What do you think of Heroes going after REAL bad people ?

[Mikey]

Just wondering,
What's your thoughts on super heroes going after real bad people ?

Example, WW2 era heroes fight Hitler,nazis and Imperial Japanese.

I personally think it's a double edged sword ....
On one hand it's great American propaganda, but I also think it works against the purpose it was ment for.

Example .... Superman wins against the nazis, but REAL American GI's are still being killed by them.

Same with Jews in concentration camps. (even though we didn't know that at the time)

What's your thought on this ?

[Earth 2 Chris]

I think DC played it right in WWII. For the most part, the "propaganda" content was kept on the covers. Batman and Robin would hand a GI a new rifle, Superman would clobber an enemy plane, but inside, mostly it was the usual villain stuff, with the occasional plot to sabotage the war effort. Superman did bring Hitler and Stalin in front of the UN in a feature in Look magazine by Siegel and Shuster, but not in the actual comics.

Timely (now Marvel) went whole hog and rode the war wagon till the wheels fell off. As a result, after the war, they didn't have quite the rich history to build on DC had set up for themselves. That's one reason all the Timely heroes got canned eventually.

Chris

[Brazoo]

Interesting topic!

If you just mean historically - I think it's hard to make any kind of judgement about how people should have felt about these kinds of things in their day looking back. We might think it's weird now, and maybe it did bother a smaller group of people back then, but those books and cartoons were very popular when they came out.

Some of it was just propaganda, and I think some of it was probably very cathartic for people to read during those crazy years - which is what good fantasy should do, no?

It's hard to talk about WWII and comics and not acknowledge the fact that a lot of artists and others in the comic industry were jewish - and while the general American population might not have known about what was happening to the jews in Europe, American jews were hearing a lot of what was happening - getting information through family and friends. Writing these comics may have been genuine attempts to convey what they knew to the American general public - or even a way of trying to sway America into joining the war. For example - as I recall, Superman was fighting Nazis before America was.

[jds1911a1]

possibly the only good thing about comics today (being aimed are older readers) is that parents don't have to explain to a kid why superman or spiderman didn't stop the hijackers on sept 11 or prevent the oil spill in the gulf

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

It sets up odd continuity problems; not just from real life not conforming to the comic, but because you open a whole pandora's box of questions by tying the comic to real life. Not juts in the big ways, but in the small ways; such as: why isn't the drasticly shrinking print market threatening Clark Kent's job at the Daily Planet? Was Bruce Wayne involved in the derivatives market? Does Captain America need a passport to cross the Canadian border?

Don C.

[Brazoo]

Yeah - I generally think fantasy and sci-fi fiction handles real events as allegory better than when it tries to deal with literal reality directly.

At the same time I personally don't enjoy fiction when it has no bearing on the real world at all. I don't care about what happens to the characters in "Lord of the Rings" for example - its too out there for me.

[number 6]

Well, I can't speak for Timely, but with the DC charactors that stuff all happend on Earth 2, so that was Earth 2 Hitler that that Superman and Batman were going after.

That would be the nerd answer to your question

[livnxxxl]

In terms of comic books I have next to no knowledge of what is going on where. I never was an avid reader of comic books.

In terms of fiction and reality I think that it is a great thing as long as the good guys win. That is really what matters in the end.

[jimsmegos]

This is a tough one considering the modern Politically Correct mindset. Seriously who is the good guys and who is the bad guys? I think the controversy could kill a character/ book these days. It's too complex emotionally in this day and age for simple good guy versus bad guys stories.Someone will always end up offended IMO.

[livnxxxl]

Seriously who is the good guys and who is the bad guys?

That same thought was actually going through my mind at the time I replied above. I guess it really all depends on what side of the fence you are on. Naturally everyone wants to think that they are the good guy.

[babycyclops]

Interesting topic! Another point is that the US was not officially at war with nazi Germany when some of those famous Captain America vs Hitler comics were created. Historically many in the US were all for keeping out of the war while others thought that the US would end up fighting on the side of the UK eventually, so those comics are 'pre-war' or even 'pro-war' propaganda. Understandable when so many of the creators were Jewish, and the nazis such obvious bad guys.

[babycyclops]

t's hard to talk about WWII and comics and not acknowledge the fact that a lot of artists and others in the comic industry were jewish - and while the general American population might not have known about what was happening to the jews in Europe, American jews were hearing a lot of what was happening - getting information through family and friends. Writing these comics may have been genuine attempts to convey what they knew to the American general public - or even a way of trying to sway America into joining the war. For example - as I recall, Superman was fighting Nazis before America was.

Yes, that was what I was trying to get at.
Also people's understanding of war was probably alot different at the start ofWW2 than after or even during the war. The horrors of WW1 were pretty much unknown to most civilians during the war, and things like the famous Life Magazine article with the photo of dead US marines began to expose civilian populations to more raw images of war during WW2.
Thinking about it, most Korean war comics, such as the many E.C. stories set in Korea were true war comics, I don't recall superheroes fighting in the Korean war, and the uncensored images coming from the war in Vietnam seems to mean that the 'boys own adventure' ideas of war and battle had less of a hold on boys' imaginations. The glamour has largely worn off.
Maybe kids these days know that a laser-guided bomb is a better way to tackle an enemy than a sock to the jaw?

[ctc]

>I generally think fantasy and sci-fi fiction handles real events as allegory better than when it tries to deal with literal reality directly.

I think it depends on the fantasy. Superheroes are already an allegory, and the genre has some limits that preclude really dealing with real life.

Don C.

[Mikey]

Interesting topic! Another point is that the US was not officially at war with nazi Germany when some of those famous Captain America vs Hitler comics were created. .

I agree, but just about every American with half a brain KNEW the US would have to get into the war eventually... There was no way we would be stupid enough to let Gt Britain fall.
Unfortunately, back in the 30's there was A LOT of American's with less than half a brain.
Glad it's not that way now.

Sorry for going a bit off topic

[johnmiic]

Frank Miller announced that he was going to write/draw a Batman story where Batman was going to go after Bin Laden. That was 3 years ago and it hasn't happened yet. That's because even if DC would allow him to do a Batman story like that, ( never gonna happen), it doesn't amount to much if the real guy is not really caught. Despite Miller's reputation it seemed he was going to write something very positive & inspirational.

I agree, but just about every American with half a brain KNEW the US would have to get into the war eventually... There was no way we would be stupid enough to let Gt Britain fall. Unfortunately, back in the 30's there was A LOT of American's with less than half a brain.

Actually Mike Americans were more than happy to let all of Europe fall. There was, and had been up until WW II, a very strong isolationist stance in this country. Pre-WWII it went hand-in-hand with anti-semitism. Read William Manchester's The Glory & The Dream sometime. That's not politics-it's history.