makes me wonder if the concept of supernatural powers is inherently problematic or if it having a hierarchy is a side effect of our worship of "might makes right"
I think it depends more on how the powers are used. You'd think with a group of hyper-intelligent, multi-dimensional aware beings would be able to do more than just run glorified C*A black ops missions.
Tony Stark's arc reactor tech should've ended the energy crisis. Mr. Fantastic and Bruce Banner's knowledge should've eradicated disease. Wakandan and Asgardian technology should've ended world hunger. Instead, the world is basically the same as ours. Them not doing so is just a limit of the imagination and the ideology of the creator.
There's a Superman story where he saves a North Korean submarine, and when a pissed off American general yells at him for it he explains that he values all life and isn't a shill for America just because that's where he was raised.
It's one of the more interesting sci fi themes that Superman comics can get into. Supes has the power to take over the Earth and impose his will on all humankind, but the good versions of Superman recognize that that would be a colonial project, enforcing Kryptonian culture on humans while many evil versions of Superman take over and their regime always ends up resembling an American fascism.
The modern capeshit genre's greatest failure, imo, is that it has narrowed the field of superhero stories to "magical people do cop shit" with only a handful of exceptions.
I feel like superheroes can't really effect any change in their worlds- if they could, their powers couldn't be matched, and if there's no challenge to them, there's not really any conflict to make a story with.
makes me wonder if the concept of supernatural powers is inherently problematic or if it having a hierarchy is a side effect of our worship of "might makes right"
I think it depends more on how the powers are used. You'd think with a group of hyper-intelligent, multi-dimensional aware beings would be able to do more than just run glorified C*A black ops missions.
Tony Stark's arc reactor tech should've ended the energy crisis. Mr. Fantastic and Bruce Banner's knowledge should've eradicated disease. Wakandan and Asgardian technology should've ended world hunger. Instead, the world is basically the same as ours. Them not doing so is just a limit of the imagination and the ideology of the creator.
There's a Superman story where he saves a North Korean submarine, and when a pissed off American general yells at him for it he explains that he values all life and isn't a shill for America just because that's where he was raised.
It's one of the more interesting sci fi themes that Superman comics can get into. Supes has the power to take over the Earth and impose his will on all humankind, but the good versions of Superman recognize that that would be a colonial project, enforcing Kryptonian culture on humans while many evil versions of Superman take over and their regime always ends up resembling an American fascism.
The modern capeshit genre's greatest failure, imo, is that it has narrowed the field of superhero stories to "magical people do cop shit" with only a handful of exceptions.
I feel its more that vigilantism is a slippery slope and most heroes are super cops.
I feel like superheroes can't really effect any change in their worlds- if they could, their powers couldn't be matched, and if there's no challenge to them, there's not really any conflict to make a story with.
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JoJo