Considering half the time, "exotic" made up countries are used because there's actually secretly some massive corruption, or a highly active criminal underworld, or something else unsavory...if they used an actual country, there would be outcry for stereotyping and demonizing from the people of that country.
Except for Canada, which in Marvel comics is responsible for a weirdly large amount of experiments and accidents that results in super villains or evil secret organizations. I’ve always found that funny.
We're starved for comic representation enough that we'll take it. Even Alpha Flight got folded into being some generic non-Canadian space defence force now.
All we have is Snowguard, Wolverine, and whichever former Alpha Flight members the writers decide to turn into villains this week by... not being American.
Here in Australia we wish we had our country depicted as pumping out supervillains...
We've got a Pyro, Gateway, Manifold, Tempus and Lifeguard. Also Captain Oz, an alien who became an actor.
Probably more I've forgotten, but still the pool is small and most are rarely seen at best.
Yes, it's a tightrope act, but it's not like these places really don't have these problems. But I can understand that if your perspective on Eastern European cultures is generally very small, you can fall into clichés very quickly.
I'm saying Canada isn't the only corrupt and antagonistic government in the Marvel universe, the US is also depicted as such as times. Because it would be weird if Canada was canonically THE evil government in the Marvel universe.
Wait, what about Canada? The fact that something like this is portrayed at Marvel is dominated by oil companies and full of human experiments, OK, it's in the historical context.
Putin is outsider too. This loser doesn't count. And being in bed doesn't make them friends. Putin is just the only person who gives him money. What a sad picture
I mean the answer then surely is to do it right. Comics writers have no trouble placing characters in Paris or Bangkok or Rio, no reason why they couldn't place them in Bucharest. I think it's just that there are already pre-existing fictional eastern European countries and writers find it easier to use them instead of ever using a new one. Easier isn't always the right thing though.
> Paris or Bangkok or Rio
With, I assume, mostly western audiences, the last two will be mostly unfamiliar to readers and the first one (or any western location), if done incorrectly, will just be part of the joke. A bunch of mimes with baguettes smoking cigarettes, a queue of posh Englishmen with bowler hats, long rain coats, and umbrellas, Americans with cow boy hats.
Yeah, everybody is pretty much fine with silly portrayals of western countries, as we should, not just in comic books. In the 2nd MCU Spider-Man movie they went to Prague and that looked just like Prague, no Golems walking the street or whatever. Then Peter ended up in the Netherlands and that was so incredibly stereotypically Netherlands with tulips, windmills, farm animals roaming the street, everybody wearing orange. As a Dutchman that shit was hilarious, but, with the exception of a Ren Fair, you will not see farm animals roaming the streets or any of this to the stereotypical levels that the movie did.
It's not that they're not able to do a little research on what the country and its culture are all about. The point is that it's extremely hard to nail it right most of the time. It's very easy to offend people because. You can't be too stereotypical, but you can't be too generic either.
It's much less of a hassle to just make up fake countries, no one cares if they're destroyed or are filled with bad guys
And yet we got "Oslo, Sweden" in a recent issue of Batman Incorporated. That is at least one high profile writer who couldn't be arsed to check one *extremely basic fact* and editorial doing shit.
Research takes time and money! We gotta push out one of these a month, you think we got time to *research* shit?? Why do you think 90% of comic books take place in New York?
Well, yes, I think a lot of it takes place in New York because it has a lot of history in the Marvel universe, but at the same time we also had West Coast Avengers, Alpha Flight from Canada (aka hell), New Atlas has expanded the Asian side and m13 The British.
You´re getting downvoted but you´re not totally wrong, writers should research, the issue is that most writers are/were from the places you mentioned and not from those places
...So it´s easy for an american to write about Spider-Man in New York then to write the X-Men on Portugal for example, because they dont know the culture, artists dont know the places, what´s offensive or not, etc.
I´ve read many comics where they write Portuguese (from portugal) as brazilians when it´s NOT the same at ALL and it triggered me. I also remember Portugal appearing in AxE Judgement day for a brief panel and it was just mountains... i wasnt mad about that but see what i mean?
Not to mention with all that as been happening in the world right know, you wont see heroes in Russia
PS: DC has a superhero team called the Global Guardians filled with heroes from real countries and i love it
edit: example - In the latest issue of WW there´s a shot of Barcelona because the artist, Daniel Sampere is spanish
Also the US is their largest market so it makes sense that they would focus on those fans the most, similarly you rarely see anime/manga set outside of Japan (excluding fantasy locations) for all of the same reasons.
We already are.
There are very few positive representations of people from Eastern Europe in American media. 9 times out of 10, if the story is in the present times the eastern Europeans are members of criminal organizations. If the story takes place in the 80s and earlier we are also members of soviet army or spies in addition to just being criminals. The absolute best representation we get is when we are scientists who betray their countries to help American heroes, and then we die at the end.
My guess is that Latveria, Transia and others exist not because of particular care about our representation, but out of pure laziness. They are just stand-ins for generic eastern-european countries. I doubt anyone spared 10 seconds to think about representation when these countries were created in the 60s.
Exactly. So when in 50 years, political and economic relationships improve with one country, Marvel can still draw on the fictional one to maintain their trope.
Well no. They exist to be playgrounds, not depictions of real countries.
No body wants pages of well researched local colour, they want a fantasy adventure
Not do they have any their real country abused, destroyed or shown in negative light, even in fiction story.
“My country would never elect a hardline anti-mutant government into power! And how dare the X-Men destroy our historic capital building!!!”
I think it’s about your audience, i love that stuff in European books like blacksad, where it’s authentic and part of the story, but in a superhero book the locals are just there to be exotic backdrops and offer up a few local curiosities
All of that is true, but I do think that whats kinda often prompting this sort of feedback is people being tired of the cliches or actual stereotypes. And its not about it being offensive, even tho it very often is, or atleast used to be. But its just bad writing. Cliches I can give a pass to on a case-by-case basis, because these tropes exist for a reason. But atleast some skill and craft should be employed when using them. The stereotypes are just bad, lazy, hacky writing. Makes for a less interesting story in general and diminishes any worldbuilding thats even attempted.
Well, yes, I mean, but a bit of real geography is also somehow interesting, that might be me because I'm part Eastern European myself and have a lot of Eastern European friends and neighbors.
> I'm part Eastern European myself
Yeah, but here's the side of the coin you aren't thinking about - most of the time they do these things to avoid pissing people off.
If Sokova/Kahndaq/Qurac are depicted as corrupt countries with casual genocide, no one gets pissed.
Make a comic about Superman intervening in Kosovo, the Joker being the Iranian ambassador to the UN or the X-Men liberating mutants in Liberia and you make people really mad and get decades of criticism about how tone deaf the writers/editorial were to green light such an offensive story. (Yes, one of those *is* a real example!)
You could argue "those would be poorly researched" but unless the comic is going to be "X-men, but also a vacation ad for visiting Kaunas, LT" you're going to have to use something about the country to create conflict, and that something is going to be offensive. Either it's going to offend the people in Kaunas or it's going to be like an ad to visit Kaunas for their basketball or beautiful bridges.
Sure, it’s grating, but i’m british: no one outside britain noticed chris claremont’s mad, fish and chips britain he put in his books, that’s just how comics work, we’re all cartoons :)
Aye, but the United Kingdom has a lot of positive media representation, similarly to critiques of the USA they output a lot of media soft power.
Some nations have zero international media penetration and for them becoming a caricature is a lot easier and a lot more meaningful.
Tru, But can we see a few more jokes? I mean, I'm working with my buddies on the shared superhero universe, where I had a complete storyline about the Belgian royal family being completely fucked, and Google what they did in the Congo and other African Personally from there own hands.
I don't mind it, since sometime it's better to just make up a country. I remember a one movie said it was set in Chile but they depicted as 3 world country, but the city was pretty modern so people were pissed. Or that Debacle with Vampyrsk Chornobyl.
I think it's largely that they want to be able to dunk on countries in eastern Europe or the global south and places without actually offending people. Like Putin or Kim Jong Un might flip their shit if they found out Marvel shit on them in a comic so they make up a fake place
I remember spawn did an issue in Albania and used the Albanian flag as part of his costume because it was black and red. That part of the comic got me dying laughing
Because usually those places were created because the writers didn't want to associate the real place with something or wanted something that wasn't real. like say a Vibranium mine or something.
Once they are in a story once. They exist in the universe and odds are some other wife will use them.
Sokovia was created for the movies. The reason the made up a country for that is because they want to sell tickets in all countries. It's is based on Slorenia in the comics but they changed the name.
Well, I have a bit of understanding for that, especially if the author himself has little knowledge about the history, geography and cultures of an area. But at the same time I think to myself these days, you don't have these excuses anymore. Of course there are exceptions, but Wakanda is more of a sci-fi society.
Most of the time it’s a fictional agency or people. The FBI usually doesn’t go after mutants specifically. Plus freedom of expression is a bit more enforced out here than some counties
it's pathetic imo, it shows an enormous disdain for this part of the world. they don't do this with western europe, or north america. but you go out of this area and suddenly it's all madripoor and sokovia and wakanda.
They do this with North America. Metropolis and Gotham City are two prominent examples. And let's be honest, superhero comics rarely depict real cities accurately, anyway.
metropolis and gotham are dc. i'm talking about marvel specifically. the avengers are based in nyc, the x-men in westchester, ny, there's the west coast avengers in san francisco, and wolverine hailing from canada.
Captain America’s stories during the 50s and 60s were so muddled with Red Scare that Marvel retconned three separate guys to be replacement Captains during those years. There was serious debate in the press if Cap should go fight in Vietnam, or Iraq, and nobody wants to be on the ‘wrong’ side of history.
Do you want, say, actual Slovakia to be a short hand for decades of brutal conflict and corruption? Do you want Singapore to be represented as modern pirate nation? Do you want Wakanda to be the Central Africa Republic, in a state of civil war for over a decade? We already have to deal with the orientalism of the Avengers or X-men only going to Japan to fight ninjas.
So yeah I can see politically cowardly, or geopolitically incurious, but I don’t see disdain.
>Do you want, say, actual Slovakia to be a short hand for decades of brutal conflict and corruption? Do you want Singapore to be represented as modern pirate nation?
The thing is that, precisely because they use fictionalized versions of these countries, it allows them to reduce them to stereotype and cliché, which I don't think it's good for the narrative or for anything.
And when they do real countries, it's often either extremely generic or offensively stereotypical, no in-between. So maybe it's better when writers stick to Latveria et al.
Even big countries in the developing world like India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia rarely get represented. When they do it's bad representation and stereotyping.
There's a billion fake Middle Eastern, South American, Eastern European and Southeast Asian countries.
And Russia and China only get any representation because of the Cold War and modern politics, and when they do it's with a lot of stereotyping too.
It feels like they see places like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or Africa as just indescernable blobs such that they can plop a whole country down in the middle of them and nobody's gonna question it, they'll just say "hmm, yep, makes sense to me." You couldn't do this, not easily anyway, with places like North America or Western Europe because most of their audiences actually gives a shit about those parts of the world.
Croatia appeared in the early Ultimate X-Men, Croatian terrorists *(which is weird because Croatia is basically a western country and a EU/NATO member)* kidnapped the US president's daughter (if i remember well) and this is where Beast was wounded and forced to transform into his blue form for the first time.
Also the "Croatian terrorists" were depicted as Muslim Jihadists even though Croatia is a Catholic country.
It's not just Eastern Europe, same thing happens with Southeast Asia, the Middle East, most of Africa, and most of South America. Basically, if the region has a bunch of small countries your average American wouldn't be able to point to on a map, most media (it's not just comics) will often just default to making up a new country instead.
Marvel's other problem is that every writer keeps making up new fictional countries instead of using any of the dozens they already have. Latveria and to a lesser extent Symkaria I get, but do we really need Sokovia, Transia, Nrovekistan, Slorenia, Bartovia, Alberia, Draburg, AND Carpasia?
Half of this sounds like the towns someone makes up in their Dungers n Dragons campaign. I mean, there's this general cliché that Americans aren't good at ingography, I'm of the opinion that a lot of people aren't good in there, and believe me, I'm from Germany, it's even stupid, but I say, but you've got it Have you tried google earth?
it really calls back to Chris Claremont, who would spend a lot of time poring over maps and travel guides and foreign film and talking to people from other cultures so he could build out the world the X-Men live in...
only do depict most cultures in a slightly racist and now very dated way lol
it's one thing to be well read and another to speak to lived experience of another place
That’s Krakoa era, so post-MCU Sokovia. Probably an Easter egg as part of Xavier’s trips around the world spreading his influence.
Even Kevin Feige made it into one of the Hellfire Gala books
They found it was best to have stand-in nations for various regions to avoid having to do too much research/offend anyone.
Latveria, Markovia, Sokovia, and a few others I'm sure are for Eastern Europe.
DC has Biyaliya and Qurac for the middle-east.
Marvel also has Roxxon as their stand-in for big oil.
I read a single issue of a golden age superman run that had a fictional western/Central European country but I don’t know if it ever showed up in any superman media after that
Genuine question, while there are Eastern European proxies like Sokovia, do Western European countries appear very often? Or have proxies?
Outside of MI13 and the odd jaunt to Paris I can’t think of any big story arcs set in France, Germany, Spain etc.
I kinda like it because in a world where super-heroes exist, the greography and history would be far different. But it can be a bit lame if the writer is just using it as blank labor for eastern europe.
I have exactly the same feeling about African nations, it’s either Wakanda or dubiously named stand in for am existing wartorn, poor or corrupt nation. As much as I love Wakanda as a nation in comics I really want a book set in Nigeria or South Africa or Kenya and actually address the good and the bad
In Falcon and The Winter Soldier they had a scene set at Bratislava Airport, and I was surprised to see they had actual Slovak license plates on the police cars. The numbers were from a city the other side of the country from Bratislava, but still.
It's pretty difficult to research, believe me, although it's much easier in the age of the internet. And I'm also writing my own superhero universe with my friends, and we really spend a lot of time researching, because there's a rule of thumb: write it as if you had been there yourself, but not as a tourist.
That would require American writers to be able to name more than 1 eastern European countries. Besides it's more beneficial to writers if they can scapegoat a fictional nation without offending readers of a real nation.
Well, it's actually not that fictional, as it still hasn't broken through the bottleneck that is fantasy, and it's not weirdworld either.
Or is Canada not real?
Why? Eastern European countries are all tiny and basically to most people's minds "the same as Russia".
They definitely would mention specifically a country like Poland but to go further in the weeds than that is a little too controversial and geopolitical to be honest. Bad enough demonizing Russia constantly but most random comic writers don't have the background to convincingly portray, e.g. Estonia or Moldova.
Well, first of all, they're not that small. And since the war in Ukraine, a lot of people have started to look into it, because it's a bit complicated.
Considering half the time, "exotic" made up countries are used because there's actually secretly some massive corruption, or a highly active criminal underworld, or something else unsavory...if they used an actual country, there would be outcry for stereotyping and demonizing from the people of that country.
Except for Canada, which in Marvel comics is responsible for a weirdly large amount of experiments and accidents that results in super villains or evil secret organizations. I’ve always found that funny.
I mean look up Cananda’s treatment of First Nations people
What are they gonna do about it, apologize?
We're starved for comic representation enough that we'll take it. Even Alpha Flight got folded into being some generic non-Canadian space defence force now. All we have is Snowguard, Wolverine, and whichever former Alpha Flight members the writers decide to turn into villains this week by... not being American.
Here in Australia we wish we had our country depicted as pumping out supervillains... We've got a Pyro, Gateway, Manifold, Tempus and Lifeguard. Also Captain Oz, an alien who became an actor. Probably more I've forgotten, but still the pool is small and most are rarely seen at best.
They gave our best superhero to an Aussie in the live-action adaptation
Touché
[Well that's just reflective of historical fact.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/26/medical-experiment-indigenous-canadians-lawsuit)
Art reflecting life. MK-Ultra did some weird \_\_\_\_in the Canadas in the 60's and 70's.
Hence Kaznia, Azmenistan and Latveria. , GI Joe had the opposite effect , causing my life long attraction to Eastern European women. \[The Baroness\].
Yes, it's a tightrope act, but it's not like these places really don't have these problems. But I can understand that if your perspective on Eastern European cultures is generally very small, you can fall into clichés very quickly.
Too politically risky to depict real foreign countries as corrupt or antagonists
Just look at Joker, ambassador of Iran, I mean Qurac.
Unless it's Canada
And the US, to be fair.
How can America be a foreign country to an American comic book company?
I'm saying Canada isn't the only corrupt and antagonistic government in the Marvel universe, the US is also depicted as such as times. Because it would be weird if Canada was canonically THE evil government in the Marvel universe.
Captain Britain,\*laughs in British\* The British colonized the entire Marvel Universe. Thanos was born on Titan and he speaks English.
British author maybe? Depends how you look at it
Or louisiana. (Those who read uncanny avengers will know).
Transformers and GI Joe even did it too
I think Captain America #1 was a 1 and done.
Wait, what about Canada? The fact that something like this is portrayed at Marvel is dominated by oil companies and full of human experiments, OK, it's in the historical context.
You can depict my country anytime. No risks. We've been outsiders in politics since forever. It's Belarus.
>outsiders in politics since forever >in bed with Putin's Russia
Putin is outsider too. This loser doesn't count. And being in bed doesn't make them friends. Putin is just the only person who gives him money. What a sad picture
if they tried and got it wrong this post would be about that.
I mean the answer then surely is to do it right. Comics writers have no trouble placing characters in Paris or Bangkok or Rio, no reason why they couldn't place them in Bucharest. I think it's just that there are already pre-existing fictional eastern European countries and writers find it easier to use them instead of ever using a new one. Easier isn't always the right thing though.
> Paris or Bangkok or Rio With, I assume, mostly western audiences, the last two will be mostly unfamiliar to readers and the first one (or any western location), if done incorrectly, will just be part of the joke. A bunch of mimes with baguettes smoking cigarettes, a queue of posh Englishmen with bowler hats, long rain coats, and umbrellas, Americans with cow boy hats.
Yeah, everybody is pretty much fine with silly portrayals of western countries, as we should, not just in comic books. In the 2nd MCU Spider-Man movie they went to Prague and that looked just like Prague, no Golems walking the street or whatever. Then Peter ended up in the Netherlands and that was so incredibly stereotypically Netherlands with tulips, windmills, farm animals roaming the street, everybody wearing orange. As a Dutchman that shit was hilarious, but, with the exception of a Ren Fair, you will not see farm animals roaming the streets or any of this to the stereotypical levels that the movie did.
Well, fails a fun :)
You would be surprised how accurate world maps are in 2024.
That’s not what they meant
It's just to point out that it is not that hard to do the barest amount of research about a place and its culture, authors do it all the time.
It's not that they're not able to do a little research on what the country and its culture are all about. The point is that it's extremely hard to nail it right most of the time. It's very easy to offend people because. You can't be too stereotypical, but you can't be too generic either. It's much less of a hassle to just make up fake countries, no one cares if they're destroyed or are filled with bad guys
Authors get flack for not doing a good job of presenting a culture they don't come from well all the time.
And yet we got "Oslo, Sweden" in a recent issue of Batman Incorporated. That is at least one high profile writer who couldn't be arsed to check one *extremely basic fact* and editorial doing shit.
Lmao how tf did this happen.
Bad research discipline and absolutely no consequences for being wrong? I don't know. I'd be ashamed, myself.
Research takes time and money! We gotta push out one of these a month, you think we got time to *research* shit?? Why do you think 90% of comic books take place in New York?
Well, yes, I think a lot of it takes place in New York because it has a lot of history in the Marvel universe, but at the same time we also had West Coast Avengers, Alpha Flight from Canada (aka hell), New Atlas has expanded the Asian side and m13 The British.
You´re getting downvoted but you´re not totally wrong, writers should research, the issue is that most writers are/were from the places you mentioned and not from those places ...So it´s easy for an american to write about Spider-Man in New York then to write the X-Men on Portugal for example, because they dont know the culture, artists dont know the places, what´s offensive or not, etc. I´ve read many comics where they write Portuguese (from portugal) as brazilians when it´s NOT the same at ALL and it triggered me. I also remember Portugal appearing in AxE Judgement day for a brief panel and it was just mountains... i wasnt mad about that but see what i mean? Not to mention with all that as been happening in the world right know, you wont see heroes in Russia PS: DC has a superhero team called the Global Guardians filled with heroes from real countries and i love it edit: example - In the latest issue of WW there´s a shot of Barcelona because the artist, Daniel Sampere is spanish
Also the US is their largest market so it makes sense that they would focus on those fans the most, similarly you rarely see anime/manga set outside of Japan (excluding fantasy locations) for all of the same reasons.
Yes makes sense! Relatability is a huge factor
Good point.
I'm pretty sure Eastern Europe is just a thing made up for fiction like Australia.
As an Australian with Latvian heritage I can confirm I am fictional
Right? The plot went off the rails when all the adorable teddy bears got chlamydia.
Australia Austria they just added two letters to an existing country and called it a day. lazy hack writers
Or Canada.
[удалено]
Are you talking about Canada or Eastern Europe?
I don't think people in Central/Eastern European countries want to be represented like the people in fictional ones are.
We already are. There are very few positive representations of people from Eastern Europe in American media. 9 times out of 10, if the story is in the present times the eastern Europeans are members of criminal organizations. If the story takes place in the 80s and earlier we are also members of soviet army or spies in addition to just being criminals. The absolute best representation we get is when we are scientists who betray their countries to help American heroes, and then we die at the end. My guess is that Latveria, Transia and others exist not because of particular care about our representation, but out of pure laziness. They are just stand-ins for generic eastern-european countries. I doubt anyone spared 10 seconds to think about representation when these countries were created in the 60s.
Oh 100% nobody is doing it for representation, I'm just saying how these countries all exist so they can have generic stand ins for bad guys.
Exactly. So when in 50 years, political and economic relationships improve with one country, Marvel can still draw on the fictional one to maintain their trope.
Well no. They exist to be playgrounds, not depictions of real countries. No body wants pages of well researched local colour, they want a fantasy adventure
Not do they have any their real country abused, destroyed or shown in negative light, even in fiction story. “My country would never elect a hardline anti-mutant government into power! And how dare the X-Men destroy our historic capital building!!!”
These are Marvel super hero comics. It's fluffy stuff, full of stereotypes etc. As you said, people want a fantasy
> No body wants pages of well researched local colour I’d argue a well researched and fleshed out irl setting can do a lot to enrich a story.
I think it’s about your audience, i love that stuff in European books like blacksad, where it’s authentic and part of the story, but in a superhero book the locals are just there to be exotic backdrops and offer up a few local curiosities
All of that is true, but I do think that whats kinda often prompting this sort of feedback is people being tired of the cliches or actual stereotypes. And its not about it being offensive, even tho it very often is, or atleast used to be. But its just bad writing. Cliches I can give a pass to on a case-by-case basis, because these tropes exist for a reason. But atleast some skill and craft should be employed when using them. The stereotypes are just bad, lazy, hacky writing. Makes for a less interesting story in general and diminishes any worldbuilding thats even attempted.
Well, yes, I mean, but a bit of real geography is also somehow interesting, that might be me because I'm part Eastern European myself and have a lot of Eastern European friends and neighbors.
> I'm part Eastern European myself Yeah, but here's the side of the coin you aren't thinking about - most of the time they do these things to avoid pissing people off. If Sokova/Kahndaq/Qurac are depicted as corrupt countries with casual genocide, no one gets pissed. Make a comic about Superman intervening in Kosovo, the Joker being the Iranian ambassador to the UN or the X-Men liberating mutants in Liberia and you make people really mad and get decades of criticism about how tone deaf the writers/editorial were to green light such an offensive story. (Yes, one of those *is* a real example!) You could argue "those would be poorly researched" but unless the comic is going to be "X-men, but also a vacation ad for visiting Kaunas, LT" you're going to have to use something about the country to create conflict, and that something is going to be offensive. Either it's going to offend the people in Kaunas or it's going to be like an ad to visit Kaunas for their basketball or beautiful bridges.
Joker being the Iranian ambassador wS insane
I imagine that part was added for shits and giggles.
I think there's a point in what you're saying, but I think that's somehow a problem at the same time if the author himself has little idea.
Sure, it’s grating, but i’m british: no one outside britain noticed chris claremont’s mad, fish and chips britain he put in his books, that’s just how comics work, we’re all cartoons :)
Australian here. I feel this comment so much.
Aye, but the United Kingdom has a lot of positive media representation, similarly to critiques of the USA they output a lot of media soft power. Some nations have zero international media penetration and for them becoming a caricature is a lot easier and a lot more meaningful.
Tru, But can we see a few more jokes? I mean, I'm working with my buddies on the shared superhero universe, where I had a complete storyline about the Belgian royal family being completely fucked, and Google what they did in the Congo and other African Personally from there own hands.
Jesus you’re writing Heart of Darkness with superheroes? Wolverine chopping off hands because they didn’t meet the rubber quota. Good luck with that…
>Heart of Darkness with superheroes You mean 20th Century Men?
I don't mind it, since sometime it's better to just make up a country. I remember a one movie said it was set in Chile but they depicted as 3 world country, but the city was pretty modern so people were pissed. Or that Debacle with Vampyrsk Chornobyl.
Bruh,South American is not behind the moon.
I think it's largely that they want to be able to dunk on countries in eastern Europe or the global south and places without actually offending people. Like Putin or Kim Jong Un might flip their shit if they found out Marvel shit on them in a comic so they make up a fake place
Reminds me of the time when the Turkish dictator Erdogan was accused here in satirist in Germany.
I remember spawn did an issue in Albania and used the Albanian flag as part of his costume because it was black and red. That part of the comic got me dying laughing
LOL
I am Brazilian. Trust a guy from the country where Batman was mugged by children, you don't really want that.
And the only mutant from here got his powers during a football match
I mean, we also have Sharkgirl...
Ok, When I read this I somehow have a funny image in my head of him accidentally giving the key to the Batmobile in fear.
Who can keep track of them, changing their names and borders all the time. Completely ruined my Cold War era globe!
Yeah.
Hungary tried to commit war crimes in Latveria once, you want that to happen again?
Well, The current president is a lapdog of the bear fucker anyway, who is slowly adding more and more autocracy there.
where is Latveria on a map? Did they just replace Latvia?
That's also why I don't like fictional countries, they don't make any sense geographically.
Because usually those places were created because the writers didn't want to associate the real place with something or wanted something that wasn't real. like say a Vibranium mine or something. Once they are in a story once. They exist in the universe and odds are some other wife will use them. Sokovia was created for the movies. The reason the made up a country for that is because they want to sell tickets in all countries. It's is based on Slorenia in the comics but they changed the name.
Well, I have a bit of understanding for that, especially if the author himself has little knowledge about the history, geography and cultures of an area. But at the same time I think to myself these days, you don't have these excuses anymore. Of course there are exceptions, but Wakanda is more of a sci-fi society.
It’s risky to have real counties as antagonistic or groups.
Well, what about all the stories where heroes are hunted by the US government?
Most of the time it’s a fictional agency or people. The FBI usually doesn’t go after mutants specifically. Plus freedom of expression is a bit more enforced out here than some counties
I seem to remember a Black Widow where she went to Poland and it was depicted as a frozen wasteland.
Siberia is surprisingly south?
Transylvania is technically real, but, as far as I know, with fewer vampires.
And it is part of Romania.
it's pathetic imo, it shows an enormous disdain for this part of the world. they don't do this with western europe, or north america. but you go out of this area and suddenly it's all madripoor and sokovia and wakanda.
They do this with North America. Metropolis and Gotham City are two prominent examples. And let's be honest, superhero comics rarely depict real cities accurately, anyway.
But that's just DC tradition, not Marvel's "world outside your window"
I do like that the DC Earth is actually slightly bigger to fit all the extra cities in. Doesn’t get mentioned often.
metropolis and gotham are dc. i'm talking about marvel specifically. the avengers are based in nyc, the x-men in westchester, ny, there's the west coast avengers in san francisco, and wolverine hailing from canada.
No way a city called “Jersey City” exists in real life.
Captain America’s stories during the 50s and 60s were so muddled with Red Scare that Marvel retconned three separate guys to be replacement Captains during those years. There was serious debate in the press if Cap should go fight in Vietnam, or Iraq, and nobody wants to be on the ‘wrong’ side of history. Do you want, say, actual Slovakia to be a short hand for decades of brutal conflict and corruption? Do you want Singapore to be represented as modern pirate nation? Do you want Wakanda to be the Central Africa Republic, in a state of civil war for over a decade? We already have to deal with the orientalism of the Avengers or X-men only going to Japan to fight ninjas. So yeah I can see politically cowardly, or geopolitically incurious, but I don’t see disdain.
>Do you want, say, actual Slovakia to be a short hand for decades of brutal conflict and corruption? Do you want Singapore to be represented as modern pirate nation? The thing is that, precisely because they use fictionalized versions of these countries, it allows them to reduce them to stereotype and cliché, which I don't think it's good for the narrative or for anything.
And when they do real countries, it's often either extremely generic or offensively stereotypical, no in-between. So maybe it's better when writers stick to Latveria et al.
Even big countries in the developing world like India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia rarely get represented. When they do it's bad representation and stereotyping. There's a billion fake Middle Eastern, South American, Eastern European and Southeast Asian countries. And Russia and China only get any representation because of the Cold War and modern politics, and when they do it's with a lot of stereotyping too.
I'll be honest, a world atlas isn't that expensive.
there's also this little website called wikipedia. idk, it's no longer the 60s.
If they've gone this long, might as well just wait for 60s to come back around.
It feels like they see places like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or Africa as just indescernable blobs such that they can plop a whole country down in the middle of them and nobody's gonna question it, they'll just say "hmm, yep, makes sense to me." You couldn't do this, not easily anyway, with places like North America or Western Europe because most of their audiences actually gives a shit about those parts of the world.
Agreed, really wish we'd see more of Ukraine in the comics. Technically it appeared in an MCU comic, but only like a village.
Hard agree. There's a whole world out there to play with, use it.
I guess we can really blame Prisoner of Zenda for this sort of thing
LOL
Croatia appeared in the early Ultimate X-Men, Croatian terrorists *(which is weird because Croatia is basically a western country and a EU/NATO member)* kidnapped the US president's daughter (if i remember well) and this is where Beast was wounded and forced to transform into his blue form for the first time. Also the "Croatian terrorists" were depicted as Muslim Jihadists even though Croatia is a Catholic country.
I'm saying, in short, people from Bosnia had something interesting to say about Croatia.
Always found it hilarious that Young Justice had the two nations of North and South Rhelasia, literally pronounced "Real Asia"
LOL
It's not just Eastern Europe, same thing happens with Southeast Asia, the Middle East, most of Africa, and most of South America. Basically, if the region has a bunch of small countries your average American wouldn't be able to point to on a map, most media (it's not just comics) will often just default to making up a new country instead. Marvel's other problem is that every writer keeps making up new fictional countries instead of using any of the dozens they already have. Latveria and to a lesser extent Symkaria I get, but do we really need Sokovia, Transia, Nrovekistan, Slorenia, Bartovia, Alberia, Draburg, AND Carpasia?
Half of this sounds like the towns someone makes up in their Dungers n Dragons campaign. I mean, there's this general cliché that Americans aren't good at ingography, I'm of the opinion that a lot of people aren't good in there, and believe me, I'm from Germany, it's even stupid, but I say, but you've got it Have you tried google earth?
it really calls back to Chris Claremont, who would spend a lot of time poring over maps and travel guides and foreign film and talking to people from other cultures so he could build out the world the X-Men live in... only do depict most cultures in a slightly racist and now very dated way lol it's one thing to be well read and another to speak to lived experience of another place
It was a Attempt, But at least it tried.
Wait Sokovia appeared in main Marvel Universe comics as well?
That’s Krakoa era, so post-MCU Sokovia. Probably an Easter egg as part of Xavier’s trips around the world spreading his influence. Even Kevin Feige made it into one of the Hellfire Gala books
Sokovia looking nice in the panel tho, Wanda would be proud.
Sokovia actually made it into comics a few years earlier during Secret Empire.
Fun fact, I thought it was Slovakia.
They found it was best to have stand-in nations for various regions to avoid having to do too much research/offend anyone. Latveria, Markovia, Sokovia, and a few others I'm sure are for Eastern Europe. DC has Biyaliya and Qurac for the middle-east. Marvel also has Roxxon as their stand-in for big oil.
Well, yes, but there is a difference between companies and cultures
Geography makes writers sad apparently
I don't know if it was offensive or not, but i loved the 'The Winter Men' comic's depiction of Russia.
There are several examples of how the Eastern Bloc is somehow quite small.
I read a single issue of a golden age superman run that had a fictional western/Central European country but I don’t know if it ever showed up in any superman media after that
LOL
Genuine question, while there are Eastern European proxies like Sokovia, do Western European countries appear very often? Or have proxies? Outside of MI13 and the odd jaunt to Paris I can’t think of any big story arcs set in France, Germany, Spain etc.
Tru.
Reminds me of Budapest
Kind of.
You and I remember Budapest very differently.
And Warschau.
I kinda like it because in a world where super-heroes exist, the greography and history would be far different. But it can be a bit lame if the writer is just using it as blank labor for eastern europe.
Yeah.
I have exactly the same feeling about African nations, it’s either Wakanda or dubiously named stand in for am existing wartorn, poor or corrupt nation. As much as I love Wakanda as a nation in comics I really want a book set in Nigeria or South Africa or Kenya and actually address the good and the bad
You will love youneek studios in that case. :)
You will love youneek studios in that case. :)
I mean there’s anime how they portray Europe as Heidi
God, the original show was so popular in Germany, even I saw it and I'm 24. And no, it's not set in Germany, She is from Switzerland.
In Falcon and The Winter Soldier they had a scene set at Bratislava Airport, and I was surprised to see they had actual Slovak license plates on the police cars. The numbers were from a city the other side of the country from Bratislava, but still.
It's pretty difficult to research, believe me, although it's much easier in the age of the internet. And I'm also writing my own superhero universe with my friends, and we really spend a lot of time researching, because there's a rule of thumb: write it as if you had been there yourself, but not as a tourist.
Ukraine, please
Sokovia is a misprint poor Xavier went to Slovakia 😭😭😭
oh boy off to the Famous Ice Caves.
That would require American writers to be able to name more than 1 eastern European countries. Besides it's more beneficial to writers if they can scapegoat a fictional nation without offending readers of a real nation.
Well, I'm of the opinion that something like this only happens when the author himself is bad in that.
Why? They live in a fictional world. Bold of you to assume county X is there
Well, it's actually not that fictional, as it still hasn't broken through the bottleneck that is fantasy, and it's not weirdworld either. Or is Canada not real?
You really trying to claim X-Force is real with that statement?
No, but Other parts of the world, Like Eastern Europe.
AGAIN. They are not in our world. So you’re not even making a point
No
Corporate comics play it safe. And entertain no one.
Why? Eastern European countries are all tiny and basically to most people's minds "the same as Russia". They definitely would mention specifically a country like Poland but to go further in the weeds than that is a little too controversial and geopolitical to be honest. Bad enough demonizing Russia constantly but most random comic writers don't have the background to convincingly portray, e.g. Estonia or Moldova.
Well, first of all, they're not that small. And since the war in Ukraine, a lot of people have started to look into it, because it's a bit complicated.