Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Its not just me: Comics really do suck.

Chuck Dixon and Paul Rivoche with a piece in the Wall Street Journal saying what I always say. Comics are Liberal Xplus these days, and they SUCK.

In the 900th issue of Action Comics, Superman decides to go before the United Nations and renounce his U.S. citizenship. " 'Truth, justice and the American way'—it's not enough any more," he despairs. That issue, published in April 2011, is perhaps the most dramatic example of modern comics' descent into political correctness, moral ambiguity and leftist ideology.
We are comic-book artists and comics are our passion. But more important they've inspired and shaped many millions of young Americans. Our fear is that today's young comic-book readers are being ill-served by a medium that often presents heroes as morally compromised or no different from the criminals they battle. With the rise of moral relativism, "truth, justice and the American way" have lost their meaning.
I'll go further. I never read comics anymore, despite having been an avid fan and collector in my younger days. The single reason is Leftist ideology in every story. Its repetitious, its boring, its stupid, and I can't stand reading it.

Go Chuck and Paul!

The Phantom

Update: The Phantom has been BANNED from commenting at The Mary Sue for saying horrible things about the politics of hair. I think. Hard to say, they just started deleting me left and right.

Sample exchange:



"And who the hell cares about the sexuality of a comic book character anyway?"
Hi, there! I am an actual gay man!
I care about the fact that people go to the effort of realizing that people like me exist in the real world, and should thus probably be represented in fiction. I care about the fact that, if someone is making the effort to establish the parameters of a world where aliens, gods, vampires, mutants, and super-advanced machine intelligences live side-by-side, they also make the effort to figure out where gay people exist in there.
So, I - an actual gay man, who apparently does not exist for your purposes of "who" - do care. But, hey. You've never had to worry about showing up in a source of media, so I can understand why you'd think I don't count.
P.S. People have been caring about the sexuality of comic books ever since Superman kissed Lois Lane, or even since Frederick Wertham raised the dread specter of homosexuality between Batman and Robin.

Yeah, people "care about it" because homosexuality between Batman and Robin would a be a glorification of the second worst possible form of child abuse, that of an orphaned minor child by their guardian. As in, the person who's supposed to be protecting them from that. The only worse form is sexual abuse by a parent.
So you can pretty much bite down on that one, thumper.
Also, the cutesy "wedding issues" that have been popping up lately? You know, there are people who think that's not the type of fare normally served up to -kids- in a comic book. "Mommy, why is Northstar marrying a boy?"
Or global warming, for that matter. "Mommy, why is Superman crushing people's cars and knocking down the coal fired electrical generating station?"
Or just plain peacenik politics. "Mommy, why is Superman leaving America?"
In a comic?
The basic, fundamental disagreement is about the -purpose- of super hero comic books. One side of the argument says superheros are supposed to be exemplars of all that is heroic and epic in our society, the other side says they are meant to promote whatever special interest propaganda is hot this week.
For my money, comics strayed off epic heroism into scuzzy special interest propaganda about 1993. That's when I stopped collecting.
Get down off the cross, dumbass. Its not about you.

Wow, such a bastard that Phantom guy! PURGE HIM!!!

2 comments:

Bill Elder said...

Phantom - love the site and I browse daily for the rare tidbits of un-PC news you post - I'd like to comment often but the posting filter is such a pain I remain silent - can you fix it?

The Phantom said...

Hi Bill, glad to hear you read the blog. :) Nice to know I'm not just yelling into the void every day.

Sorry about the stupid filter. But if I don't filter them, the comments fill up with the most abominable spam almost immediately. I delete five or six from email every day.

There are also some quite horrific comments made by the usual trolls that I can't have on my blog. The kind of shit that would get the CHRC down your neck. This is a hobby, not a living, so the nasssty bullshit must be stopped.

The filter is a product of using Blogger, and MegaCorp Google isn't about to fix it. Sorry for the inconvenience.