it.”
On October 28, a pathologist ruled the death of Tiara Groves a homicide by “unspecified means.” This rare ruling means yes, somebody had killed Groves, but the pathologist couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of death.
Given the finding of homicide—and the corroborating evidence at the crime scene—the Chicago Police Department should have counted Groves’s death as a murder. And it did.
On a deeper level, perhaps Slate’s Reihan Salam is saying that if only more of Chicago’s white population would date black people, they could save black people from themselves. Mr. Salam, why do you have such a low opinion of Chicago’s black population? Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
According to Slate’s Reihan Salam, if you’re a white guy who was turned off to Asians because you associate them with the likes of Suey “only white people can be racist” Park, you are (ta-da!) racist. See how that works?
Remember: In Suey Park’s world, only white people can be racist. Have fun trying to build a movement on that line, Ms. Park.
More from Ms. Park:
“[My work] is but one step in a plan to take down white, hetero, patriarchal, corporate America. … Can you make a pinky promise to keep my radical agenda in your article?”
As a member of white, hetero corporate America, I exhausted my patience with people like Reihan Salam and Suey Park long ago. The more that they scream “racist!” the more I laugh at them. The more they torture logic to turn nice law-abiding white people into “racists” — while cities like Chicago turn into “Chiraq” — the more I mock them.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to my job, which makes Slate’s Reihan Salam sad. He apparently wishes I was fired and replaced with a person of color because my continued employment perpetuates racism. I was thinking about willingly giving it up the other day to a guy from Chicago, but I heard he was shot and killed over Easter. Sad. I guess I’ll keep my job for awhile longer.
For roughly an entire year now Dan Slott has had regular meltdowns directed at yours truly. Last May, I wrote a piece titled: ‘Is Dan Slott’s ‘Superior Spider-Man’ really a Superior anti-Semite?’ The whole point of the article was to show that a villain who came within inches of exterminating 6 billion people was about to be placed in Peter Parker’s body. Marvel’s flagship character was going to be taken over by a genocidal maniac. At a pivotal point in Spider-Man history, one of his greatest villains declared that he would transcend Hitler, Pol Pot, and Genghis Khan in terms of infamy perpetrated upon the world.
Dan Slott has obsessed over me for almost a year — even going so far as to sic his Twitter groupies on me — because I had the gall to react to his insertion of a real-world monster into a fictional comic. In response to his attacks I asked: What is more offensive — Dan Slott’s indiscriminate use of incendiary names or my reminder of the implications of his indiscriminate use of incendiary names? He never answered. All he’s done is engage in online ranting and raving (e.g., I’m a “terrible human being”) that must make consummate professionals within the confines of Marvel’s offices cringe.
For the past year he’s taken to multiple platforms to engage in character assassination. I’m a “terrible” person. I’m a “bad” person. He’s holds that I simultaneously “implied” and “flat-out” said that he — a Jew — was anti-Semitic (as if I even knew or cared about his heritage in 2013).
My response was that it was quite clear in the piece — and in the comments section within an hour of writing the piece, that I did no such thing and that his accusations were false.
From the piece: Silly me. The guy who “just” came within inches of an extinction level event because he hated all of humanity is now housed in Peter Parker’s body. …
Slott [to Newsarama]: He’s trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?
From the comments section the day it was published: Very well articulated. I agree with you in that I don’t think a hatred of Jews drove him, but I wrote the piece to corner Dan Slott’s fans into admitting just how horrible Otto is.
Rational adults can see that. I even used Dan Slott’s own words to show who and what he believes Otto represents (i.e., a wannabe hero is just kinda-sorta more annoying than Hawkeye before he was an Avenger — never mind that whole extinction-level event plot months earlier). Dan Slott refuses to acknowledge the truth when it’s right in front of his face, so I had to reiterate it for him:
Note that I say that if I had it all to over again I probably would have just used a picture of Hitler, but that it was “the first one that showed up on the Holocaust museum website [as] I was looking for stats, it was late at night, and I write my posts after extremely long days. I used that one. Oh well.” I needed a Nazi picture. There was one on the page I was reading at that moment. I grabbed it. Case closed.
How was I to know that a single blog post — by a random guy Dan Slott doesn’t know and will likely never meet — would cause the Marvel scribe to seethe with “crazy town banana pants” anger for an entire year? Of course I would have picked a different picture if I had it to do over again.
Afterward, Dan Slott started littering up the YouTube page with jokes about how I said I was unable to find a picture of Hitler online. Why would he do that? Because when faced with irrefutable evidence that he is wrong about the objective of my piece — or at a minimum should rethink his knee-jerk reaction to categorize me with real-world rapists, murderers, dictators and despots — he does what he does best: attack. And then, in order to feel even better about himself, he turns to Twitter, where The Dan Slott Ego Massage Squad can go to work. It’s always ready to rub down all those tender areas of his fragile mind.
Today a blogger explained to me why he used a picture of Jewish remains being shoveled out of ovens in his Spider-Man article. And why he left it up on his site for the better part of a year. It was because he couldn’t find a picture of Hitler. There are TWO takeaways here. 1) This guy is the world’s BIGGEST asshole. […] and 2) Apparently it’s REALLY hard to Google a picture of Hitler.
You see, it’s much more soothing for his sensitive psyche to soak in the slobbering Slott-worship of Superior Spider-Man diehards, who will lather him in in praise and confirm his conclusion that detractors are “assholes” and “douches,” than it is to deal with rational people on YouTube:
Dan Slott’s reply? I simultaneously “imply” and “flat-out” call him an anti-Semite. It’s a good thing that Dan Slott covers all his bases. Never mind the quotes above that demonstrate I did no such thing.
The truth of the matter is that Dan Slott didn’t like the way I went about making my point. He didn’t like the fact that I used very real historical pictures to point out that there are implications to what all of us write and say. When you put words in a character’s mouth, those words mean something.Or, as President Obama would say: “words matter.”
Dan Slott now says that Doc Ock citing a desire to surpass Hitler, Pol Pot and Khan’s collective infamy was merely the rhetorical flourish of a “James-Bond”-type villain. Fair enough, but if Dan Slott thinks that Hitler’s name is now merely fodder for James Bond-ish dialogue, some of us think that with that should come a dose of perspective.
And so, at this time, I will include the following image, which I show you with Dan Slott’s blessing.
Human remains found in the Dachau concentration camp crematorium after liberation. Germany, April 1945. — U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
That’s a wake-up call, isn’t it? Given Dan Slott’s reaction over the past year, it appears that he’s gotten the message — when you infuse real-world genocidal maniacs into the pages of Marvel comics, do not act surprised when history lovers take it seriously. Strangely enough, Dan Slott didn’t go into a TwitLonger rage when Bleeding Cool called out his character for “full-blown Nazi-like experimentation/ torture on his victims.” Ouch. How did that scene sneak by Dan Slott before going to print, given how important it is for him to protect the honor of his ancestors?
Being a veteran, whose friend was killed by a sniper in Iraq, I’ve had people say some pretty gruesome things to me, both online and in person. (Try dealing with it when it’s your college professors.) I’ve seen some horrible images that were personal affronts to the experience that probably shaped my life more than any other. However, I never obsessed over the individuals behind those hurtful or offensive acts and I didn’t call them “evil” people because, unlike Dan Slott, I know how to put things in proper perspective. But I digress. Back to the Holocaust image.
I received two reader comments that nicely summed up the debate about the picture after Dan Slott’s attacks began. They are excerpted here:
Reader #1. I think the pic was in poor taste. I see your point about taking a fictional character’s frame of reference as being wildly inappropriate. You are absolutely correct about that, it didn’t need that kind of punch. I believe Slott was only trying to maximize the horror and insanity of Ock’s mind. Regardless of his remarkably bad decision, it is still fiction, and the references should have stayed away from real-life mass murderers, unless it was far in the past. Hitler was too recent a reference, and as a Jew, Slott should have had the good taste to stay away from it. Enter Doug Ernst, who not only takes very real umbrage at this reference, but feels the need to one-up it with not only a blog post, but a photo of these poor, massacred souls to make a point. You also overstepped a boundary, Doug, and I still hope you decide to remove it on your own without further prompting. Slott is too full of bile to ask nicely, even if he is the one who instigated this. I then ask you, for the sake of those people who were in those ovens, the descendants of those unknown souls, and the millions who suffered this still-historically-relevant fate to please remove it from that entry. It serves no purpose other than sensationalism, and you don’t strike me as that kind of man who needs to stoop to that level.
Reader #2. I think Rogue is way off on the sensationalism and especially the testosterone rationale. It is important to show what Slott so casually put in his dialogue and inside Spider-Man’s head. I agree they are real people with no voice, I agree it was horrible, I agree it’s grisly — but it was Slott who betrayed their legacy — and that needs to be shown. Obviously his own grandfather’s story didn’t keep Slott from writing a tasteless story with an iconic hero, so maybe that image drove it home. I respect Rouge’s opinion, but I wouldn’t have changed it. It was Slott who inserted this awful chapter of history into the comic.
Two very different points of view, but which one is right? I ended up taking down the photo, even though I agreed with Reader #2.
My rationale:
I have removed the image and added an editor’s note. While I disagree about your conclusion that the only purpose it serves is to be sensationalistic, I think the more important point at this moment in time is that through respectful dialogue adults can work through their issues.
For that, Dan Slott called me a “coward,” proving my point that he is currently incapable of respectful dialogue.
Instead of responding to the coward claim, I will again cite Reader #1, who prompted me to take down the picture:
Slott never should have used Hitler as a reference, period. Can a fictional story use hot political or religious topics without the author being blamed as the source? No. Authors have been targeted over the course of history for their words, fictional or not. I won’t give history lessons here, but Slott decided to use a non-fictional, politically monstrous, recent, religiously sensitive reference to further a Spider-Man (HYPHEN!!!) story, and (I’m possibly reaching here), since he is a Jew, decided it was OK for him to use it. Only him. Because he’s a Jew. And he’s sensitive to the plight of the Jews. And his family has personally suffered from the Holocaust, so it was OK. Anyone else using Hitler as a reference is a BAD man, and has taken his “one thought bubble” out of context. What Slott fails to see is the hypocrisy inherent in what he did. You cannot use Hitler as a fictional hot button safely, simply because you are a Jew, then fall back on Jewish outrage to bury it once someone else picked up and expanded upon it. The truly laughable part was the threat to sue. Oy vey. I didn’t like Doug’s use of the pic for reasons stated above, none of which were in any way sympathetic to Slott or his reactions.
The point is, this whole debate is actually a lot more complex and nuanced than someone of Dan Slott’s maturity level can handle. It’s easier to call me “evil” and “terrible” and “bad” over and over again. And then, when a guy like me points out — after nearly a year of verbal diarrhea hurled in his direction — that one of the reasons why I enlisted in the armed services was so guys like him would never have to fear being shoved in an oven or shot and killed, he has the nerve to say I have unfairly used my military service as a shield.
A friend of mine put just laughed and mentioned that Dan Slott is pretty good at hiding behind his Jewish heritage (a point that Reader #1 also seems to have noticed).
And with that, I give you one last piece of evidence to show you what an immature and confused man Dan Slott is at this point in his life:
The guy encourages me to use the Holocaust picture for “intellectual honesty,” and then when I tell him I will do just that he again loses it and lashes out at my character. Do you see how it works in Dan Slott’s world? If I use the picture at his request — essentially his dare to provide “intellectual honesty” — I’m a “terrible” person; if I don’t use the picture, I’m a “terrible and dishonest” person. Dan Slott wins every time.
If I put up a picture that offends Dan Slott, I’m a “terrible human” on par with (ironically) Hitler. If I take it down after a reader acts like an adult, I’m a “coward.” While East Ukrainian Jews are being told to register with pro-Russian forces, Dan Slott pats himself on the back at night because he’s identified and attacked the real threat to the Jewish community — me. For days. And weeks. And months.
What courage. What bravery. What sacrifice. Churchill would be proud.
The great thing about Dan Slott calling me a “coward” is that anyone who reads these blog posts will understand that he’s attacked me personally on YouTube, Comic Book Resources, Twitter, TwitLonger, Comic Vine, the Marvel Message Boards and probably a few other places that I don’t even know of for roughly one year — but he hasn’t come here. Maybe now he’ll show his face. Or not. He seems to like the sound his Twitter followers make when he blows the stroke-my-ego dog whistle.
If he does decide to show up, expect him to once again say that I implied that he was anti-Semitic, even though I quite clearly never did such a thing. (Or was that “flat-out” say he was an anti-Semite? I can’t remember because it changes hourly.) No Dan, you did not write a book with an anti-Semitic character — you just wrote one with a man who wanted to kill six billion people because he hated all of humanity. And then, you made him Spider-Man. For an entire year. Again, silly me.
As a practicing Catholic, I find this to be incredibly tasteless (understatement of the year award). Using the Dan Slott litmus test for “bad” and “terrible” people, Erik Larson fits the bill. It’s a good thing I don’t use Slottian methods for judging someone’s character. If I did, then I’d obsess over Mr. Larsen’s single tweet for the next year and abuse the caps-lock button as I proclaim: “I’m Catholic! I’m Catholic! I — a Catholic — am Catholic! I’m Cathooooooooolic! How dare you challenge the Universal Salvific Will of God! RAGE!”
If you enjoyed this post, just know that there will probably be more in the future, as Dan Slott’s obsession with me shows no signs of slowing down. The next time he complains about tight deadlines, take a moment to think about just how much time he wastes attacking his critics.
If you’ve made it this far I now invite you to enjoy Dan Slott’s favorite song: ‘You Spin Me Round’
Exit question: How long will it be before Dan Slott lies to his Twitter groupies and tells them that a.) I picked ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record Baby)’ for surreptitiously evil purposes, and b.) I seriously implied/said (pick one … or both) that he enjoys listening to Wagner, even though he’s not supposed to.
Bonus Number 2: Tomorrow Dan Slott tweets to his followers that Francis Ford Coppola may be an anti-Semite.
Continuing Marvel and Disney’s enviable winning streak, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is making history at the global box office, debuting to a record-breaking $96.2 million in North America for an early worldwide total of $303.3 million.
Reviewing ‘Captain America: The Winter Solider’ is tough to do without adding spoilers. How do you critique an espionage tale without giving away the best parts? I’ll give it a shot.
Long story short: Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johannson (Black Widow), Anthony Mackie (The Falcon) find themselves in a situation where it’s essentially them against the world as they try and unravel the mystery behind an attack on Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. They handle the situation with wit, intelligence, strength, speed, and agility. The chemistry between each of them was great, and Marvel would be wise to continue keeping the three of them together moving forward.
At one point in the film, Cap manages to find a way to directly address agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He wants them to disobey a direct order — one that may end up costing them their lives — and in doing so he tells the audience what the film is essentially about.
Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, this is Steve Rogers. You’ve heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it’s time you know the truth. S.H.I.E.L.D is not what we thought it was. … They almost have what they want: absolute control. … I know I’m asking a lot. The price of freedom is high. It always has been. That’s a price I’m willing to pay. And if I’m the only one, then so be it — but I’m willing to bet I’m not.
What is the price of freedom? If you’re a wise guy who enjoyed ‘Team America: World Police,’ you might say “freedom costs a buck-o-five.” If you’re a serious person, you might say that it’s a tough call because those in positions of power have to find a way to maximize both individual liberty and security.
How do you protect a nation when there are individuals and organizations tirelessly plotting ways to take down free societies? When you’re facing down enemies who see no difference between civilian and military targets — when you’re up against an opponent who has erased any notion of the traditional battlefield and replaced it with one where everything is fair game, how much power are you willing to grant your protectors? As Captain America says to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s agents: our leaders want “absolute control.” But then the question becomes: Who watches the watchmen? What happens when the ones who protect us lose their way?
Director Joe Russo fills in the details during an interview with Mother Jones:
“[Marvel] said they wanted to make a political thriller. […] So we said if you want to make a political thriller, all the great political thrillers have very current issues in them that reflect the anxiety of the audience. … That gives it an immediacy, it makes it relevant. So [Anthony] and I just looked at the issues that were causing anxiety for us, because we read a lot and are politically inclined. And a lot of that stuff had to do with civil liberties issues, drone strikes, the president’s kill list, preemptive technology. [etc.]”
While I’m actually rather shocked that a Hollywood director had the guts to say that concerns over President Obama’s “Terror Tuesday Kill List” helped inspire a top-notch Marvel movie, on some level it’s no surprise given that the industry’s old-reliable when it comes to political thrillers is to blame America.
The trailer for Captain America: Winter Soldier is finally here. The good news is that it looks like it has all the makings of solid espionage fare: Robert Redford? Check. Russian spies? Check. Shady spy agencies? Check.
The bad news? It has all the makings of a blame-America espionage flick. …
Mullah nuts in the Middle East who deny the Holocaust and call for pushing the Jews “into the sea”? Eh. Chinese Communist intelligence agencies who have never met a U.S. business or defense contractor they wouldn’t hack? Eh. Nebulous terrorist organizations that don’t fly under a flag, even as they plot and plan to kill military and civilian targets on a massive scale? Eh. CIA attempts to “connect the dots” and “neutralize” threats before thousands of Americans die on their way to work on a Tuesday morning? Now there’s a movie!
Is it annoying that Marvel went for the easy layup by once again putting America in the cross hairs? Yes, slightly. Was the movie entertaining? Of course. In fact, I highly recommend it. It’s just odd that critics of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ would have a point if they said it would have been better off going with ‘Captain America: Disillusioned with America.’ The movie has an assassin with a big red Soviet star on his metallic arm but no one talks about Communism, except for a passing reference? If the next installment doesn’t get into KGB agents and the world-wide espionage perpetrated by the Evil Empire, then Marvel should just openly admit that its favorite movie bad guys are aliens and Americans.
At the end of the day, there isn’t much to really complain about regarding Cap’s second solo outing. If Marvel continues churning out quality products like this, then Phase II, III, IV and V should roll along quite nicely. If you get a chance to see ‘Winter Soldier’ in theaters, check it out. You’ll be glad you did.
Superior Spider-Man #30 is finally here, and with it comes the guy we’ve all been waiting for: Zombie Peter Parker. Fans are supposed to rejoice now that Dan Slott’s “memory fragment” of Peter Parker has assumed the role of Spider-Man after Doctor Octopus decided to call it a day — conveniently as everything was crumbling around him. With great power comes…ducking responsibility? Since the real Peter died in Amazing Spider-Man #700 and the downloaded Otto maybe-sorta-kinda just committed suicide, fans are left to wonder: Does Spider-Man have a soul or is he an empty husk whose able to say witty one-liners and think about Uncle Ben from time to time? I suppose it’s possible that the real Peter Parker was simply brainwashed the entire time, which would mean that Dan Slott made him do all those dastardly deeds over the course of SSM’s run, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
Regardless, for those who want to know how SSM #30 transpired, all you need to know is that Otto’s love interest, Anna Maria, is being held hostage and will die unless Spider-Man finds her. As all the evil Ock has done as Spider-Man has come back to haunt him, he realizes that only Peter Parker could save Anna, and thus he relinquishes the role of the hero back to Peter.
Fans of the book are supposed to sniffle just a wee bit as Otto disappears into a Dr. Manhattan-blue mind dust and gets wind-swept into the super unknown. This fails because people who aren’t suffering from anterograde amnesia remember that this is the same character who blew a guy’s face off at point blank range only months ago.
And it’s the guy who wanted to surpass “Pol Pot, Hitler and Genghis Khan” in terms of evil perpetrated upon the world — “combined!” just over a year ago.
So the question becomes: Was it worth it? If you’re like Dan Slott and you only think in terms of sales, then yes.
If you’re like the retailer who went online to criticize the book because some things (i.e., the integrity of a character) are more important to you than a buck, then no.
Justin Bieber sells a lot of tickets, but the world knows he’s no Jack White. Dan Slott sells a lot of comics (by 2014 standards), but the world knows that sales are but one metric by which success is measured. As the years go by, critics will come to regard the Superior Spider-Man more as a bizarre embarrassment in the character’s rich history than a run to be treasured and adored.
To make matters worse, there’s also collateral damage to consider. Take how dumb The Avengers have become during the course of Superior Spider-Man. Their stupidity reaches a crescendo in issue number #30 as Iron Man and Captain America freak out about an “illegal medical facility” that Spider-Man turned a blind eye to. Blowing off a guy’s face as he’s on his hands and knees in front of you? Eh. Taking a page out of President Obama’s NSA spying scandal playbook and putting an entire city under surveillance? Zzzz. Amassing a militia of thugs and arming them with an arsenal that would cause Libyan Islamic terrorists to giggle like schoolgirls (if they allowed girls to attend school)? Yawn.
Didn’t go through the proper bureaucratic red tape necessary to open a medical center? Gasp! Dan Slott’s and Christos Gage’s Captain America wants to “arrest” that man. The Department of Health and Human Services is going to hear about this one, buster.
Should the world be happy that Peter Parker is back? Sure. But the problem is that we don’t know if he’s back because, as far as Dan Slott is concerned, a “memory fragment” without a soul is just as good as the real thing.
And with that, I give you a preview of Jack White’s new album “Lazaretto.” Dan, since I know you’re reading this, I suggest listening to “High Ball Stepper” while imagining me doing the vocals two inches from your face. As long as you continue to write Spider-Man, I will continue to write high ball steppin’ reviews. Cheers.
Douglas Ernst Blog 