The politics of Superman and is he irrelevant? (SUPERMAY)

What do Superman and the Fantastic Four have in common? Well they both started superhero comics franchises, have endlessly optimistic main characters, white skin and had a steep decline in popularity in the 1980’s that neither have recovered from. But why is that, well I forgot that they both embody “leftist” ideals, and the heroes that replaced them in popularity are more conservative (to varying degrees). A superhero actually can’t be apolitical, a Superhero needs to fight something and what they fight must be bad. When people say “don’t put politics in comics” they mean “put my politics in your comic”, because people have a hard time finding their own politics in things, it’s much easier to rally against the enemy than to say “that is just how I see the world”.

Superman first debuted in 1938 with his first story “The Champion of the oppressed”, (a clearly political title). Being in the first issue of an experimental idea by National Comics his future was not certain, the plug could’ve been pulled at any time. Knowing it may be the only chance for the world to see their Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster put everything they could into the story. The page layouts where radically different to everything else (even the other stories in the magazine), normally comic pages where made in with regular sized panels so the story could be reprinted in newspapers. The layouts in Superman’s first story are different long tall panels to show him leaping into the air and one of Superman smashing a car over his head onto a rock that takes of 2/3 of the page (this is also the iconic image from the front cover that was chosen last minute). The story is also  a laundry list of the baddies Superman would face, corrupt bosses, spousal abusers and gangsters. Despite the all in feel of the first story it sets up the second where Superman forces arms dealers to go to war to see what their weapons do. The early Superman is more heavy-handed than his later incarnations busting through doorways declaring “learn some compassion or I’ll beat it into you”. An often overlooked and under appreciated part of the early Superman books is Lois Lane. A mistake made by onlookers about Lois is that she is just a shrinking violet who is easily caught by Superman’s enemies. That is not true. Lois is a headstrong career gal and the Daily Planet’s best reporter, resourceful and stubborn which gets her into trouble. It’s really debatable if she even needs Superman to save her some of the time, but why bother when he will and with his involvement you’ll get the front-page story. Clark Kent as a reporter lives in her shadow, that is because of his faux-timid demeanour he can’t put himself into the same risks as Lois, if he did the world might find out he’s Superman.     

Clark Kent was a self insert of Jerry Siegel, a timid meagre unathletic man with Superman as his fantasy (girls are ignoring me but thats because they don’t know who I really am). Now this wish fulfilment and power fantasy are common in fiction but Superman was different. Siegel’s wish was to use his amazing power to try and fix the world and be the father he wishes he had. It’s interesting that Mort Weisenger (national comics editor), Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster all grew up without a dad and their creation Superman is, a strong, caring man who stands up for the weak. An authority figure whose goal is to guide mankind to a brighter future. Coming from the destroyed world of Krypton, Superman’s goal was not conquest like his pulp alien precursors, his goal was to warn us about the pitfalls of progress. We must progress in a way that isn’t destructive, to teach us not to be prejudiced or creedist and we must unite to create a better tomorrow. Superman drew influence from mythology, mankind has always told stories of great saviours like King Arthur or beings of great strength like Hercules but Superman was an industrial-era update of these concepts. Superman’s whole costume is designed to tell you who he is at a single glance, a circus strong-man belt and pants to show he’s strong, a cape similar to a rabbis robe to symbolise his wisdom doubling as a way to show if in picture his leap is taking off or landing, no mask to show he’s not hiding, a shield on his chest show he’s a protector and brightly coloured tights with no mask to show how confident he is. He sheds his work clothes of Clark Kent to become Superman to show he isn’t hiding anymore he’s proud of who he is, this has led to Superman being popular with gays and minorities as they’ve often felt they needed to hide who they really are when their true culture is something beautiful in itself.

With the success of Superman stories imitators had to come along it was inevitable, but only two in “The Golden Age” of comics where ever a threat to his title of the most popular superhero and they both did it by appealing more to children. One being the original Captain Marvel, an orphaned newspaper boy who by yelling “SHAZAM!” can become the oedipal wet dream of an amazing super-dad. The other being The Black Terror a pharmacist who takes vitamin x and gains superpowers. The Black Terror also introduced the idea of the kid sidekick which became a staple of comics, so much so Superman even gained one with Jimmy Olsen an orphaned boy (he had to be an orphan so nobody could sue for reckless child endangerment) who became the Daily Planets cub reporter.  

Superman’s leftist stance lessened with Siegel and Shuster being accused of being communists, so when a soft relaunch of Superman into his own book his backstory was fleshed out (Superman still to this day appears in Action Comics). While the Fleischer Superman cartoons explicitly state he was raised in an orphanage after crashing to earth this was now retconned to landing outside Ma and Pa Kent’s farm who raised Clark to be a good American who believed whole heartedly in the inscription of the statue of liberty, the bill of rights and the declaration of independence (which actually reads a lot like the communist manifesto just saying). 

With a popular platform Siegel and Shuster couldn’t keep their political views quiet for too long and with the rise of fascism over Europe why should they. Superman was one of the first to speak up against it, in an out of canon published in Look magazine Superman busts through the Third Reich and Mussolini’s guard to put Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini on trial for crimes against humanity. More superheroes were created to motivate Americans to stop the Axis, like Captain America whose creator Jack Kirby once said “I don’t have any political views I just hate Nazis” (more on him later). Superhero comics where very enthusiastic to join in the war effort, a lot of anti-Nazi comics started before america had even joined World War 2 and with good reason. Comics where one of the few places Jews could get jobs, with them being deemed as low art for kids they weren’t seen as a glamorous form of writing and most used pseudonyms so the publishers didn’t have to deal with anti-semitism. 

In the comics during World War 2 Superman became Americas secret weapon but once it finished we got Action Comics 101 (published one month after the war was declared over) where Superman documents atomic bomb tests and calls the bomb itself the greatest evil in the world. With the war over Superman was not going to be the military’s stooge again. But superhero comics steeply declined in popularity after the war so this story effectively ended the Golden age of superhero comics.

This war with the atomic bomb defined the next era of Superman comics but they called the bomb Kryptonite. The radioactive rock was Superman’s main weakness, often used by mad scientists and their experiments to defeat the man of tomorrow. Green Kryptonite slowly poisoned and drained him of his super strength and Red Kryptonite horribly distorted Superman sometimes physically and sometimes mentally. Like atomic radiation Kryptonite was also useful, it could be used as a fuel source similar to chemotherapy in small doses it could cure earthlings illnesses, but it could always fall into the wrong hands. 

The new wave of Superheroes shared this outlook that science is mankind’s salvation whilst fearing the bomb, starting this wave was the rebooted Flash but this idea would be best embodied by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four. While the Flash was created to teach children scientific ideas, and if young boys learnt about friction from a man in a red suit running around a gorilla, who’s to argue with that, Marvel’s comics were sci-fi horror. The Fantastic Four where mutated by Cosmic radiation after travelling in an unsafe rocket-ship to beat the Russians in the space race. Now with powers that were a mixed blessing, led by Reed Richard manly scientist who is as rugged as he is smart (and did I mention he’s the smartest man in the world) they perform experiments and explore the universe. The Lee Kirby era introduced the majority of the Marvel universe like the Unamerican group of ex-Nazis and their sympathisers known as Hydra. Latveria is a land ruled by a traditionalist, occultist and mad scientist Dr Doom. More progressively their allied nation is Wakanda which is technologically more advanced than the rest of the world and located in Africa. 

 

image photoshopped by James Dawson

Marvel attempted at making superheroes for conservatives like Iron Man, Tony Stark was created with the sole purpose of being a hero Marvel’s current counter culture readership would hate and it worked. Iron Man wasn’t popular until his movie (in fact when the MCU started Iron Man and the Avenger’s comics had been cancelled due to low sales). Iron Man stayed in print by being paired with Captain America, Superhero comics having only one story was a new idea at the time and many of Marvel’s heroes shared a book; Strange Tales of Dr Strange and Nick Fury, Tales to Astonish was the Hulk and Namor and Tales of Suspense was for the conservative fans. DC also had conservative superheroes, Green Lantern and Batman are essentially good cop heroes (Batman in the 66 Television series does flirt with being a counter culture hero) and these characters would soon get overhauls by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams. Green Lantern would be paired with Green Arrow to argue ideology and Batman would lose his sidekick to college and become as violent as the Comics Code Authority would allow.

Feeling under appreciated Jack Kirby left Marvel comics and was quickly hired by their biggest competitor who offered him total freedom as long as he wrote and drew one Superman book a month. Not wanting to put anyone out of a job Jack chose as his Superman series Jimmy Olsen which became part of his (retroactively named) Fourth World Saga. This was an exploration of hippie culture with the good parts being embodied by New Genesis, like peace, love and The Beatles. The bad like Charles Manson’s seduction of young girls to join his white supremacist cult was Darkseid and Apokolips. Darkseid was also not so subtly based on Nazi’s complete with Germanic spell of side. Superman’s role in this was as a square Dad who wanted to be part of the good parts but being worried that the good was being steamrolled by the evil. Post-Kirby the Marvel universe suffered from a lack of originality, mostly churning out monthly comics shallowly expanding on concepts he produced with one exception the relaunched X-men. The X-men were a Lee/Kirby series but during their run it felt more like a copy of the Fantastic Four but with a younger cast of characters. With the relaunched series the X-men stopped being a bunch of white teenagers but a diverse group of heroes and continuing through the Claremont era getting more and more diverse so much so nobody looks twice at the fact they have a one-legged vietnamese lesbian. 

John Byrne made a name for himself in the comics industry as an artist on X-men, but due to creative differences with Chris Claremont the two parted ways and Byrne took over the Fantastic Four. With Byrne as writer and artist on Fantastic Four the sales increased to make his run on F4 the second most popular era (behind the original Lee/Kirby). DC wanting to continue a trend they hired Byrne to reboot Superman in 1988. This in a lot of ways was the last hurrah for the Man of Steel, despite an obsession with trying to explain how his powers would work without breaking the laws of physics. The Man of Steel reboot reset the Superman lore, before it Clark Kent was a news anchor not his more recognisable newspaper reporter and his supporting cast where expanded to having 3 single mothers; Maggie Sawyer (a cop in charge of special unit trained to takedown superpowered threats), Cat Grant (The Daily Planets gossip columnist) and Sarah Olsen (the mother of Jimmy proving that single mothers can raise children to be responsible adults). Lex Luthor was also reinvented for this era, his original version was a Nazi cult leader, then he was a gangster and then in the 50’s he became a Mad scientist but his most sinister incarnation came in the late 80’s Donald Trump. Byrne had no idea that after his tenure of Superman his evil industrialist would become the president and then later his real world inspiration would be inspired by this. 

The rise of Comic book shops opened the door to new independent publishers and challenge the duopoly of Marvel and DC. One of the great things about comics is their expensiveness, so with a market of independent writers and artist would be a mixed blessing. One of the biggest success stories of the early self published comics was Dave Sim, his work started off innocuous enough a barbarian parody comic about an aardvark but as time went on Sims work became more and more political. Dave Sim influenced others to make their own comics like Jeff Smith (Bone), Eastman and Laird (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) but Sim’s views on the world are not conventional. Dave Sim believes feminism is destroying the world and the only way to stop the spread is to save young girls from it at a young age by making them do things (basically he’s a paedophile with a cause). Fortunately Sim has never worked on a mainstream comic book series. 

With the rise of outspoken comic book creators the medium itself was determined to be taken more seriously. Unfortunately they forgot the difference between thoughtful and cynical. Deconstructions of the superhero started cropping up like The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. An important thing to remember about deconstruction is you have to actually deconstruct something, he deconstruct a building you have bricks, you deconstruct brick you have gravel. Since the publication of Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen very few honest superhero properties have become popular (exceptions being Alan Moore’s later work Tom Strong and Promethea, Savage Dragon, Invincible and the PJ Masks). Superhero deconstructions have gotten so plentiful that they’re well trodden ground like One Punch Man. One Punch Man has absolutely nothing to say, it’s 2nd rate Venture Brothers and a 3rd rate Tick but it’s popular for some reason (despite awful art and blatant homophobia).

90’s Superhero comics loved using this phrase “Not your Dad’s Comic books”, this is very true because my Dad’s comic books were actually good. The new heroes weren’t heroes they were paramilitary groups. The New Mutants became X-Force and the implied child soldiers aspect became the text, Cable wasn’t training children to be diplomats he was making them weapons. The popularity of Rob Liefeld and the end of the Comics code authority meant that comics were violence for the desensitised. Full of Reagan era patriotism and bigger guns, storytelling was a secondary interest to creating variant covers for chumps to buy. Superman didn’t fit into this era very well so they killed him after character assaignating him first. Lobo was now DC’s best selling series, with a readership not getting he was meant as a parody of the increasing violence in comics, the fans didn’t care he was violent. 

After the speculator boom these new heroes all disappeared but it’s legacy still remains. “Superman is unrelatable” is something I’ve heard for years but this statement is anti-humanist. The reason given is that Superman “saves people for no reward, he has no great tragedy in his back story and he’s too powerful”. This reasoning is awful, it’s that of a psychopath or a libertarian (is there actually a difference). People do acts of altruism all the time why wouldn’t a superpowered person help people without compensation. We’ve had deconstructions like the Incredibles where the heroes are actually punished for altruism but thinking like that only breeds more misanthropy. If we met aliens it’s just as likely that they would be friendly as they would be hostile. In fact people act accordingly to how they are treated so being nice to someone will mean they’re nice to you. So Superman’s lack of tragedy in his back story actually makes him more realistic. As for him being too powerful, part of why we read superhero comics is as a comfort, a piece of escapism where we know the good guy will win and the bad guys loses. Of course we want him to have a challenge but why does it have to be a physical one? why not challenge his moral code or take his super intelligence out for a spin. The meathead Superman of the 90’s is the most boring version of Superman as part of the fun is watching him do creative problem solving, sure he could lift that building or he could fly round the water making a typhoon and then freeze it with his super breath to catch the falling building. 

As for the question do we need white, progressive Superheroes? yes we do. A common suggestion to fix Superman is to have him become black but times haven’t changed enough for Pa Kent not to have lived through the race riots of the 1960’s and this would change his outlook on the world. Not to mention Superman is from Kansas which isn’t as racist as Alabama but I don’t think they would take too kindly to a flying black kid. You could change him from growing up in Kansas to a more black part of the US say the Bronx but then thats Static Shock with different superpowers (and Static is a different character to Superman). 

Also Comicsgate we need to stop them, Comicsgate have tried to weaponise fan disapproval of losing their favourite characters to new diverse ones for their own racist agenda. They hate Carol Danvers Captain Marvel even though the only thing progressive about her is that she’s a woman. Everyone deserves a hero they can relate too but Alt-Right heroes like the Punisher are not heroes. We need to have some with a progressive outlook maybe they don’t need to be the star of their own book, maybe part of an ensemble team with diverse ethnicities like the X-men. But Superheroes were meant to fight hatred and intolerance and now fans are trying to spread it and they need reminding that they’re wrong and if that will only be heard if it comes from a white character then so be it. 

Why DC Loves Batman, and only likes Superman?

I’ve written about Superman’s decline in popularity and I’ve written about Batman’s rise in popularity. But I never really discussed why that happened, other than the rise of a new cynical wave of comics. However “Cynical Comics” are a symptom not the disease, Batman’s greatest power is money both in reality and the comics and that is also Superman’s greatest weakness (not that Superman has trouble acquiring money, he crushes coal and makes it diamonds, no one can do that will ever need to file for bankruptcy). Batman is very exploitable for cash, think about it from the stance of a kid playing dress up in their back garden, to be Superman all they need is a piece of red cloth, to be Batman they need, a cape (properly cut to look like Batwings), a mask, a utility belt full of assortment of gadgets and a toy car. Because Superman has Superpowers that can’t be replicated in the real world, all of what makes Superman special exists in the child’s mind, Warner Bros can’t get a toy manufacturer to make real X-ray glasses or a Superman branded flight suit but they can make ride on pedal cars that look like the Batmobile or plastic Batarangs. Superman’s powers even get in the way of toy manufacture, how does a Superman toy fly? a kid runs around the living run holding it over their head yelling swoosh. a radio controlled one is expensive, but also by Superman never requiring new gadgets unlike Batman, less variants can be made to seem authentic, although DC have tried in various ways to create more variants like how Superman the Animated series took away his ability to survive in outer space so they could make a rocket ship and space suit variant toy or the abysmal non sensical Red vs Blue from the comics which literally doubled the amount of action figure variants they could make. Simply Batman is very Toyetic, Superman is not, and when you’re owned by a company that cancelled production on a popular TV show (Young Justice) because “it didn’t sell enough toys” guess whose the golden boy (and getting ANOTHER cartoon series).

But it’s more than Superman’s lack of a Malibu beach houses that have hindered him, Superman has often been used to explore anti-consumerism ideas. The Monicker the Man of Steel actually stems from John Henry, a proletariat hero who smashed a machine because it stole livelihood from workers and died destroying it. Superman as the Man of Steel can do that and survive as he’s made from the same material as the oppressor, he can smash through and save the people. Superman’s archenemy Lex Luthor is even a selfish capitalist (based on Donald Trump in John Byrne’s Man of Steel mini-series). Lex seeks power for power’s sake and doesn’t care about anybody else, and the only one who can stop him is Superman. Of course Marxist ideology was downplayed in Superman comics in the 1950’s after Siegel and Shuster where accused of being Communists. This lead to the new version of Superman, The Man of Tomorrow. The new spiritual Superman, a smarter, kinder man with more power than anyone else, in touch with his higher self. A more ascended being who thought more about others than himself, the Super in his name does not refer to his immense Superpowers but to him being a manifestation of the Super-Ego (from the Freudian trio). As the Super-Ego man, he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders and must try to figure out whether to help or not as sometimes short term help is long term hurt. This version of Superman is still used by Grant Morrison and the ideas where first explained to me by a Buddhist Guru. But what do Buddhist and Marxist ideologies have in common? well they both believe the acquisition of material objects is bad for you, leading Superman to being an anti-capitalist hero.

Of course the corporate overlords of Warner Bros can’t have a flagship hero who says “don’t spend all your money”, especially as they’ve survived on a Whales not Fish. This probably needs explaining “Whales and Fish” comes from freemium online games, a Whale is a player who will drop lots of money on the game and help sustain the games longevity for longer, (like how a Whale will feed a village for months) whilst a fish will only give them a little bit of money if they ever payout. DC has been using this kind of economics for years, in fact Wonder Woman has always had fairly bad sales in the comics but been a very popular license for clothing and other more expensive items. To make up for being in 3rd place in comic sales (first being Marvel and second being Image), DC sell a lot of Toys and massively expensive variant covers.

Batman is a much easier sell to a creepy Billionaire filling his penthouse with Toys, that doesn’t mean DC have never tried selling Superman to these people, but the results have been divisive at best. Look at Zack Snyder’s vision for the character; a first movie where he only cares about the hot redhead, then a movie where he fights Batman and then a 3rd unmade movie where he becomes an evil overlord. 

Modern Batman seems modelled on James Bond, film’s most profitable misogamist. The preferred idea of Batman is an angry loner with a Harem of action figure ready ladies who he attracts by being emotionally distant and abandoning at the drop of a hat. Some are allies other are enemies but one things constant an underlying sexual tension even when it’s creepy or doesn’t make any sense. Poison Ivy is portrayed as lesbian except when she’s around Batman then she wants to find out whats under his utility belt, Harley Quinn has the mind of a child but DC Comics will have her posing suggestively licking a baseball bat as a phallus, Bat-Girl his best friends girlfriend he has no qualms about banging. Meanwhile Superman has had the same love interest in Lois Lane, a progressive hardworking girl trying to make it in a man’s world that Superman treats as an equal and stays with even if she has some negative personality traits. Well Batman and Superman do share a love interest, Wonder Woman, often the one woman in the Justice League reduced to the middle of a love triangle, DC made it officially canon a Superman and Wonder Woman after years of shipping between the two (see Dark Knight Strikes Again or Red Son both storylines that reduce her to nothing more than that), but it made some sense. Wonder Woman and Batman only makes sense in Bruce Timm’s mind as many version of the two have Wonder Woman hating Batman, Wonder Woman respects truth, honesty and vulnerability three things Batman can never be or he’d lose his bravado. But who cares about character consistency when you can have some creepy Batman fan buy his girlfriend Wonder Woman themed lingerie for Christmas that year and claim “She’s like totally empowered” as he ties her up remember that’s the characters only weakness. 

Batman pays the bills, Batman is aspirational to creepy dudes, caring for others doing the right thing, they’re not profitable. That’s the truth, but superheroes where meant to teach little kids to be a good person and do the right thing. Chasing after money is what DC do, with bespoke services like a Brazilian hotel that lets you pretend to be Batman for the night. But those who can afford that, often didn’t get that way by being good people, more Billionaires are like Lex Luthor rather than Bruce Wayne. In the real world parodying comic, Lex became president and we have his inspiration as the real world president. The only real difference is Trump has molested more women than Lex and doesn’t have Superman to stop him. But DC doesn’t want to lose their gravy train by making people question this status quo. Both characters are completely successful at what they’re creators wanted, Siegel and Shuster wanted to create a new American folk lore hero for the Sci-fi-Atomic age and that’s what Superman is, he even in the real world fought the Ku Klux Klan and poses with eagles. Bob Kane he just wanted to make money, he even stole from anywhere he could, Batman comics even stole antagonists from Superman. Seriously a fair amount of Batman villains are clones of the Prankster and even more on the nose is Riddler and the Puzzler (the Puzzler debuting a year earlier in the comics), The Planteer and Maxie Zeus are almost indistinguishable, is it any wonder that Superman the Animated Series feels like sloppy seconds. But at least Superman gets the seconds while Batman cartoons steal his stories, there has never been a Flash or Wonder Woman animated series, I would even say the Flash is tailor made for a cartoon show, the characters known for witty comebacks, using science (sometimes highly suspect science) to defeat his enemies and has a main power with a long history in cartoons (Super speed being shared with Speedy Gonzales and Road Runner). Green Lantern was given a brief a chance to shine, but it was hardly given a chance his movie was originally meant as a slapstick comedy and his cartoon was cancelled in mid-production. Meanwhile Batman is on what his 12th cartoon series now? If anything DC needs to stop having one flag bearing hero and let all of it’s heroes shine, especially as more and more derision is being laid at Batman, except by his fanboys of course.

U.S Godzilla relations

You might think Godzilla is as Japanese as Pikachu in a Kabuki Mask drinking green tea, but you’d be wrong I think, I’m not sure the origins of Kabuki or green tea. No Godzilla is American, well sort of, he’s the symbol of the relationship between the United States of America and Japan. 

The role of Godzilla has changed over the years, starting in 1954 when he made his debut. Godzilla in the original movie is a wrecking machine unleashed on Japan by America’s careless testing of nuclear weapons near his cave. The Atomic bomb woke the Dinosaur now mutating him, irradiating him and he now destroys Tokyo. The Japanese version of the film is a much darker film than it’s American re-release with scenes of Japanese peasants crying and praying for a quick death while the American has Steve Martin (played by Raymond Burr, and not being the popular comedian) doing newscasts about the monster with random Asian-Americans as stand-ins for the Japanese actors. 

The film was a huge success for the Japanese film industry so of course sequels where made, and ones that attempted to hammer in the idea of Godzilla as a villain, but with more Kaiju (giant monsters), the first challenger was Mothra. A Beautiful protector of nature with painted butterfly wings looking like a giant Geisha, that got squashed by Godzilla in the final battle of the film. The next rival to Godzilla was King Kong, the cold heartless reptile that was killed in his first movie by a Japanese inventor vs the primal giant ape who in his film was killed by the US Air Force. Kong wasn’t Toho’s first choice, the movie was originally to be Godzilla vs Frankenstein which explains the ending where Kong is super-charged by Electricity and defeats Godzilla, but with this America’s enemy defeated Japans.

Despite Godzilla vs King Kong ending with the 2nd death of the giant lizard he returned to Japanese theatres, but after that he was a changed reptile. It was time for Godzilla to be the hero of his franchise, this was partially due to America and Japanese trade relations becoming more amicable but also because of the perceived idea that Rubbersuitmation (yes that is a word) was purely for kids like how in the west some deem cartoons and comics as “Kids stuff”. Godzilla being there most popular Kaiju, they either needed to make new heroes for him to fight every time or make him the hero. But how do you do this? Well Heroic Godzilla isn’t so much Superman but more John Wayne. He’s not a crusader for justice but more fighting for dominance over the other monsters, sure he’ll stop an alien invasion but it’s not because of loyalty to the humans it’s more “they’re messing with my stuff”. Over the course of the Toho-series Godzilla softens which would eventually cause the end of the series, starting with Son of Godzilla where Godzilla would find another Kaiju egg and raise it’s hatchling as his own son (who in later films would be called Minila with the l pronounced as an “r”). After this the series would implode on itself with the disappointingly long title “Godzilla: All Out Monsters Attack” where Minila helps a Japanese schoolboy to stand up to his bullies defying all rhyme, reason or logic. This would lead to one more Godzilla movie in this series that bombed so hard at the Japanese Box Office they did what any current Hollywood film producer would do, put the franchise into hibernation for 10 years and reboot.

Of course in 1978 during this hiatus, Toho sold the animation rights to Hanna-Barbera who would make a Saturday Morning cartoon losely based the film series. In it a bunch of scientists who are the adoptive parents of Godzilla’s other son “Godzooky” who judging by his behaviour I can only assume the other parent of Godzooky is Mutley. After 2 seasons of a cartoon Godzilla that didn’t topple building or blast his Atomic breath (it was changed to breathing fire), the film series was rebooted with a direct sequel to the 1954 original ignoring all the other films. Toho was so confident in this being a beloved international classic that while in pre-production they shopped the film rights around all the US Distributors to which all the major distributors said “no thank you” and they had to settle for Roger Corman’s production company. Now in 1984 Japanese art wasn’t as respected as it is now, Anime then was used to fill in gaps in US TV schedules and was often badly dubbed by writers and actors who plain didn’t give a shit about the source material. Godzilla however was an exception, Godzilla (1984) had one person who gave a shit about it, Raymond Burr despite years earlier getting really mad at Mark Hamil for telling him “that Godzilla was his favourite film with him in”, Burr wanted to do Godzilla justice. While Corman used it as a way to make a quick buck and to fill it with product placement for Dr Pepper (which sounds like the most American thing I’ve ever heard using a giant lizard to sell a worse tasting Coca Cola). Raymond Burr knew this version of Godzilla wasn’t a joke and reprised his role from the original under that condition. Despite Raymond Burr’s attempt Godzilla (1984) was a commercial and critical flop in the US, unlike in it’s native Japan where it was a success and relaunched the series.

Now it’s time to address the Elephant in the room the over bloated mess that is the first American produced Godzilla from 1998. Yes, we where still in the days when America looked down on Japan, so much so most fans of the real Godzilla dub the Kaiju in the film Not-Zilla. Of course a parody of this Godzilla would later appear in Godzilla Final Wars the last of the rebooted Godzilla movies. But thats it, in the 90’s and early 2000’s America wanted to steal any idea from Japan they could but didn’t respect it, this was the age when Pokemon was the big craze but every other show would insist on called it Pokey-Mon, while the US version of it tried to fit the Square peg of Japanese culture into the round hole of American ideals.

Japan needs America and America Fetishise Japan, but Japan is aware of this and uses it to it’s own benefit as much as they can, with Toho profiting off of another attempt by the US to make their own Godzilla franchise and this time a whole cinematic universe where he’ll get a rematch against Kong. While the first film in Warner Bros and Legendary pictures Godzilla was an uninteresting mess with subplots that are resolved as they are introduced the same year Japan made their own new Godzilla known as Shin-Godzilla. This movie reimagines Godzilla and brings him back to his roots as a history villain. In Shin Godzilla, Godzilla is an ever evolving unkillable irradiated sea creature, but as a rarity in a Kaiju film the human scenes are actually interesting as it delves into Japanese political satire almost being Godzilla meets the Thick of it. The United States are also involved in this one, but not as valiant heroes but as another threat. The President actually tells them to deal with Godzilla within 48 hours or he’ll nuke Japan out of existence, The United Nations do actually help Japan to defeat this version of Godzilla. 

Godzilla is what America is to Japan he’s saviour and oppressor, fighter of cosmic threats and the destroyer, America and Japan have an interesting duality that I just glanced over. 

SJW you mean Superhero right?

Ever come across an insult so non-sensical it makes you wonder what could anyone mean from it, if so you’ve not seen an internet comment section about something related to Marvel comics, Star Wars or Doctor Who. Yes I know such a phrase SJW standing for Social Justice Warrior, this phrase makes even less sense in the context of Superhero comics, the premiere superhero team is called the Justice League because they fight for Justice. I genuinely wonder what people expect from comics if they use this term, like do they want Spider-man to refuse to help a hispanic family from a burning building or did they think that Lex Luthor was the good guy not the guy who fights for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. The term SJW is synonymous with the Alt-Right and if you don’t know who they are they’re Trump supporters, members of the KKK and the kind of people who think “Hitler didn’t do anything wrong”, and there claim of any form of ownership over comics as an art form is questionable at best. 

So other than ranting online what have these groups done to try and control the Comic book industry; well there was organised harassment of Marvel Assistant Editor Heather Antos because she had such a role in the company and a vagina, the most ridiculous incident was over her posting a photo of her and her friends drinking Milkshakes. While you could argue that her having an assistant editor’s role and very few writing or art credits means she hasn’t earned her seniority a more useful form of harassment would be to send her unsolicited Thor scripts. 

Let’s not forget the Breitbart scandal that removed James Gunn temporarily from the Director’s seat of Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3. What was it over? 8 year old bad jokes about the things Bryan Singer (Director of the Fox X-men movies) actually does (Singer has of course had minimal backlash, he even while it was public knowledge he had molested an non-consenting 14 year old boy directed an Oscar winning movie). Of course thats what they’d have you believe however it was over Gunn being critical of Donald Trump and his policies and not his offensive jokes, similar celebrities got targeted by Breitbart include; Kathleen Kennedy (head of Lucasfilm) Patton Oswald, Sarah Silverman and Dan Harmon however their attempts to remove them from high paying media jobs. 

Of course we can’t forget the poor victimised Richard Meyer who lost his job because of the mean Mark Waid who told his employer Arctic Press, that he wrote hate speech all over the internet under the name “Diversity and Comics”. Wait a second why is Meyer the victim, well he believes he is and has decided to sue Mark Waid claiming Waid abused his power as a writer and editor for Marvel and Archie Comics and is now trying to censor him and is working on a court case to defend his free-speech, but it’s not like Waid went and deleted all of his crap, or all the people on his side claiming that those who side with Waid are “Virtue Signalling idiots”. Virtue Signalling of course meaning a person affirming their beliefs and fighting for whats right which sounds a lot like a group of fictional characters, what are they called, oh yeah Superheroes.

Lets not forget the recent Captain Marvel hoopla, which had groups “review bomb” the upcoming movie to reduce it’s Rotten Tomatoes score. This lead to Rotten Tomatoes changing it’s user review policy which now allows studios to delete any review they think is spam. But why did Captain Marvel get this treatment, well Black Panther and Wonder Woman both did get this treatment, but to lesser degree. Black Panther got annoying “White Panther trolls” who had that one joke. Wonder Woman was made by DC after 3 critically panned movies, it also has a whole host of other problems, some being story changes that seem to be made to appease the Alt-Right like her origin being set in World War 1 not 2 because we can’t just have Wonder Woman punch Nazi’s, or not injuring Steve Trevor just winding him because having her altruistically protecting a man would offend these people, or having the Amazon’s be lead and worship Zeus thus replacing the roles and function of 2 women from Wonder Woman lore (this could be them assuming that Zeus is the only greek god audiences know but thats another from of insulting). That was just what was on screen in the Wonder Woman movie, that doesn’t include known rapist Brett Ratner producing the film and raping someone during a set visit, though after the woman spoke out against Ratner the films star Gal Gadot said she would not do a sequel if Ratner was involved only for the whistleblower to then turn around in the press and accused Gadot of helping Ratner rape her. 

Of course there was a more moderate response of why is Captain Marvel a big deal we had Wonder Woman, even ignoring all the above problems, Captain Marvel was written by 3 women (beating the previous record for women writing a big budget superhero movie by 2 which was previously held by Guardians of the Galaxy) and one man and was directed by a duo (featuring a man and a woman), while Wonder Woman was directed by a woman, but a non-writing Director (which to me means responsible for all the blame and undeserving of the credit) and a writing team of all men which included Zack Snyder (for story only), who is an outspoken Objectivist (a far Right philosophy) and director of the movie Suckerpunch so incoherent and confusing I genuinely think it was actually pro-rape but I’m not sure. Zack Snyder also directed the previous DC Movies that Alt-Right activists have been known to target the fans of for recruitment into their causes.

Lastly I can’t mention the outrage Captain Marvel’s leading lady Brie Larson caused by saying “Can I be interviewed by people who aren’t 40 year old white men”, which Menninists (a group of Men’s Rights activists who deal exclusively in petty first world problems) interpreted as I hate all men everywhere, no men should see Captain Marvel. I can say as a White man Captain Marvel is an Awesome movie. Larson decided to use her powers as star of the movie to help movie journalism become more diverse, which is a good thing, but not to mention some of the creepy shit male interviewers say to actresses on press tours for movies, standard are drooling questions about their costumes, but some are outright disturbing like Kate Mara while promoting Fant4stic got told outright by an interviewer that he “liked her toes and that he had a toe fetish” and that was how he introduced himself. 

Alt-Right Comic fans hate Kelly Sue Deconnick, I remember seeing someone make a big stink of her saying “if you don’t like my politics don’t buy my book”, as if this is an unreasonable thing to do and she should be villainised for this statement. In the same interview they got the snippet she commented on people’s belief that Superhero Comics should be apolitical and that they have some belief that they used to be, but the question is when? when was the first SJW Comic book? well for hiring somebody who wasn’t a white male to work on it was Will Eisner’s the spirit, and while the Spirit to some might be the movie where Samuel L Jackson ramblings about eggs and Scarlet Johanson wears a bunch of fetish outfits but it was an important landmark in comics hiring the first female artist Toni Blum (who used other pseudonyms and her real name was Audrey). The Spirit also had the first Black sidekick in Ebony White and although his appearance now is a racist stereotype he was still a first and a progressive move as he often helped the hero and was a character. But it’s not like Will Eisner had any more impact on comics like creating a whole format? wait he did Will Eisner wrote a Contract with God which is often considered the first Graphic Novel the format that most comics are written for and makes up 8/10 of all comic sales now, which nullifies the other claim that SJW characters don’t sell comics because they don’t sell monthly comics but, they sell loads of Graphic Novels. This doesn’t even mention the fact that the biggest award in comics is named after Will Eisner.

But when where Superhero comics Alt-Right friendly? well the 1940’s Captain America and Wonder Woman where punching Nazis, the 1950’s Superman was fighting the Ku Klux Klan and calling them un-American scum, the 1960’s Marvel’s readership where so left-wing they created Iron Man an industrialist billionaire to try and get another opinion in the book, the 1970’s when Green Lantern was accused of being racist and was replaced with a black guy, the 1980’s when the X-men are culturally diverse group of misfits fighting for Civil rights? I guess the answer must be the 1990’s when Marvel filed for bankruptcy. Which is symptomatic of how selfish these people are, they want to take Superheroes away from little kids, Superheroes who are designed to give exciting adventure stories for kids and teach them not to be shi