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Do superhero comic books and related media still exist in the 22nd-24th centuries?

Shaka Zulu

Shaka Zulu

Commodore
Commodore
So I was watching Enterprise on Netflix a few days ago (the episode Shuttlepod One) and I heard Malcolm mention (imply) that superhero books and related media were no longer being published in the 22nd century, which implies they didn't survive to the 24th century. Would this be due to sociopolitical chaos arising from the Third World War and people forgetting about (or barely remembering) said literature? Or did humanity begin to believe that everybody can be a hero, and therefore, along with society recovering well beyond what life is like today, superhero comic books and related media became obsolete?

I put it to the others posters because I believe this is a great topic related to the other discussions that we have here on The Trek BBS about superhero literature and movies.
 
Well, TNG pretty much ruled that television and baseball were obsolete. My best guess would be that the writers were just continuing the tradition in order to show how much we change in the future. :)
 
Andorian Batman! I love it. That should be one of the next Short Treks.

We do know at least some hobbyists kept at the superhero reboots well into the 24th century... I'd say Captain Proton on Voyager is definitely a superhero.

That's always been a favorite ridiculous Trek trope of mine, everyone having passionate interest in things from roughly the time in which the show was made. Sisko and baseball, Picard and Dixon Hill, Bashir and James Bond, Dax's favorite musician in 8 lifetimes being Vic Fontaine...

I can also see superhero stories having died out for a time, and then come back. Around the era of Enterprise, when humanity has just discovered the cosmos is packed with aliens, that just seems like a moment when you'd naturally lose interest in super-humans and be more drawn to the possibilities of this whole huge universe that just opened up.
 
-Brett- said:
You called comic books "literature".

:guffaw::guffaw::guffaw:
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Shakespeare - now in comic book form! They could do things in drawn comics that can't be done in real life... at least prior to CGI, motion controlled cameras, and other items needed for a certain junk food allegory...

Mad Mike said:
Well, TNG pretty much ruled that television and baseball were obsolete. My best guess would be that the writers were just continuing the tradition in order to show how much we change in the future. :)
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Pretty much. Certainly for television being stated outright (and not programs shown on iPADDs as a substitute.) TNG had an episode where calculus would be a standard issue subject for 8 year-olds.
 
I forgot where in TNG they said baseball was passe, but DS9 did throw in a few curveballs that suggest baseball was alive and well.
 
DS9 said that there were no more world series after a certain year, not that there was no baseball past that point. If I recall correctly.

Unless the Braves are in the series, I don't watch myself.
 
Qonundrum said:
I forgot where in TNG they said baseball was passe, but DS9 did throw in a few curveballs that suggest baseball was alive and well.
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Baseball had been revived by the time DS9 was on.

F. King Daniel said:
Perhaps in the Trek universe, real genetically engineered supermen causing chaos and war soured people's desires to read about fictitious superpowered heroes?

I wonder though if other species have something similar. Klingon comic books? An Andorian version of Batman?
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One of the DS9 novels mentioned that the Cardassians had a masked warrior called The Galor who acted in the same way that Batman and the Shadow did, but to secure the primacy of the fascist Cardassian state, IIRC.
 
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JonnyQuest037 said:
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen was named one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923 by Time magazine in 2010. Art Spiegelman's Maus won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Comic books have also won Hugo Awards, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award.

Comic books are absolutely literature, and you're just displaying your ignorance by claiming otherwise.
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Nah. They're silly picture books for losers. Awards from other losers count for nothing.
 
-Brett- said:
Nah. They're silly picture books for losers. Awards from other losers count for nothing.
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Maybe you'd like to elaborate on why you think Time Magazine was wrong? Or why the people who judge the Pulitzer Prizes are losers. But I don't think you can, because I think all you're doing is saying what you think sounds good and hoping that no one will seriously call you on it.
 
Qonundrum said:
I forgot where in TNG they said baseball was passe, but DS9 did throw in a few curveballs that suggest baseball was alive and well.
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Season one DS9 storyteller and if wishes were horses.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Buck_Bokai

The last world series was in 2042.

Buck was mentioned first in TNG season one, the big good bye.

There was also a planetary league, so Baseball might have continued after that, if it wasn't for the preamble to WWIII.

Earth had at least three intra solar colony worlds, so when we're they going to save Earth, or was the moon Mars and Christopher's landing all fucked, because there were no more supply ships coming in from Earth?

The Gotham City Bats?
 
Guy Gardener said:
Season one DS9 storyteller and if wishes were horses.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Buck_Bokai

The last world series was in 2042.

Buck was mentioned first in TNG season one, the big good bye.

There was also a planetary league, so Baseball might have continued after that, if it wasn't for the preamble to WWIII.

Earth had at least three intra solar colony worlds, so when we're they going to save Earth, or was the moon Mars and Christopher's landing all fucked, because there were no more supply ships coming in from Earth?

The Gotham City Bats?
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I figure the Gotham City Bats are similar to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, a real-life sports team named for a fictional media franchise. "Gotham City" probably just means it's another New York team.

I don't think, even in Star Trek, they ever managed to host teams outside of Earth. The "Planetary League" was more of an aspirational name, but it hosted terrestrial teams only, albeit ones from across the globe (London Kings, Tanis & Seibu teams).
 
JonnyQuest037 said:
Denying that entire medium can produce anything worthwhile is one of the most idiotic things I've read in a while. It's as dumb as saying novels or TV are for losers.
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For what it's worth, when I think of literature I think of Dickens, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, not Spiderman or Batman comics.

Still, that doesn't mean the writer of a comic book doesn't have something worth saying. It simply means what's being said reaches a different audience.
 
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