If I remember correctly - and if I don’t, I’m sure someone will tell me in the comments - back in the late ’80s/early ’90s, DC editor Denny O’Neil had a strange editorial edict for people working on the Batman books: People in the DC Universe don’t believe that Batman exists, and instead think that he’s just an urban myth. Now, considering that he’s part of the Justice League and therefore has saved the world more than a few times, that’s an interesting tack to take, I think you’d agree. Thankfully, Tom Brevoort is taking us back to those days, in a strange way, as this exchange over Civil War and belief systems in the Marvel Universe shows:
[W]hy hasn’t the danger posed by alien invasion and Cosmic beings been raised by anyone as a justification for the SHRA? Between them, Tony Stark and Reed Richards have been involved in dozens of cosmic struggles. They would know better than most how close the Earth has come to destruction at the hands of alien invaders. In fact, this issue worried them so much that it caused them to form the Illuminati. Why then wouldn’t they ever mention this issue in the context of supporting the SHRA? Tony doesn’t even mention the threat in that great “Casualties of War” discussion between him and Cap. He goes so far as mentioning Operation Galactic Storm, but it nevers occurs to him (or to Cap) to mention that the SHRA could help provide the Earth with a defense against highly advanced, hostile alien races. Tony and Cap mention the danger posed by Sentinels, but they ignore an arguably much larger threat looming in the background, one that was shown to have been a primary concern for Stark… As a long time Marvel reader, I believe that Tony and Reed, people who have extensively dealt with dangerous alien/Cosmic threats, should have thought to argue that a trained superhuman force is necessary to protect the Earth from such threats. Afterall, the premise behind the [first issue of the current mini series, New Avengers:] Illuminati sets the stage for the pro-reg to use this issue as the main justification for the SHRA. It would be one of the strongest arguments for registration, and should be very persuasive to super human and common man alike. Is there some reason why this justification was set up in the Illuminati, only to be ignored in the context of justifying the SHRA?
For the same reason it never gets brought up in real life: the average person in the Marvel Universe doesn’t believe in the existence or presence of hostile alien life, and the folks who know better would rather keep it that way.
But Captain America certainly knows that the threat is there. You’d think that it would at least be worth a mention when people already in the know are arguing about whether the act is justified. Is the fear of being run by sentinels any worse than than the fear of being conquered by the Kree / Skrull / etc. or dominated by Thanos?
The first person who uses this as an argument in public, on either side, is going to lose. This’d be like Hilary Clinton in her announcement about throwing her hat into the Presidential Race, saying that she wants to be president to protect us from alien threats. Their credibility would be completely shot.
Another fan, asking the sensible question:
Wait, what? We the readers are actually supposed to believe that the average person in the MU doesn’t believe in the presense of hostile alien life, despite NUMEROUS encounters and engagements and battles with MANY different alien species? Right out in the open?
Yes–just like in our world.
So many issues raised, not least of which Tom’s apparent belief that we here on real Earth have been visited by as many alien races publicly as they have on Marvel Earth. What does he know that we don’t…?
January 29th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Brevoort just lost ALL credibility with that comment.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I agree with Tom. Remember that awesome scene in Marvels where J.J.J. won’t acknowledge how close the world came to ending? He won’t even admit that Galactus is real…
People in the Marvel Universe only know what the news papers print.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Man.That is just stupid.
People in the MU don’t believe that aliens are real?!?!
I guess Galactus and all the other giant aliens that have laid siege to the Earth and been filmed on the news are supposed to be hoaxes?
The devastation that has been caused are just mirages?
Good lord.No wonder Marvel’s continuity and charcaterization make no sense anymore when their supposed “best” editor doesn’t even have a clue as to how ridiculous that sounds.
They must think we’re morons or something.
January 29th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
“Yes–just like in our world.”
MIBs have been dispatched to arrange a little - adjustment of Mr. Brevoort’s memories.
This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest - Marvel has ALWAYS been loopy with the “what does the average Joe think about X” bit about their world. The fact that the current crop of writers and editors want to push Marvel towards more faux realism in their stories makes it make sense to me that they would be pushing for government coverups of Skrull invasions and aversions of Galactus munchie-time.
That said - isn’t that the way that the Ultimate Universe works? Didn’t they go out of their way to make the various alien invasion stories easy to cover up to the average Joe on the street? And didn’t they make Ultimate Marvel’s government agencies are the ultimate clandestine badass X-Files conspiracy groups? So why repeat this over in the regular Marvel universe? It’s getting hard for me to tell which books are supposed to be Ultimate and which are supposed to be regular (and why there even needs to be two versions anymore).
January 29th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
That concept is gonna be difficult to maintain if this year’s event is about the Hulk crashing to earth with his own interplanetary army.
January 29th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Er, there once was this little series called “Marvels”, in which the entire MU was seen through the eye of the “little man” as a photo reporter. You know, it had photographic evidence of Galactus, the Silver Surfer etc… and it had JJ Jameson as a prominent member, actually ordering the main character to take pictures of heroes. Apparently, that was a hoax story, then.
January 29th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
But the Hulk is just a figment of swamp gas reflecting off of Venus on the 32 of May, right?
January 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I think there are so many freaky-looking super-powered people running around New York in the Marvel universe that the average person just assumes that the “aliens” are deluded mutants and the “UFOs” are experimental SHIELD aircraft. Or something.
(If I remember right, MARVELS showed an editorial from JJJ refusing to believe that this “Galactus” could possibly be an alien, because what are the odds that an alien would have a name resembling our word “galaxy” and just happen to have a letter G on his chest. Or maybe that was somewhere else.)
I wonder if people would go easier on Brevoort if he’d just tell people to suspend their disbelief. “Why don’t people in the MU believe in aliens?” pretty much has the same answer as “Why doesn’t Reed Richards cure cancer?” or “Why didn’t the JSA beat Hitler?”
January 29th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
So, at what point do you draw the line?
When does the shared universe stop being worthwhile, never mind fun?
//\Oo/\\
January 29th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
“suspend disbelief”?
The people of the MU “know” that there are people with unbelievable powers and a whole ‘nother race of beings trying to take our place as well as all kinds of fantastic out-of-this-world things going on BUT they think that aliens are a hoax?
I don’t know who’s stupider….the populace of the MU or the people that think this makes any sense?
January 29th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
“The people of the MU “know” that there are people with unbelievable powers and a whole ‘nother race of beings trying to take our place as well as all kinds of fantastic out-of-this-world things going on BUT they think that aliens are a hoax?”
Oh, sure. Superhumans and mutants have been in the public eye for 60+ years and people have had time to get used to it (and they’re commonplace enough that they can’t be written off). But if you live in a world where a mutant sorceress marries a density-manipulating android, you don’t really *need* aliens in your worldview — which, from a Marvel-Earth person’s perspective, is still a big leap from mutants and Atlanteans — to explain why there’s a silver guy flying around on a surfboard.
Does it make 100% perfect sense? Of course not. Amazingly, *many things in superhero comics don’t*. It didn’t used to be such an issue — people would come up with silly explanations for things and get a No-Prize for it. Now, they just complain about in on message boards.
I’m not sure who’s to blame — publishers whose attempts at “serious, realistic” stories can’t stand up to the scrutiny, or fans who have lost the ability to just relax and have fun reading about characters who were designed for just such a purpose.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
The JSA couldn’t defeat Hitler, because he had the Spear of Destiny
*goes into geek corner*
January 29th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Hey its not like the world’s premiere super-team has ever had any alien members in prominent roles…
January 29th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I get what you’re saying Steve,but this is just ridiculous to me.
Take the “real world” for example.We have never been invaded by an alien armada or had giant aliens on our tv’s trying to destroy our world yet a huge amount of people take the extremely circumstantial evidence that we have of life on other worlds and believe that totally.Now add in a few differant bits of footage of alien space ships in the sky with superbeings battling giant alien warlords and there is no way that anyone would beleive it was a hoax.
“….publishers whose attempts at “serious, realistic” stories can’t stand up to the scrutiny….”
That’s the whole problem right there,IMO.I understand and appreciate that the MU is “close” to our reality but once you try and make it “too” real it begins to fray at the seems and things begin to take me out of the story because they no longer make sense in the setting in which they occur.
I would love to just “relax and enjoy” the story but they have to make sense and there is no no-prize that can explain this.
It’s just as hard to swallow as it was when they tried to pull off Batman as an “urban myth” at DC when he was a member of the JLA along with Superman.
January 29th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Well, how many stories really rely on whether the average person believes in aliens or not? I get the sense that people would enjoy Marvel and DC comics a lot more if they’d just read the comics and not the hype, interviews, or posts from writers and editors.
As for the Batman thing, it’s maybe getting offtopic, but I figured that people assumed the JLA Batman was just “inspired by” the mythical Batman of Gotham City, and that he was really too busy fighting Starro or whatever to worry about muggers in Gotham. Sort of like how Sasquatch being on Alpha Flight doesn’t necessarily mean all the Bigfoot myths are true in the Marvel universe.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
“I get the sense that people would enjoy Marvel and DC comics a lot more if they’d just read the comics and not the hype, interviews, or posts from writers and editors.”
I hear that!
I liked comics a whole lot more before I found internet fandom.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I remember reading this exact same line in the old OHOTMU back in the ’80s.
“We have never been invaded by an alien armada or had giant aliens on our tv’s trying to destroy our world…”
That you know of
January 29th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
civil war is a funny book
January 29th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I agree tralfaz. you said it best.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
“The JSA couldn’t defeat Hitler, because he had the Spear of Destiny”
Wasn’t that supposed to be fiction and it was actually due to Otto “Parsifal” Frentz?
Or was that an Elseworlds thang?
(goes beyond geek corner, gets exiled to dark corner of basement)
January 30th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Backwards, I’m afraid.
People in the MU have always mistaken weird things in the sky for flying saucers, not mistaken flying saucers for weird things in the sky.
But, here’s a question, does Jennifer Walters practice law in the state of New York, in current continuity? At all? Even a little?
Hee hee, it’s all crashing to the ground. Meanwhile, Parsifal was invented to take the place of the Spear of Destiny in “The Golden Age”. But for God’s sake, let’s not get into a discussion about whether the Spear of Destiny is canonical or not…!