Ultimates Annual #2 discussion (spoilers)

Victor Von Doom said:
Sore subject? :lol:
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No, but I was the one who made the whole deal about that image. I don't even like Finch. He's one of E's favourite artists.
 
Willverine said:
Wow. Sounds like it sucks. I'll still buy it, but damn... wish it was better.
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Don't be so pessimistic. It's better than people are giving it credit.
 
ProjectX2 said:
No, but I was the one who made the whole deal about that image.
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This is true.

ProjectX2 said:
He's one of E's favourite artists.
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This is false.

I mean I like him, generally. But not one of my favorites.
 
I really enjoyed this issue. I thought Captain America was portrayed really well here... I loved the flashback issues. I don't think Arnim needed to be fleshed out anymore than he was because he's not really that deep of a character just another maniac in chaotic times with enough intellect to actually cause damage. Loved the art too.

Good stuff.

4/5

As far as "spoiling" anything... I didn't catch on to anything other than a few mentioned survivors but anyone else could be missing or dead. Well done.
 
Meh. This issue blew. And that's a shame, because I was really looking forward to it.

The issue had everything going for it. Nazis. a road trip. two of the more interesting characters in the Ultimates. Nazis. The design for Zola's freak monster was pretty damn cool, and for that matter, the premise of Zola in the first place was cool. It's just a shame the issue sucked so much.

The dialogue was awful. Cap and Falcon's speech read just like stereotypical white guy and stereotypical black guy. There wasn't any interesting banter, and the action scenes were completely flat. It was like a montage of Jerry Bruckheimer's worst action scenes. The transitions between scenes were awkward and jarring. I'm talking particularly about Falcon's little soliloquie about "real heroes" and Cap's jazz club flashbac. They seemed incredibly forced and preachy. "Oh wow! Cap actually DOES like negroes!"

And would it hurt, for once, to have a racist villain who's actually interesting? It's like so many writers are afraid to characterize redneck racists that we just end up with a completely flat, stereotyped character. All we got on the background of these sick ****s is exposition.

And the "White Dust"? Come on, now.... That's just the lamest plot device I've ever heard of. The grand scheme of this twisted, supremacist genius is to turn black people white?

Goddamn... We know The Ultimates can tell some damn good topical stories. The problem with this is, it wasn't an Ultimates story. It was an after school special with Cap and Falcon just drawn in to it. Bad characterization, bad action sequences, bad dialogue, bad plot.

It blew. Here's hoping UXM Annual will pay out.

And there's a HUGE spoiler. For those that were worried, yes, Storm DOES survive the end of Ultimates 2. ;)
 
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I totally agree with Zombiepanda.

It was simply an after school special. AND really...in my humble opinion a man that went from 1945 to 2002 (or so) in the blink of an eye...would be racist. Why? Most white people were then.

Don be PC so much that you're afriad to have a racist hero! Hell he can learn to tolerate! That would be a better story (over time not one issue). And it would be nice to have a little tension between Falcon and Cap.

But yeah, it was feel good, respect everyone after school special. And the plot of turning blacks to whites...I thought someone was joking about that until I read it. What a dumb plot.
 
Foolsfolly said:
AND really...in my humble opinion a man that went from 1945 to 2002 (or so) in the blink of an eye...would be racist. Why? Most white people were then.
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That has been then the big thing that I've wanted Millar to touch on but instead he's brushed it off.

By all rights---Cap should be a little racist. The idea that Fury is running the show shouldn't really sit right with him. I know that not all people were racist but it just seems convenient that Cap wasn't one of them.

But then again, Ultimates has covered a considerable amount of time in their issues. It might've been something that was implied that he dealt with off-screen (or off-page which ever you prefer).
 
Well, Cap did think Fury was one of the German tricks or something, and broke his nose.
 
I think no matter Cap's opinion on Fury's skin color/race Cap respects the hell out of Fury. Fury's laid it all on the line for the team and for Cap. (Ultimates 1 issue 12 comes to mind when Fury appeared to blow Kleiser's head off to help Cap when both Cap and Fury we're out matched).

Still some racial tension between Falcon and Cap would have been great. But we get a PSA instead.
 
Foolsfolly said:
It was simply an after school special. AND really...in my humble opinion a man that went from 1945 to 2002 (or so) in the blink of an eye...would be racist. Why? Most white people were then.
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I don't think it's so cut and clear as whites in 1945 were racists/disrespectful to blacks. Cap was from New York which was a far less racist state than many parts of the country.

My grandfather is from New York, and he would have grown up in the same neighborhoods as Cap and he certainly wasn't a racist then.

When he joined the Navy in 1943, he had to take a bus to Norfolk, Virginia. He got on the bus and the only seat was in the back of the bus. He was headed to the back of the bus when the bus driver stopped him. He grabbed a black man, who was seated in the front, and told him to move to the back. My grandfather protested and said he wouldn't take the man's seat. After arguing for a minute with the bus driver, the black man pleaded with my grandfather to just take the seat. My grandfather said, "No, this isn't right." The black man said, "I know, but if you don't he's going to make me get off the bus too." My grandfather took the seat but was very upset about it. I'm proud of hearing those kinds of stories from him.

I've got a couple more stories like that. I'd post them here, but that'd be going off topic pretty severely. One is about my great-grandfather and a group of Irish catholics beating up a group of KKKrs. Then I've got an assortment of stories about him abusing the southern crewmen on his ship for being racist.
 
Well still the Civil Rights movement didn't pick up steam until the 60s. And even then it wasn't one day race was fine. Hell to this day in the south (I'm in Tennessee) there's racists. I think it's a lot higher possiblity of Cap being racist in the 1940s, 20 years before the civil rights movement.

And if you're showing a part of history you shouldn't **** it up with PC-Rose colored glasses. It's like when my high school was either going to ban Huck Finn or censor it. Because of it's use of the word nigger and the racists understatements. But it was part of the time! If we forget and think that whites and blacks were best of friends that's a greater injustice! You can't say it didn't happen because it might offend.

They missed a great oportunity.
 
MaxwellSmart said:
I don't think it's so cut and clear as whites in 1945 were racists/disrespectful to blacks. Cap was from New York which was a far less racist state than many parts of the country.

My grandfather is from New York, and he would have grown up in the same neighborhoods as Cap and he certainly wasn't a racist then.

When he joined the Navy in 1943, he had to take a bus to Norfolk, Virginia. He got on the bus and the only seat was in the back of the bus. He was headed to the back of the bus when the bus driver stopped him. He grabbed a black man, who was seated in the front, and told him to move to the back. My grandfather protested and said he wouldn't take the man's seat. After arguing for a minute with the bus driver, the black man pleaded with my grandfather to just take the seat. My grandfather said, "No, this isn't right." The black man said, "I know, but if you don't he's going to make me get off the bus too." My grandfather took the seat but was very upset about it. I'm proud of hearing those kinds of stories from him.

I've got a couple more stories like that. I'd post them here, but that'd be going off topic pretty severely. One is about my great-grandfather and a group of Irish catholics beating up a group of KKKrs. Then I've got an assortment of stories about him abusing the southern crewmen on his ship for being racist.
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Make a thread about it. I'd love to hear these stories.
 
hm.... I think we have to delineate two different levels of racism in America before the Civil Rights Movement. I think it's fair to say that the portion of Americans who outright saw African-Americans as an "inferior race" was a minority. Instead, I think a large number of the people opposed to the Civil Rights Movement saw "White America" and "Black America" and just believed combining the two would ruin the integrity of White America.

I think it compares fairly well to the border control issue now. I think Americans who outright hate Mexicans as a race are a tiny portion of the anti-immigrant population. Instead, the majority of pepole who oppose this massive influx of immigrants are worried that these immigrants are going to be a threat to our America. There's a definite "We watch out for our own people" mentality there that has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority.

Naturally, it's not a perfect comparison, and it's obviously racism either way, but I think someone from the second camp who stepped into America and saw that integration happened, and saw that it didn't break America, would grow fairly ambivalent to the integration in a fairly short amount of time.
 
wow for an issue that sucked it sure has sparked some debate
lol

thought it was great though possibly not as good as it could have been
art was excellent at all points and it didn't spoil anything

3.5/5
 
Nah my mother's side of the family lived in Chicago and they all felt that blacks were an inforior race. And they're the nicest people in the world, to anyone. But privately they will talk down about any non-white race. They all lived through the Civil Rights Movement or before it (mom was born during it). They're quite racist and my grandfather always said "The only good nigger is a dead nigger."

Again I must stress publicly they were never mean to any race. These are the kind of people that would help a stranger, but they were racist. As such I had a black nanny for the first...5 years of my life! And they treated her like ****.

I think it's possible Cap could have been too. And it would have made his character more 3D and add some nice tenison for Ultimates 3 since he'll be around Fury, Panther, and Falcon.

Now about the two classes of racism. Maybe. But I think it's more like 3 types.

1- Racists that act out. ie KKK, Neo-Nazi, fundimentalists.
2- Polite, keep to themselves racists. They'll joke about it around their peers but never infront of a race they hate. A LOT OF THESE.
3- Closet case Racist. They don't mean it, they don't know it, but they are racist.

What you said about Mexicans today. That's more of a Xenophobia thing.
 
Foolsfolly said:
What you said about Mexicans today. That's more of a Xenophobia thing.
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Exactly. And I think xenophobia was a large part of the reason the Civil Rights Movement didn't get kicking for a long time. For a lot of people, it was more about a foreign culture and way of life intruding on their sensibilities than it was about a particular race. I grew up in the Deep South, and that definitely seems to be the sensibility with a lot of the older folks here. Although I've heard the word nigger spouted a number of times, it's almost always in the case of a cultural conflict, and I haven't ever heard anyone talk about inferiority unless they're rich, snobbish Southern aristocracy. I have noticed that straight out passive-aggressive racism (and all sorts of other discrimination) seems pretty damn prominent in old, rich families, whereas in a more average or poor family it tends to gravitate towards non-racist normalcy or out and out racist fanaticism.

All I'm saying is, I don't feel like Cap's really characterized badly. I don't really see how making him a racist would particularly help the comic. And I don't think there were just a handful of people in his era who weren't racist. I just feel like most people kept their heads low and out of the issue.
 
I might come off as a biggot for this but right now I'm home (scranton) for the weekend and I absolutely love getting away from the so called "mixed-diversity". Love the variety of culture in Philadelphia but nothing beats being around my own.

On that note when it seems like another culture is "intruding", I can see a non-racist character becoming ticked off.

Ever since moving to Philadelphia I've been dwelling on this topic for a while. I have more thoughts on it but I don't want to put myself at risk here because I'm not sure it will translate well.

I thought Captain America's portrayal was spot on for the time frame he was from. I think it was the panel where the black soldiers came to him and he was just sitting there in silence. Definitely made him more dimensional and a truer symbol of his era.
 
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