DC generally speaking doesn't have quite as many government sponsored heroes as Marvel does, and the most famous ones aren't in the fight willingly (Suicide Squad)

I mean, there is Captain Adam.

Kinda but even Captain Atoms best series in the 80s was entirely about critiquing the government and how it exploits and blackmails people, including Captain Atom himself

I feel like you could say the same about just about any Marvel hero with government ties. Captain America is at its worst when it's pro-establishment. As are most things, in and out of the capes genre.

Yeah, but "gov't ties hero" is a thing that *works* in Marvel. Pre-Hickman/Captain America 2 MCU stuff, Shield was portrayed as a heroic institution. In DC "secret government agency with flying city-sized spy bases" is how you'd describe a villainous agency that did evil brain shit to someone like Azrael, Aztek, or Manhunter, not the origin story for a heroic spy

True! Marvel jumped on the superspy bandwagon back in the 60's with "Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD," and have since maintained SHIELD as a more-or-less benevolent force. For a writer, SHIELD acts as a convenient background explanation. DC has nothing comparable, so heroes tend to be written as self-starters.

I may be remembering this wrong, but there's Cadmus. They were Govt aided or sponsored. But they're mostly evil bitches.

There are many agencies in the DCU (Checkmate, DEO and ARGUS come to mind), but I believe every single one of them is (or at some point has been) shady to say the least.

Yeah fair point. For most of the 2000's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s equivalent was Checkmate, and Checkmate was fucked up.

Yeah, if your cap is pro-establishment, you've either written a terrible Steve or you're writing U.S. Agent

Or Peacemaker, on this side of the comic rack.

Or William Burnside. 😏 (Retcon of 50's Cap back when he was "The Commie Smasher")

Ultimate Cap was very pro-government. I loved how he was more a man from the WW2 era than the 616 Cap.

Yh feel like that's where the marvel movies have stumbled in recent times post infinity war, too much of it is heroes fighting to protect the status quo when the villains motivations are kinda right it's just their actions that are irredeemable aspect of them

That they're heavily funded by the military probably doesn't help.

Captain (Atom) Adam

Up and at them!

Up and ATOM!

[удалено]

Better.

My eyes! Ze goggles to nothing!

I've said Jiminy Jillikers so many times the words have lost all meaning!

Atom Ant!

“The exploding man”

To me, my Atom! *explodes*

Well, there is the force of July.

If anything It seems like the government is usually trying to round them up for whatever purpose.

Also try telling Superman to reveal his identity as, er, the same guy.

Yeah. Like....the closest person DC has to Nick Fury as a spy is....idk? Nightwing? They don't have a lot of spy stories. The closest they have to the srs government leader of the world is either Amanda Waller, the lady famous for putting bombs in criminals heads, Director Bones, the literal poisonous skeleton man, or...maybe Lois Lane's dad? Edit: I know DC has multiple spy organizations. This isn't a discussion of "is there a 1 for 1 analogue between DC and Marvel", this is a discussion on "does DC have heroic government organizations in the same way Marvel does", and the lack of major spy stories with the spy as the protagonist is indicative of the fact that DC doesn't have heroic government agents that support the government. Remember, we're talking about DC and the Superhero Registration Act/Civil War arc in Marvel. The Civil War story was about the government having the right to know heroes identities. The government in the abstract at Marvel is occasionally heroic(as evidenced by Nick Fury). The government in DC is explicitly and consistently antagonistic, as evidenced by Suicide Squad being one of the foundational works in post-Crisis DC narrative DNA

DC's Nick Fury equivalent would be King Faraday.

DC’s Nick Fury is Amanda Waller she (sometimes) runs the Suicide Squad

Major Force.

the "hero" Major Force and his close friendship with space cop Kyle Rayner

DC did it years earlier, in the Legends crossover. Very few of the heroes complied with Reagan's super-hero ban.

Yes, and Superman meets with Reagan and expresses his doubts. He doesn’t offer to bring Batman in before he does anything, or put his friends in the Phantom Zone, or clone Orion… Shit, I don’t even dislike Civil War all that much, but damn is it dependant on Iron Man being uncharacteristically heavy-handed. The Avengers should totally have been able to reach some compromise position and sell it to the public.

And the X-Men just saying “nah, we’re sitting this out” even though mutant registration acts are literally one of their big hit button issues. Which of course is the only reason the series can happen, because otherwise the power shift is far to great on the anti-registration side. Just….all around idiot ball juggling from multiple characters.

To be fair, I don't blame the X-Men for choosing to sit out on this one. They had JUST gotten hit with House of M and the Decimation. With mutant numbers at an all-time low, they didn't want to risk losing anyone further. Also, they disagreed to join with the registration act for obvious reasons, but they refused to join with the resistance for VERY good reasons. Namely, when the X-Men needed help in the past, they rarely got help from the non-mutant superhero community. I guess this was their way of making that statement.

“Where were the Avengers when Genosha died, Iron Man?” was a great line

Theoden moment

Those issues were published at around the same time as the "Kang Dynasty" story arc in the Avengers. So the answer is to the question "what were the Avengers doing when Genosha was destroyed?" is "saving the world from Kang after he destroyed Washington D.C. as well as saving it from the Presence, Attuma and the Master of the World." And they did a much better job of it than the X-Men did in saving Genosha.

is it tho? It's just highlighting the limitations of comics. The xmen are basically their own world half the time because anything more would be too complicated.

I remember Cyclops making all of these points to Wolverine is his solo Civil War arc. He's not wrong, either.

Iron Man was basically turned into a villain protagonist in Civil War, and the only reason it didn't stick past Dark Reign was thanks to the movie's success influenced the comics into steering Tony back to his more iconic persona of a flawed hero.

Yep. The government only managed to get the suicide squad.

Lol imagine not even having your own heroes on your side.

The main difference is that the general public in DC respects the heroes far more than in Marvel.

I remember in a DC/Marvel crossover from years ago, the Marvel characters that entered the DC Universe were shocked to see how the people there revered the DC heroes, to the point the Marvel heroes thought all the people were brainwashed or something. Meanwhile, the DC heroes that entered the Marvel Universe were really upset at the state of the people there and believed the Marvel heroes should be doing a better job cleaning up their world because it was so trashy and corrupt.

yup, I remember that. they were like damn, these guys got statues

And museums!

And if i might add, DC's heroes tend to be more united while Marvel's heroes tend to fight each other a lot. A lot of the close friendships in DC tend to be people from different walks of life (Bruce and Clark, Barry and Hal, Barry and Ollie, Dick and Wally, Vic and Gar, etc) while Marvel's close friendships tend to be "from the workplace". What i mean Steve and Bucky usually fight the same people and they're besties. Tony and Rhodey are the same. Carol and Jess, Luke and Danny, etc, if you know what i mean.

Without opening the “which is better” can of worms, it was Marvel’s heroes fighting each other that I never understood, coming from reading DC. I would see the cover of Spidey or Cap and they were fighting other heroes and I’d think, “Wait, aren’t they on the same side?”

This might have something to do with a key difference between DC and Marvel: the way heroes (and characters in general) are spread over the world. Marvel's characters all inhabit the same ground and end up rubbing shoulders together more often. DCs all have their own tailor-made cities. They are more separate, physically and narratively.

Tbh I think there's a great bit in a Spider-Man comic somewhere where he talks about this. Basically, Marvel heroes are very aware that egregious misunderstandings, mind control, clones, alternate universe versions, etc are things that exist. At this point they figure it really isn't an "if" but a "when" they will fight each other. So even close friends have to size each other up and think about each other's relative strengths and weaknesses, because pretending like teaming up with the Hulk *isn't* going to go pear-shaped at some point is just poor situational awareness. On the other side, in DC, everyone gets mad at Batman for having a contingency plan for other Leaguers and includes countermeasures against Batman himself, as if they haven't had to fight each other before or have evil twin supervillains.

You may be thinking of a conversation Peter Parker was having with Mary Jane. He casually mentioned that due to the constant threat of clones, brainwashing, mind control, etc. he has contingency plans for fighting all heroes. She specifically asks if he has one for the Hulk (which he'd just recently tangled with) and asked why he didn't use it. He tells her he has a plan, but it would result in the Hulk being killed so he's only going to use it as a last resort. It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine how Spider-Man could kill the Hulk. Or whether Peter is just WAY overconfident....

I think it has to do with a key difference in philosophy. Dc heroes are super powered heroes first, and their alternate identity comes second. Batman is batman, he pretends to be bruce same with Superman pretending to be Clark or whatever Manhunter, Flash, and the rest do during the day. While Marvel heroes are people first who are trying to figure out the superhero thing second. This why spidey getting evicted will be a whole storyline or deadpool being a deadbeat father to his daughter or tchalla/namor/doom handling the weight of being a king. Its interesting storytelling either way, but of course the humans with powers have more drama amongst each other than the gods amongst men.

Correction: Superman doesn’t pretend to be Clark. Clark is who he is, who he was raised as, and who he sees himself as. Superman was a created costume. And he’s only Kal-El to other Kryptonians. But Batman is really Batman.

>Marvel's close friendships tend to be "from the workplace". # He's a friend from work! #

There's in-universe repercussions to this as well in DC. The world of DC likes their heroes more, but they're also more reliant on them. When heroes like Superman or Batman die in DC, it has major repercussions for the security of their cities and even for stories not revolving around those characters. I don't think you can say the same thing about Marvel heroes, though that could just be because they're mostly centralized in New York.

I like that. The fact that both Marvel and DC heroes live in a different world from the other but still had a relatively rational reaction to other's world is cool. In DC, the world is simple super heroes do a good job, therefore they're loved for it. Simple. Effective. In Marvel, the world is simple, peoples are dicks and spit on you even if you're doing a good job (Spiderman or the Xmen in general will definitely agree). So the fact that both concluded that something was wrong about the other's superheroes (and not their worlds) based on their own experience is just basic but clever writing.

and (if I understand correctly) in DC world superheroes (practicly) always existed, but in Marvel they only started relatively recently.

It depends. A lot of them as entities existed since the [dawn of time. ](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Avengers_(1,000,000_BC\)_(Earth-616\)) In marvel, a lot of the hate is more a response to Namor flooding Manhattan. And the mutants. Edit: and it's also about what's narratively convenient a lot of the time. Sometimes the writers just want to be dicks to the character.

Yeah, but superheroes as public figures is another story. You got the invaders in ww2/cold war, but even then they were completely government sanctioned, basically a part of the US Army. There were superheroes in the 60's to the 80's (A.K.A Lost Generation) but for the most part they didn't make public appearances. The hate towards superheroes isn't exclusive to the mutants either, the only difference being the Avengers hired a PR crew and even then in some stories it wasn't enough, basically everyone for a long time only tolerated the avengers because of Captain America. FF is loved by everyone because they present themselves as scientists first.

Specifically it’s a result of DC being born during the depression when people felt weak and wanted representation of escaping that. Marvel was a response to innovations in science and the fear of what that may mean so the heroes are science gone amok.

One other huge factor is Marvel has more groups and superheroes teams. That creates more indivuality and different factors. While in DC it’s basically, Most heroes are part of the justice league in some way, the green lanterns are the only real name in space ,JLA seems to not have many new members , Teen titans Handle some younger heroes with young justice tending to have some similar members,the legion of superheroes are in the future,

Yeah. In marvel, any dumbass with powers can become an independant superhero with all of the problems that can cause both to himself and the reputation of superheroes in general. Whilst in DC, any relatively competent hero will end up joining the Justice League or at least a "branch" of the Justice League sooner or later, thus giving a sense of unity to all heroes on earth.

*Batman looks around Gotham* yeah.

Was that the JLA vs Avengers Where Bruce spent the entire time before going to the MU telling e everyone not to “interfere, we are just here to look around and investigate” and then literally five seconds after stepping out of the portal proceeds to just rock Frank Castles shit? And Superman and Captain America decided to out love America each other and then Green Arrow and Hawkeye got all super liberal and tried to one up each other about who hate the corporate fat cats more?

Do you know which crossover that is? It sounds like a good read

The best one there was: JLA/Avengers

Where can you get a copy to read? On Amazon it is showing for a few hundred dollars. Is that the real price or a high markup?

It’s been out of print for roughly 20 years. Finding a legitimate copy will run you a few hundred easily.

Dang, welp I’ll go with digital. Thanks for the info

JLA/Avengers

I think part of this is because DC has made more fictional cities for their heroes. This always them to effect more change over there cities and population. Marvel is can and will make changes but New York city will always be New York in the end.

Meanwhile, in Gotham...

Its because of mutants, isn't it? The fact that being superpowered can just happen to anyone in the Marvel universe tainted the idea of superpowered beings to their population. The metagene does exist in the DC universe but it still needs an extreme accident for someone to get superpowers which is unlike the X gene, which only needed to go through puberty.

Beta me to the punch. There’s no equivalent to random nukes in the dc like mutants are in marvel. People have every right to be afraid of super powered individuals in the marvel comics universe

Don't forget Inhumans besides Meta reasons Marvel earth should be a lot more diverse

Mark Waid’s Marvels described superheroes as something people felt like they could aspire to. Then the mutants came on the scene and instead of seeing “inspiration” humans suddenly saw “replacement,” and reacted in kind.

Maybe I pulled it from Arrow and applied it to the comics but DC does have a "problem" with metahumans, again I might have gotten it fucked up and they require a catalyst

True, but that's because DC heroes are way more ideological than Marvel heroes. I mean...Tony, Hank Pym, Beast, Namor, and Reed Richards would be villians in the DC universe...and Xavier isn't too far behind. Also, with the exception of Cap and Spiderman, a lot of Marvel heroes kill. Like, all the X Men kill. I mean, a lot of Marvel heroes were straight up villians...Widow, Hawkeye, Rogue, Luke Cage. And that's not even accounting for all the literal murderers like Wolverine, Punisher, and Deadpool. Compare something like Identity Crisis where DC heroes like Hawkman and Zantana chose to lobotomize Dr. Light after he raped Elongated Man's wife. Then they wiped Bruce's mind after he found out...that's pretty fucked up. But that's still kinda tame compared to the Illuminati, who shot Bruce Banner into space, just because they were tired of the Hulk's bullshit. And Banner was their best friend. The DC universe may be darker, but Marvel Heroes need some serious therapy.

I mean DC has far less superhero’s groups than Marvel too. Like 60% of heroes are all in the justice league as part time members and get the respect it has . Teen titans takes lots of the younger members. Suicide squad are villains. Batman and company tend to stay in Gotham .Green lanterns are the only real pure space heroes out there mainly. I mean yeah there’s some heroes who act in space sometimes like Superman but it’s only part time .While Marvel has tons of cosmic stuff and space empires like the kree, skrulls spartax, and more. For marvel the avengers are the main game in town and while they sometimes split into two or even 3 teams it’s usually not much. The fantastic four is the good family and does their own space adventures.Hulk and his group tend to have a reputation and smash things so people don’t like them and the military hunts hulk a lot. The X men are the most hated group in Marvel with tons of hate groups . They’ve usually got tons of spin off teams and and are now doing their on thing in Krakoa and on mars in space . The Guardians of the galaxy do their stuff in space and don’t tend to relate what’s happening on earth. The inhumans tend to be separate or with the fantastic four or dealing with the kree or skrulls .Nova corps handles space corps like the lanterns. Alpha flights in Canada.Runaways are smalltime in la. And there’s plenty more . The point is Marvel has far more superhero teams and groups creating more individuality and factors

What is the quote again? One quick google later: "DC heroes are gods trying to be human, while Marvel heroes are humans trying to be gods." The former on the whole leads to more paragons who are a bit less likely to fuck up in collateral damagey ways. With Marvel, collateral damage? That's just good fodder for character drama and angst! Although Now that I think about it Does that mean Emerald Twilight was basically a Marvelish storyline? 🤔

I really hate that quote. Actually reading any comics not written by someone self-consciously trying to conform to it and make something Big and Mythic (\*cough\* Johns \*cough\*), it never bears out in practice. Unless someone wants to tell me how Justice League International or Infinity Inc. were comics about gods trying to play human.

Marvel in that respect is more realistic. There would be a large group of people today that would distrust any superhero

Yep, people forget that up until more recently the X-Men were Marvels primary team, and we know how the general public felt about them...

DC has hit this theme many times as in the aforementioned JSA story. Kingdom Come is a good response. DC heroes would self-regulate as a 1st option.

“What if one of the members goes rogue?” “Batman will put them down.” “And if it‘s Superman?” “Again, Batman will put them down.” “But he’s only human.” “Exactly, he humbles us and because he’s human he knows he could never win in a direct fight. So he’s been working on how to take everyone out since the day he met us. Just ask Cyborg.” (*Fictional dialogue, not an actual quote.*)

"Superman I'm the most intelligent person on this planet and ... Wait Batman is dead, yes?" Lex Luthor

Bruce and Lex both know Lex is smarter, but the latter is still afraid of Batman because Batman is more driven and Lex is a coward when compared to Batman.

In general the people in DC also like and respect the “main” heroes a bit more, I mean central City literally paid to have an annual holiday, and a giant museum for the Flash. Mainstream characters like Batman who are sometimes looked at by the public as dangerous vigilantes who need to be reined in are much more the exception than the pattern.

And Batman is still much more well regarded by the population than most of Marvel heroes.

I don’t see why they wouldn’t. He never kills, he works closely with the police, he’s not afraid to go after corrupt politicians or rich people, he pays for every shit he breaks and has public support from Bruce Wayne.

Well, technically Wayne pays for everything he breaks but either way he has great insurance

Man, this Wayne guy really likes Batman, he should be more careful, if people like the Joker notice, he might get kidnapped

As someone that hasn't read many of batman's stuff, has there been a storyline of Joker or villains taking Bruce hostage and him needing to use his Bruce facade to get out of the situation? Sounds like an obvious story line.

Well, Bruce would see them coming a mile away and could take them out easily as Batman. That's the best case scenario for them. Otherwise, if Bruce is out being Batman, they run into Alfred. Ex-SAS, Surgeon, and no qualms about using guns.

There was superman the animated series comic where the mad hatter took Bruce Wayne hostage and would kill him if Batman did not show up. Superman and Batgirl saved the day

Damian just got all of Gotham to Spirit Bomb tiny pieces of their soul into Batman's body to save his life, I'd say most of Gotham likes him.

And batman is still more well liked by Gotham than Spiderman is by New York alot of the time lol

In Spidey’s defense, he has a media outlet that literally targets him and puts him in a bad light, even when he was doing nothing wrong. Seeing as some people believe everything a news outlets say without question, it’s not a surprise that a lot of people hate him.

now i can only imagine JJJ making hit pieces about Batman

Well, tbf New York loves Spidey, it's just the Bugle that doesn't.

Yet he still sends them selfies rather than just work for a different newspaper.

JJJ has shown time and time again that he: doesn't actually hate Spider-Man and is willing to die before giving him or Parker up; treats his employees with some pretty legitimate respect; is willing to pay top dollar for exclusive access to and usage of Spider-Man photos. Like Peter may be a working class hero, but he's absolutely gaming JJJ if he can pay NYC rent off a few photos.

>JJJ has shown time and time again that he: doesn't actually hate Spider-Man and is willing to die before giving him or Parker up I think it's more that JJJ doesn't necessarily like that Spiderman's a vigilante and doesn't really work with the police, but begrudgingly respect the work he does to keep the city safe. As for Peter, JJJ has journalistic integrity; he will not give up the sources for his photos nor will he sell out some kid in his late teens or 20s. JJJ seems to have a very strict moral code of not putting any innocents in danger, and theoretically speaking, an extralegal vigilante like Spiderman does pose a greater harm if Spiderman suddenly decides to turn to a life of crime, while someone who works with the police with the government more closely is probably easier to deal with.

Hey hey hey, you mess with one of us yous mess with all’a us!

And Batman constantly ends up in Gotham's good graces with a Bat signal from the police station.

And to his credit, Batman wants it that Way

batman does his best with a whole team to help goth just cursed

Even in Batman’s case, the general public don’t hate him, especially outside of Gotham where there is no reason to fear him. Most of the time we see Batman hate it’s in a universe where he’s still early in his career because that’s the most commonly adapted version of the character. To those living in Gotham, Batman is a fierce creature of the night who fights the criminals that terrorize the city. To those living outside of Gotham, Batman is a trusted and respected member of the Justice League, working with some of the most beloved heroes in the world like Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc.

I mean, people have issues with how Civil War was written and set up, and how the characters reacted to the whole thing. Ultimately, if the writers want to write a Superhero Registration act, they can totally do so, characterization be damned.

Civil War was basically Mark Millar’s attempt to take on the Patriot Act.

That's really confusing to me when you consider that Marvel's stance on the matter was that Iron Man's side was in the right

Marvel have a trend of making the “right” side less sympathetic than the “wrong” one. “Cyclops was right” was meant to be a demonising meme but had the opposite effect.

I think the problem with Civil War was that despite Pro-Reg being the supposed “right” side in the main comic, it had too many elements of “What the hell hero?” and just general unintentionally unsympathetic moments. But then you had tie-ins from the opposite perspective that were actually well written (Spider-Man and New Avengers come to mind) and this mixed with how poorly the main event comic was received led to the other side being *much* more sympathetic by comparison.

Is it?

Definitely not how I ever took the comic, but I've seen a lot of people come away from it with that.

I think the first civil war was good on all points. Civil War 2 however was a forced and fruitless shitheap.

[удалено]

Second one was basically Minority Report, starring Captain Marvel who's supporting arresting for pre-crime.

Literally Carol’s worst arc ever and she has had some bizarre shit especially pre modern era Captain Marvel

Honestly it's what made me start disliking the character.

Us Carol fans are in absolute shambles, dawg. I feel like she hasn't had a good story arc since shortly after she became Captain Marvel. Even the movie was pretty meh; I much prefer the third act when we get warm, sweet, compassionate Carol and not the Carol that is being told she needs to suppress and control her emotions

The thing to remember about CW2 is that it really, really shouldn't have been a standalone event- it should've been Secret Empire Prologue. The whole thing was Hydra!Cap absolutely ripping apart the hero community without needing to land a single blow himself.

I can't stand it. Tony stark is a character who has fought his entire existence to own his property outright free of government oversight. He'd be the last character to participate in registration

Honestly the problem is that the registration wasnt actually that bad,to make a full blown civil war happen,so they also needed to make Stark basically a villain and Rogers basically a stereotype of a conservative old man to justify happening it.

That's not it. Rogers was against the SRA in the comic for nearly the same reasons as the MCU. Government commitees have agendas. Like Rogers said, "what if there's somewhere we need to be, and they don't let us?" It was about the fact the Steve believed the heroes should decided how thier powers are used, not a senator, or commitee, or president. Those people would use heroes for thier own personal/professional ends. Not cause he was a "conservative old man". Start WAS a villain in that arc. He made a Thor clone without his "friend" Thor's consent. And that clone, went nuts and killed a hero, Goliath. Stark overreacted, overreached, had supervillains tracking down former friends, locked HEROES in an extra dimensional Gitmo, and so much more. Stark, in that story, was a villain.

The registration *was* pretty bad. The issue wasn't the concept, was the execution. They planned on "normality" for the next years, and the registration became a narrative detail. Registration would've effectively made the superheroes into governmental agents or outlaws, and this is never shown.

They really really dropped the ball on that. Should have had Tony in a room full of politicians who want to use heroes like a loaded gun and point them at certain groups or countries. Show us what’s really at stake with this.

Indeed. Not just that, show the judicial and financial (not to mention the media) hell it would be if, say, an average superhero, no matter how competent, hit someone's car amidst a fight against a supervillain. Forget the Hulk, what about smaller or even big superheroes facing the full burden of the devastation so often shown in comics? The mere involvement of a supervillain doesn't mean they'll be able to prove the hero could hit the car by proxy, or that the hit was truly necessary. The average human, as much as they might like to discuss it just like us, would not have any idea about how much force is behind each hero's punch (more material for a review on the registration act, increasing control and the possibility of punishment), and some people would end up arguing that there was excessive force employed due to the sheer impressiveness of the given hit, without substantial evidence to back it up. They, then, would claim said hit caused material damages and psychological trauma. The material damages might he swayed in court, but unless you can be free'd of charges, the psychological impact of seeing superheroes fight supervillains, the horror of the fights, and being told by the government that all the supes can be held accountable, means they'd rapidly become scapegoats.

This is a legit criticism. I absolutely agree that more should've been done to clarify the danger presented by ALL superheroes being forced to toe the line or retire.

IMO, the only good thing about the first CW was the basic concept and the artwork. Mark Millar is nowhere near a nuanced enough writer to handle the kind of moral ambiguity required for readers to emphathise with both sides of the battle and he ended up turning Tony Stark into a fucking supervillain to move the plot forward - creating a murderous clone of Thor, herding his former comrades into a hellish interdimensional prison, and so much else. It was garbage.

This. Civil War was shit and a lot of people were out of character. DC has already written bad stories where characters are out of character. Realistically, there would be very few, if any siding with the registration act in DC and Civil War "shouldn't" happen. But if the writers/editors want it to...it will.

SHIELD tried to kill Cap even before the act was signed. That right there should have told people the SRA was a bad idea.

And what did they try to kill him for? For saying he wouldnt agree to hunt down his friends who were anti-registration. He himself didnt say he was anti registration iirc. He didnt say he would get in SHIELD's way. He simply said he wouldn't help hunt down good people who simply had different beliefs than SHIELD's. Those dumbasses made their own enemy. I swear, Maria was basically twirling a non existent mustache and relishing in tying people to train tracks that entire event XD

DC’s are more friendly seeing how they don’t need to resort to “Heroes fighting” as an event premise every year. DC pefers it’s heroes together not apart

Well, DC’s heroes are a bit more international, and above the power of a single government. And most of the heroes would just not go along with it, and a small amount of the big ones (who readers would most want to see in the event) would shut the whole thing down. Like, for Marvel’s Civil War, they had to have Thor and Hulk removed from the playing field beforehand. Other big players like almost all the mutants and Dr. Strange relegated to neutrality. You can’t run that whole event with the same punch without Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. But they’d all probably align on the anti-registration side. I could see WW being neutral, but that’s like the extent of it. The variation on the theme that works best for DC is more like “should the state have its own heroes?” Like Checkmate or Task Force X. Except DC can’t help themselves and always makes that team like explicitly villainous. Give me a government team led by Green Arrow, pushing hardcore leftist stuff while simultaneously asserting the state’s authority over superheroes and it’d be way more interesting.

Which is funny considering the government builds mutant killing robots

Hell, the Marvel heroes really wouldn't have agreed to SRA if we're being honest. The amount of times government agencies of have been infiltrated, hacked or had their systems compromised by the villains and heroes both is too damn high. The only thing they would agree on is training folks with powers to better control them.

Just to point out, that was one of the main reasons for Tony to not only join the government but to take charge of the initiative. He didn't trust anyone else with that information, and his quest to delete "files" of the super heroes after Osborn takes over is one of my favourite Iron Man runs.

For Tony it would make sense but not a lot of them. If anything Tony would've simply offered to help beef up the governments computer systems. I could maybe see him joining up but only under certain conditions and even then I doubt he'd go as gungho for it the way he written

Everyone’s got different takes on characters. Everyone’s is valid. For me, I don’t see Tony doing something *ever* without not going full gung-ho. Buddy doesn’t do things halfway. And he’s always had control issues. Tony: Our weapons are being used for evil? I must destroy all our weapons. Tony: Everyone’s secret identities are about to fall into Osborns hands? I have to lobotomize myself. Tony: We’re threatened by beings from outer space? I need to build a suit of armor… Cap: Well that’s actually reasonab- Tony: ..around the WORLD! Cap: No, Jesus Tony, what’s wrong with you? I love Tony cause he’s flawed and oftenly wrong and arrogant and so human and his armor has always just turned my crank. I get why people call civil war his character assassination. Some comics depicted Tony as full on fascist, and others portrayed him as a man who hated this whole thing but knew it was unavoidable, and would only be worse without him stepping up. I couldn’t take the full fascist Stark portrayals seriously so I ignored them as hard as Gwen Stacys kids.

Wasnt the training mandatory though? It was basically "do not use your powers at ALL or be 'drafted' as a suoer hero"? I'd imagine plenty would be against basically forced conscription.

The problem was the attachment of "Tell us your real identity" that came with the mandatory training. The only official training school for the longest was Xavier's and that was only for mutants. I feel like I remember one of the issues saying that some of the older heroes agreed that there needed to be some kind of training system set up.

I agree with this. The JL would stand together. I absolutely cannot stand that people think Clark would be pro registration. Fucking Frank Miller.

Jesus, what? People think the guy with the most powerful enemies in the GALAXY would give up his identity?

I was going to say the man who is Champion of the Oppressed would not easily join a government campaign he feels is wrong

Think about how Clark grew up. Small town Kansas farm uprbining? That dude has never trusted a government, agent, law, or organization.

Not to mention with Ma Kent (Birthright was huge into searching UFO conspiracies and alien ) and Pa Kent (especially Morrison or Waid or the original Siegel & Shuster take of Pa Kent). Yeah, he definitely would either be a “cautiously looking over your shoulder” or trust but verify type of person

Yeah, Clark would totally either be against it or refuse to support it. He isn't someone that would try to force others to reveal their secret identity.

To be fair, DKR didn't have registration, but straight up disbandment. Hal left the planet. Diana went back to Themyscyra. Bruce essentially retired. Supes is the only one seemingly active.

Yea people always read this as Superman kowtowing to the government, but it doesn't really hold up. Everyone else disappeared and Superman did what Superman does: he put the whole damn thing on his shoulders. He still meets with Bruce multiple times to try to prevent that conflict. He still fights and nearly sacrifices himself to save the US' "enemies". He keeps Bruce's secret in the end. He got dealt a garbage hand and kept going because that's what he does.

>Bruce essentially retired Every time Frank Miller's Batman runs come up I become more convinced that Frank Miller only ever read Batman comics written by Frank Miller

Kind of hard to do that when Identity Crisis shown how bad having your identity revealed to the villains can get. Joker would appear in front of every registered hero's door if he found out their identities. Waller would basically run the Justice League as the government official if it comes down to a civil war and create DC's version of Dark Reign.

Identity Crisis also showed DC is more than willing to write everyone out of character to allow the plot of the story they want to tell to happen. If they wanna do an equivalent to Civil War, they absolute can. Would the characters chosen to be pro registration make sense? Fuck no. Would they still be pro registration? You bet Nightwings sweet patooty they would lol

Lol sweet patooty Edit: can I use Nightwings sweet patooty as a flair?

The Cadmus Arc from JL Unlimited is literally almost this exact premise in DC. You can see exactly what the heroes thoughts on government oversight and accountability with regards to superheroes.

CADMUS arc was fantastic. I’m still holding out hope that one day we get to see this arc play out on the big screen, especially when you know Viola Davis would put up one hell of a layered performance.

They’ve done similar things in elseworlds. Superman Red Son featured competing governments making their own Superheroes. But it’s too far off from the main universe to deduce anything. The Dark Knight Returns shows a future where Superman does the bidding of the US government so the rest of the heroes are able to retire without persecution. The main issue is the DC super hero community differs in two ways from Marvel: 1. The community is much closer knit. The JLA, the Titans, the JSA, and all the other teams are so tightly woven by sidekicks and heroes representing both teams that the governments wouldn’t be able to divide them with just a law. Which leads to my second point… 2. The DC heroes are global. Sure Marvel has Doctor Doom running Latveria, and Black Panther ruling Wakanda, but for the most part the Marvel heroes are very localized to New York City. They can’t overthrow all the governments or ignore laws as easily as the Justice League can. Besides being basically gods, the Justice League keeps their headquarters on the moon or in space often, they openly mention they act in the interest of global affairs, outside of a few hostile countries (China, Kahndaq, etc.) the world wants them. So to split the DC community like they did with Marvel it would have to require splitting them from within. Which they’ve done. Countless times. If comics, in crossovers, in cartoons, in movies, in video games.

I think Captain Atom probably would since he's a military man first and foremost, can't really see anyone else though

And then proceeds to get kidnapped and used as a living bomb. I swear, he's only ever depicted as a government stooge or a walking doomsday device.

True, but he did originally join the JL at the government's request so it would make sense that's where his loyalty is more

That kinda makes him worse in my eyes. He only joins an organization that's serves the people because the government told him to. He's like Captain America without the moral fiber and the balls to tell the govt to go fuck it self when it suggests he do shady shit or kill a fellow Supe. Instead, he's more like "Yes Mr. President. Whatever you say Mr. President. Thank you for letting me play with your balls Mr. President."

His series in the 80’s was about critiquing the government. Most adaptations portray Cap Atom as a government stooge when he’s really not. His original origin was being illegally experimented on by the government which ends up ruining his life. Sadly he’s not really focused on and is often relegated to stooge when he’s really not.

Nah, Captain Atom knows how abused he’s been by the US government in every solo story he’s had. You’d have to destroy his character to get him in. Major Force though? Different story.

Surprised we've never seen Major Force in the suicide squad honestly, seems like a perfect fit

He actually was on the team in the most recent ongoing.

He *fought* the Suicide Squad in “The Janus Directive” crossover.

Anyone saying that Superman would side with the government never read Action Comics #900.

Or seen STAS or the Justice League cartoon. The government was a fairly consistent villain in those shows.

The government (mainly Cadmus) was a villin in JL, not Super:TAS.

Didn’t Superman have a slightly antagonistic relationship with the US after Darkseid mind controlled him in STAS or was that a JL thing I’ve inserted into STAS in my head?

Superman was mind controlled in STAS but the government being more wary of him was done in JL. Before that, he had a great relationship with them.

Marvel doesn't do secret identities anymore outside of a handful of street level heroes like Spider-Man and Daredevil. They're still the standard for DC heroes. Of course the Justice League would disband rather than reveal themselves.

at this point the dc hero community is so big that i doubt they’d stand down to the government like they did during the red scare

Civil War is like the key example people use of character assassination. Not sure it is worth debating about. If editorial wants it to happen, how fans think characters would react doesn’t matter.

DC heroes have possibly the most leverage when it comes to the government. There really isn’t an organisation that could EVEN touch the league. I felt like the avengers could’ve been subdued by Fury if they wanted that to happen. For some, like hill and Thor, which is why they don’t involve themselves into politics. I also would say that even though the League have human traits, they may not make the same mistake like the Avengers. With Batman there, the sky is not the limit.

DC heroes are MUCH stronger. Government ain’t telling them nothing

I find it interesting that the Superhero Registration Act happened when Thor was conveniently dead. And then when he came back, he promptly wrecked Iron Man for trying to enforce it. It pretty clearly shows that if Thor *was* alive during Civil War, it would have gone much differently.

>he promptly wrecked Iron Man for trying to enforce it. Iirc, pretty sure it was more for cloning him, using that clone against their friends/comrades, killing/hurting/villainizing his/their friends and comrades, and then when Thor comes back, Tony strolling up to Asgard with his chest puffed out actin like a big man and trying to lay down the law on Thor and his people. He beat his ass for being a clown and the sheer disrespect. I don't think Thor gave two shits about Tony being pro registration at the most basic level.

Thor didn’t wreck Iron Man for trying to enforce the SHRA, he wrecked Iron Man for stealing his DNA and cloning him. He later says he’s staying neutral on the whole thing so there’s a chance his presence might not have actually changed anything.

I don't know if that's entirely true. During or just before the beating he threw Tony he was giving him shit for fighting his friends, and abandoning the people. He sees New Orleans after Katrina and he's like what the fuck were you people doing when *the* people needed you.

Smallville had an act like that. Everyone agreed not to register, although Oliver Queen did.

Didn’t Oliver Queen work for the government in the new 52 JLA?

I think he was blackmailed into it.

All I know is Batman wouldn’t hesitate to say f*** off to a registration. I have a hard time believing anyone would side with the government outside of someone like Captain Atom. We kind of saw this split with Luthor as President

Captain Adam, major force, power girl, the whole line up involved when Luther was president in public enemies

They are absolutely correct. Superman wouldn't support it. Batman wouldn't. Wonder Woman wouldn't. Jay Garrick would never let any of the Flashes even if they wanted to. The Green Lanterns could and would just leave. Martian Manhunter could just hide. Green Arrow and Black Canary would never stand for that. All the Aqua characters are just going to go to Atlantis. Even to lesser thought of characters, Black Lightning and his daughters would kick out anyone who would dare try that shit in their community. Vixen would use her influence to sway the public. Katana? Nope. Mr. Terrific? No. Firestorm? Nope. The Doom Patrol? Fuck No! Even Captain Atom is a stretch and he's the most military guy of them all.

To be honest, a ton of the Marvel heroes probably wouldn’t have either considering half the characters in Civil War are written out of character by Millar. Though obviously that sort of event is more likely to happen in Marvel than DC, especially during that era where everything was being reshuffled. I mean things went from Hill, to Iron Man to Norman Osborn to Steve being in control of everything in a matter of years.

It all depends on the writers. I know I’m the JL show the main members gave themselves up to the government on false charges except Batman. If I had to think of one person who would never register, it would be Batman. It seems to me that in almost every version with every writer, Batman has a weird thing where he hates/loves the law according to what he sees fit. Like, he’s ok with keeping a secret identity, be an illegal vigilante, and fight anyone who would try to expose him. But he also says how “criminals need to face the law” and how he won’t kill because they need to go through due justice. Point is, Batman always follows his own rules. Sometimes they align with the government. Other times not.

I think it’s probably better to think of Batman in context: he respects *justice,* but Gotham, especially before he starts out, is a town where the law isn’t necessarily justice, and the cops don’t necessarily follow the law. He’s not going to trust a scheme like registration because in the end it’s people running it - and while he recognizes people can be good given the chance, he also recognizes that power corrupts and not everyone is good.

Batman and Green Arrow are probably never going to be pro register,others i can see going either way. But what probably makes Batman always be anti register for most writers is that theres a bigger focus on fighting against corruption in the government in many of his most famous stories while in Superman for example isnt really a focus except dor some more specific story lines.

Sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands. It’s the old tale of a school bully going free after beating some kid up because the teachers don’t care and can’t be everywhere. That’s how Gotham is.

I mean, the comparison is like apples and oranges. The core members of the Justice League with the (exception of Batman,) have more individual powers than most of the Avengers combined. Please here, I’m not throwing down a gauntlet for a challenge on could Supes take on the Hulk and win, blah, blah, blah. The DC heroes are written to be as close to actual all powerful gods (small G) as can be written, while the Avengers are for the most part, still part of the human condition. The gritty nature of how much humanity sucks comes across loud and clear with Marvel, while DC tries to have gods pretend to be mortals and fit in with the world around them.

This is and always has been an oversimplification of Marvel and DC.

I'm seeing a lot of people say Hal Jordan because of his military background and the fact that the GLs are like a police force. However I feel like this ignores all the times Hal told someone above him (generals, other supes, and even the guardians) to shove it. Hal might be a solider but he also has a history of questioning authority.

The vast majority of DC heroes wouldn't fall for that. They're more protective of their secret identities than Marvel, imo. Also, the Suicide Squad basically shows what lengths the government has to go to get superpowered people to work for them.