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  • Who does your super hero vote for?

    It's a bit dated (Nov. 7th) but still a pretty good analysis. All you polytubbies get to weigh in.


    ELECTION DAY 2006 - WHOSE SIDE IS YOUR FAVORITE SUPERHERO ON?
    It's mid-term election day here in the States, which means that tommorrow 1/3 of the country will be cautiously happy, 1/3 will be pissed off, and the other 1/3 will have no idea that there was an election in the first place.
    It's times like these that make me wonder how superheroes would vote. Is Captain America a Republican or a Democrat? What about Batman? It's tempting to attribute one's own political beliefs to one's childhood heroes, but that would be wrong. We're in a No-Spin Zone here at Dave's Long Box, so I have examined the evidence and decided on a political party affiliation for some of my favorite heroes without regard to my personal beliefs.
    So, in an effort to piss off readers of all political persuasions, here then is the breakdown. I can't wait for the Green Lantern fans to start flaming me in the comments section...

    SUPERMAN – MODERATE REPUBLICAN
    Small town values and big city pragmatism inform Superman’s middle-of-the-road political beliefs. On the one hand, his upbringing in rural Kansas forms the bedrock of Superman’s values system. On the other hand, as Clark Kent, Superman works in bustling cosmopolitan Metropolis for a big city liberal newspaper, The Daily Planet. Superman is a fiscal conservative who has a healthy distrust of big government – don't forget his arch-enemy Lex Luthor was President of the United States for a while. He’s moderate on most social issues like gay rights (Jimmy Olsen is his best pal) but is pro-capital punishment. Hey, Superman, it doesn’t matter if you cry after executing some Kryptonian criminals – you’re still pro-death penalty.


    WONDER WOMAN – SOCIALIST
    Wonder Woman was raised in an all-female society, a monarchist utopia with strong socialist overtones and plenty of hot girl-on-girl action. Wonder Woman came to “Patriarch’s World” with a clear liberal agenda but a willingness to crack skulls if need be. She’s heavily into social justice, environmental issues, and sisterhood. Wonder Woman is not beyond sticking a high-heeled red boot up your ass if you get in the way of her Sapphic Socialism.


    GREEN ARROW – TOTAL ****ING COMMUNIST
    Green Arrow is a loose cannon, politically speaking. He’s somewhere to the left of Alec Baldwin on the political spectrum and he’s armed to the teeth with those crazy-ass arrows of his. Green Arrow is an unapologetic leftist. He's always *****ing about how the Justice League are a bunch of fascists and railing against “The Man.” He’s soft on drugs – his sidekick Speedy was a frickin’ junkie! An advocate of redistribution of wealth and his own pinko version of justice, this modern day Robin Hood wants to take your hard-earned money and give it to some soup kitchen or something. Go smoke another joint, hippy!


    GREEN LANTERN – REPUBLICAN
    The squarest superhero in the DC Universe (and that’s saying a lot), Green Lantern is also one of the most conservative. A former test pilot and current galactic police officer, Green Lantern has always been a running dog for The Man. Dude carries a WMD on his ring finger and flies around reshaping reality according to his idea of The Way Things Should Be. Total neocon. (I am so getting hate email for this.)


    BATMAN – INDEPENDENT
    Batman is a true independent, a man of solid principles and baffling contradictions. This may be because he is mentally ill. Batman has an almost paranoid distrust of government institutions, yet believes in the rule of law. He’s an urban vigilante, yet he’s a proponent of gun control. Batman is anti-death penalty to a fault – how many times has he had to capture the mass-murdering Joker and return him to Arkham Asylum instead of the electric chair? Contradictions be damned. Batman follows his own moral compass, and Batman is always right. When Batman votes, he weighs all the options and chooses the best person for the job, regardless of party affiliation or whether they are actually running for office. In other words, he writes-in BATMAN on every ballot.


    SPIDER-MAN – DEMOCRAT
    “With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s 100% Democrat. Spidey is as much about taking care of the little guy as he is about clobbering bad guys. Spidey grew up poor, watching his Aunt May trying to stretch her Social Security check each month and scrambling to make ends meet as a freelance photographer for that yellow rag The Daily Bugle. Nowadays he’s working as a teacher in a New York public school. Recently Spidey was duped by reactionary neocon superheroes into supporting their oppressive agenda in Marvel’s Civil War mini-series. Total democrat.


    DAREDEVIL– FAR-LEFT DEMOCRAT
    Let’s see: Rich, highly-educated skirt-chasing Manhattan defense attorney. Total liberal. Enjoy that Streisand concert, Daredevil.


    IRON MAN – NEOCON REPUBLICAN
    No Marvel hero has better Republican credentials than Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. He’s a billionaire industrialist and weapons manufacturer with an Ivy League education and a drinking problem. He’s a staunch anti-communist and served as Secretary of Defense (can we have him back?). In Marvel’s Civil War storyline, Iron Man has drawn a line in the proverbial sand. He wants all superhumans to register with the government, and if you’re not with him, you’re against him. And if you’re against him, look out. He’ll classify you as an enemy combatant and throw your ass into his Negative Zone prison, where U.S. courts have no jurisdiction. No, he’s not considered a supervillain, why do you ask?


    THE HULK – LIBERTARIAN
    “Hulk just want to be left alone.”


    CAPTAIN AMERICA - TRUMAN DEMOCRAT
    Cap is a man out of time. Thawed after 50-odd years of suspended animation, this living legend from World War II is guided by old-fashioned American values and unshakeable principles. In other words, he’s got a bit of a stick up his ass. Captain America can’t even recognize today’s political parties, which have mutated in the decades he’s been on ice into bloated, hypocritical ideological monstrosities whose divisive policies makes him sad. Makes him cry, even. Cap believes in small government that stays out of private lives, a strong national defense, and pulling oneself up by one’s boot straps or shoelaces or whatever is handy. However, Cap is opposed to legislating morality and believes that government has a responsibility to help out the less fortunate and defenseless, like kids and puppies. Cap is a walking Frank Capra movie with a mean right hook. He votes his conscience, not along party lines.


    GHOST RIDER - UNAFILLIATED
    The Spirit of Vengeance, Ghost Rider is the ultimate protest voter. He always votes against the incumbent and anyone who endorses helmet laws. Vengeance is his.
    Link
    "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

    “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

  • #2


    Brilliant.
    “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
    - John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


      Brilliant.
      I agree
      Great stuff, even if it is a tad dated.
      Keep on Civin'
      RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

      Comment


      • #4
        I especially like Batman and the Hulk.
        "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

        “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

        Comment


        • #5
          I like.

          The Batman one is the best.

          -Arrian
          grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

          The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

          Comment


          • #6
            Batman was good, but I really liked Iron Man.
            Keep on Civin'
            RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

            Comment


            • #7
              Superman. Me, in a nutshell.
              Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
              "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
              He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by SlowwHand
                Superman. Me, in a nutshell.

                Slowwy's an illegal alien.
                "Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson

                “In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter

                Comment


                • #9
                  Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
                  "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
                  He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Now now, I think Superman might have some sort of alien worker visa...
                    1011 1100
                    Pyrebound--a free online serial fantasy novel

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Thanks, Elok.
                      Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
                      "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
                      He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        This post from the link was interesting too.

                        BruceinNC said...
                        John Hood, the president of the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh (N.C.) based conservative think tank, wrote a darn good column about this a few years back.

                        In addition to being a thoughtful political observer, Hood obvioulsy is a big comics fan. Here is his column:

                        The Implicit (and Welcome) Politics of Superhero Comic Books

                        Carolina Journal
                        September 2001

                        As a pop-culture phenomenon, the comic-book superhero is back in an upswing. Yes, I know that such things — westerns, girl groups, spy thrillers, etc. — come and go. Their fate is hardly linked to that of civilization itself (except for disco, the persistence of which might well have signified the End of Days).

                        Still, I can’t help but look forward eagerly to the latest comics fad, which is being driven largely by film. Last year’s moderately successful X-Men convinced Marvel Comics that motion pictures offered the key to its rejuvenation in the coming decade, much as the X-Men and Spider-Man television programs rebuilt the company in the early 1990s. So, not surprisingly, it is following up with a major studio release of Spider-Man this fall, to be followed over the next two years by another X-Men installment and movies based on the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, and Iron Man.

                        Over at DC Comics, where the Batman movie franchise quickly (arguably by the middle of the first film in 1989) degenerated into idiocy, executives are reportedly putting together a more serious Batman film and trying to rekindle interest in its Superman series, which also got really silly really fast.

                        Why care about superhero comics? Because, with few exceptions, they are an unabashedly right-of-center cultural force. Many superhero characters and story lines advance principles of justice, individual rights, and skepticism about government power that should warm the heart. Here is a rough classification of the implicit politics of the genre based around its major characters and creative periods.

                        The Golden Age

                        Traditionally classified as beginning with the publication of the first Superman comic in 1938 and ending in the late 1940s or early 1950s, the Golden Age of superheroes introduced many of the characters with which the general public is most familiar, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America. This was a time of war, both hot with the Axis powers and cold with the Soviet Empire, so the stories tended to be simple and patriotic.

                        Even so, you can clearly observe some differences among individual characters. For example:

                        • Batman is a paleo-conservative. He has a dark, somewhat pessimistic view of human nature. He literally fights crime in the dark, and has no super powers other than his intelligence, which suggests a limited view of man’s malleability. He works closely with the Gotham police, at least at first, and tends to spend his time protecting private property against robbers and thieves.

                        Furthermore, in civilian life Bruce Wayne is a man of inherited wealth, a globe-trotting education, and impeccable taste who runs a major corporate conglomerate — and indeed, in later stories, is revealed to be a defense contractor. In his spare time, Batman probably reads Forbes, National Review, and Russell Kirk.

                        • Superman, on the other hand, is a liberal, albeit of the 1930s variety. A newspaper reporter (I could rest my case there), his alter ego Clark Kent is constantly investigating the business titans of Metropolis and second-guessing the clueless police department. His nemesis is ultimately revealed to be the evil Lex Luthor, like Wayne an industrialist and defense contractor.

                        Another clue to Superman’s implicit politics is that he is just too darn powerful. The character began life as a strong, fast young man who could “leap tall buildings with a single bound.” Before long, however, he was flying around (inexplicably), burning things with his eyes, freezing things with his breath, and getting pretty close to invulnerable. It seems that Superman’s powers, like those of the federal government during FDR’s New Deal, just wouldn’t be kept within rational bounds. Kryptonite, a creation of the Superman radio show rather than the comic book, was a kind of a cheat; it gave him an apparent vulnerability, but it was really about as challenging as Wendell Willkie.

                        Like another liberal character of the time, the Green Lantern, Superman began to meddle in the interplanetary politics of his day without ever being elected by anyone he purported to represent. Still, Clark Kent, particularly in his earlier days as Superboy in Smallville, Kansas (to be dramatized this fall in anew television series on the WB), reflects traditional small-town American values. He’s a busybody, but you know his heart is in the right place. He’s Arthur Schlesinger, not Tom Hayden.

                        Other Golden Age characters offered contrasting political archtypes. Wonder Woman was a feminist who likes to tie people up with a magic lasso that made them tell the truth (she was the creation of William Marston, who in real life was the inventor of the lie detector and a man of somewhat strange personal proclivities). Hawkman was an enigmatic monarchist, a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian lord. Captain Marvel was a freedom-loving character who rivaled Superman in sales during much of the 1940s — until DC filed a mostly bogus claim of copyright infringement and eliminated Superman’s major competition through government intervention.

                        See, the Kryptonian was a liberal.

                        The Silver Age

                        Beginning in the late 1950s DC and Marvel were reinvented with new characters and new takes on old characters that provided story lines with more depth and creativity. This so-called Silver Age lasted until the 1970s.

                        The most interesting Silver Age characters came from Marvel, which under a previous name had published second-tier comics featuring Captain America, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and other characters in the 1940s and early 1950s. The company’s first coup was the Fantastic Four, who gained their powers from cosmic radiation. They represent the old idea of the four elements: fire (the new Human Torch), water (the stretchable Mr. Fantastic), air (the Invisible Girl), and earth (the rock-like Thing). They were the first superhero team to have to deal with real life: earning a living, paying the rent, coping with fame, and avoiding eviction for constantly tearing up their offices in Manhattan’s Baxter Building in battles with intergalactic invaders. As they were mugged by reality in a variety of ways, it is safe to say they were at least unconscious conservatives, albeit of a family-values variety.

                        Their sometime allies, the Avengers, were conservatives, too. For one thing, they included super-patriot Captain America, profit-seeking scientist Henry Pym (Ant-Man and Giant-Man), industrialist Tony Stark (Iron Man) and the Mighty Thor, a god who smashed bad guys with a hammer (’nuff said). The Avengersactually lived in an apartment and headquarters provided by Stark — who was yet another defense contractor, by the way — and ran afoul of various federal (and thus unconstitutional) law enforcement agencies over the years.

                        Other Marvel characters of the ’60s can be properly called libertarians. Spider-Man and the mysterious Dr. Strange, in particular, operate well outside traditional governmental authority, with the former treated as at least a bungler if not worse by the powers-that-be. “With great power comes great responsibility” is the oft-repeated lesson that Peter Parker learns on receiving his powers (from the bite of a radioactive spider) and then refusing to use them to stop a criminal who later murders his beloved uncle. Not surprisingly, these characters were co-created by artist Steve Ditko, an Ayn Rand devotee who later went on to create more explicit libertarian characters such as The Question and Mr. A.

                        Daredevil, one of the first disabled superheroes (he is blind but employs a kind of radar sense), is such a committed civil libertarian that he captures bad guys by night and then defends them in court by day as attorney Matt Murdoch.

                        The popular X-Men, which began in the Silver Age but really arrived in their current form in 1975, exhibited a number of libertarian traits. They are powerful mutants, the harbingers of a new kind of man referred to as “homo superior,” and yet they are trained by their mentor Charles Xavier to control themselves and to respect the rights of others — even those out to enslave them. The X-Men are at war both with a tyrannical government and with the fascist Magneto, whose seeks mutant domination of the Earth. A key theme of the X-Men saga is the need to restrain power; Professor X, meet James Madison.

                        Eco-Terrorist Heroes Fall Short

                        From the Silver Age onward, attempts to create superhero characters and stories with a liberal bent never seemed to pan out. Underwater characters Aquaman (DC) and the Sub-Mariner (Marvel) were often cast as radical environmentalists, but this limited rather than boosted their appeal. Namor the Sub-Mariner often played more the villain than the hero, in fact, as more law-abiding superheroes reined in his eco-terrorism.

                        In the early 1970s, a book teaming up Green Lantern and Green Arrow (another rich Batman-like character) tried to do “relevant” material on poverty and race relations, but the series didn’t sell. About the same time, Wonder Woman shed her Amazon accoutrements, became a flower child, and just about faded from sight (television brought her back with statuesque Lynda Carter and 1940s-era stories).

                        The 1980s brought a grimy and gritty take on the genre, starting with the pathbreaking Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and including The Watchmen, an dark update of the old Charlton Comics action heroes of the 1960s that take its name from Juvenal’s ancient question: “Who watches the watchmen?” Then comics took another popular turn in the 1990s as animated series introduced Batman, Spider-Man, and the X-Men to millions of new fans. One landmark ’90s series, Kurt Busiek’s Astro City, turned The Watchmen on its head. The latter asked what it would be like if superheroes actually lived in our world. Astro City asked what it would be like to live in theirs.

                        I don’t know how long the latest upswing of superhero comics will last, but I hope it will be a while. As long as the new movies feature lots of action, computer-generated-effects, and a complete lack of liberal sentimentality, they’ll do well. Remember: once the movie Superman stopped fighting supervillains and become an environmental wacko and nuclear-freeze peacenik, it was all over.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Elok
                          Now now, I think Superman might have some sort of alien worker visa...
                          But not before he entered the country.

                          Amnesty
                          “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
                          - John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            He was adopted by citizens. Now, move along.
                            Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
                            "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
                            He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by SlowwHand
                              He was adopted by citizens. Now, move along.
                              So if a citizen adopts an illegal, they can stay Slow?
                              “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
                              - John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

                              Comment

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