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i will say it is incredibly annoying when you notice how many of the villains are on the right path but then they randomly decide to start murdering people just so we don't forget who the bag guy is.

something that I think about a lot is how Spider-Man 2’s train scene was really one of the last and only times that we saw civilians taking an active role in helping a hero as a collective. now in most films they just exist to be either starry eyed or to die screaming

"You confuse peace with quiet. " Great sentence from Ultron

On the other side, it’s frustrating just how many villains these days have the motivation ‘fix a problem, but do it evil’

"You wanna protect the world, but you don't want it to change." It always bothered me that this quote came out of the mouth of a villain.

I remember after Infinity War, a friend of mine said "Well, Thanos has a point. Resources are distributed unfairly, people suffer, and this is a solution." I then pointed out that instead of killing half the universe (which is, besides cruel, also ineffective because a society can't run with a sudden 50% drop) he could've doubled the resources instead. With that, my friend agreed that Thanos was indeed a bad guy. But neither of us realized that it made our 'heroes' bad guys for not doubling all resources when undoing the blip.

This isn't MCU, but in Wonder-Woman 1984, at the climax of the movie she says: "The world is fine the way it is" to the antagonist whose whole project was to use a magical wishing stone to change the world. That movie is a really good example of what you're talking about.

My least favorite part of this trope is that even if the hero realizes "damn, the bad guy was kinda right, we do need to have a change" and they donate 20 dollars to charity or something insignificant like that

I feel like this is why many people prefer the X-Men to the Avengers. The Avengers, as cool as they are, are glorified superpowered police. The X-Men, in comparison, have no choice but to constantly call the status quo into question because their lives and existence count on it.

Status quo and celebrity worship is so ingrain in MCU that we never questioned that Tony Stark basically hires literal child with some superpowers to fight his own organisation Civil war by giving him scholarship as bribe.

Not to mention that, if when they do something against the status quo, it's always misled or warped. One thing that always bothered me about Black Panther was that Wakanda's very first social center was built in.... CALIFORNIA, only the richest state of the richest nation of the world; not in - say - any other neighboring AFRICAN COUNTRY lol.

I mean, if the super heroes challenged the status quo, Disney would be one of the villains. And we can't have that.

I remember thinking a few years after the first Iron Man: Tony Stark invents what appears to be an infinite nearly-free energy source - this would be a world changing event, and solve so many societal problems, with the potential to save the environment, reduce wealth inequality, and save lives in countless ways. Yet in the MCU, life for regular people appears unchanged. It's clear that Tony never plans to actually share this technology with the world, I'm guess due to some fear of it 'falling into the wrong hands', which is when I realized those movies are about punching bad guys, not actually helping improve the world.

Woah. You really pointed out something that consistently bothered me about MCU films. I frequently felt like the villains had a point and then bam, pointless murder. You put it into words, thank you.

There's a comic where Superman tries to solve world hunger by himself just to get ousted by politicians who dont want an alien to intervene. That story for me is the epitome of superheroing, as Superman challenges the status quo and gets defeated temporarily by it. Truly, the hidden archnemesis of all superheroes is status quo

They did Killmonguer so dirty. "Quickly, the villain is making too much sense, is time to make him an evil maniac for no reason"

Ok the final shot with the avengers pointing at the camera with him saying "makes you a villain" is pure brilliant

Reminds me of how in every survival or horror story the self sufficient kind community is secretly cannibalistic or sadistic. It never fails.

I've always found funny how sometimes the villains have legitime good points and objectives, but the writters need to make you hate them and their ideas, so they'll make the villain kill people or blow an hospital for no reason at all other than to show to you that they're the bad guys

My least favourite trope in possibly all of fiction has to be ‘revolutionary that goes too far’ Because it acknowledges something wrong with the world around us but implies any form of substantial action won’t work because of the personal grievances that motivate it.

This actually reminds me of a point Patrick H Willems made talking about the spider-man trilogy compared to the mcu (and specifically the peter of the mcu): the importance of showing the population that inhabits the hero's worlds outside of just the characters important to the plot. The 2000s spider-Man films made a point of showing as much as possible the city of new york and the people who inhabit it and making peter part of them, part of the common people. In comparison, MCU peter is under the tutelage of a billionaire and has access to his company and technology even after his passing and his first bad guy is one of employees of said billionaire who wanted better work conditions.

This is what I really like about The Boys. The whole point of the show is calling out how the superheroes are the protectors of the status quo and are so much a part of the system that they ARE the system. This also reminds me of how being a “moderate” and advocating for things to stay in the middle is in actuality a conservative ideological approach. No change means oppression persists

You know, coming back to this video a few months later I'm just now realizing how similar ultron's "I think you're confusing peace with quiet" is to martin Luther king jrs "who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice", at least in sentiment. Of course, Ultron wanted to exterminate all of humanity, but I find it kind of weird that the villain is basically unintentionally quoting MLK lol. Kindaa concerning.

After I finished watching Across the Spider-Verse and came back to this video, I feel like the "canon events" are pretty much similar to the status quo of Marvel that you described in this video. Especially with how Miguel O'Hara pretty much represents the enforcer of the status quo. Also, Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk is probably the only time I've seen a Marvel movie (well, one by Sony and not Disney) handle an anarchist character well and actually make him a HERO. And it's gorgeous.

The closest the MCU has come to rejecting the status quo was Civil War whereby one half literally went like "Yeah let's be state-mandated super-cops, I guess." and the other half was like "Maybe let's stay as vigilantes who are above the law and don't actually carry any responsibilities."

This kinda reminds me of Shaun's critique of Harry Potter, how our heroes never challenge the status quo or fight for institutional changes, to the point that some magical beings support voldemort because the ministry of magic is so against their rights.

Killmonger was actually out here taking direct action but they had to make him cartoonishly evil.

And that’s why Daredevil is arguably the best marvel content. Matt has been fighting for innocents in the law while buried in debt and as daredevil even before Fisk and he unites groups to not only bring down Fisk but many criminals and collectively improve life in New York in multiple ways. He is proactive in his law practice and monitoring of criminal developments, he fights for the little guy instead of protecting politicians or current economic landscape. He gives it his all every second and if he had the wealth of tony stark, the world would’ve ended up a hundred times better off

I'm reminded of a story concept I ran across about a guy who gains the power to reshape rock and concrete. At first he uses his powers to fix damage caused by fights, which makes him extremely popular. Then he started making homes for marginalized people and all the funding stopped, and got jailed when he tried to push it. He gives up trying to be "heroic", and since his jail cell is made of the same material he has power over, he walks out and starts breaking out everyone jailed near him.

I think a unintended consequence of the villains being sympathetic and then ending that with a large act of violence is having the unintended consequence of shifting people to the perspective of violence being necessary. Yes may are detoured mostly by the narrative as is, but when cycled over and over again, that teaches those who are struggling that big violence and action are needed or else nothing in their lives will change. It’s just a thought.

That gets VERY disturbing when you realise the people making these films are probably aware of the message they convey. Almost like Big Brother Marvel telling you to accept the world how it is because wanting change makes you a supervillain

For MCU, status quo means 'world established in the comics that we shouldn't alter because we cannot build another world due to our complete lack of creativity'

The message here was so much more clear in "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and "Black Panther." It's always been there, but in those two particular MCU inclusions, it was staring you dead in the face that the heroes were actively stopping social progress. And the that villians were being made to take actions deemed "too much, too fast, too far" in order to stop the audience from aligning with them.

The problem isn't that there are characters who want to change the status quo who are villains. The problem is that there are only villainous people trying to change the status quo in these movies.

When you put it like that "the bigger the villain, the bigger the change they are trying to implement" - that opens up a very interesting thought. What would happen if a BIG villain attempted small change? It would happen quickly and be unstoppable.

"Stopping something bad is very different than creating something good."

The part about the sympathetic villain crossing a line so that the audience is alienated by them is really frustrating. I never put my finger on it before, but now I'll be sure to look for this.

This kind of thing makes it understandable why shows like The Boys catch on, the characters actively challenge the status quo and treat the idea of beings with unfathomable power as realistically as it can. Even as someone who likes these movies, this was a neat perspective and one I wouldn't have thought of before. Thank you for sharing.

As a child I was fascinated by the villains. It seemed to me that they had a more complex background story (we always got to know why they were evil and/or how they became villains) and in a way they were brave, risk-takers, fought for their course and usually had the cooler and extravagant outfits 😀

I always hated it when a bad guy or character has an idea that would actually help people but then randomly start killing people, innocent people as well not even the ones holding power.

The part about "the public" in the MCU reminded me of something that's always bothered me about Marvel movies and most modern superhero movies for that matter - the selfishness of the heroes and their seeming lack of interest in the general public. When you think about the classic stereotypical image of a superhero, what do you see? A muscular, heroic figure swooping in to save an innocent bystander from a flaming inferno, falling debris or a runaway train. After all, what could be more heroic than saving an innocent life? Risking your own safety to save the life of a complete stranger goes straight to the core of our notions of "heroism". In the original Superman film, Superman doesn't even punch a single bad guy, instead spending the entire time rescuing helpless citizens from danger. But how often do you see modern movie superheroes going out of their way to save strangers? They spend most of their time punching bad guys while destroying vast swathes of public property. If they're saving anyone its most likely another superhero and if it's a non-super person then it's someone they're intimately acquainted with. We might see the hero very briefly scoot a faceless crowd out of harm's way in the middle of an action scene, or they might make some one-off nice gesture as described in this video. But a whole elaborate, lengthy set-piece to save a bunch of strangers who the superhero's never met? Forget about it. In MCU films barely any meaningful time is spent with ordinary, common people. All we really see are the beautiful perfect SuperPeople, sitting in their ivory towers high above the common folk. They live among themselves in their SuperSociety completely detached from the lives of ordinary people yet dictate their justice and morals upon them. It seems that somewhere along the way we've lost sight of the general public in superhero movies. They are mostly absent, only briefly shown or mentioned in passing. But the common everyday folk are the heart and soul of superhero stories. They are what make Superheroes super. The very concept of superheroes was born from the wish that there could be a divine protector watching over us, risking life and limb to keep innocent people safe from harm. Modern movie superheroes seem to be only interested in protecting themselves.

i was thinking about this recently, how in both black panther movies, the oppression of colonized peoples is addressed by the villain. the ideology behind it is really is quite transparent and keeps the movies from telling truly inspiring stories imo. just imagine what wakanda could've come up with if they hadn't been distracted by fighting other marginalized people.

When i was a kid iron man inspired me to learn engineering. But as an adult what inspired me to keep going on with engineering was the one piece character Tom San, he was a fishMan, an amphibian species superior to humans, but was gentle and kind, unlike the fishmans shown until that point. In that story arc He was to be executed due to his connection with pirates .Still manages to save a remote island country using his engineering skills. No, he doesn't make weapons or super suit to blast invading aliens, but develops a revolutionary transportation system connecting the island to the rest of the world, resulting in the improvement in economic activity and saving the people out of poverty. Due to this, his execution was to be cancelled. But still gets executed due to corrupt people in the government.

You literally did a video which is a much better formulated version of the argument I have made to everyone I am close to in explaining my statement that I dislike superheroes. Now I shall send it to EVERYONE I know because I always knew I wasn’t alone in thinking this. Thanks for validating that

I love how this channel gets you to zoom out of the box we are used to living in and exposing the many hidden assumptions outside of the frame

I would love a part 2 of this video. There is definitely more to be talked about, in the MCU and the real world.

That was hands down the best critic of the MCU I have seen in 15 years. Good job and thank you!

This sort of “only evil desires to change the way the world works ” mentality is something I really hope Spider-Verse bucks in its final movie. A lot of people are theorising that Canon Events don’t really exist, and Spider-Society is just too blinded their collective trauma to see it. I believe a more compelling idea is that really *are* a fundamental pillar of the multiverse, only for Miles to just start looking for a way to alter the very nature of the multiverse itself if that’s what’s keeping from protecting both his universe and his family. The idea that Miles’ ultimate enemy won’t be a supervillain, but rather the system that controls the world he lives in demanding he sacrifice constantly to protect and sustain it while giving him nothing in return is a story I think most young people today go through all the time. Something they’d be overjoyed to be told they’re not alone in.

The villains are very often like "You know the rich elites and the powerful people? They're kicking down on us and we aren't even trying to stop them." .. and then they just blow up a box full of puppies, because EVIL.

Honestly the way they have the villains turn around and murder a bunch of people to establish them as the villains when usually what they seek to change is a legitimate issue has made me more and more uncomfortable over time because of how it frames social justice causes over and over as villainous in nature.

I kind of feel like this message can also apply to My Hero Academia. Most of the villains we’ve seen in that series were pushed to the extreme due to the various flaws of hero society. However, while the show constantly points out the world’s flaws and implies that the series will end with progress to make hero society better, the recent chapters give the feeling that everything will return to the status quo with the exception of heroes being more virtuous like All Might rather than pursuing fame or money

This whole video is a self report

It's interesting how superhero stories stand in comparison to the rest of sci-fi/fantasy - in superhero stories, the villain is a disrupting force that the hero has to beat back to preserve our cherished way of life. In most other sci-fi/fantasy, the villain is in charge (the "dark lord"), and the hero is leading a revolution to overthrow them.

Alan Moore's views on the superhero are available in video interviews and well worth watching as a follow-up to this. The vigilante, great man, and de facto autocrat are just as much an enemy to us as the antagonists they fight. This is why Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' has been my favorite story/main character. To have a powerful figure who must correct the wrongs they have committed and profoundly grow as a person is something that is rarely seen in a genre which denies the realities of being a standard human.

It's nice to see how Alan Moore's stories are all about this idea exactly. No wonder they are that much appealing!

The idea that Tony is only building weapons is simply false. Not only is there the infinite clean energy source longed in his chest but there is also the fact he stopped selling weapons in the first movie yet is still in business meaning he's not only providing the aforementioned clean energy but much of the sicfi tech in the mcu, we just see more of the suits cuz that's the part of his life the movies focus on And Tony's actions all have massive changes on the "status quo" changing wars even ending some, introducing the world to new commodities, reducing pollution, changing the economy Your analysis of Tony just proves you care more about bending the mcu to fit you lens the weather or not your was accurate

After the immediate hype of the first BP died down after the cinema. I remember discussing with my brother how they gave Killmonger the "psycho" turn. Everyone agrees with him until the studio decides he's the villain. Same for all the villains related to Tony Stark in some way or the other. It is cool to see you talking about it.

I consider Vulture as one of, if not the best, villain of the MCU. His struggle is extremely relatable and really criticized the structure of the world we live in. It’s a shame that nobody bring this up ever again.

This makes me want a spin-off focused on some normal civilian trying to make some normal area in the MCU a better place. Post-Endgame gives lots of possibilities. After the Snap, what happens to everybody coming back and finding that their families have changed or moved on without them? What happens if a soldier in the middle of a war suddenly reappears in the middle of a newly constructed plaza? During the Snap, what organizations popped up to support those affected by the Lost? How did the underground crime rings shift and change once some superiors suddenly vanish? Which people stayed firm, inspired by the Avengers, and held on to their humanity instead of being tempted by the opportunities provided in the Snap, and how did they fight against those who fell to crime and temptation? So many stories that involve the 'public' and all we get are 'Avenger-level' threats. Sure, those are deadly, but what's even deadlier are the threats lurking beneath, what is commonly seen but what is chosen to be looked over.

Ironically though I agree with most of what is said(especially the parts of the villains) but, I think there is a comic book with a great counter POV - Superman: Peace on earth. It's difficult to change a society that is conditioned to think it does not need to change. They need to try ofc but it is very hard.

I hate the trope of activists as villains SO much, and not many people even realise this trope exists. It has been very present in media for a long, long time. I feel like the number of media in which activists are "allowed" to be heroes (as they are in real life) increases nowadays. But there's still a very long way to go, as long as these sort of films are the mainstram norm. Thank you, Jonathan, for another excellent video.

Honestly one of the most impressive aspects of your videos is the amount of footage you use. Like you will literally have specific clips of specific quotes selected for dozens of movies, all in one video. Do you look through all of it yourself or do you have someone to help you?

Feels like this is a result of the whole "complicated villain" fad, where the movies try to have their cake and eat it too by having villains who have more complicated motives but still are pure evil in their _actions_ . A big problem is that these movies need to pick either a sympathetic or pure evil villain and stick with it because when they don't everything gets muddled.

As always you've made me think deeper and more thoughtfully about things I had taken for granted previously. Thank you.

There's an entry in TV Tropes called "Reed Richards is useless" which points out that usually superheroes use technology to beat villains instead of solving real problems. One motivation for writing stories that way is to not trivialise such problems by presenting them as simple to solve. This becomes especially apparent when you think about how Jane Foster lives in a world with unbelievable magic and technology, and yet she struggles with cancer. I feel like you should have addressed how a solution from a superhero movie would be insensitive to those who struggle with a real issue.

A lot of this can be blamed on mark miller's the ultimates. That comic alone set the trend for viewing the avengers as basically American "super police/super soldiers" but supposedly Millar meant to write the book as a satire. It was meant to be critical of the idea. Then marvel studios starts making an avengers movie and looks at the ultimates and goes "hey....this aesthetic is cool and modern and slick. Let's make it more like this!" It's sad because superhero stories used to be more imaginative and critical of the status quo. I think back to the early fantastic four comics especially and how characters like Reed had to use their creativity to solve problems. A lot of jack kirby's comics were characterised by his musings about the world of tomorrow and where the future was going. Or i think of the earliest issues of action comics where superman took down abusive prison wardens and fought labor exploitation. But now the characters and the brand are all that matter. The characters are just products. These aren't stories about imagining the future anymore they're just stories about reinforcing the status quo and placating audiences by offering light social criticisms.

"The passion for destruction is a creative passion too" With all this comic book talking, this exact quote not only reminded me, but maybe explained why, when Destruction from the Endless left his family, he started... painting Wow.

Me and my black friends coming out of the movie theatre: "Damn, so Killmonger was the good guy all along" 🤔

I’ve been meaning to read Utopia of Rules and I have an audible credit burning a hole in my pocket. I absolutely adore Graeber. Humanity shared a tragic loss when he passed away.

I think it's important to mention that the heroes can and do bring about sweeping changes to their worlds, as long as that world is not earth. It shows that making drastic change doesn't have to be seen as a precursor to villainy in Marvel; which makes the excuse more obvious

So you don't like unelected people imposing their will on the general public, eh? Like the CDC, ATF, Homeland Security, the FDA, the Bureau of Land Management, the Dept. of Energy, the Dept. of Education...etc.?

When I clicked on this video I had 0 idea what to expect. But wow, you make incredibly valid and backed up points, and it really does make you reflect on the superhero genre as a whole

This is actually exactly why The Boys works. We follow the superheroes’ opposition, the Boys, as the protagonists whose primary goal is to take down Vought, which represents all that is wrong with our current status quo. In Vought’s defence are the superheroes. It feels like the most realistic and compelling depiction of superheroes because it allows them to play their part straight and faithfully to how they would function in our world, and it frames those who challenge the status quo to enact change, ie. the “villains”, appropriately for once.

Some of the best Superman stories are about the character having inner conflicts with how much he should intervene in the world, and the ethical implications in changing the status quo by force and might. So, he wants to inspire people to be better people in general. He is himself a simple man, who would much prefer a simple life taking care of a farm than the busy city, much less super-heroics, but he feels he has a duty to help. Batman is an interesting character, and full of nuance in his actions and personal drama, sacrifice. Batman The Animated Series, and the movie Mask Of The Phantasm, are definitive portrayals of that nuance. He is a hero, but at the cost of ruining his own personal life and happiness.

Wow, I'd never noticed this pattern before, of the villains being the chief faction wanting progress and change. I totally get that for a super hero world to work they need to be defending a mirror of our world. And if the fictional world changes to the point it doesn't strongly resemble ours, some of the immersion is gone. But it does raise a bit of a dillema that is interestingly highlighted in this movie.

Wow I didn't expect such a good critical video, it really changed my point of view and narrator is flawless

This philosophy reminds me of The Legend of Korra, first she's trying to protect the status quo but at the end she always realizes their point and she tries to make it work in a good way

This became glaringly obvious to me when I watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I remember finishing the series and thinking, “They really missed the mark on this one.” The next time I recognized it was when my partner and I watched Moon Knight and he commented on how much he was sick of villains with good intentions and good ideas but carried them out in such an extreme way. I definitely agree. I think Jim Gordon in The Killing Joke comic is a good example of this, where after everything Joker puts him through, he still tells Batman to bring him in “by the book”. This perpetuates the point most superhero stories make that “we’re not the same as the villains we fight because we don’t stoop to their level by still following the rules”. But then they neuter their attempts at every turn so that the impact they could have made is unfortunately diminished.

"Superheroes usually manage to roll back the various apocalypses, they don't use their powers to build a better world" - from the actual vid So in the case of Tony that's straight up false, in his firs movie he's already has a version of the ark reactor used for clean energy, he then stops selling weapons to the military and the personally works to undo the damage they have caused The others (Cap, Natasha, HackEye, Falcon ect) however do not "use their powers to build a better world" How would they? They are soldiers, assassins, warriors, they have no real skill related to politics or any expertise on society and it's many problems not to mention they have no political power, they are not elected of officials, the only sway they have is through their fame And if you need an explosion as to why Hulk isn't using his power of *uncontrollable & unstoppable anger* to "build a better world" then please just turn on your brain Now this point dose has some validity if applied to Thor and Wakanda, Thor never introduces Earth to asguardian technology even after it becomes his home planet Wakanda is *worse,* not only could they have stopped the Atlantic slave trade or the colonisation of Africa from happening they could have prevented it from ever even being a possibility and wile the first movie ends with the idea that they'll open up to the world and share their technology to improve it we never see that in the future Then ether's "The villains are the ones constantly dreaming up big audacious schemes to transform the universe" If by "transform the universe" you mean commit war crimes that cause in mass death and suffering, then yes they do, what's your point

I feel like we owe Captain Planet an apology

I wish they kept the attitude that the first Iron Man film had. Tony tries to SHUT DOWN the corporate arms company and the rich and powerful immediately try to freeze him out But in later films there's no consideration of whether America's largest arms maker stayed shut down.

One day while I was speaking about Black Panther ending my brother asking pointed the fact that while Wakanda hoped to help People in need there first center of help was in America instead of somewhere in Africa

Did you watch any of these movies? The scenes you are putting as visuals often contradict your points and not only that you are playing clips without the context of the scene which also counters the claim you are trying to make. You are either being deliberately manipulative to service your point or you are incompetent at following a story. You need to do better editor.

This is why I have grown to love the Shinza Bansho series of visual and light novels so much. It constantly challenges the idea that changing the status quo is somehow seen as villainous. In one story for instance, the main character has to come to the realization that his single-minded obsession with maintaining the status quo, specifically "his" status quo, makes him no better than the villain who seeks to bring a world of eternal warfare. It is just replacing one hell for another. In the end he ends up fighting for another who seeks to bring change and perhaps a better tomorrow even if it means that he has to play in the hands of another villain, the one who set all these events into motion. The story really makes sure to separate the idea from the methods.

Karli Morgenthau was the most egregious, for me, as far as "Villain who has a point suddenly kills civilians for no reason to uncomplicate the feud." And the way she ended really angered me, because so many white characters with no ideology to speak of were allowed to commit more atrocities than her for way longer without dying.

I think the issue isn't just ideological but also due to writing constraints. Imagine a hero or villain actually manages to change the world - permanently and irreversibly. Everything taking place afterwards would have to be written like well thought out Sci-Fi instead of basic Urban Fantasy. That's way harder to do.

I think there is a problem with changing the world in a franchise like this. When stories are set in present day earth, then some percentage of the audience might not relate to what they see, or they will simply not see it at all, or worse, they might think they see it even if it's gone. But there is also a fundamental thing about the super hero genre as it is a sub-genre of the action genre. The heroes and villains in the genre generally fight each other using physical violence. While, if there was a movie with protagonists who did change the world for the better in terms of social improvements, well, I think there are such movies, but they are usually in the drama genre, as social issues are usually deserving of a more serious and grounded tone. Another aspect is that a fair share of people go to the cinema to escape reality. They want "stupid" entertainment to forget about all the problems the real world so generously offers.

Superman 4, the quest for peace, may be a movie with a lot of problems, but seeing a superheroic character grapple with attempting to denuclearize the world is a really good premise

As a big fan of the MCU and superheroes and comics... I think about this a lot. It is absolutely a genre-wide dilemma across all mediums, and it's really rare to see it challenged. I especially love your point that when superheroes DO get fed up and try to change something, they risk becoming the villain. We see this in Red Son (where Superman rules Soviet Russia). Or in the Ion Saga (where Green Lantern seizes unlimited power and attempts to end all war and famine and suffering). Or Zero Hour (where a different Green Lantern tries to retcon continuity to fix a bunch of issues). Or everything with Cyclops in the past fifteen years (he lost faith in Xavier's optimism and murdered him). Or Secret Empire (with Hydra Cap convinced his fascist ideologies will make the world a better place). Or the Cancerverse (where a bunch of heroes literally killed Death and the universe became this freaky melting pot of Lovecraftian horror). I would love to see these stories actually embrace meaningful change. Let Wakanda share that cure for cancer that they've got (Mar-Vell sure could've used it). Bring back classic Superman who would wreck slums to force the slumlords to build something better. There's so much cool stuff all these heroes are capable of. Let's see it happen, for real.

This channel is terrifying to watch. Every time i think you can’t turn something on its head, and make me see it in a truly awful light, you just ram the point home. I love it hahah

A video game I've played recently that I think explores one such theme is Terra Invicta. In the game an alien force is seeking to bend humanity to its will and you can play as seven factions that have different approaches to the new reality. The one relevant to this video is the Resistance, an XCOM-esque organisation whose objective is to "resist" the aliens, force them out of the solar system and leave Earth alone. In-story it is very much a status-quo organisation; as while other factions are trying to learn new things about the aliens to serve, negotiate with, or exterminate them, all the Resistance cares about is to "return things to normal" without considering present or future ramifications of the aliens or their technology, not once does the faction consider the possibility of a second invasion beyond "we'll be ready". In contrast, Humanity First, the extreme xenophobic faction, fully realises the possibility of a second invasion and uses it as justification to exterminate the aliens, with the mentality of "us or them". Conversely, The Academy is a faction trying to seek a peace deal with the aliens so both sides can learn from each other, improving the quality of both sides, you could say they want to change the world. But their idealism is constantly beset from all sides, they even take a massive loss in popularity the second humanity learns the aliens aren't peaceful Because that's the thing. Change, true change for good is never easy and will be attacked by cynics and opportunists, but it doesn't mean we can't try.

That's called capitalist realism, or as Jameson said, for Hollywood "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism "

This is also why I always been an X-men fan and preferred them over the Avengers since I was a little kid. Before the MCU came out, I hated the Avengers and thought they were corny. I loved reading the X-men comics, watching the shows, and movies. I found the X-men more relatable especially as someone who experienced racism since I was a kid. I related to the prejudice they experience for being mutants just like I was discriminated against for being black.

I think addressing this tension, to a point, was what made Arcane so engaging. Not a superhero story I know. But you got to see people on both sides fighting for change to make lives better. Totally different ways, with different original motivations. They were dynamic and changed. And that status quo at the end was very different to the beginning.

I can't resist this legit quote from a comic book cover: "Stardust, whose vast knowledge of interplanetary science has made him the most remarkable man that ever lived, devotes his abilities to crime-busting..." - Stardust the Super Wizard, Fantastic Comics #14

As always, your videos are my favourite combination of social justice, intellectual discussion, and nerding out.

I never really considered the public in the new MCU until you mentioned it. Remember in the X-men animated series(one from the 90s), public protests were commonly featured. Additionally, there was not the sort of hero worship bestowed upon the superheroes of today's MCU. The members of the Xmen would constantly be ridiculed or demeaned by the public as "mutants", "freaks", or "monsters" even if they saved them!

Loved this. Graeber was always a fantastic theorist, and his insight on superhero stories has if anything become more clearly true in recent times. Well done on demonstrating it so comprehensively.

To add to this: when you do have a moment where a superhero tries a new idea out of the norm you get something like Iron man's force works or the superman regime from injustice. Most likely the superhero would just be a dictator or attack dog if they ever tried to be on the offensive rather than reactionary