Superman and Batman to join forces with Islamic superheroes

I was thinking the same thing. The change is good whne you agree with it. Kurt Wagner/Christian is good. Bruce Wayne/Gay is Bad. Eric Lensher/Jew is good. Ultimate Nick Fury/Black is bad.

Is Bruce Wayne defined by his sexuality? Or is he defined by that one night after the movies? It was that latter that drove him to the peak of mental and physical perfection and made him use those skills to fight crime.

I'm not saying Bruce Wayne should be be Gay, but he could be. An rich, idle, gay playboy is an even less likely suspect to be Batman.

 

I was defending religion so much as the right to practice religion. What I was objecting to were the ignorant comments earlier in the thread, which assumed Islam was synonomous with suicide bombings, and anti-jewish sentiments.

 

It's a stretch, but I'm going to go with "to make money".

 

I am definitely a more "casual" comic book reader than a majority of the people on this thread. But I really disagree with you, darkwing duck1 on this point. Several crises changed fundamental aspects of several characters. *cough* Power Girl / Super Girl *cough*. What about Superboy? That's one way the comic book publishers have of changing the status quo. Superman gets a mullet, superman gets a blue costume (I think costumes are very intrinsic to this medium - after all it's all about costumed heroes).

I am in the process of reading Essential Avengers Vol 2 and Hank Pym, in the space of this single collection (maybe 20 different issues?), has changed from Giant-Man to Goliath to Ant-Man - that is also a very specific identity question. Later on, he will even turn into a wife beater. Those are pretty closely linked to the identity of him as a comic book superhero.

What you are suggesting by limiting the discussion to only a superhero's sex, race, sexual preference & religion is limiting the life-changing experiences that superheroes get into, to a small set of items that *you* detest.

Which is fine. However, allowing other character changes and not letting people change the ones *you* don't want to is a personal preference. What I suggest we focus on is whether they did it "right" - did they handle the thing "right"? eg. did they handle a character who is now of a different race in a compelling manner or was it boring?

 

I like how this thread went OT to cover for the fact that some people just don't want DC Superheroes interacting with Arabic Superheroes.

 

Too funny.

 

And this outbreak of Islamophobia is particularly ironic considering that neither the people behind "The 99" nor the characters in that comic are purely Islamic/Arabic to begin with.

http://www.the99.org/page-2,ckl


It's basically an Islamic mythology-inspired comic book series about a half-Islamic/half-Western group of superheroes which is primarily written and drawed by American artists, gets published by a Kuwaiti company, and is intended for an Arabic readership. In other words, it was all hideously PC even before the DC superheroes were brought in for a crossover.

 

Yes, a gay, atheist, radical Superman is 100% interchangeable with the traditional values "truth, justice, and the American Way" Superman....

Fits just fine, thank you very much. His original portrayal was as a bit of a swashbuckler overlying a very sensitive and troubled soul.

No, it's "I've seen my people all but obliterated by hate once. I'll sell my soul to the Devil if necessary to keep it from happening again." It's just a tiny baby step further from that to allowing his hate to overwhelm him and become the very thing he was fighting against.

It's that dynamic tensiion between well-intentioned (if hardline) champion of his people and fanaticism that makes Magneto more than a ranting "Doom clone".



Hmm. I think I already said that.

 

Never have I said that. In fact I said making NEW characters was the way to introduce your "diversity" if it must be introduced at all.

Frankly, I detest the notion that a person's heroes must be of the same race/ethnicity/etc of themselves to begin with. The idea that a black can only look up to black heroes is racist and insulting at it's core.

See above.

 

Calling Bullshit on your Bullshit.

Christianity had NOTHING to do with the collapse of the Roman Imperial System, it simply became too big to govern with the weak and corrupt power center that Rome had become.

It was the efforts of Chrisitian monks that PRESERVED the writings of the classic authors of the Ancient World to the extent that they survived until the Renaissance.

Furthermore, it was those self-same monks who tended to produce scholars that made important breakthroughs in maths and science in those days.

 

Gee, fancy that...depicting an American as bitter and mentally unballanced and making a villain out of him in an Arab comic...

 

Eh, he's not a villain, but one of the heroes, albeit one with a darker history... until he was found by the other "99".


Maybe the other American team member meets with your approval?:

 

I will let you explain this part of your post to me cause you follow it up with this........

Let's please take black and white out of the equation. You do understand that the comics you love was founded on that very principle, that white kids only could like and admire white male heroes that where just like them. So since you agree that this is wrong, tell me how in today's world we should fix the errors of the past. Keep in mind you have to be realistic like I said before. There is only room for so many successful heroes in comics, books, movies, etc so somethings have to be changed in order for comics to not be racists as you said they were if there is only one race out there to look up to.

 

Your basis for this?

 

Oh, and before TheMasterOfOrion can start screeching and flinging crap about sources:

http://www.bede.org.uk/historyessays.htm#science

http://www.bede.org.uk/sciencehistory.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Middle_Ages

http://listverse.com/2008/06/09/top-10-reasons-the-dark-ages-were-not-dark/

 

Gay, atheist, radical beliefs are included within the concept of "truth, justice and the American way".

 

The fact that basically all superheroes created from the 1930s to the 1970s (and pretty much all the major ones to this day) were white (and overwhelmingly male)?

Not all children's heroes need to be of their race (non-white kids have been indeed idealizing Superman since he first appeared), but some should. Things like an absence of powerful and cool pop culture role models of one's own race/gender/whatever have a demonstrable effect.

You're correct about the Roman Empire, incidentally; its collapse was caused by longstanding internal problems (and large numbers of invading hordes that were, for the matter, pagan). Not to mention that ignores the survival of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, which was every bit (even more, perhaps) Christian than the western one. Of course, I rather doubt that that graph is meant to be taken seriously.

 

Yes, since being one does not exclude the other.

He was a sensitive swashbuckler/circus performer raise by a gypsy sorceress. No hint of any religious affilation out side of the occasional "Gott En Himmel!!!"

Magneto was the guy who took the term "Homo Superior" literally. He was all about putting Homo Sapiens under the yoke of Homo Superior and Homo Superior under the yoke of Magneto. He was a champion of Magneto first and foremost.

Were else does Black Nick Fury appear? The 1602 version was white.

Hey you brought up Ultimate Nick as an example of a character being changed. IIRC Ultimate Nick has been black from the get go and 616 Nick is still white. So like I said, what else you got? Do you also onject to Ultimate Wasp beeing Asian?

The Ultimate line is an alternate-universe. And Ultimate Nick isn't a legacy. Neither was the E-1 Hawkman, when first created. He was a re-engineered take on the concept, jut as Ulitmate Nick is.

So what CORE character has been changed?

 

If you really beleive that, there's no point arguing with you.

Explain how that PRECLUDES said affiliation.

That is the tragic "end state" Magneto. Without the life experiences of his youth (in the camp) and early adult life (with Magda), he would not have become that man.

1602 was years ago. Contemporarily, only the 616 universe's Nick is white. All the other Nicks are portrayed as black.

No, because that is AU, WHICH IS NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT...get that through your head. We are talking about changing CORE characters.

So far, none, but that isn't stopping Galactus and his ilk from pushing for it.

 

You don't think gay atheists believe in truth, justice, and the American way (not that they necessarily do, of course, but it hardly precludes it)?