Well, there’s this one:
It is interesting that Superman’s archenemy was an incredibly wealthy businessman. That seems to be the exact problem with our world today (there’s just many more of them).
The more you look at the villains in all the TV, movies, and books growing up, the more you realise they’re mostly evil capitalists.
It’s weird that Hollywood etc would green light so many movies about how rich people like themselves are evil, and teaching kids to fight against them.
The rich landlord is going to close the community club hall! The rich businessman is trying to have us killed to cover up his chemical spills! Etc etc.
If it’s not a literal alien from another planet, more often than not the bad guy is just a literal normal capitalist.
And yet try to use the lessons taught in every piece of media you ever watched as an impressionable child, and you’re told that your anticapitalist beliefs are “extremist” and you’re dangerous and must be stopped.
Weird eh?
Environmentalists in comic books are nearly always deranged villains, and the ones that aren’t are still weak and naïve.
The only strong environmentalist hero in Western canon is Captain Planet, and he’s got sus narc vibes.
Well, Green Arrow. But you have a point.
…because he wears green?
Because of his views.
https://i0.wp.com/50yearoldcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/gl89-recruit.jpg?ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/50yearoldcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/gl89-vapor.jpg?ssl=1
From: https://50yearoldcomics.com/2022/02/19/green-lantern-89-april-1972/
He’s consistently an “old lefty” sometimes more “sustainable-first capitalist” sometimes more “anarchist”, but his views on things like pollution are well established.
Sure, but we’re really in “exception proving the rule” territory where you have to reach back to 1972 for an environmental plotline.
Come on, man. You are portraying a scenario when I opened all comics starting now and stopped when I reached a first one with environmental theme? Is this arguing in good faith? The image is old because it’s an important part of his worldview for a long time. One of his enemy from this year is named “Fresh Water Killer”.
I’m not doubting he’s pro-environment, but my original comment referred to characters defined by their environmentalism, and the fact that you’re pushing him so hard as a candidate off something that’s very much a secondary characteristic proves how thin the field is overall.
What his primary characteristic in your mind?
I agree how the filed is overall. He’s a very small represnetiarion. But I stand by that he’s a valid one.
Green arrow has a decent and relatively new series.
I’ll turn you into a fucking tree!
Storm and aquaman are pretty pro environmentalist without making it their only identity.
Poison Ivy is essentially an anti-hero at this point, and she is considered fairly powerful too.
Couldn’t he just take all the billionaires and fly them into the sun or smth? I don’t know if that alone would fix things, but it’s a start. Also literally no downsides.
His nemesis is literally a billionaire and he never managed to get rid of him.
We got American Superman. We got Soviet Superman. We need Anarchist Superman.
Captain planet gets close to that
Don Cheadle’s Captain Planet, you mean.
Batman is a billionaire
Ah yes, In. Public he “Fights” the rich but in the Dark he is awfully chummy with a rich furry.
I bet you if he just lightly beat up one billionaire a day that the problem would sort itself out pretty quickly.
Imagine being the last billionaire but no one wants to take your money rofffffllll
Lightly?
Like bully locker shoving type. It’s not like anyone could really stop superman. You could be in the middle of a board meeting, and he just comes in the window and starts pushing you to the ground until you stop trying to get up.
That’s why he’s constantly fighting
Jeff bezosLex Luther l.If only Superman were a utilitarian. I’d like to read that ratfic.
We can solve those problems directly or indirectly by tying superman to a dynamo. With free energy even the issues with materials can be solved over time.
Just have superman round up every billionaire and political leader and drop them off on an deserted island, and the rest of us can start fixing our problems like adults.
Why not drop them into a volcano
Then the myth that they are special might live on. Broadcast their island ineptitude as they all die and we might wake from that dream.
Better that they be forgotten entirely
You want billionaire thetans, cuz that’s how you get billionaire thetans.
Wasn’t there a small parody comic about this?
One of my favorite ever smbc, and that’s SAYING something! ❤️
Isn’t that just a solar panel with extra steps?
I would say the energy output Superman is capable of implies he’s actually a step-up transformer as well as a solar panel. He’d be much more efficient, but of course you only have one Superman.
Now im curious. I’m just an electrician, not an engineer. How much of the grid could Superman power? Someone figure out his kilowatt-hour figures please 😅
The problem would be transmission, kinda like with huge powerplants that exist today.
The most efficient solution? Probably Superman bullying world leaders and billionaires into funding room temperature superconductivity research, heh.
Don’t know about Superman, but we have those figures, and it’s a bit disappointing.
Yoda could barely lift that X-Wing, Superman can outrun bullets. The sheer kinetic force he’s capable of producing would be orders of magnitude higher than Yoda, and more consistent too
Depends on the writer I guess.
Morrison? He just does a one energy cumblast while macrodosing some shrooms and Earth goes into overdrive. Humanity needs a new Si prefix for Wh.
Just about every iteration could easily power thousands of mountain sized gravity batteries.
Superman probably doesn’t need as much raw materials as a planet-wide supply of solar panels. It seems like copper is currently the biggest issue, and one that isn’t easily solved by switching to other renewable energy sources.
Bitch could literally turn back time
How many rounds around earth til un-inventing plastic?
1 turn = 1 day
Completely artificial plastic was invented in 1907 - 118 years ago.
1 year = 365 days
118 years x 365 days = 43,070 days
So 43,071 rounds should do it, and then just clonk Leo Baekeland over the head or something.
Oh no, you didn’t account for leap days. I believe there’s been 30 since 1907, so you’ll need to add to your total, and maybe a few extra buffer days to make sure everyone knows why you’ve done this so that no one else invents completely artificial plastic either.
1930s Superman would’ve agreed with the crowd.
This just makes me think of Captain Planet. He knew how to solve these sorts of issues. By beating up assholes and making them stop.
There are evil “robots” you can go beat up to solve those issues, yes
But you said they were robots Rick!!
They’re bureaucrats Morty! I don’t respect em.
Nobody understands Superman, especially most of his writers.
Dude is alien Moses created by two Jews during the Holocaust. His arch nemesis is a billionaire/the president. C’mon.
Kryptonite is pork, basically?
has there even been a plot line where the system in so corrupt, superman has no choice but to become a villain to safe the world.
ie he didn’t have the “consent” of the us president.
probably happened when lex was president.
Maybe Emperor Joker?
Don’t forget about fighting people who actually have plans to make the world a better place
Related note, excellent video essay, “Defenders of the Status quo” https://youtu.be/LpitmEnaYeU
Only watched half of the video (because it’s something I’m well aware of), so it might have gone into it, but another angle is that there’s often villains that make good points and then suddenly take it in a batshit direction.
Like Thanos had a point but apparently never understood exponential growth and how reducing all life by any constant factor is just delaying the same result, even if his snap made 99% of people disappear (unless he snaps enough people that the population collapses entirely, which is what he wanted to avoid).
There’s many other examples where reasonable starting points end up in unquestionably evil conclusions. Pretty sure it’s just propaganda to make people who don’t think much about things link those reasonable beginnings with “evil” in their minds.
Also there’s characters like Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark who are billionaires but their stories always ignore the realities of what must be done in order to become a billionaire (ie underpay staff doing the actual work by billions). In Stark’s case, they sidestep that by giving him super advanced AIs and automation robots, though he’s still the owner of a large corporation, that he still benefits from despite offloading any of the responsibility of even running it to everyone else.
It’s addressed in the video, that these characters are always written to then go over the proverbial line.
Didn’t Luigi have something to say about that?
Isn’t superman pro free will
He will protect against threats but if you fuck it up your mostly on your own
Does superman think humanity chose capitalism? If Superman landed in 1600s Europe, would he think humanity chose feudalism and help put down peasant uprisings? 1700s Haiti, would he help stop slaves from stealing or enacting violence against the French?
When it comes to the economy, capitalism with a heavy dose of regulation is the best option we have right now.
Attempts at communism have failed miserably and just led to dictatorships.
Unless you’re proposing something better than either of those?
Oddly a form of communism would work but only in a post scarcity society where all your needs are met.
Aren’t we already living in a post scarcity society in terms of economic output? Our only real limit is currently that we are using up natural resources too fast, but that would be greatly mitigated by cutting down on billionaires and a couple of other extremely wasteful activities.
You’re*
And use punctuation, FFS.
Yes sir Mr Trump sir
Well, he could beat up all the CEOs and politicians…
This is what I like about Wonder Woman. She shows up and is like. “Oh shit! There’s a world war going on! Better go stop that.” Meanwhile in the present super man is stopping random petty theft.
Youre gonna want Captain Planet
![[MyGumsAreBleeding] Superhero](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fe3f7af2-2ad0-40f4-8f61-216350f4860e.png){kind=link}
