#hydra infiltration and the corruption of the govt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

softgrungeprophet · 4 years

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more thoughts on flash and agent venom and propaganda, a topic which i am always thinking about but which is particularly relevant now in thinking about how comic fans and writers seem to contradict themselves in every way, how they just don’t GET it

flash thompson went from “tolerating” the army in the 70s, to outright uneasy about his service in the mid aughts, and even downright unproud, wallowing with his medal on the FLOOR, uncomfortable with being congratulated, all that showing he clearly was not proud of being military despite what every writer wants to say about “heroism”...... to being all ra-ra patriotism god and country backtracking his acceptance of a disability in order to peddle the Cool Military Venom shit and that’s what i am talking about when i talk about the propaganda of (particularly early) agent venom-- the advertisement-esque plasterings of ARMY logos, characterization sacrificed specifically for a military agenda, the presentation of the “cool military operations, wow just like a secret spy” plots, etc.

it’s all propaganda, and blatantly so, even BEFORE that happens. that weird terrorist villain (in web of spider-man, i think it was?) is just, conceptually I hated that, and again the story presented this strange gross angle in terms of flash “working out his anger in a healthy way” (unspoken: by fighting an unjustified oil war) as if it were this great, reasonable thing and that is just

no.

also propaganda, even if it is presented by the villain in the piece it is clearly presented as positive in spite of that (weird approach)

flash as a character is fraught with a lot of weird contradictory shit, where he is both uncomfortable with his role as a(n ex-) soldier, and then is turned right around to be uncharacteristically proud of his service and suddenly more religious as well, a character whose father is viciously, violently abusive and fully capable of killing his family, but “was a good cop” who got his “redemption in death” and HOW hollow is that? how can I see both the on-page and implied-via-color violence and cruelty and yet also accept that somehow he is a “good cop” (which does not exist)

even the same writer does this kinds of things, remender wrote these kinds of contradictions, and it is clear how much they simply do not get it.

a different non-flash thompson related comic comes to mind.

captain america corps. that’s a fun miniseries. it came SO close to REALLY getting it. and then at the last minute it turns out the villain is the lady who wanted to start the femizons and is orchestrating everything behind the scenes so ALL the stuff that so closely parallels our current day--the police state, the racism inherent, the protestors and insurgents imprisoned for going against the MAGA-esque hyper-patriotic government (I would say it was heavy handed if it weren’t so startlingly like real life)

allllll of this gets immediately undermined by the revelation that it was NOT whiteness at the core of this but in fact militant feminism--now, we can talk about how those two go hand-in-hand, and the woman in question is 100% white, but this story does not go there. it’s all a personal vendetta against Cap for foiling her femizon plans and her costume has a huge venus symbol on it and it was such a disappointing way to end on, tbh. It came SO close, so very close, it got right into the core of how things really are, down to racial profiling... but it fucked itself over in the end

other people are also talking about the ways superhero comics have failed to accurately grapple with and reflect the things they’re writing about and how they obviously deify government agencies and the police (recommended reading: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/protest-backlash-failings-a-superhero-culture-1297024?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social ) and how militarized the movies are, etc. etc.

It’s true, from older comics onward, increasing to the point of like, SHIELD being corrupt... but it’s because of those outside forces obviously. Nothing to do with the power-serving people already there. It’s just those HYDRA infiltrators. Those “outsiders” (cold war as fuck)

EVEN when it was not that, before the supposed infiltration, even in comics like the She-Hulk graphic novel (which has its own serious issues in terms of misogyny and race) which presents SHIELD as unquestionably the bad guys--well it’s not ALL of them. It’s this leader, this group, Fury’s still good, there’s the good guys, blah blah blah so even that falls short. There are moments, there are always moments--She-Hulk and Wyatt standing up to an antisemitic cop for example--but even from the early, early days (take this from someone who has recently read the first 8 issues of Amazing Spider-Man from 1963-4 ish) there are still these little notions that, well, even though the cops want to arrest Spider-Man, most of them don’t really believe he’s all that bad. They’re mild bystanders at worst until some other person agitates them into attacking Spidey, and they’re still defenders of the people in those comics (as true as that most certainly was NOT in the early 1960s)

This post is a mess, and other people are definitely saying it better than me lmao but there’s a lot of contradictions in superhero comics particularly when the police or military or govt agencies are involved, where even when they’re bad they’re still “good” and blah blahhh blahhh

honestly one of my biggest criticisms of robbie thompson’s Silk run is the SHIELD stuff and mockingbird. that’s a series that gets into some good stuff. in which felicia, the criminal leader, is working for and with the people (homeless youth, etc) but it still is very weak in the tooth and shield is pretty much just there to be the cool government group for the most part despite arresting cindy at one point--i guess because bobbi was heading her team, and they can’t very well have mockingbird be the bad guy but man. didn’t bobbi used to be a CRIMINAL?

anyway

idk what i’m even saying

this got into a few things XD

the problem with straight white men who are unaffected by the same things as a lot of their readers, writing, editing, and drawing the majority of a company’s works becomes pretty clear when you get into just how waffle-y so much of the results are. characters who spent their youth or adolescence hunted by the authorities get older and they get put into those same groups that didn’t trust them, like every time a white punk singer grows up and decides “the machine is good actually”

that sucks huh

#nadia reads comics #what am i even saying. this is essentially my usual criticisms of the comics i read but exacerbated by current events.#it starts out about flash but it expands

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