It's amazing really how many comic movies there are. The movie is really different from the comics.

3 of the movies I'm most excited for are comic book movies: the new Batman, Watchmen and Sin City 2. But I've found myself slowly becoming one of those comic nerds who try to find the differences between the comics and the movie. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Oh well, I'm not as critical as them, I just do it for fun.

As long as you don't write an angry letter to the person who wrote the screenplay for these movies because they weren't like the comic.

Well ... I just busted out my father's comic book collection. He has so many more than I thought he did. He has a bunch of odd ones, like Conan the Barbarian, Elf Princess, and stuff like that.

So, who thinks that comic books are a valid way to make social commentary? I know that's really really general because there's a million types of comic books. Okay, so maybe I'll narrow it down to the typical super hero, Marvel/DC universe comics. Are super heroes a valid way to make social commentary?

Here's a quote about Marvel: Civil War:
Tom Spurgeon took note of the difficulty in using costumed characters to send messages about real world issues: When I was a kid I liked it when Captain America saw a high government official commit suicide. I thought that was way deep, man. But I never go there when thinking about Watergate. While Millar's Captain America and I may both worry about civil rights... the moment this leads Cap to take out a battalion of Secret Agents to buttress his point he's kind of lost to me as a potential partner-in-ideology


P.S. I hate Captain America and Ironman. Just thought I'd let you all know.

In my opinion, anyway you want to express your opinion is O.K. with me. But, you have to watch how graphic you want to get with your social commentary.

I personally don't think its a good idea to have your character of your comic fight and kill important officials (or those that resemble real life ones). You're telling the world that they deserve to die and I, personally, would rather not send that message to the world's youth.

Good point. [Super hero related] comic book creators put lots of fighting in to make it interesting for America's youth. But sometimes the violence is misplaced.

I just started reading some of the X-Men comics I found because those appealed to me the most. I'm missing a lot. I have issues #68, #198-#220 and thats about it.

Yeah, starting a giant series like that is a lil much: so much history to explore. I've been reading more influential one off graphic novels or smaller series or things similar to that.

Edit: So, Danger, I take it you don't think that violence is an acceptable means for change?
Also: it's difficult to gauge what message you're gonna send youth. Anybody can interpret things in a different way which is why "video games are to blame" or "movies are to blame" arguments fall flat when a tragedy happens.

As a funny sidenote/question, how often do books get blamed for things? Book burning is a major concept of one of our greatest dystopian novels yet in todays society books are pretty much exempt from the fury of tragedy critics.

So my view is that I think super hero comics are a valid way to make some kind of commentary. Because of symbolism, mainly. A comic doesn't have to have a super hero killing a real life official because some of the audience is smart enough to look at books in context and read between the lines. And decide what the author was trying to say.


And I'm aware that a lot of this may have gone off on a tangent but welcome to life.

Good point about the message comics are sending youth, because I don't believe that television, movies, music, or video games (especially music and video games, since they are the most blamed) actually make people want to kill or injure someone. And if they do, the person who they influence is already homicidal.

What I hate about reading stuff about Columbine is that people think that Doom and Rammstein were responsible for it. One of the reasons Rammstein made children kill people: the singers' "R" sounds are similar to those of Hitler. Because, you know, sounding a little like Hitler inspires so much violence in people. And of course since the two guys both played Doom a lot that gave them the idea to really shoot people.

So why say that violence in comics influences our youth? Mostly it just entertains them. But if I start reading comics I won't read ones that revolve entirely around violence, just like I wouldn't watch a movie or read a book that had no real plot but just violence. Although I guess the same thing doesn't hold true for the flash cartoons I watch, such as the Madness series. That's all violence.

I agree with you. Not sure if I expressed my opinion well enough. I think that comic books is a good idea to express your views, but try to keep it from being blunt/blatant. Like you said, symbolism is a good idea. Keep it so that those that truly want to know your views are the only ones that see it. Otherwise, you're too blunt.


As for your questions about violence being an acceptable way for change, I'm not too sure on this. I need to think about what I feel on this.