...why it is that grown men and women are now arguing to the death on social media about who's better, DC Comics or Marvel? When I was growing up, the only people who cared that much about comics looked like Beaver Cleaver.
shareI think most of those "grown" people are probably not grown at all. Going just by their posts, I suspect most are teens or younger. That or they are just trolls looking to stir up shit.
shareThe never-ever-will-it-come-to-an-end DC Vs. Marvel thing? That argument (war) goes back a long, long way. In fact, it predates the internet. But it’s not just a comics thing (newsflash: people of all ages have taken comics seriously for decades - now get off my lawn!). Many fanatics in general get into headed arguments over their favorite things, e.g, this cinematic masterpiece is better than this cinematic masterpiece... this revered band is better than this revered band... sports team vs. sports team... filmmaker vs. filmmaker... actor vs. actor... rapper vs. rapper... famous city vs. famous city... video game console vs. video game console, etc etc. All of this can be silly (sometimes funny), but it’s nothing new.
Anyway, as far as this Marvel and DC battle goes, it’d be fine if that’s where things ended. But this decades-old argument can’t compare to the ridiculousness of the far reich agenda against movies like Captain Marvel. Right now, Marvel movies & Disney movies get trolled on nonstop by truly pathetic anti-social justice schmucks because they can’t stand what these movies stand for - yet Marvel is only representing what it always has. Yup, there are real older grumps and younger punks out there infesting boards like this with utter nonsense... they're a part of a toxic community on social media that LIVES to attack movies and actors they find offensive. They are beyond low and petty (and yes, some of these trolls happen to be fanatics of DC comics, so the other team has to hit back, rite? Rite).
I've lived over sixty years, and only lately have grown men I could otherwise expect go on and on about which comic franchise is better than the other. Yes, such conversations used to go on under the bleachers during recess as you could hear if you walked by, sometimes with the comic in question getting torn and the affront avenged with fists. But it's the thing kids grow out of shortly after they discover girls and cars.
It's like this long extension of childhood that Obama tapped into with this PajamaBoi and kids on the parents' insurance until they're 26. In former days, kids of 26 had served in the military, gotten an education paid for with the G.I. Bill, started a new profession, and were usually working on a family with a wife, not a baby mama.
My how things do change....for the worse.
People were dumb and immature 60 years ago as well. You didn't notice it as much.
shareWhen I was growing up, grown men who were dumb and immature liked to spend all day tinkering on a car instead of getting the "Honeydo" list done, or spending their days glued to the TV to watch football. When they got together with their friends -- working on that tinkering project over a few beers -- they'd argue over whether Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle was the best baseball player of all time. The stay-at-home moms I knew as a really little kid would take a break about 10 o'clock and either call or walk over to the neighbor's and discuss -- wait for it -- politics.
And yes, there was always the perennial child whose hobby was making the biggest fireworks and could always be counted on to be there, giggling like Strother Martin in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" in sheer anticipation, if anyone wanted anything blown up. And yes, he'd be the one providing the explosives and the know-how.
But if a grown man had shown up in the neighborhood, knocked back beer and started telling my dad how Superman could beat Batman, all the other guys in the neighborhood -- including Roger Boom -- would have dropped their "knockometers" and asked him if it was some kind of joke or what?
Yes, dumb and immature has always existed, but it's only lately we've had an administration that thought showing a Millennial in jammies with feet, drinking hot cocoa, would be a smart way to relate to that age group. Dumb and immature has just gotten dummer and more immature over the years.
SPORTS!
shareI have nothing against sports. My dad watched all kinds, including golf, which was like watching paint dry to me. But before arthritis gnarled his hands until he couldn't do the grip, he was out there playing golf and beating the pants off of everybody. My mother said he could have been a professional golfer or professional bowler if he wanted to. I still remember when he had to put his ball up for the last time because they'd had to drill the holes so large that he lost his fingertip control.
But my point was that no one argued about comic book heroes in those days. I asked my husband after I posted this is he ever heard grown men arguing over which comic book hero could beat the pants off the other. "Adults? No," he said, with the air of a man who'd just heard the dumbest question ever. I think that's why the adults of our generation were considered The Greatest Generation. Once you'd whipped Hitler's little three letters, Spiderman was just a tad childish.
You're unwilling to accept that the changes in the world around you may be for the better. To focus on the topic at hand, namely comics, consider that in the past, comic books were written for, and marketed at, children. Comics have changed drastically in the past 20 or so years, and are no longer simple kids stories. Comics are far more literary in nature now, and geared in many cases towards adults. College courses, and graduate school courses, now include them on the syllabus, and are sometimes wholly focused on the genre.
I also have to question you lumping yourself in with the WWII generation. You didn't give an age, but you said you've lived "over 60 years," so I assume you to have been born between 1950-59. That plants you squarely among the boomers, who had nothing whatsoever to do with defeating Hitler, or being a "greatest" generation. It ALSO makes you a member of the generation that initially began treating comics like adult literature. Your husband may have shook his head and gave you what you took to be a definitive answer, but the truth is that comics first became an adult phenomena in the 1960s. A significant segment of Marvel's sales in the '60s were to adults, and that is the beginning of the modern era where adults discussing Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and so forth is the norm.
The real moral to this story, however, is what I alluded to at the beginning-- things change. Comics and comic characters were considered childish in the '30s and '40s, but are now mature fare geared for intellectual adults. Computers were once the hobby of only the nerdiest social outcasts, and now everyone carries a computer in their pocket, and being in tech in 2019 is as normal and enviable as being in, say, advertising in 1969. Rather than bash something you clearly know very little about, learn a bit more about the history of the topic, observe the world around you with an open, enlightened mind, and learn to enjoy life rather than complain about it.
She said the "adults of her generation"...I.e.her parent's age were the WW2 fighters that brought down Hitler.
shareThank you, QueenFan. Perhaps I could have worded it better, but I meant the adults when I was a kid -- hence my asking my husband if he'd ever heard of the adults arguing comic books when he was growing up.
shareI wouldn't argue that comics are now literary because the Snowflake generation studies them in college. It doesn't really back up your point.
Yes, a couple of my favorite movies are supposedly based on "graphic novels" (*snort*). They have a teenage feel to them, but the acting makes it worthwhile for an adult to sit down and watch them -- MIB and RED. If I got my hands on the original comics, I can't imagine poring over the pages like I did with the Sunday funnies when I was a kid, breathlessly turning the page to see what Prince Valiant was up to next, or what was doing in Dogpatch -- even though MIB and RED were designed and marketed for today's adults.
I didn't lump myself in with the WWII generation. Those were the adults of my day -- our parents, neighbors, uncles and aunts. My father and mother both served during WWII and after. The neighbor down the street served in WWI -- and that's where I learned what happens to old tattoos! All my friends' fathers either served in WWII or Korea. Instead of keeping my head down looking at my phone, I stood around listening to the grown-ups talk. I got to hear a lot of fascinating stuff, learned that we could blame a lot of our ills on "the middleman," whoever he was (a kid wouldn't know, of course), but I never ONCE heard them even refer to comic books. I certainly never heard them stoop to having serious conversations over which was better, DC or Marvel. That was for people who looked like Beaver Cleaver.
My point is that grown ups don't go around being experts on comics -- at least they didn't used to. People whose world consisted of the far more serious business of draft numbers and whether they should start a family now or wait until the war in Vietnam was over weren't looking for thrills and excitement in the pages of a comic book. You can remain ignorant of my generation, and I'll remain ignorant of the "intellectual" content and "mature fare" of Spiderman and Wonder Woman, happily.
You're certainly antagonistic and unwilling to accept anything as true other than what you already believe. You can call those with whom you disagree snowflakes, ignoring how you are behaving in just the same manner as they are, you can ignorantly state that because you assume MIB and RED must be juvenile, though you admittedly have read neither, so too must all comics, and you can even tell us that because people of your generation, and the generation prior, fought in wars their dated opinions and hobbies trump those of today's youth. It all boils down to one thing-- you're an old person who is uncomfortable with what the world has become. You don't understand the world around you, so you fear and hate it. Perhaps take comfort in the fact that there a millions of other dinosaurs just like you, shambling blindly towards the tar pits.
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The guy you describe sounds like he's fixated on sci-fi to the exclusion of all else. I'm not sure how that pertains to my belief that the world today is a great place, and that kuku is romanticizing the past because his life, or at least the life he describes, is unhappy.
share[deleted]
I kept a friendly tone and pointed out that his depiction of a rosy past and a thorny present are inaccurate. Someone who has made poor life choices and is angry about a failed marriage and a lousy job will no doubt be unhappy, but that doesn't really prove his point that any grown white male who enjoys comic books is doing so because he's been victimized by society. If you consider that judgmental, then so be it.
shareis it the *just* arguing over whose best?
For me its showing any interest at all in anything produced by Marvel , or that other one .. DC
Agreed. But I'm on Twitter, and for me it pins the needle to see political pundits I respect having a stupid, knock down, drag out argument over who could kick who to the moon and back -- Spidey or Superman. It's bad enough that they're grown ups who are so into it that they can argue minutiae, but to get so overwrought, too! From FilmBuff's reaction I'm sure you're not surprised that when I tossed a "Who the heck cares? In my day the only ones who did care looked like Beaver Cleaver!" into their argument that I wound up losing followers.
It's an odd world we live in. But if their lives are going so smoothly that they need comics for excitement, they should be thankful. And I suppose I should be happy for them. They're like the grown ups who used to like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Except I remember those as gentle folk, sort of the Boo Radleys of the neighborhood. Not the knock-down, drag-out types.
Men always have liked comics, and movies, and games. It's not only about this generation. It's deeply rooted into who men are.
BUT... all those things were given up when a man wanted to grow up and step up to the next level. Life is a trade-off, and men were told to give up things considered childish.
Why men wanted to grow up in the first place? Because there were payoffs in becoming an adult member of the society: being respected, having a position, and eventually a wife and a family. Costs were highs, though: take charge, work your ass off, allow yourself only a few outlets (like sports, DIY, or reading literature if you're more into academics) and, if there's a war, pick a gun and get yourself killed. But and the end of the day, the balance was fair, or at least fair enough. There were a few immature men, but most of them chose to step up in life.
Fast-forward to current day: work your ass off, but now to pay alimony to a wife you don't have anymore, children you barely see and a house you can't use. Work your ass off to pay loads of taxes, a good part of them, to be allocated towards people who are not even your own people (and don't dare to protest, you nazi evil racist xenophobe). Work your ass off to be told that you're privileged and an evil white male oppressor. Respect? Is that a joke? White males only deserve disdain!
Back then, stepping up in life involved costs, and effort, but in return, there were payoffs. Nowadays, it still involves costs and effort, and in exchange for your efforts, you're insulted, put down and ripped off.
Nobody works for free. Society has no payoffs for white males anymore, so don't expect them to work hard, marry, take responsibility, give up things (like comics or games) or build a country anymore.
Sounds like you've made some very poor life choices and are projecting them onto the rest of us.
shareShe made what seems to be an honest question, I tried to give an honest answer. Of course, I understand that this is internet and any comment is likely to be answered by some troll with personal attacks and/or insults. That's fine, and you're free to make personal attacks or to insult anybody here, myself included, but I'd suggest to look for any other conversation where you'd be less annoying.
shareI'm not trying to attack anyone, and if you read what I post here you'll see I maintain a friendly tone and avoid most of the heated arguments. I was merely trying to point out that you painted an idealized version of the past, then compared it to the present of someone who made a series of poor choices, as if to say things are somehow worse today than they used to be.
share(1) I am NOT idealizing the past. (2) I am NOT talking about me. I am talking about very specific issues (the incentives in the current day for white males to step up, take charge and accept responsibilities) that are causing well documented western-wide consequences, like rejection of marriage or abandonment of studies. Trying to portray specific issues as a global idealization of the past is a lie. Trying to pin that on me, when I am not talking about me, is a personal attack.
Please, go trolling somewhere else.
Let's try a different tactic. You seem to spend most of your time here insulting people and trolling this board, so it stands to reason you'd call out a simple, friendly disagreement on my part as trolling or an attack. So, if you WEREN'T idealizing the past when you went on for paragraphs about how much better things were in the past, for white men, anyway, then complained about how sucky life is now when you're divorced and can't see your kids and are no longer welcome in your former home, just what were you doing? Was there really anything in your initial post other than whining about some perceived conspiracy against white males?
If you aren't being rewarded for your work, it may be something about you. If your wife left you and took the kids, it may be because of you. If those were mere hypotheticals, what were you basing them on? I see a country in which those who work hard get ahead, and are free to enjoy whatever they hell they want in their free time without persecution from anyone but a fringe minority who thinks "comics are for kids." I see a country where most marriages are happy, and the rest aren't unhappy because of a plot to ruin the lives of white men. I see a country where more people than ever are going to college, and beyond, and learning and intellectualism is valued more than ever before.
If you don't want to discuss this, that's totally fine, but say so. Don't act like I'm bullying you or being rude when all I'm doing is trying to engage in a bit of friendly back-and-forth.
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I was blunt, but polite. She came in with a holier-than-thou attitude, posting to a board dedicated to a comic book movie that any adult who enjoys comic books is immature and how much better the Boomer generation is than "kids these days." She made some factually incorrect statements, and professed ignorance about the topic, so I called her out on that. I certainly didn't do so in a rude way, and if you re-read what I wrote I doubt you can point to anything in there that was impolite. Re-read her posts and notice how condescending she is, and how blithely she mocks anyone who doesn't meet her standard for maturity.
shareI disagree with you, therefore I am condescending. You say that comic books are the stuff of mature intellectuals now; I say no. You maintained a barely civil tone -- bluntness, to put it in your terms -- showed a lack of reading comprehension, and tried to educate me about my generation and got it wrong. But you are petulant and overly touchy if someone suggests that once upon a time comic books were the sort of thing you saw sticking out of the back pockets of little kids. "Friendly" you are not. "Hostile" comes closer.
If you doubt the accuracy of my assessment of cultures past, delve into some popular old movies and see if anyone beyond sock hop and soda shop days gave a hoot about what Archie and Veronica were doing. You might find a reference like, "Do I look like Superman?" but that was harkening back to the old days of childhood fantasy and asking the person addressed to grow up and deal with reality.
Re-read what you just wrote and tell me you aren't unfriendly and condescending. And then read my responses to you above and tell me who is lacking in reading comprehension. I've not doubted any of your statements about previous eras, and made it clear that it wasn't until the '60s that comics started to become something adults read, and not until the modern day that they became fully accepted reading material for grownups, primarily because they began to be written in a far more literary and mature manner, often by award-winning authors of non-comic-book fiction.
I suppose I may be a bit impatient with angry, pseudo-intellectuals like you who can't accept reality, but I doubt anyone else reading this thread without a dog in the face so to speak would do anything other than identify you as the rude, petulant one, and me as the patient, friendly one. Seriously-- re-read some of what you've written here and explain in what world it's anything other than mean-spirited at best.
That’s me being critical. Your posts are you being thin-skinned. I won’t ask you to re-read them to see how thin-skinned and the opposite of “friendly” you are, because you can’t see yourself as others see you. And yes, another poster could see I wasn’t trying to say I was from the “Greatest Generation,” and yet you missed that entirely — lack of reading comprehension, which could have been due to skimming rather than reading because you were so incensed. Just a guess, and as a guess, I may be wrong — a bit of grace you refused to extend to the poor fellow you said was projecting his “poor life choices” on the rest of us.
You tried to tell me that in the ‘60’s comic books started to become something adults read. One would think if that were true I’d have run into a single adult that was a comic book aficionado. Maybe they were all in NYC or LA, not out where the common people lived. But it wasn’t even a thing that was noticed enough for the adults where I lived commented on it. And trust me, they would have! I never heard, “Did you see in Time Magazine where they say grown ups — actual GROWN UPS — are reading comic books???”
Ooh, laddie, I’m far from intellectual, pseudo or otherwise! You’re the one with pretensions to that claim. I don’t write as if I hold my opinions because I think they’re wrong, so I guess from your perspective it seems as though I’m not accepting reality. I haven’t looked up and down this thread lately, but I think you’re the only one willing to die on your particular hill. I’ve seen a number of people try to explain to me why what was once the province of children is now considered “intellectual.” I think you’re feeling threatened, and that’s why you’re lashing out. You won’t agree, which won’t surprise me.
I’ll let you have the last word. Continue to call me names in that friendly way of yours. 😉
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You seem to spend most of your time here insulting people and trolling this board
That's a lie. Even here, I'm answering your personal attacks politely.
Enough is enough. I am not feeding your trolling anymore.
Okay. I see your point. Society has turned upside down, and it's not unreasonable to expect the downtime pursuits to be upside down, too.
There are sections of society -- I'm thinking certain churches, but there may be other pockets -- that exist with a different set of values. In that subculture men who step up to the plate, find a woman who will commit to him exclusively and he to her, works hard, has a family, and keeps them grounded in faith and what we now consider old-fashioned values still finds the respect that the hard-working white male doesn't find in today's broader culture.
I live in this same world where men are expected to be always apologetic for their maleness, whether they're white or not. We live in a crazy world where feelings trump facts, we can't assume another person's gender based on biology, and pay no attention to the lunatic in Venezuela, socialism is great -- except don't dare call people who call themselves socialists, "socialists," or you'll get a twelve page rant on MovieChat. We may both live in this insane asylum, but we don't have to have its values. My husband and I have values that are quite different from the outside world, we have friends who share those values, and we are our society. The outside world is in free fall. That's their choice...talking about some very poor life choices....
• There are sections of society -- I'm thinking certain churches, but there may be other pockets -- that exist with a different set of values.
Absolutely. And you have immigrant subsocieties too. In general Asian and Muslim promote commitment, South American is kind of complicated, and Subsaharian/Black doesn't promote it at all.
Actually, one of the big problems in Subsaharian/Black communities is the low level of incentive that society gives to things like commitment, law abiding and/or studying. And Western society is going that way. It's no surprise the level of tribalism has increased: when you take away the social benefits of being a member of the community, people lose interest in building that community as a whole.
• We may both live in this insane asylum, but we don't have to have its values.
Well, regarding that subject, I noticed a while ago that there's an interesting pattern about society values versus personal values. For example, 90% of blacks in US vote Democrat. You go to Iran, 90% support Islam while 10% lean more towards western values. That similarity draw my attention a couple of years ago. Of course, this is pure speculation, and it could be bullshit, but I suspect there's a 90/10 pattern: 90% of people use to accept the values of their society as their own, 10% use to look elsewhere for values they think are better (or at least, work better, bringing more wealth and better life standards).
Unfortunately, 90% is a huge majority.
• I live in this same world where men are expected to be always apologetic for their maleness, whether they're white or not
Of course. Modern society is classified in some overlapping (technically, 'intersectional') categories that are tagged with the 'oppressed' or 'oppressor' label. Non-white males (or hispanic males) are tagged as 'oppressors' as males and as 'oppressed' as non-whites. (CONTINUE)
"when you take away the social benefits of being a member of the community, people lose interest in building that community as a whole." This, sir is sheer genius. I don't know if I might disagree with every other syllable you say, but doggone it, that, sir is brilliant!
"Martina Navratilova experienced it recently, when she was called out as cis (oppressor) for criticizing trans (oppressed) in female categories in sport competitions, and then she reminded she was a lesbian (oppressed)." And feminists threatened to pull her lesbian card because she wasn't "woke" enough.
But now more female athletes are speaking out, and changes might occur. I certainly do hope so!
(CONTINUE) Something similar happens to white feminist females, tagged as 'oppressors' as whites and as 'oppressed' as women, so you can notice how the insist in focusing in their issues as women (which is the best category for them). And you still have to include hetero/homo categories and cis/trans categories. Martina Navratilova experienced it recently, when she was called out as cis (oppressor) for criticizing trans (oppressed) in female categories in sport competitions, and then she reminded she was a lesbian (oppressed).
share[deleted]
😂
I'd have expected the theme from The Twilight Zone to start at any time!
I think we've all liked Sci Fi at some time or another, and for many of us who watched Star Trek in our youth, it's a genre preference that's stuck with us. But only a few of us, say, secretly -- or not so secretly -- fancy themselves as Capt. Kirk. Was it the same guy, or are two of them running loose?
Most of us won't even do the tired, "Who was the better Captain of the Enterprise -- Picard or Kirk?" Maybe for kicks and giggles, but seriously? Not many.
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Indeed!
shareI've always found that odd, but I chalk it down to people just wanting to fight.
shareSocial media allows for confrontation that isn’t face-to-face.
So now you have constant nerd wars being waged over comic books by people who look like Beaver Cleaver and who would probably cry if you frowned at them IRL.
Nintendo > Sega!
shareSo, in other words, comic-book obsessives no longer look like goofy nerds?
Isn't that a good thing?
I can't understand fanaticism/fan obsession, and never could. But if someone wants to watch a movie and realize it's escapist entertainment, not some highly intellectual mythologizing of the great themes of life; or if they even want to read a comic and see that it's escapist entertainment for the masses, then great.
When it comes to Sci-Fi, one of my guilty pleasures is the overacted "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan." It's not intellectual, even if it quotes Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." It's escapist fare. My husband and I watch such things -- Sci-Fi, action movies -- for pure brain candy. You can tell yourself that since it's dealing with the basic conflict of right and wrong, moral and immoral, that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time that it's something more than it is. Once you've lived long enough to realize that they're all variants that Westerns have done to death long, long before, one loses the fanaticism, the head is remarkably less swollen and the stories can be enjoyed as the escapist fare they are. Having seen several versions of Spiderman, and High Noon, there's more depth to High Noon. Or The Searchers. Or She Wore A Yellow Ribbon. Back before we were supposed to all be so "Woke," colleges gave over entire courses to "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," of which Hemingway said, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. There's been nothing as good before and nothing so good since." But if you want escapist fare, go Sci-Fi, and comic books. And if you want a really pointless argument, try to settle which escapist fictional character would be the crud out of the other. Then pick any comic book character you want to back. It really won't matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgInmHHO0m4
This video is for you. These non-grownups (adults with kiddy minds and arguing whose better) usually lead to broken relationships (too busy gaming or other) unless the other person is of the same interest then that's a different story.