Hello Rebel, and welcome back to my life.
So I'm feeling the need to talk about
something that's been going on recently,
and it's kind of crappy, which is not too
remarkable these days. It's the whole
deal going on with Marvel's current
comic book run of Captain America as
written by a guy named Nick Spencer, who
will go into a little bit more detail on
in a moment. But for those who aren't up
on comics right now, Marvel is basically
publishing a storyline where Captain
America, our Steve Rogers, is an agent of
Hydra and a Nazi. Not only that, but
he's always been a Nazi, and the whole
last several decades of comic book
content were a fake timeline, because
reasons. There are so many problems with
this. Captain America's creators were
both Jewish, and Captain America was
literally specifically created as anti-
Nazi propaganda in a time when Nazis
were, you know, exterminating Jewish
people. Now, see, when comic writers change
characters for diversity's sake, a certain
portion of the comic fanbase rises into
a frothing rage, because these writers
don't seem to understand the character's
original conception and the way that
they've always been. This is literally
retconning Captain America's entire
history and making it the opposite of
what it was, but that portion of the
fanbase hasn't risen up in anger. It's
just—it's so funny. I wonder why that
could be. So we keep getting told,
mostly by Nick Spencer, that we should
wait and see how the story plays out
before we judge it. Yeah, see, that advice
doesn't always hold water. Sorry, it just
does not. There's certain stories that
are just kind of fucked up to tell no
matter what, where you're just being a
dick for the sake of shock value, and
there's no way to wrap up the story that
undoes that. Let's say, for example, that
Marvel decided to run a storyline where
America reinstituted slavery, literally,
and all of the black superheroes get
rounded up and forced to work on
plantations by white superheroes. It
literally does not matter if all of the
white superheroes were mind-controlled
into doing this. You have created
storylines, many, many works of art
depicting black people being put through
a living hell. You would have to create
countless images showing crimes against
humanity that hearken back to some of the
darkest chapters in this country's
history, and those images don't just go
away. Especially in today's culture of
rising white nationalism there are going
to be people who get those images
printed on merchandise and wear them for
years to come. And what's happening here
isn't even, like, some alternate reality
thing where Captain America goes to
another universe and meets the Nazi
Captain America. This is our Captain
America who has been changed into a Nazi.
Again, this emboldens real Nazis who are
really living in real America right now.
They are loving what's going on. And this is all
bad enough, but aside from the action
itself, Nick Spencer's reaction to the
controversy has been ... eeew. His reactions to fan
complaints have ranged from
condescending to insensitive to really,
really problematic. I mean, our society
has the trope of the angry black woman,
right? But a much more common sight in my
experience is the self-righteous,
indignant white man, and his Twitter feed
is a perfect example of this. Anyway, all
this stuff sucks, because I love Marvel.
They make great comics, and I really wish
they would take action on the very real
distress they are causing to a portion
of their fanbase. But even if they
didn't want to take any actions against
their creators for the comic itself,
which I completely understand, they
shouldn't let them act this way on
social media. It's just not good for
anyone. Needless to say, i'm not going to
be reading, Secret Empire, even though
I've tried to be a good Marvel reader,
especially where the big events are
concerned. I try to stay up on all that
sort of stuff, but I can't give money to
this. And I'm going to do really the only
thing that we can do as fans when
something like this happens, which is
just keep reading the series that get it
right. Series like Wasp and Moon Girl and
Devil Dinosaur and so on. Whether or not
you're discouraged by this direction
Marvel has gone in, remember that it is
not the whole company. Remember there are
a lot of really great creators working
for them who are doing really great
things. Keep supporting people who do it
right, and if you yourself are a creator,
learn from mistakes like this, and learn
how to do things better. That's it for today,
Rebel. Check out yesterday's VEDA video
right up there, or check out my Patreon
to see my secret weekend videos.
Thanks so much for watching, and I will
see you tomorrow. Byyye!
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