Will you be reading Alt★Hero?

[LSSBB]

The hell they don't.

Yes, seeing as how Maus won the Pulitzer Prize.

 

[fuelair]

Look at the hands. Even Liefeld didn't make that much of a mess of hands.

The right hand of Daddy is definitely a mutant hand. The left is quite better done........

 

[fuelair]

May I suggest to you Maus?

Come to think of it, the Alt Hero authors should read it too. I have a feeling though that they wouldn't take a shine to it.

I 'spects they would like to bring back the conditions/activities presented in Maus though (may they burn in Sheol forever!!!!!!!!!)!

 

[bignickel]

Grow ups don't read comic books.

Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[Brainster]

Superman even took on the Ku Klux Klan in the late 40's. A reporter who had infiltrated the Klan would feed the Superman radio show writers inside info like the Klan's current secret password which would be used on the show. Drove the Kluckers nuts.

That was also when the radio show added "and the American Way," to the list of things for which Superman fought a never-ending battle. Sadly, some today interpret this as some Cold War rhetoric (Michel Chabon claimed it in an interview on TV a few years back). In fact, the American Way was a statement of racial tolerance, an exhortation to treat everyone, black or yellow or white or brown as fellow Americans. Note that Norman Lear called his Political Action group People for the American Way.

Ditko was fan of Ayn Rand, but not sure he was a full scale Objectivist. One of the main tenants of Objectivism is that all mysticism is evil, denial of reality and "anti life" but Ditko created Dr.Strange, which is as about over the top mystical as you can get.

Ditko absolutely was an objectivist; read his stories featuring the Question (backup character in the 1960s Charlton Blue Beetle series) if you have any doubts. Rand's objection to mysticism was to believing in mysticism; not characters in a comic book. It's the difference between the way people look at the Bible and the Lord of the Rings. Nobody believes the latter is a true story; it's just a bit of entertainment.

 

[Armitage72]

That was also when the radio show added "and the American Way," to the list of things for which Superman fought a never-ending battle. Sadly, some today interpret this as some Cold War rhetoric (Michel Chabon claimed it in an interview on TV a few years back). In fact, the American Way was a statement of racial tolerance, an exhortation to treat everyone, black or yellow or white or brown as fellow Americans. Note that Norman Lear called his Political Action group People for the American Way.

It's similar to how some people mistakenly see Captain America as a representative of America's society and government. He's supposed to represent the American Dream, something to strive for, what we could be if we truly practiced the ideals the country claims to be built on. (More cynically, the ideals that some people delusionally think we are practicing.)

Ditko absolutely was an objectivist; read his stories featuring the Question (backup character in the 1960s Charlton Blue Beetle series) if you have any doubts.

Ditko himself described The Question as a Comics Code friendly version of his earlier hero Mr. A, who was explicitly an Objectivist superhero, derived from "A is A".

 

[phiwum]

It's similar to how some people mistakenly see Captain America as a representative of America's society and government. He's supposed to represent the American Dream, something to strive for, what we could be if we truly practiced the ideals the country claims to be built on. (More cynically, the ideals that some people delusionally think we are practicing.)





Ditko himself described The Question as a Comics Code friendly version of his earlier hero Mr. A, who was explicitly an Objectivist superhero, derived from "A is A".

Interesting. How was Mr. A not compatible with the code? Violence?

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[Armitage72]

Interesting. How was Mr. A not compatible with the code? Violence?

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I think so. I was recalling a quote from a Ditko interview.

When Blue Beetle got his own magazine, they needed a companion feature for it. I didn't want to use Mr. A, because I didn't think the Code would let me do the type of stories I wanted to do, so I worked up the Question, using the basic idea of a man who was motivated by basic black & white principles.

From later in the linked article:

Mr. A differs from the Question in several ways. For one, whereas the Question maybe let some people get drowned in a sewer, Mr. A most definitely allows a criminal to fall to his death from the side of a building to teach another character (and the readers) a lesson about making decisions that benefit the self over altruism toward others.

On the surface, that doesn't sound bad, but since it's Objectivism, it would be altruism portrayed as the wrong choice.

 

[Mycroft]

On the surface, that doesn't sound bad, but since it's Objectivism, it would be altruism portrayed as the wrong choice.

Doing good things because it feels good to do it (and it does) fit's within objectivism. An objectivist would be against forcing someone to be altruistic who didn't want to.

 

[phiwum]

Doing good things because it feels good to do it (and it does) fit's within objectivism. An objectivist would be against forcing someone to be altruistic who didn't want to.

That rather depends.

One is obliged to act in his own enlightened self-interest, per Objectivism. Smoking crack feels good, but is wrong because it interferes with my ability to achieve greater pleasure[1]. Altruism might feel good too, but since altruism involves a sacrifice and such sacrifices might genuinely hurt my long-term interests, altruism may well be morally wrong even if I have an urge to be altruistic.

But we're going a little afield here, and I'm not expert on Objectivism.

This is also a difficult question because Rand defined altruism as a kind of self-denying moral theory that no one in history has ever proposed, far as I know.

Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil.

Right. Eating a peanut butter sandwich is wrong, unless your sole reason for doing it is so that you can help others. Pretty easy to knock down that silly theory. Obviously, I was using altruism in its usual sense, as was Mycroft.

[1] Not sure, but I think Objectivist egoism is a hedonistic theory.

 

[Nova Land]

Interesting. How was Mr. A not compatible with the code? Violence?

I'm not sure but I'd guess the problem was Ditko's attitude on executing criminals. Ditko supported the death penalty and had no problem with heroes killing evil-doers in the course of fighting them. This was a key point of at least one Mr. A story, and I think it came up in several.

The Question had a similar attitude, but it was handled a bit less explicitly. In one story The Question is fighting criminal scum in a sewer. He knocks them into the rapidly rushing stream of water, and they get carried away. They scream that they need help or they're going to die, and that as the hero he's obligated to dive in and rescue them. He laughs dismissively that idea, but adds that he supposes he should alert rescuers to be waiting at the place where the sewer tunnel empties out so they can scoop up the criminals there and thus keep them from drowining. I'm pretty sure that tacked-on comment was put in place to appease the Comic Code Authority; The Question's actual attitude which Ditko was trying to convey was I'm glad you're going to die, and good riddance; I have no obligation to rescue scum like you and any hero who does make an effort to do that is an idiot.

 

[Nova Land]

Reminds me of how Dave Sims went with Cerebus.

Actually there's only one Dave Sim, not the multiples your comment indicates. Which might be a good thing.

(As a grown-up, obviously I don't read comics now and wouldn't have been able to read Cerebus when it was published, so don't know whether the existence of multiple versions of Dave Sim would be bad or good. My impression from things I've heard, though, is that the early issues were actually quite good and well-worth reading, although the art on the first few issues wasn't as polished as it later became, but that the writing and editorial stances became a bit strange and a lot less worth reading about a third to halfway through the run after various changes occurred in Sim's personal life which strongly affected his writing on the comic and the directions it went.)

It's a shame grown-ups can't and don't read comics, since I've heard good things about a number of comics with a more left-wing slant than Alt*Hero which I wish I were able to read for myself. I have books from John Lewis' The March trilogy (which tells the story of his involvement in the Freedom Rides, the march on Selma, and other events of the civil rights movement) on my shelf but obviously they need to remain closed there, helping to hold the bookshelf in place, rather than in my hands and open. Ditto for G. Willow Wilson's current version of Ms. Marvel as Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American teenage girl, which sounds to be an excellent comic well worth reading for anyone who's young enough to read comic books. Ted Naifeh's new series Heroines, the first 4 issues of which are available individually or in a small collected edition, is another series I'd love reading if that were something a grown-up could do. Ah, well.

 

[Brainster]

I'm not sure but I'd guess the problem was Ditko's attitude on executing criminals. Ditko supported the death penalty and had no problem with heroes killing evil-doers in the course of fighting them. This was a key point of at least one Mr. A story, and I think it came up in several.

The Question had a similar attitude, but it was handled a bit less explicitly. In one story The Question is fighting criminal scum in a sewer. He knocks them into the rapidly rushing stream of water, and they get carried away. They scream that they need help or they're going to die, and that as the hero he's obligated to dive in and rescue them. He laughs dismissively that idea, but adds that he supposes he should alert rescuers to be waiting at the place where the sewer tunnel empties out so they can scoop up the criminals there and thus keep them from drowining. I'm pretty sure that tacked-on comment was put in place to appease the Comic Code Authority; The Question's actual attitude which Ditko was trying to convey was I'm glad you're going to die, and good riddance; I have no obligation to rescue scum like you and any hero who does make an effort to do that is an idiot.

The key difference in the stories is that in the scene with the crooks in the sewer, the Question notes that he would be risking his own life trying to rescue them. In the Mr A story (I'm assuming you're referring to the first tale in Witzend #3), Mr A initially claims that he has to choose between saving the thug and saving the victim (a bleeding-heart woman that the crook has stabbed), but later notes that he would not have saved the thug even if the woman was not in danger.

 

[fuelair]

That was also when the radio show added "and the American Way," to the list of things for which Superman fought a never-ending battle. Sadly, some today interpret this as some Cold War rhetoric (Michel Chabon claimed it in an interview on TV a few years back). In fact, the American Way was a statement of racial tolerance, an exhortation to treat everyone, black or yellow or white or brown as fellow Americans. Note that Norman Lear called his Political Action group People for the American Way.



Ditko absolutely was an objectivist; read his stories featuring the Question (backup character in the 1960s Charlton Blue Beetle series) if you have any doubts. Rand's objection to mysticism was to believing in mysticism; not characters in a comic book. It's the difference between the way people look at the Bible and the Lord of the Rings. Nobody believes the latter is a true story; it's just a bit of entertainment.

But it makes much more sense!!!!!!!! And is just as true as the bible - which is stolen old tales from many identifiable cultures (Old Testament) and mostly made up and completely unverifiable stories (New Testament). Equally valid but the LotR is much better thought out and written!!!!

 

[fuelair]

Oops, left out that the tales were from not Israel and not linear but far prior to their being "borrowed" by the Israelites