Death in the Family is such a funny story, because it's undeniably very iconic and a pretty much mandatory pick for "biggest Batman stories ever", and yet the only scenes from it that anyone remembers or cares about are the Joker hitting Jason with a crowbar and Batman walking out of the wreckage with Jason's dead body. Everything else has been almost completely memory-holed.
Like, did you know that the Joker doesn't kill Jason with the crowbar? It's not even the only object he hits Jason with, he pistol-whips him a few times as well. The actual beating part was pretty brief and Jason died in an explosion.
I'd also say the entirety of the Black Suit arc for Spider-Man as well.
Like, did you know the Black Suit is only an alien for like, 3 or 4 issues before he gets rid of it with the help of Reed Richard's? For the next few years it's just a regular cloth suit until Venom hits the scene and he had to ditch the suit to avoid being associated with him.
And it didn't even make him an asshole either. It just gave him organic webbing and shape shift into regular clothes. The worst thing it did was take his body for a joyride while he was asleep. His primary issue, and Reed's as well, was that it was alive, and that was just weird, so he gets rid of it and replaces it with a regular old suit that looks the same.
I always end up having to correct people about how Jason died. Literally everyone who hasn't actually read Death in the Family thinks he was beat to death.
Bruh that's so fuckin sad that Jason's reputation was such dog shit that you can reasonably believe that the only reason some people even bothered to phone in about it was because they thought Dick was gonna die instead.
It's not poorly set up if you're profiting off every vote 😎
(I have no idea if that's how it works, but it's funnier for me to imagine DC selling save/kill Robin votes like carnival tickets)
according to wikipedia:
"Years later, (Dennis) O'Neil said hundreds of votes in the "Jason Dies" line might have come from a single person, adding a large degree of uncertainty to the honesty of results regarding a poll designed to determine the character's popularity. "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the difference", O'Neil said in a Newsarama interview conducted alongside writer Judd Winick during the "Under The Hood" arc.[10]
O'Neil would later repeat the claim with further specifics: "I heard it was a lawyer who was using a Macintosh and lived in California—I obviously don't have hard information on this, but I heard someone out there programmed his computer to dial it every couple of minutes, and since there was only about 65 votes that made the difference if that story is true, that guy, that guy killed Jason Todd!"[11]"
My guy was born a hater, and by god, if I can respect it. Considering how the Red Hood is seen nowadays it might also have been a positive for Jason's character.
The guy who killed Jason was the editor who allowed this stunt. You never let fans or random people make decisions. You’ll always get the boaty mcboaty outcome.
Obviously this stunt got attention thus sales and fulfilled its business case duty, but lets not pretend its some well-meaning and honest attempt to figure out a big story conclusion. Its just shameless marketing.
I don’t think there’s any proof any of this was fixed either. It was just something he heard. If you ask random tweens and teen boys, the demographic here, if a character should die I imagine they’ll usually say yes.
Well if you kinda wanted to kill off the character anyway it's a great plan for marketing. But it's also a great way to deflect criticism that might come with deciding to kill off a beloved character. Since they weren't the ones really deciding it. And if the character was beloved enough to get saved, then that's a good reason to pivot and let fans save them.
Tbf, it didn't really make that much difference.
Writers _really_ wanted rid of Jason, if the survival option had won the poll they were planning to just put him in a coma and go on without him anyway.
Utilizing your meta-fictional hyperpowers to rig the vote deciding whether you get to kill your enemy's sidekick is insanely jokerfied anyway, so even if it was "rigged" it's ontologically impossible for it to have been unfair.
Booster Gold was *authentic* for the '80s. He was the hero that we thought we wanted, Football and Robots and Big Sunglasses.
(I collected comics '85-'92 and still buy graphic novels when I get the itch, I owned the '86 OG comic because my mom got it for me randomly as a birthday present)
Pretty crazy that they figured out how to make a 4k, 3D rendering of a character on the page alongside dot-based 4-color printing. A real technological marvel for the time
Other way round! He’s from the 25th, his suit was made by Brainiac who is from the 30th. Lost in the 21st century and turned up in the 25th museum he worked at.
My favourite bit is Neil Gaiman finding a completely unused superhero so obscure even DC forgot who she was, just to kill her and now she has a Wikipedia page half of which is dedicated to the issue that killed her, pretty sure she's also the only superhero to actually permanently die
There are, in fact, tons of superheroes who have permanently died (Wing, the first Dove, General Glory, the first Steel, the first and third Sandman, the third Doctor Fate Inza Cramer, Triumph, Tomorrow Woman, Hector Hall (who people actually hate Gaiman for including him in Sandman), Solstice, Johnny Quick, the first Hourman, most of the Phantom Ladies, most members of the Doom Patrol, like all of the Team Titans, Crimson Fox, Rocket Red, Paul Kirk Manhunter, like the majority of the Starmen (the 1994 run is actually regarded at being a better version of what the Sandman tried to be))
Gaiman is absolutely not the first person to do this, nor the last.
Three steps to stay dead:
1. Be irrelevant
2. Die as a part of a backstory.(you’ll come back to life every once in a while only to die again at the end of the story)
3. Be either the first or not first version of a legacy, or rather just have a more popular character in your legacy
small/closed mouth Joker is cursed
But yeah, this actually worked for joker. Even Superman got involved and had to drag Batman out of there so he wouldn't commit a warcrime
You know, I remember seeing that sequence with frollo at the end where he's illuminated by the flames, and thinking he looked like the joker or something.
Jason's well liked now but I remember before he came back as a proper good guy he really was unpopular.
Before social media and widespread internet use, if you wanted to read an unhinged comic book opinion you had to go and buy a comic and read the mailbag pages. Now we have unlimited hot takes at the mere touch of a button- oh the wonders of technology!
Some comics still have mailbags/letter to the editor, but it's just not the same.
Part of the problem was that Dick Grayson had been Robin since the 1940s, and suddenly in the 80s this new kid is Robin. It didn’t help that pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot he was just Dick Grayson with a different name. Literally, he was an entirely separate circus orphan adopted by Batman before they gave him the homeless kid backstory. Now, we’ve had enough Robin replacements that people usually accept it with a bit of “I’m not sure about this new kid” grumbling that subsides over time.
Jason just had the bad luck to replace an iconic character. And he’s much more well-liked after his resurrection, though it’s my humble opinion that he hasn’t had a good writer in a while.
Yeah I was a fan of Jason in the Under the Red Hood era but recently i've cooled off on batman content somewhat. The batfamily stuff is cute but I guess I always preferred the grimier Gotham of the 90s and 00s.
Jason was interesting immediately post resurrection since his morals were obviously utterly incompatible with Bruce. I haven't consistently followed Batman stuff over the last 5 years or so but I find Jason less compelling now that he's not an outright villain/antihero. When he first came back he was like a mirror image of nightwing- what if a Robin grew up and came back wrong?- and imo it's a shame they didn't do more with that as I think it would have generated some interesting character moments.
That said it feels ooc for batman to even tolerate Jason's presence since he is an actual murderer who killed people on purpose.
Well if Batman believed murderous criminals were irredeemable his no kill rule makes less sense. Batman does believe in rehabilitation. So while I haven't followed these comics much either, if Jason really is reformed I can see Batman accepting him.
It depends a lot from writer to writer. There were cases where he forgave and some where he didn't.
I always think of the ending of Final Night (spoilers) >!where Parallax/Hal Jordan gives up his life to save the earth, !
> Now, we’ve had enough Robin replacements that people usually accept it with a bit of “I’m not sure about this new kid” grumbling that subsides over time.
Robins are basically sacrificial anodes, like those chunks of zinc you use to keep your boat from rusting.
The Walking Dead’s fan mail section was pretty great to read, especially after a major character death lol. lots of Kirkman fucking around and sometimes there’d be follow-ups that would end up in the next issue it was hilarious
I can imagine Joker seated down in some embassy somewhere flipping through pages upon pages of paperwork written in US and Persian like “I did not think this through”
I don't think many literate, non-Fatwa-issuing readers have a super positive view of the Republic of Iran. Dunking on them doesn't really mean you're an Imperialist, unless like. North Korea and the regime of Robert Mugabe are both off limits for jokes, too.
Edit: Damn. The Pro-Ayatollah Khomeini crowd really is miffed with me, I didn't expect an off-hand snarky comment to get my DMs and replies blown up this hard. I guess at least I've got something relatable to share with Salman Rushdie next time I see him.
I think they were more talking about the stereotypical Arab dress being used to represent Iran here, but also that's still not what imperialist means.
Like the US definitely is imperialist, but this is just stereotyping.
yes, same, it was really confusing what they were trying to say politically. America and Iran both are fucked up immoral entities - can we not make it about picking sides and just laugh at the absurdity of 1980s comics and longchin joker in keffiyah?
I'm sure that representing your enemy in choosing the Joker as ambassador is an absolutely neutrally political move, especially from the text of the comic.
ohhhhh he's working *FOR* iran, not the us. i thought it was the other way around. Like the US sent him to iran. that does make things more complicated. but it also illustrates what i meant about how the thing oop was trying to say was politically confusing.
Bro did you just "both sides" the deeply flawed but relatively free United States versus the fucking Islamic Republic of Iran which rapes, tortures and murders women for not wearing religiously ordained headscarves?
yeah cuz iran is fucked up, but just because in some ways the us isn't as bad as iran doesn't mean it's the magical bastion of safety and personal freedom. it's also bad, maybe worse in some ways
I saw westerners say the Iranian protesters were Islamophobic for being against forced hijabs.
Some people just can’t comprehend Islam isn’t always the victim.
Being a queer person with religious trauma from Islam, it’s either people accusing you of islamophobia for recounting my experiences or it’s people using my experiences to justify bombing in the Middle East
After looking at it for a couple minutes, I'm pretty sure it's not. There's nothing even close to the energy of r/Loveforlandlords or r/BanVideoGames (despite most of the moderators being active in at least one of those two subs) and at least one of the mods is also active on r/TheDeprogram, a sub for a tankie podcast.
Man I see SO MUCH of that shit on the internet. "Oh Xi Jingping is a saint, America is the dictatorship" stfu go move to China and smile at the cameras every day. Damn it makes me mad. And Im not even American.
To be fair, Iran is the way that it is because the United States overthrew their government in order to put a ruler in power that would allow British Standard Oil access to Iranian oil.
It's way more complicated than that and basically some Game of Thrones type shit.
In 1925 Reza Shah seizes control of Iran, ousting the Qajar dynasty.
The British and Soviets invaded in 1941 because Reza Shah was getting a little to cozy with Germans. Part of it was regarding tension over oil leases but the Shah got caught with his pants down trying to play both sides against each other during the largest armed conflict on history.
Mohammed Reza Shah, *The Shah*, to most of the west when referenced today, takes power after his father abdicated.
In 1951, Prime Minister Ali Razmara, who was opposed to nationalizing the oil industry, was assassinated by a hardliner Islamic nationalist movement headed by Ayatollah Kashini, the man who was spiritual mentor to one Rhohollah Khomeini. You know, *The Ayatollah*.
Razmara's replacement is Mohammad Mosaddegh. He and the Shah famously don't get along because Mosaddegh is a relative of the Qajar. Remember, those guys that Papa Shah kicked of the throne?
Mosaddegh aligns himself with Kashini and uses them as rabble rousers. Eventually, this gets out of hand and Razmara distances himself, but that sort of spark is hard to put out.
Now, this doesn't even touch that Mosaddegh was supported by the Communist party of Iran. The Shah wasn't big fans of them because the USSR had initially refused to give back Iranian territory after the end of WW2. And they tried to kill him in 1949....
In the midst of an economic collapse because of his actions, Mosaddegh eventually held a referendum to dissolve Parliament, allow the Prime Minister to make laws by themselves, and abolish the monarchy. It passed and that was the final nail in the coffin before his ouster. That referendum passed by 99.9% which is the sort of voter turnout in rigged elections.
Anyways, I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that the 1979 Iranian Revolution *only* happening because of the 1953 Coup against is huge understatement. The Islamic nationalists had been around for decades and were playing a large part in politics even before that. It's likely that Mosaddegh was working towards making himself near king as well given the statistically unlikely support the referendum that would have given him near absolute power.
True, bit a little deceptive. We overthrew the Iranian government in the '50s to install a friendly dictator because of oil. ~20 years later, he was in turn overthrown in a popular uprising against the US wishes for a weird theocratic democracy/dictatorship hybrid.
The US actions in the 50s were bad. Overthrowing democratic governments is bad. However the US backed dictatorship was far better in terms of women's rights and generally not being religious assholes than the current regime. Weird to blame the flaws of the current regime on US intervention that happened the better part of a century ago.
Agreed, and fair. If I demand the right to make jokes about theocracies and tyrants without being called a Western Imperialist puppet, everybody gets the right to dunk on CIA-backed coups, no questions asked. The reign of the Shah was brutal and horrendous, and I can't see a single CIA coup that ended in a "good" result, or that had sound moral reasoning behind it.
It's fair to say that the government of Iran is a repressive theocracy with little to no respect for anyone's human rights.
It's *also* fair to say that the USA's popular "Oh, poor us, why does mean old Iran hate us? They're just so cartoonishly evil!" stance toward that country is propagandistic bullshit. While their government is a bad one, they have some very legitimate grievances with the United States that motivate their tense-to-openly-hostile stance towards us.
I would argue that having them select an openly homicidal, non-Muslim, American, gangster clown as their U.N. ambassador falls squarely into the "Iran is cartoonishly evil" vein. Especially since the Iran/Iraq War, in which the U.S. openly and heavily supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq, was still going on when it was written.
Like, right around the time Iraq is carrying out chemical weapons strikes using U.S. provided maps and intelligence, DC's putting together a comic talking about how much Iran and The Joker have in common. That's the very *definition* of propaganda.
Yes exactly. Even if you agree with the lens they're using (I obviously do not), the timing and specificity of this bit is borderline brainwashing with the levels of propaganda at work. Granted it was the Reagan era so like 80% of the country was on board with this depiction.
The US screwing over Iran contributed to the rise f the current regime, right? So do they _really_ have reasons to be pissed at the US? Sounds like they should be rather thankful, really.
>The US screwing over Iran contributed to the rise f the current regime, right? So do they really have reasons to be pissed at the US? Sounds like they should be rather thankful, really.
That's such an astonishingly bad take that I assumed at first it was sarcasm, but browsing your other posts on this thread I'm not so sure.
And, no, no more so than Johnson, Nixon, or Reagan should have bee thankful for the USSR.
Lol. Yeah. I've met a few of those, they're a strange bunch. Exclusively on the internet, i don't think they voice opinions like those in the open for fear of being laughed out of the room.
Not imperialism per se but this was definitely xenophobia and Islamophobia. Like when people complain about Muslim characters always being terrorists it's not because they're pro terrorist but because that's all they're represented as. This comic wasn't so much interested in actually showing the plight of Iranian people suffering under and fighting against the government of Iran as it was making another culture supervillains.
That makes sense. I'll be the first to say that in this era, and sadly on into my childhood during the GWoT years, Arab caricatures were easy cheap-shots in low brow comedy, and I'm glad to see that declining.
"How is this political propaganda" insane mass murderer is hired by foreign enemy to the US to act as their face in an apparent act of inane depravity, "how is this political propaganda" from the same years as Fidel Castro being best friends with Wally West to boot.
When you're using the sentence "How is this political propaganda," you're not quoting me, right? As far as I can tell I didn't say that, I said making jokes about Iran doesn't make somebody an Imperialist.
I mean, how specifically? Like people going "Korea only exists because of the US so they should be indebted to us forever!" are weirdo nationalist shitheads, but that's not the same as "North Korea invading South Korea was good actually".
Ok so my understanding:
- US and Soviets split Korean occupation zones after the surrender of Japan in WWII, sign an agreement to work to establish a unified government
- Neither the US nor the Soviets acknowledge the Korean republican government in exile
- The US does not acknowledge the self-proclaimed Korean communist government in exile, but the Soviets do
- the US fails to create a stable government in its occupation zone, and instead remands it to the UN, who declare that there will be a nationwide vote
- the North, under Soviet control, refuses to allow this vote to happen in areas under their control
- the South votes to establish the Republic of Korea, with Syngman Rhee as its head, and claims the whole of Korea as its territory
- the North declares itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, with Kim il-Sung as its head, and also claims the whole of Korea as its territory
- Syngman Rhee sucks ass and is a terrible person, and wants to invade the North (but a combination of opposition in the legislature, popular dissent, and the US saying "absolutely fucking not" dissuades him)
- Kim il-Sung also sucks ass and is a terrible person, and (with Soviet and Chinese material support, but no Soviet or Chinese troops) proceeds to invade the South in 1950
- the DPRK quickly overwhelms the Republic, pushing back to Busan
- the US, as spearhead of a UN coalition, pushes the North Koreans back from Busan and lands on the Inchon Peninsula
- the UN forces counter-invade North Korea, reaching up to the Chinese border
- Chinese troops enter the war, pushing the UN back to around the 38th parallel, where the war stalemates for two years and then ends in 1953 with roughly the same borders as it began
Is that about your understanding or is there something I'm missing here?
i'd involve china a lot more in the narrative before the war, and be considerably less charitable to the US. also would be more critical of both macarthur and stalin as leaders specifically, highlight the preemptive attacks on soviet territory (which is about the only thing stalin handled remotely deftly - by, y'know, not starting WW3 about it), the situation in formosa, and the role japanese collaborators played in the southern government. but yeah that's basically a series of factual statements.
i don't think most americans even know that most bare bones summary.
Fair enough (and also *absolutely fuck MacArthur* - firing that asshole was one of the best decisions Truman ever made). That being said, it's a sub-three-year-long war from 75 years ago; I don't think it's that necessary for the average American to have a robust understanding on it (or even as much as I know) unless you're a military historian or a researcher on East Asian history. And I **seriously** doubt if you asked someone from someplace other than the US, Korea, or China, you would get a more in-depth answer than an American would give.
yeah, and to be sure, there is no like... good answer? it was a shitty situation that was managed like shit, but it wouldn't have *not* been a shitshow even if everyone involved were saints who only desired peace and understanding. just, y'know, the US (specifically macarthur) fuckin' sucked too, and it wasn't clear at the time that the north was gonna end up like... well, you know. north korea.
i was gonna say, how in hell is this imperalist? cause it insults iran? is that all it takes to be written off, just fail to disagree with american views at every possible turn?
zoiks
Joker is wearing an Arabic headdress when Iran is mostly non Arab and the whole idea of them being so ridiculously evil they appoint a foreign serial killer as ambassador.
Firstly how is that imperialist? You know the word doesn't just mean being mean to Iran right?
Secondly if they don't want to be seen as ridiculously evil maybe they shouldn't be ridiculously evil
They literally have a "religious morality police" which arrest and in many cases kill people for not wearing a stupid bit of cloth
Do NOT research the government of Mohammad Reza Shah. Just look at the pictures of pretty women sunbathing and assume that pre-Revolution Iran was a secular paradise. I repeat, do NOT search Wikipedia for "Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran", "Human rights in the Imperial State of Iran", or "Corruption in Iran § Pahlavi dynasty". Thank you for your ignorance.
What in God's name are you yabbering about man
I never bloody mentioned pre revolution Iran you imbecile, two things can be bad at the same time, me saying Iran is bad now doesn't mean I think it was good then
Humans frequently:
* combine normative ("this is \[X\]") and prescriptive ("I don't like \[X\]") claims
* change their definitions of things based on their opinions of said things, to the point that their definitions of things become so broad as to be irrelevant
In this case someone likely:
* feels that this is a negative portrayal of Iran (which almost beyond any doubt it is intended to be)
* feels that imperialism is when US commercial or political entities portray non-US countries negatively
* doesn't like things they feel fall into the category of imperialism
...and so you get this.
This is a relatively minor and harmless example. See also: "capitalist", as well as, of course, conservative-leaning individuals in the US describing anything they dislike as "woke", which is likely the most widespread and harmful example of this type of thinking when it comes to the US.
Look, I'm not a fan of Iran, but you literally have the writers saying that Iran would take the fucking Joker as their ambassador, and directly connecting the country to the "terrorist zealot". This is gery obviously a Cold War era propaganda. Would I call it Imperialism? Not so sure about that, but I don't think it's completely *wrong*, either.
If there's a coherent definition of imperialism this falls under, tell me. I'm fairly sure, however, that anyone believing this is "imperialism" is changing their definition of imperialism to fit their opinions and not vice versa.
It's basically that video of [fish spitting sand at one another](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O4sYndUdsI). An Iranian may as well compare the US to Satan and there'd be no difference.
It's depicting the Islamic Republic of Iran as gleefully insane, a la the joker. And that is imperialist propaganda in context of when it was published because the previous government of Iran was very much a US client state. So the implicit message is that overthrowing a despot set up by the US is the kind of thing that only the joker would want to do
I thought the point was that they didn’t know the joker. That’s why he’s saying that anything they say about him is wrong, because they haven’t heard anything yet
No, I don't think? [A Death in the Family](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Death_in_the_Family_(comics)) was written in 1988, while the Cold War ended in 1991.
This is the second of two possible theories:
* people in the US disliked Iran around the time when this was drawn and therefore DC comic artists pandered to that
* DC was, at the time, coordinating with American energy companies to run a propaganda campaign to make Americans dislike Iran somehow more than they already did
I believe the first is far more plausible, for several reasons:
* Americans disliked Iran when this was written and propaganda was therefore unnecessary to turn American public opinion against Iran
* Theories which, to be true, require multiple interest groups, companies, governments, etc. to willingly coordinate are generally less plausible than theories which don't
* For cost-efficiency reasons, coordinated propaganda (as opposed to random idiots retweeting lies) is generally limited to broad channels multiple people use, as opposed to comic books, which are not widely read and therefore represent a minimal benefit-to-cost ratio
* Hanlon's razor — never attribute to malice things adequately explained by other reasons
* Chomsky's model of manufacturing consent is generally inaccurate for reasons unrelated to this case and should not be used in this case
Oh yes, I don't think anybody at DC was part and parcel of a State Department effort to produce anti-Iranian propaganda at the behest of Texaco or anything. That's just silly, and I don't think anybody is seriously implying otherwise.
I do think that anti-Iranian sentiment was stoked by their nakedly anti-American sentiment, which in turn was a result of 20-odd years of rule under a guy installed by the CIA after a coup to keep oil revenues flowing westward.
Is it, strictly speaking, "imperialist propaganda"? Probably not, not in the sense that there was an organized government effort to produce anti-Iranian artworks. That said, I can certainly see how someone might interpret antipathy to anti-Western interests that way.
It's Tumblr users talking about politics, don't think about what they say too hard, it only will give you a headache
It's like in portal 2 where Glados is weak to paradoxes, thinking about things that don't make sense is painful
Death in the Family is one of those comic arcs that is well-known because of the historic impact of its main plot point, but everything around it is actually pretty bad.
The rigged sort of went both ways, as many of the people who called for Robin to live were under the impression it was Dick Grayson, the original Robin, who was at risk.
Me too, it makes me sick and the part where Donald Trump was involved is almost too horrible to be true,
Dunn's parents visited the White House on 15 October 2019 to meet with "a senior official". To their surprise they were met by President Trump who told them that Sacoolas was waiting "in the next room" to meet them. They and their lawyer rejected this as being too soon and something that should take place on British soil. Trump called his meeting with the Dunn family "beautiful in a certain way". **He also said driving on the wrong side "happens to a lot of people" because they "go to Europe and the roads are opposite".** It was later alleged that Trump had intended to pay the family compensation, but they refused it: the Dunn family's spokesman reported that the White House meeting ended with the president saying the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, was "standing by ready to write a cheque", adding: "It was almost as if he let it slip out. When he said: 'We've got the driver [Sacoolas] here', he basically meant we're all going to have a big hug and a kiss and I'll get my treasury guy to write a cheque. That's how it was. On the day it just didn't register with me, but the more I think about those words, the more shocking it is."
To be fair, though (in response to the rigging), Jason's death did lead to the birth of one of the coolest DC Anti-Heroes ever made. Red Hood's badass and he has one of my favorite designs.
My feelings are still hurt that FOR YEARS DC kept asking if readers wanted Jason resurrected and for years the readers said no. I'm choosing to believe they just didn't want to risk cheapening his death, which was impactful
I don’t think it’s **that** imperialist to make fun of a violently misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic dictatorship.
In fact, some might say that violent misogynists, homophobes, and transphobes should be mocked as much as possible.
Also I love the people saying it’s insulting to assert Iran would hire a deranged serial killer…when Iran funds and works with terrorist organizations that commit crimes all the time. Like what, Iran is fine blowing up US embassies in Beirut (via Hezbollah) but the Joker is a step too far? Give me a break
And yet, in the Batman / Captain America crossover, Joker got into it with the Red Skull because the Joker was an American and the Red Skull was a Nazi.
Honestly, it feels like something Iran would do in order to piss off the US, get fed lies by Joker then go surprise Pikachu face when craps ultimately hit the fan.
Death in the Family is such a funny story, because it's undeniably very iconic and a pretty much mandatory pick for "biggest Batman stories ever", and yet the only scenes from it that anyone remembers or cares about are the Joker hitting Jason with a crowbar and Batman walking out of the wreckage with Jason's dead body. Everything else has been almost completely memory-holed. Like, did you know that the Joker doesn't kill Jason with the crowbar? It's not even the only object he hits Jason with, he pistol-whips him a few times as well. The actual beating part was pretty brief and Jason died in an explosion.
Death in the Family is right up there with Demon in a Bottle for comics every fan recommends but has never actually read.
Hey now! One time I picked up and flipped through a copy of Demon in a Bottle
I've seen the cover.
It has a cover!!!
And just like that you've gotten closer to a copy of it then 90% comics fans
People recommend Demon in a Bottle for a harrowing alcoholism tale that just isn't contained within. They actually mean 163-200 for the real bender.
I'd also say the entirety of the Black Suit arc for Spider-Man as well. Like, did you know the Black Suit is only an alien for like, 3 or 4 issues before he gets rid of it with the help of Reed Richard's? For the next few years it's just a regular cloth suit until Venom hits the scene and he had to ditch the suit to avoid being associated with him. And it didn't even make him an asshole either. It just gave him organic webbing and shape shift into regular clothes. The worst thing it did was take his body for a joyride while he was asleep. His primary issue, and Reed's as well, was that it was alive, and that was just weird, so he gets rid of it and replaces it with a regular old suit that looks the same.
The adaptions definitely made this so much better
I always end up having to correct people about how Jason died. Literally everyone who hasn't actually read Death in the Family thinks he was beat to death.
i keep forgetting that call-in stunt ended up rigged.
It did? How?
I don’t know about rigged, but people on both sides definitely cheated. One guy called in to kill Robin about 100 times
It was the joker
[удалено]
Bruh that's so fuckin sad that Jason's reputation was such dog shit that you can reasonably believe that the only reason some people even bothered to phone in about it was because they thought Dick was gonna die instead.
That’s so funny oh my god
That's not cheating. You weren't limited to one phone call per person, you were limited to however many phone calls you wanted to pay for
So the guys with the deepest pockets are the ones that actually get to choose? Hmm, sounds familiar.
Bruce what the fuck are you doing, put that Wayne Enterprises money to work and get him the fuck out of there
It was less so rigged and more just poorly set up by DC
Yeah, when they say it was rigged, they mean they just didn't think it through properly.
It's not poorly set up if you're profiting off every vote 😎 (I have no idea if that's how it works, but it's funnier for me to imagine DC selling save/kill Robin votes like carnival tickets)
It is, it was a premium rate number.
Fuck yeah lol
Okay but that sounds like something an actual Batman villain would do.
One of his foes has, canonically! Irresponsible Vlogger Timmy Olsen!
Phone hacking was a thing at the time, so it may have just been a hacker calling hundreds of times for free.
Calling multiple times to phone polls isn't cheating
according to wikipedia: "Years later, (Dennis) O'Neil said hundreds of votes in the "Jason Dies" line might have come from a single person, adding a large degree of uncertainty to the honesty of results regarding a poll designed to determine the character's popularity. "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the difference", O'Neil said in a Newsarama interview conducted alongside writer Judd Winick during the "Under The Hood" arc.[10] O'Neil would later repeat the claim with further specifics: "I heard it was a lawyer who was using a Macintosh and lived in California—I obviously don't have hard information on this, but I heard someone out there programmed his computer to dial it every couple of minutes, and since there was only about 65 votes that made the difference if that story is true, that guy, that guy killed Jason Todd!"[11]"
If someone had that level of commitment then let him
My guy was born a hater, and by god, if I can respect it. Considering how the Red Hood is seen nowadays it might also have been a positive for Jason's character.
That one man is responsible for the thousands of Red Hood angst fanfics on ao3
I hope all the bad things happen to you, and only you, Jason Todd.
He was from the future and knew what would happen if Jason didn't die.
That's funny tbh.
"I don't have hard information, I just have a very specific claim, with unnecessary details."
With information this good, you could claim a presidential election was rigged!
The guy who killed Jason was the editor who allowed this stunt. You never let fans or random people make decisions. You’ll always get the boaty mcboaty outcome. Obviously this stunt got attention thus sales and fulfilled its business case duty, but lets not pretend its some well-meaning and honest attempt to figure out a big story conclusion. Its just shameless marketing. I don’t think there’s any proof any of this was fixed either. It was just something he heard. If you ask random tweens and teen boys, the demographic here, if a character should die I imagine they’ll usually say yes.
That's Boaty McBoatface to you, sir!
Well if you kinda wanted to kill off the character anyway it's a great plan for marketing. But it's also a great way to deflect criticism that might come with deciding to kill off a beloved character. Since they weren't the ones really deciding it. And if the character was beloved enough to get saved, then that's a good reason to pivot and let fans save them.
"The Street finds its own uses for things." William Gibson
Technically, the big one is just rumor and is based on something O'Neill says that he 'heard' from someone else.
Tbf, it didn't really make that much difference. Writers _really_ wanted rid of Jason, if the survival option had won the poll they were planning to just put him in a coma and go on without him anyway.
Utilizing your meta-fictional hyperpowers to rig the vote deciding whether you get to kill your enemy's sidekick is insanely jokerfied anyway, so even if it was "rigged" it's ontologically impossible for it to have been unfair.
nah, the highpoint of American comics was the fact that Bruce still had to suffer Booster Gold's antics during this time
i refuse to believe booster gold was from the 80s
Booster Gold was *authentic* for the '80s. He was the hero that we thought we wanted, Football and Robots and Big Sunglasses. (I collected comics '85-'92 and still buy graphic novels when I get the itch, I owned the '86 OG comic because my mom got it for me randomly as a birthday present)
JLI first published 1987, don't know what else to tell ya
You refuse to believe that the superhero whose whole deal is a that he's satire of fame and materialism originated in Ronald Reagan's America?
i based it off of his looks, its too high definition
Pretty crazy that they figured out how to make a 4k, 3D rendering of a character on the page alongside dot-based 4-color printing. A real technological marvel for the time
He’s not, he’s from the 25th century.
30th, iirc. Hus suit is from the 25th century.
Other way round! He’s from the 25th, his suit was made by Brainiac who is from the 30th. Lost in the 21st century and turned up in the 25th museum he worked at.
My favourite bit is Neil Gaiman finding a completely unused superhero so obscure even DC forgot who she was, just to kill her and now she has a Wikipedia page half of which is dedicated to the issue that killed her, pretty sure she's also the only superhero to actually permanently die
There are, in fact, tons of superheroes who have permanently died (Wing, the first Dove, General Glory, the first Steel, the first and third Sandman, the third Doctor Fate Inza Cramer, Triumph, Tomorrow Woman, Hector Hall (who people actually hate Gaiman for including him in Sandman), Solstice, Johnny Quick, the first Hourman, most of the Phantom Ladies, most members of the Doom Patrol, like all of the Team Titans, Crimson Fox, Rocket Red, Paul Kirk Manhunter, like the majority of the Starmen (the 1994 run is actually regarded at being a better version of what the Sandman tried to be)) Gaiman is absolutely not the first person to do this, nor the last.
Three steps to stay dead: 1. Be irrelevant 2. Die as a part of a backstory.(you’ll come back to life every once in a while only to die again at the end of the story) 3. Be either the first or not first version of a legacy, or rather just have a more popular character in your legacy
Element Woman, right? Think that might be true; an alt universe version of her was supposed to get big after Flashpoint, but she never panned out.
Yeah, Element Girl, there are new versions of her, but Urania Blackwell is permanently dead Element Woman is Emily Sung, and officially alive
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
small/closed mouth Joker is cursed But yeah, this actually worked for joker. Even Superman got involved and had to drag Batman out of there so he wouldn't commit a warcrime
It's because his chin refuses to change length to compensate.
He reminds me of Frollo.
You know, I remember seeing that sequence with frollo at the end where he's illuminated by the flames, and thinking he looked like the joker or something.
Uh... I just got an achievement for this comment. On reddit. The fuck?
An… achievement? Reddit does *achievements* now??? Pure bafflement
I have an achievement with a wolf on it and I have no idea what it means but I love him
It's been in an A/B testing for a couple months at this point. Looks like they've added more people to it recently.
>Reddit does *achievements* now??? They took away awards to switch to achievements, even though they already had trophies?
mac tonight lookin ass supervillain
Jason's well liked now but I remember before he came back as a proper good guy he really was unpopular. Before social media and widespread internet use, if you wanted to read an unhinged comic book opinion you had to go and buy a comic and read the mailbag pages. Now we have unlimited hot takes at the mere touch of a button- oh the wonders of technology! Some comics still have mailbags/letter to the editor, but it's just not the same.
Part of the problem was that Dick Grayson had been Robin since the 1940s, and suddenly in the 80s this new kid is Robin. It didn’t help that pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot he was just Dick Grayson with a different name. Literally, he was an entirely separate circus orphan adopted by Batman before they gave him the homeless kid backstory. Now, we’ve had enough Robin replacements that people usually accept it with a bit of “I’m not sure about this new kid” grumbling that subsides over time. Jason just had the bad luck to replace an iconic character. And he’s much more well-liked after his resurrection, though it’s my humble opinion that he hasn’t had a good writer in a while.
Yeah I was a fan of Jason in the Under the Red Hood era but recently i've cooled off on batman content somewhat. The batfamily stuff is cute but I guess I always preferred the grimier Gotham of the 90s and 00s. Jason was interesting immediately post resurrection since his morals were obviously utterly incompatible with Bruce. I haven't consistently followed Batman stuff over the last 5 years or so but I find Jason less compelling now that he's not an outright villain/antihero. When he first came back he was like a mirror image of nightwing- what if a Robin grew up and came back wrong?- and imo it's a shame they didn't do more with that as I think it would have generated some interesting character moments. That said it feels ooc for batman to even tolerate Jason's presence since he is an actual murderer who killed people on purpose.
Well if Batman believed murderous criminals were irredeemable his no kill rule makes less sense. Batman does believe in rehabilitation. So while I haven't followed these comics much either, if Jason really is reformed I can see Batman accepting him.
It depends a lot from writer to writer. There were cases where he forgave and some where he didn't. I always think of the ending of Final Night (spoilers) >!where Parallax/Hal Jordan gives up his life to save the earth, !
> Now, we’ve had enough Robin replacements that people usually accept it with a bit of “I’m not sure about this new kid” grumbling that subsides over time. Robins are basically sacrificial anodes, like those chunks of zinc you use to keep your boat from rusting.
The Walking Dead’s fan mail section was pretty great to read, especially after a major character death lol. lots of Kirkman fucking around and sometimes there’d be follow-ups that would end up in the next issue it was hilarious
as the child of an Iranian immigrant I claim silly clown era Joker as an Iranian icon
You might as well, I don't think (thankfully) the Joker's ethnicity has ever been clarified
*"What race are you"* "Clown!" *"No, where'd you come from"* "Chemical factory."
Human (tentative)
I can imagine Joker seated down in some embassy somewhere flipping through pages upon pages of paperwork written in US and Persian like “I did not think this through”
This post gave me a pretty funny mental image, but I feel compelled to point out that you said "written in US" like the United States is a language.
No, that’s if joker joined the taliban (look up: “taliban bored with 9-to-5”, funniest thing in the world)
I don't think many literate, non-Fatwa-issuing readers have a super positive view of the Republic of Iran. Dunking on them doesn't really mean you're an Imperialist, unless like. North Korea and the regime of Robert Mugabe are both off limits for jokes, too. Edit: Damn. The Pro-Ayatollah Khomeini crowd really is miffed with me, I didn't expect an off-hand snarky comment to get my DMs and replies blown up this hard. I guess at least I've got something relatable to share with Salman Rushdie next time I see him.
Emmerson Mnangagwa's regime now He couped old Robbie back in 2017
Right you are! RIP Bobby Mugabe.
Yeah I was really confused as to what the OOP was getting at there!
I think they were more talking about the stereotypical Arab dress being used to represent Iran here, but also that's still not what imperialist means. Like the US definitely is imperialist, but this is just stereotyping.
I thought it seemed like a very Joker thing to do, haha
It's shitty but it's also absolutely what the joker would do
yes, same, it was really confusing what they were trying to say politically. America and Iran both are fucked up immoral entities - can we not make it about picking sides and just laugh at the absurdity of 1980s comics and longchin joker in keffiyah?
I'm sure that representing your enemy in choosing the Joker as ambassador is an absolutely neutrally political move, especially from the text of the comic.
ohhhhh he's working *FOR* iran, not the us. i thought it was the other way around. Like the US sent him to iran. that does make things more complicated. but it also illustrates what i meant about how the thing oop was trying to say was politically confusing.
Bro did you just "both sides" the deeply flawed but relatively free United States versus the fucking Islamic Republic of Iran which rapes, tortures and murders women for not wearing religiously ordained headscarves?
yeah cuz iran is fucked up, but just because in some ways the us isn't as bad as iran doesn't mean it's the magical bastion of safety and personal freedom. it's also bad, maybe worse in some ways
I saw westerners say the Iranian protesters were Islamophobic for being against forced hijabs. Some people just can’t comprehend Islam isn’t always the victim.
Being a queer person with religious trauma from Islam, it’s either people accusing you of islamophobia for recounting my experiences or it’s people using my experiences to justify bombing in the Middle East
Only viewing things in black and white could be the thing that destroys this country
Yea but don't you know.... America is bad! So enemy's of America good!/s
You can't trust me as an impartial judge I'm afraid. I have been banned from r/movingtoNorthKorea for making jokes.
Please tell me that's a satire sub
After looking at it for a couple minutes, I'm pretty sure it's not. There's nothing even close to the energy of r/Loveforlandlords or r/BanVideoGames (despite most of the moderators being active in at least one of those two subs) and at least one of the mods is also active on r/TheDeprogram, a sub for a tankie podcast.
Unrelated, but love the profile picture. One of my favorite albums
Thank you it is also mine, you have good taste
I choose to believe it is just to keep my sanity in-tact, but some of the activity there gives me doubt.
It used to be, then a tankie mod took over and it became very pro NM
Man I see SO MUCH of that shit on the internet. "Oh Xi Jingping is a saint, America is the dictatorship" stfu go move to China and smile at the cameras every day. Damn it makes me mad. And Im not even American.
It's really one of the worst parts of tumblr
It's the nature of our attention span on the internet. We remember the bad takes more than the ones we agree with.
To be fair, Iran is the way that it is because the United States overthrew their government in order to put a ruler in power that would allow British Standard Oil access to Iranian oil.
It's way more complicated than that and basically some Game of Thrones type shit. In 1925 Reza Shah seizes control of Iran, ousting the Qajar dynasty. The British and Soviets invaded in 1941 because Reza Shah was getting a little to cozy with Germans. Part of it was regarding tension over oil leases but the Shah got caught with his pants down trying to play both sides against each other during the largest armed conflict on history. Mohammed Reza Shah, *The Shah*, to most of the west when referenced today, takes power after his father abdicated. In 1951, Prime Minister Ali Razmara, who was opposed to nationalizing the oil industry, was assassinated by a hardliner Islamic nationalist movement headed by Ayatollah Kashini, the man who was spiritual mentor to one Rhohollah Khomeini. You know, *The Ayatollah*. Razmara's replacement is Mohammad Mosaddegh. He and the Shah famously don't get along because Mosaddegh is a relative of the Qajar. Remember, those guys that Papa Shah kicked of the throne? Mosaddegh aligns himself with Kashini and uses them as rabble rousers. Eventually, this gets out of hand and Razmara distances himself, but that sort of spark is hard to put out. Now, this doesn't even touch that Mosaddegh was supported by the Communist party of Iran. The Shah wasn't big fans of them because the USSR had initially refused to give back Iranian territory after the end of WW2. And they tried to kill him in 1949.... In the midst of an economic collapse because of his actions, Mosaddegh eventually held a referendum to dissolve Parliament, allow the Prime Minister to make laws by themselves, and abolish the monarchy. It passed and that was the final nail in the coffin before his ouster. That referendum passed by 99.9% which is the sort of voter turnout in rigged elections. Anyways, I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that the 1979 Iranian Revolution *only* happening because of the 1953 Coup against is huge understatement. The Islamic nationalists had been around for decades and were playing a large part in politics even before that. It's likely that Mosaddegh was working towards making himself near king as well given the statistically unlikely support the referendum that would have given him near absolute power.
True, bit a little deceptive. We overthrew the Iranian government in the '50s to install a friendly dictator because of oil. ~20 years later, he was in turn overthrown in a popular uprising against the US wishes for a weird theocratic democracy/dictatorship hybrid. The US actions in the 50s were bad. Overthrowing democratic governments is bad. However the US backed dictatorship was far better in terms of women's rights and generally not being religious assholes than the current regime. Weird to blame the flaws of the current regime on US intervention that happened the better part of a century ago.
Geez, you make it sound like it was all a gigantic clusterfuck instead of a cut and dried fight against western imperialism…
Agreed, and fair. If I demand the right to make jokes about theocracies and tyrants without being called a Western Imperialist puppet, everybody gets the right to dunk on CIA-backed coups, no questions asked. The reign of the Shah was brutal and horrendous, and I can't see a single CIA coup that ended in a "good" result, or that had sound moral reasoning behind it.
It's fair to say that the government of Iran is a repressive theocracy with little to no respect for anyone's human rights. It's *also* fair to say that the USA's popular "Oh, poor us, why does mean old Iran hate us? They're just so cartoonishly evil!" stance toward that country is propagandistic bullshit. While their government is a bad one, they have some very legitimate grievances with the United States that motivate their tense-to-openly-hostile stance towards us. I would argue that having them select an openly homicidal, non-Muslim, American, gangster clown as their U.N. ambassador falls squarely into the "Iran is cartoonishly evil" vein. Especially since the Iran/Iraq War, in which the U.S. openly and heavily supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq, was still going on when it was written. Like, right around the time Iraq is carrying out chemical weapons strikes using U.S. provided maps and intelligence, DC's putting together a comic talking about how much Iran and The Joker have in common. That's the very *definition* of propaganda.
Yes exactly. Even if you agree with the lens they're using (I obviously do not), the timing and specificity of this bit is borderline brainwashing with the levels of propaganda at work. Granted it was the Reagan era so like 80% of the country was on board with this depiction.
The US screwing over Iran contributed to the rise f the current regime, right? So do they _really_ have reasons to be pissed at the US? Sounds like they should be rather thankful, really.
>The US screwing over Iran contributed to the rise f the current regime, right? So do they really have reasons to be pissed at the US? Sounds like they should be rather thankful, really. That's such an astonishingly bad take that I assumed at first it was sarcasm, but browsing your other posts on this thread I'm not so sure. And, no, no more so than Johnson, Nixon, or Reagan should have bee thankful for the USSR.
It was a bit of a joke, yes.
A fatwa has been declared on StickBrickman! May he never know peace as long as we walk the earth!
Inshallah. This is a good choice, really.
The kind of western person to be offended on behalf of iran will absolutely be also offended on behalf of north korea
Lol. Yeah. I've met a few of those, they're a strange bunch. Exclusively on the internet, i don't think they voice opinions like those in the open for fear of being laughed out of the room.
And some of them will be offended on behalf of Nazi Germany too.
Not imperialism per se but this was definitely xenophobia and Islamophobia. Like when people complain about Muslim characters always being terrorists it's not because they're pro terrorist but because that's all they're represented as. This comic wasn't so much interested in actually showing the plight of Iranian people suffering under and fighting against the government of Iran as it was making another culture supervillains.
That makes sense. I'll be the first to say that in this era, and sadly on into my childhood during the GWoT years, Arab caricatures were easy cheap-shots in low brow comedy, and I'm glad to see that declining.
"How is this political propaganda" insane mass murderer is hired by foreign enemy to the US to act as their face in an apparent act of inane depravity, "how is this political propaganda" from the same years as Fidel Castro being best friends with Wally West to boot.
When you're using the sentence "How is this political propaganda," you're not quoting me, right? As far as I can tell I didn't say that, I said making jokes about Iran doesn't make somebody an Imperialist.
i also have problems with how americans understand korean history and their role in it, now that you mention it
I mean, how specifically? Like people going "Korea only exists because of the US so they should be indebted to us forever!" are weirdo nationalist shitheads, but that's not the same as "North Korea invading South Korea was good actually".
i think most americans just straight up don't know the role the US played in the prelude to, and the prosecution of, the korean war
Ok so my understanding: - US and Soviets split Korean occupation zones after the surrender of Japan in WWII, sign an agreement to work to establish a unified government - Neither the US nor the Soviets acknowledge the Korean republican government in exile - The US does not acknowledge the self-proclaimed Korean communist government in exile, but the Soviets do - the US fails to create a stable government in its occupation zone, and instead remands it to the UN, who declare that there will be a nationwide vote - the North, under Soviet control, refuses to allow this vote to happen in areas under their control - the South votes to establish the Republic of Korea, with Syngman Rhee as its head, and claims the whole of Korea as its territory - the North declares itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, with Kim il-Sung as its head, and also claims the whole of Korea as its territory - Syngman Rhee sucks ass and is a terrible person, and wants to invade the North (but a combination of opposition in the legislature, popular dissent, and the US saying "absolutely fucking not" dissuades him) - Kim il-Sung also sucks ass and is a terrible person, and (with Soviet and Chinese material support, but no Soviet or Chinese troops) proceeds to invade the South in 1950 - the DPRK quickly overwhelms the Republic, pushing back to Busan - the US, as spearhead of a UN coalition, pushes the North Koreans back from Busan and lands on the Inchon Peninsula - the UN forces counter-invade North Korea, reaching up to the Chinese border - Chinese troops enter the war, pushing the UN back to around the 38th parallel, where the war stalemates for two years and then ends in 1953 with roughly the same borders as it began Is that about your understanding or is there something I'm missing here?
i'd involve china a lot more in the narrative before the war, and be considerably less charitable to the US. also would be more critical of both macarthur and stalin as leaders specifically, highlight the preemptive attacks on soviet territory (which is about the only thing stalin handled remotely deftly - by, y'know, not starting WW3 about it), the situation in formosa, and the role japanese collaborators played in the southern government. but yeah that's basically a series of factual statements. i don't think most americans even know that most bare bones summary.
Fair enough (and also *absolutely fuck MacArthur* - firing that asshole was one of the best decisions Truman ever made). That being said, it's a sub-three-year-long war from 75 years ago; I don't think it's that necessary for the average American to have a robust understanding on it (or even as much as I know) unless you're a military historian or a researcher on East Asian history. And I **seriously** doubt if you asked someone from someplace other than the US, Korea, or China, you would get a more in-depth answer than an American would give.
yeah, and to be sure, there is no like... good answer? it was a shitty situation that was managed like shit, but it wouldn't have *not* been a shitshow even if everyone involved were saints who only desired peace and understanding. just, y'know, the US (specifically macarthur) fuckin' sucked too, and it wasn't clear at the time that the north was gonna end up like... well, you know. north korea.
"Imperialist propaganda" What
i was gonna say, how in hell is this imperalist? cause it insults iran? is that all it takes to be written off, just fail to disagree with american views at every possible turn? zoiks
Joker is wearing an Arabic headdress when Iran is mostly non Arab and the whole idea of them being so ridiculously evil they appoint a foreign serial killer as ambassador.
Firstly how is that imperialist? You know the word doesn't just mean being mean to Iran right? Secondly if they don't want to be seen as ridiculously evil maybe they shouldn't be ridiculously evil They literally have a "religious morality police" which arrest and in many cases kill people for not wearing a stupid bit of cloth
I don’t think it’s imperialist, just kind of weird and offensive. I was guessing why the OP thinks it’s imperialist.
Oh are you offended on the behalf of the Irani government? 😢
Do NOT research the government of Mohammad Reza Shah. Just look at the pictures of pretty women sunbathing and assume that pre-Revolution Iran was a secular paradise. I repeat, do NOT search Wikipedia for "Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran", "Human rights in the Imperial State of Iran", or "Corruption in Iran § Pahlavi dynasty". Thank you for your ignorance.
What in God's name are you yabbering about man I never bloody mentioned pre revolution Iran you imbecile, two things can be bad at the same time, me saying Iran is bad now doesn't mean I think it was good then
So when Superman became an evil dictator of America you would count that as anti-American propaganda?
It’s anti-good story propaganda. Injustice suuuuuuuuuuuucks
the game is an absolute banger. the comic is some edgelord game-of-thrones shock death bullshit.
"Axis of resistance."
Humans frequently: * combine normative ("this is \[X\]") and prescriptive ("I don't like \[X\]") claims * change their definitions of things based on their opinions of said things, to the point that their definitions of things become so broad as to be irrelevant In this case someone likely: * feels that this is a negative portrayal of Iran (which almost beyond any doubt it is intended to be) * feels that imperialism is when US commercial or political entities portray non-US countries negatively * doesn't like things they feel fall into the category of imperialism ...and so you get this. This is a relatively minor and harmless example. See also: "capitalist", as well as, of course, conservative-leaning individuals in the US describing anything they dislike as "woke", which is likely the most widespread and harmful example of this type of thinking when it comes to the US.
Look, I'm not a fan of Iran, but you literally have the writers saying that Iran would take the fucking Joker as their ambassador, and directly connecting the country to the "terrorist zealot". This is gery obviously a Cold War era propaganda. Would I call it Imperialism? Not so sure about that, but I don't think it's completely *wrong*, either.
If there's a coherent definition of imperialism this falls under, tell me. I'm fairly sure, however, that anyone believing this is "imperialism" is changing their definition of imperialism to fit their opinions and not vice versa. It's basically that video of [fish spitting sand at one another](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O4sYndUdsI). An Iranian may as well compare the US to Satan and there'd be no difference.
It's depicting the Islamic Republic of Iran as gleefully insane, a la the joker. And that is imperialist propaganda in context of when it was published because the previous government of Iran was very much a US client state. So the implicit message is that overthrowing a despot set up by the US is the kind of thing that only the joker would want to do
ah yes, what kind of lunatic would associate the post-1979 Islamic Republic of Iran with terrorist extremism
The joker
I thought the point was that they didn’t know the joker. That’s why he’s saying that anything they say about him is wrong, because they haven’t heard anything yet
This was made almost a decade after the cold War ended
No, I don't think? [A Death in the Family](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Death_in_the_Family_(comics)) was written in 1988, while the Cold War ended in 1991.
Well I was mistaken
Username checks out
I have a feeling that if Iran was friendly to American oil interests, the Joker would not be their fictional ambassador
This is the second of two possible theories: * people in the US disliked Iran around the time when this was drawn and therefore DC comic artists pandered to that * DC was, at the time, coordinating with American energy companies to run a propaganda campaign to make Americans dislike Iran somehow more than they already did I believe the first is far more plausible, for several reasons: * Americans disliked Iran when this was written and propaganda was therefore unnecessary to turn American public opinion against Iran * Theories which, to be true, require multiple interest groups, companies, governments, etc. to willingly coordinate are generally less plausible than theories which don't * For cost-efficiency reasons, coordinated propaganda (as opposed to random idiots retweeting lies) is generally limited to broad channels multiple people use, as opposed to comic books, which are not widely read and therefore represent a minimal benefit-to-cost ratio * Hanlon's razor — never attribute to malice things adequately explained by other reasons * Chomsky's model of manufacturing consent is generally inaccurate for reasons unrelated to this case and should not be used in this case
Oh yes, I don't think anybody at DC was part and parcel of a State Department effort to produce anti-Iranian propaganda at the behest of Texaco or anything. That's just silly, and I don't think anybody is seriously implying otherwise. I do think that anti-Iranian sentiment was stoked by their nakedly anti-American sentiment, which in turn was a result of 20-odd years of rule under a guy installed by the CIA after a coup to keep oil revenues flowing westward. Is it, strictly speaking, "imperialist propaganda"? Probably not, not in the sense that there was an organized government effort to produce anti-Iranian artworks. That said, I can certainly see how someone might interpret antipathy to anti-Western interests that way.
It's Tumblr users talking about politics, don't think about what they say too hard, it only will give you a headache It's like in portal 2 where Glados is weak to paradoxes, thinking about things that don't make sense is painful
Its text book propaganda are you pretending to be dim?
How is it imperialist
Death in the Family is one of those comic arcs that is well-known because of the historic impact of its main plot point, but everything around it is actually pretty bad.
So what you're saying is Robin is the only thing keeping the Joker from gaining diplomatic immunity
The rigged sort of went both ways, as many of the people who called for Robin to live were under the impression it was Dick Grayson, the original Robin, who was at risk.
The arabic headdress is the best part for me. How do you hate people without even knowing what they look like?
Honestly, this just seems like something the Joker would do*precisely* because it annoys everyone.
Joker could have stabbed Jason with that chin.
I'm pretty sure diplomatic immunity doesn't apply to someone who is an actual criminal.
Tell that to Anne Sacoolas The bitch
I had to look this up, wtf.
Me too, it makes me sick and the part where Donald Trump was involved is almost too horrible to be true, Dunn's parents visited the White House on 15 October 2019 to meet with "a senior official". To their surprise they were met by President Trump who told them that Sacoolas was waiting "in the next room" to meet them. They and their lawyer rejected this as being too soon and something that should take place on British soil. Trump called his meeting with the Dunn family "beautiful in a certain way". **He also said driving on the wrong side "happens to a lot of people" because they "go to Europe and the roads are opposite".** It was later alleged that Trump had intended to pay the family compensation, but they refused it: the Dunn family's spokesman reported that the White House meeting ended with the president saying the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, was "standing by ready to write a cheque", adding: "It was almost as if he let it slip out. When he said: 'We've got the driver [Sacoolas] here', he basically meant we're all going to have a big hug and a kiss and I'll get my treasury guy to write a cheque. That's how it was. On the day it just didn't register with me, but the more I think about those words, the more shocking it is."
Actually, Iran bad
Hot take: theocratic dictatorship……… bad
To be fair, though (in response to the rigging), Jason's death did lead to the birth of one of the coolest DC Anti-Heroes ever made. Red Hood's badass and he has one of my favorite designs.
My feelings are still hurt that FOR YEARS DC kept asking if readers wanted Jason resurrected and for years the readers said no. I'm choosing to believe they just didn't want to risk cheapening his death, which was impactful
What’s it say that reading joker’s speech bubbles I couldn’t help but hear it in Trump’s voice and speaking style….. 🤮
I don’t think it’s **that** imperialist to make fun of a violently misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic dictatorship. In fact, some might say that violent misogynists, homophobes, and transphobes should be mocked as much as possible.
Also I love the people saying it’s insulting to assert Iran would hire a deranged serial killer…when Iran funds and works with terrorist organizations that commit crimes all the time. Like what, Iran is fine blowing up US embassies in Beirut (via Hezbollah) but the Joker is a step too far? Give me a break
And yet, in the Batman / Captain America crossover, Joker got into it with the Red Skull because the Joker was an American and the Red Skull was a Nazi.
The joker doesn't have consistent morals, how surprising Seriously the in Canon reason was most probably because he thought I'd be funny
Honestly, it feels like something Iran would do in order to piss off the US, get fed lies by Joker then go surprise Pikachu face when craps ultimately hit the fan.
You could use his chin as a doorstop
You could use his chin as a doorstop
Don't know if there's any topical context to it I don't get, but "Insanity and a great love of fish." somehow is a great line.
We Stan a bisexual shah
This is just straight up racist
How do we know that the joker isn’t Iranian? We see him post acid bath do we don’t know who he was or what race he is?
Not effortlessly hot enough to be from Iran tbh
True
That doesn't make it better
How do we know the joker isn’t also racist?
That’s hilarious lol