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Edge & Christian posted:Okay I was clearly overly flippant and I did not explain my actual question/confusion here so I'll try it one more time and I am asking this without trying to be a smug piece of poo poo gun rear end in a top hat fuckstick white knight piece of poo poo moron or whatever, but if that's the extent of this then fine. To give a genuine reply to this genuine question I think personally for me it's the stuff I listed plus the fact that it appears to be marketed at kids, coupled with the tone deafness of the particular partnership. Stuff like the Batman Zellers comic I mentioned earlier? Don't care. It's an advertisement but so what. It's mostly harmless and goofy. An Army comic partnership? That I'm more ehhhh on, but at least like with Captain America around you kind of have to accept that as a buy-in. Meanwhile NG is like the actual inspiration for Stark Industries in Iron Man 1, everything in that movie is a riff on them. It's incredibly clueless for a company with a character whose motivation is "Wow I was a piece of poo poo war profiteer and want to make up for it" to make a joint promotion comic for piece of poo poo war profiteers that also features that character in it. It's too far. Maybe a few years ago it would have bounced off me, but not in this time and in this place.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:35
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Edge & Christian posted:Okay I was clearly overly flippant and I did not explain my actual question/confusion here so I'll try it one more time and I am asking this without trying to be a smug piece of poo poo gun rear end in a top hat fuckstick white knight piece of poo poo moron or whatever, but if that's the extent of this then fine. Because, to phrase it as politely as possible, military contractors are not the military. The military is not the same as a military arms dealer. This is not a controversial statement to hold and even pro-military people are not inherently supporters of weapon manufacturers. There is a reason Iron Man's history is what it is. Even people who are anti-military do not necessarily put the military on the same rung as weapon manufacturers. This:  Is comparing Iron Man to the people he was trying to distance himself from. Say what you want about Iron Man but his basic premise is "I don't want to be those loving guys."
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Oct 6, 2017 21:37
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I wasn't aware of Marvel previously doing this kind of thing with the US Military before, but I'm not ok with those either.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:37
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Blockhouse posted:
They're very diverse. Look at that diversity. They can't be that bad! Weapons makers are totally woke and you should like them.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:40
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Basically what I'm saying is I'm a firm believer in "no ethical consumption under capitalism" and all that but I think its important for people to acknowledge their limits even on that, and this has gone way over my particular borderline. Which is definitely much smaller this year than it ever was before.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:40
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This isn't even some sort of disappointing back room deal. They're announcing it for all to hear and running publicity for the company using their iconic characters.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:42
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Edge & Christian posted:Okay I was clearly overly flippant and I did not explain my actual question/confusion here so I'll try it one more time and I am asking this without trying to be a smug piece of poo poo gun rear end in a top hat fuckstick white knight piece of poo poo moron or whatever, but if that's the extent of this then fine. It's a good bit of 'trump and existential anxiety' yea but I'd say there's a pretty wide gulf between private and public military being praised. People like their country's soldiers, selling a pro troops book that doesn't cross any real lines beyond being general propaganda isn't really a big shift from how comics always have been. As a comic fan and someone who's pretty left of things I roll my eyes at "SUPERMAN STOPS TO SALUTE THE TROOPS, THE REAL SUPER HEROES" but they don't OFFEND me. They're dumb and corny and absolutely propaganda recruitment tools but that's how comics have been for the past 70 years. The private military, though, is something we used to agree were the shady guys. Even on the right they agreed those guys were kinda scummy. There's been a very focused shift though, as war fatigue drags on and on, to make it seem like hey maybe these contractor fellas aren't so bad. Maybe they can do the heavy lifting and give Our Boys a nice break even. The US is terrible at accountability in the military, but the framework at least exists, there is something on paper that exists as a check against full on military madness in warzones. The private sides don't even have that theoretical framework. Yes a lot has to do with current events. A major part of Trump's campaign was that he was gonna take the handcuffs off our military and let them get the job done, and this has manifested in horrific things already as the generals are given near no oversight. That's how the private military works just by default. Like, I wanna be crystal clear, there are good people in the military despite my issues with it, but I genuinely do not believe good people join private military contractors. Those are bad things and objective forces of harm in the world. For a major player to make an all ages comic about how gee whiz guys these nice PMC fellas are BASICALLY real world Tony Starks is fully conceding the public opinion to them. There's no more divide, the PMCs are our friends and heroes just as much as real soldiers and hey you should dream of joining them. It may be a subtle difference in the grand scheme of things, because yea a middle eastern village doesn't magically get less murdered by Real American Troops bombing it than it does when some rando corp does it. Imperialism is the root of all of it but that doesn't mean we should pretend all the fruits it makes are the same, you know?
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Oct 6, 2017 21:42
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Lurdiak posted:This isn't even some sort of disappointing back room deal. They're announcing it for all to hear and running publicity for the company using their iconic characters. CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:They're very diverse. Look at that diversity. They can't be that bad! Also this. Like...the TONE of this is loving sickening. It's not just 'hey these guys aren't that bad they're risking their lives for *fart sound effect* too' it's 'look at this woke, cool, team of real life Tony Starks, look Captain America thinks they're cool!' It's such a loving blowjob to objectively evil people that it really has to be a new level.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:44
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Blockhouse posted:Basically what I'm saying is I'm a firm believer in "no ethical consumption under capitalism" and all that but I think its important for people to acknowledge their limits even on that, and this has gone way over my particular borderline. Which is definitely much smaller this year than it ever was before. This is basically exactly where I'm at. I don't know if I can really articulate why, and maybe it makes me a hypocrite, but I find this particular partnership a lot more intolerable than the pro-military stuff I just looked up after reading EiC's posts.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:45
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And the sheer loving gall that they hyped this up on their official twitter and announced it at NYCC and apparently no higher up thought this was a terrible idea is just beyond me.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:45
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Unfortunately, in addition to all the stuff we want to love the comics for, Marvel has traditionally done some lovely stuff, both overtly and behind the scenes. This is just one more example, albeit a fairly stunning one. I think it's worthwhile to raise your voice in opposition to it for the obvious reasons, and I respect anyone for whom this was a final breaking point. I'm having a hard time believing that anyone at Marvel thought this was a good idea at all, let alone something they thought was worth promoting at a major convention. It's almost beyond parody. I'd like to know why it's happening. My first thought is that, since Northrop Grumman has a few big controversies within recent memory, they decided to park a giant sack of money on a desk at Marvel in exchange for some positive press. Roth posted:I haven't gotten the chance to read this week's comics, but just last page I saw a bunch of people praising the new Guardians of the Galaxy issue and how great Duggan's run has been, so I'm not really sure what the standard for talking about comic books here is. There's been a general trend forum-wide, and to be fair, Internet-wide, towards performative outrage. At best, it's tiresome, like everyone's just here to pump blood back into their outrage/snark boner.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:46
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sexpig by night posted:It's a good bit of 'trump and existential anxiety' yea but I'd say there's a pretty wide gulf between private and public military being praised. People like their country's soldiers, selling a pro troops book that doesn't cross any real lines beyond being general propaganda isn't really a big shift from how comics always have been. As a comic fan and someone who's pretty left of things I roll my eyes at "SUPERMAN STOPS TO SALUTE THE TROOPS, THE REAL SUPER HEROES" but they don't OFFEND me. They're dumb and corny and absolutely propaganda recruitment tools but that's how comics have been for the past 70 years. ...does Northrop-Grumman own a PMC or something? Because these are dudes who, near as I can tell, make planes and space telescopes and poo poo, not Blackwater. Like, I'm not going to say that anyone who's angry about this promo partnership thing shouldn't be angry; everyone has their own line. But I do think it's important that we all show up to the same argument.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:47
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I hope that booth turns into a loving riot.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:47
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At the very least, I'm going to be a lot more selective with picking up new Marvel series. As in: I'd have to see almost unanimous praise to consider it. Silver lining being that I can check out more from DC and indie companies.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:49
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:...does Northrop-Grumman own a PMC or something? Because these are dudes who, near as I can tell, make planes and space telescopes and poo poo, not Blackwater. I'm mixing up PMC with generic arms manufacturers but they make tons of poo poo my dude. They're the dudes who make stealth bombers and poo poo.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:49
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sexpig by night posted:I'm mixing up PMC with generic arms manufacturers but they make tons of poo poo my dude. They're the dudes who make stealth bombers and poo poo. No, I get that. I'm just saying that you can say "poo poo Northrop-Grumman does that is bad" without needing to toss "other poo poo that other people do which is worse" on to the pile and muddying your point, is all. EDIT: just so there's no confusion: N-G does a bunch of poo poo that is bad, and it's cool that there are mad people about it, people should be mad.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:51
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I mean, I'd love if the "constantly poo poo on Marvel's business practices, which is mostly warranted" thread was separate from the "discuss the content of Marvel comics that could never sustain their own threads" thread. I'd still follow both, and maybe the latter could get more than two posts in a row of discussing the same topic now and then. Doing a vanity comic for a private military contractor is pretty lovely for a lot of reasons, but I'm not going to stop reading Thor and Ms Marvel and the X-Men over it. If they hadn't (likely been obligated to) tweeted it out, how many people would even know it existed? In every case of "superhero teams up with company" books, I never even know they exist until they pop up in the funny panel thread. Someone said they asked their store to make sure to order no copies of it, but has anyone ever seen one of these vanity comics in a real comic store? I figured "Superman and Jared Save The World From Hunger" was only available at Subway and "Iron Man Fixes His Armor Mid-Battle with Mastercraftsman Tools, Thanks to Sears" was only ever found next to the impulse poo poo at the counter at Sears. I'm actually asking this, btw. I never have seen these doofy things in the wild.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:53
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I would like it if Al Ewing could have a genuinely popular Marvel book, as I have enjoyed everything he's done so far, which includes most of Royals. Dude's an alchemist.DivineCoffeeBinge posted:...does Northrop-Grumman own a PMC or something? Because these are dudes who, near as I can tell, make planes and space telescopes and poo poo, not Blackwater. That's a valid point. I did a cursory bit of Googling on N-G, and while there's certainly a lot there to be wary of (the company's environmental record is horrific, for example), it provides training services. It isn't a private military company, nor does it directly fund or train such things as far as I can tell. It's a defense contractor.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:53
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Also didn't they buy Vinnell? Am I mixing my scumbag defense guys up because I'm almost sure they own Vinnell which is an extremely shady PMC edit: yea, googled to be extra sure, they bought the famous Saudi military training, Iraq Army 'rebuilding' Vinnell and those guys are just doin great. sexpig by night fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Oct 6, 2017 |
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Oct 6, 2017 21:54
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For the record, I wouldn't mind a thread for posting about lovely industry practices and such in.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:56
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Wanderer posted:I would like it if Al Ewing could have a genuinely popular Marvel book, as I have enjoyed everything he's done so far, which includes most of Royals. Dude's an alchemist. Vinnell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnell) is a direct subsidiary of them.
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Oct 6, 2017 21:57
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If I stopped using or buying a product every time a company did something dumb or that I disagreed with I'd probably own nothing. I probably wouldn't work where I work either or at any kind of major business. This doesn't effect the comics I read as I won't be picking up the lovely commercial comic they put out so I don't really care in that regard. Those of you that think protests actually do some good go for it. I'll continue to buy good comics as long as they're good and will stop when they stop being good. If Jason Aaron decides to write this group into Thor for some reason then I'll stop reading.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:02
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ImpAtom posted:Vinnell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnell) is a direct subsidiary of them. Oof. About the best you can say about them is that they're not the worst company I've heard of.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:04
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I don't think anybody has any delusions that them not buying Marvel comics anymore is going to do much of anything to one of the biggest pop culture forces backed by Disney.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:04
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Edge & Christian posted:Okay I was clearly overly flippant and I did not explain my actual question/confusion here so I'll try it one more time and I am asking this without trying to be a smug piece of poo poo gun rear end in a top hat fuckstick white knight piece of poo poo moron or whatever, but if that's the extent of this then fine. I think it's just people are just generally against manufacturing Guns/Bombs/Whatever the hell these guys make. And generally what's supposed to be a high-ish profile comic that sends the message, 'These dudes do cool things', is just a hop-skip-jump from, 'Machines literally made to kill other people are rad.' And when a company's generally tries to project it's brand as meaning, 'Striving for the greater good, doing better for everyone, especially those that can't', and they partner with a group who partially represents a facet of America's unstoppable colonial force, generally going into less fortunate countries and trying to force a pro-American way of life rather than trying to settle peace (and shooting a bunch of brown people in the process), and the partnership comes across as both tone-deaf and tasteless. Or to put it more simply, Marvel at least tries to pay lip service towards being as just and heroic as it's heroes. When they partner with Death Machine manufacturers, especially at a height of their prosperity and popularity, and doing so that directly links their partnership with their creative works (even when they aren't directly integrated), it feels like a betrayal of the morals they've promoted in their works for the last several decades. Now this is all in the most general terms. Marvel isn't purely about 'O-rah, Boy Scouts' heroes, they certainly haven't had a perfect PR record, and they certainly haven't even reached partial racial or gender equality. But after a year that's been defined by betraying core pillars of their company, being a significant lack of Fantastic Four, mistreatment of the X-Men, or turning Steve Rogers into a Nazi in order to shock the audience for a terrible story. Add a still significant gap in equality, as much as they pay lip service with Ta Nehisi Coates and Kelly Thompson, a general vibe of mistreating it's retail partners, and the biggest misstep with their 'Minority Heroes aren't working' debacle, and you have an unquestionable bad year for the company. And considering that the messaging for these events have been at best nonexistent, or at worst completely contradictory. It feels like no one is at the helm, keeping the ship straight, trying to make the best Marvel Comics possible. It's been a bad year, and it's getting even worse at how politically deaf this company is getting in an increasingly politicised year. People are tired of the world, and a lot of people are tired of their escapism reflecting the ignorance that's brought us here. I don't think I'm going to outright stop buying any Marvel Comics. I enjoy Squirrel Girl too much to do that. However, this might be the point where I start culling down to the series I truly enjoy, rather than those I think are decent.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:05
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Something positive about Marvel: I went to Disneyland/California Adventure yesterday. If you ever go, I highly recommend the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. It sucks that it replaced The Twilight Zone, but it's seriously a blast. Got a Howard the Duck plushie from the gift shop too. Also met Captain America who talked about how he wasn't sure he could trust those Guardians of the Galaxy guys and how he misses the 40s. I think they're going to turn that area into a "Marvel Land" so as mad as I am about this move, I am still very much looking forward to that.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:07
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Cool, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk about cool poo poo I like for once. Like, how Disney has filed a patent for a ride that would "deliver an experience similar to what it would feel like to be with Tarzan or a similar character swinging between trees of a jungle on a vine or with Spider-Man or a similar character swinging on webs between buildings as you move down streets of a city."   When Disney announced they got Star Wars and Marvel, this was the poo poo I was most pumped for.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:15
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SomeJazzyRat posted:Cool, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk about cool poo poo I like for once. Like, how Disney has filed a patent for a ride that would "deliver an experience similar to what it would feel like to be with Tarzan or a similar character swinging between trees of a jungle on a vine or with Spider-Man or a similar character swinging on webs between buildings as you move down streets of a city." I would ride the hell out of that and instantly vomit as soon as I was done
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Oct 6, 2017 22:16
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X-O posted:If I stopped using or buying a product every time a company did something dumb or that I disagreed with I'd probably own nothing. I probably wouldn't work where I work either or at any kind of major business. This doesn't effect the comics I read as I won't be picking up the lovely commercial comic they put out so I don't really care in that regard. Those of you that think protests actually do some good go for it. I'll continue to buy good comics as long as they're good and will stop when they stop being good. If Jason Aaron decides to write this group into Thor for some reason then I'll stop reading. Thank you for your stirring declaration of not giving a poo poo, look how much poo poo you're not giving unlike those fuckers who give shits. Fools, the lot of them.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:16
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Mr. Maltose posted:Thank you for your stirring declaration of not giving a poo poo, look how much poo poo you're not giving unlike those fuckers who give shits. Fools, the lot of them. Well if we're doing a most useless comment contest I guess you win.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:18
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So do they ever address that Vivi should probably reactivate her emotional matrix because being emotionally dead is not healthy? Also, do they ever loving punch the Freelancers in the face because these fuckers are so easy to hate. Took one issue and I absolutely despise these guys. I'm running the champions on Marvel Unlimited because the crossover with The Avengers was good
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Oct 6, 2017 22:20
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As a brief mea culpa and to clarify my previous point: When I was asking about the difference between "The US Military" and "a Military Contractor" I was using the term meaning what I thought NG was, namely a company that build technology (including weapons) for the United States Military. I did not realize that NG had a subsidiary that is a "military contractor" in the sense of being a Blackwater style private military contractor/militia, which I 100% think is demonstrably and significantly shittier than a governmental military. This probably explains a lot of the disconnect here, it's entirely possible I'm still missing the "I mean I don't like the dudes dropping bombs onto people, but I *extra* don't like the dudes who made the bombs they commissioned" difference, and I apologize for that but I was genuinely ignorant and did not read up enough to see that NG had a PMC division.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:22
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X-O posted:Well if we're doing a most useless comment contest I guess you win. I dunno, I don't think it quite beats "Well it won't make my funny books less entertaining and if you really think about it everything's bad anyway", but I'll keep plugging at it.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:22
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SomeJazzyRat posted:Cool, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk about cool poo poo I like for once. Like, how Disney has filed a patent for a ride that would "deliver an experience similar to what it would feel like to be with Tarzan or a similar character swinging between trees of a jungle on a vine or with Spider-Man or a similar character swinging on webs between buildings as you move down streets of a city." That sounds amazing. They should just bring back Extra Terrorestial and have it star Carnage 
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Oct 6, 2017 22:23
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ImpAtom posted:Vinnell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnell) is a direct subsidiary of them. Oof, I hadn't known that.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:24
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Mr. Maltose posted:Thank you for your stirring declaration of not giving a poo poo, look how much poo poo you're not giving unlike those fuckers who give shits. Fools, the lot of them. I mean he's not wrong. I'm pretty grossed out by this but while I'm probably gonna take a break from Marvel for a bit I'm gonna come back because as lovely as this is Marvel is a huge company and this gross, tone deaf, display probably is gonna mean literally nothing to the overall output, and I fuckin love Spider-Man. I'm gonna buy Spider-Man poo poo, maybe not for a couple months, but I'm not forever casting Marvel to the trash because if anything I probably should have done that ages ago if we're talking 'when did they make a choice that made me morally feel gross'. Capitalism fuckin sucks dude, and I'll cop to it being an ideological failing on my part that I know my 'boycott' will only last until the next 'aw gee how's Thor gonna get out of THIS jam' thing I see really grabs me, but I'm probably not gonna live like the hermit I should to protest all the gross poo poo companies I support do. It's less 'I don't care' and more 'I'm not gonna let this poison the many things I like when it likely will never have any effect on them and in the grand scheme of things is more a different level of an already disgusting trend rather than some brave new world of gross'.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:24
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Mr. Maltose posted:I dunno, I don't think it quite beats "Well it won't make my funny books less entertaining and if you really think about it everything's bad anyway", but I'll keep plugging at it. Please don't. sexpig by night posted:I mean he's not wrong. I'm pretty grossed out by this but while I'm probably gonna take a break from Marvel for a bit I'm gonna come back because as lovely as this is Marvel is a huge company and this gross, tone deaf, display probably is gonna mean literally nothing to the overall output, and I fuckin love Spider-Man. I'm gonna buy Spider-Man poo poo, maybe not for a couple months, but I'm not forever casting Marvel to the trash because if anything I probably should have done that ages ago if we're talking 'when did they make a choice that made me morally feel gross'. I don't think this person needs the idea explained to them. They just wanted to write a snarky useless reply real quick without any thought. I mean they didn't even bother adding any of their thoughts on the situation at all. Just wanted to bitch at someone. The definition of white noise posting. They think I just wanted to make sure everyone knew I didn't give a gently caress, which is not true, but the truth is they just wanted everyone to know they kinda maybe did but without any actual effort or sharing of thoughts. Like I said a useless comment. Why am I going to hold writers of books I enjoy accountable for things a company does without them in the loop at all? Are we supposed to just stop supporting Kelly Thompson and stop reading Hawkeye and then she gets fired because some jackass way up top in the Disney foodchain made a poo poo decision and made them do a lovely tie-in with a terrible company? That just makes a lovely situation even more lovely. X-O fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Oct 6, 2017 |
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Oct 6, 2017 22:24
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Okay, here's my thoughts since I just want to bitch or whatever: Your specific comments that you'd never buy anything or have a job or engage with society because all companies do bad things is belittling to people's legitimate negative feelings when a company who makes materials with ostensible children's focus make an ad for a company that has a mercenary division. Your other statement that you'd care as soon as it comes into your direct orbit by effecting comics you read also comes off as gross disinterest. "Those of you that think protests actually do some good go for it" is I'm pretty sure the white liberal motto at this point, because yeah actually protesting does do poo poo. The reason I didn't lay all of this out immediately is because the last time something controversial happened in comics you also responded with "Well ignore it, nobody can actually do anything" and I didn't feel like wasting effort. Maybe this is all a terrible misreading and you didn't mean you'll only give a poo poo about this if it bothers Jason Aaron, but don't insist I don't actually care or think about this.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:52
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X-O posted:Why am I going to hold writers of books I enjoy accountable for things a company does without them in the loop at all? Are we supposed to just stop supporting Kelly Thompson and stop reading Hawkeye and then she gets fired because some jackass way up top in the Disney foodchain made a poo poo decision and made them do a lovely tie-in with a terrible company? That just makes a lovely situation even more lovely. It would honestly not surprise me to learn that this whole promo comic is part of some agreement between Northrop Grumman and Disney to let Disney get the license to use the B-2 in a movie or some poo poo and actually has nothing to do with Marvel at all; that doesn't mean that people who are upset shouldn't be, just one more example of capitalism being bad.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:58
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Roth posted:That sounds amazing. I do miss carny rides with names like Pulverizor, whiplash etc etc. Disney needs to invest in making more rides like those. Like the one that you lay flat on your back and begins to spin really fast plastering you to the wall, but it should also lift into the air and twist itself to it's side and or upside down. You know for maximum hazards.
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Oct 6, 2017 23:08
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