The first issue of The Initiative opened with Cloud 9, a pretty average teenage girl with the power of flight, zipping around through the clouds having a good time, and just generally being whimsical. It's made very clear that all she wants to do is fly for fun. She doesn't want to fight supervillains, or rule the world. She just wants to fly. Then War Machine zips down and tells her, "Look you either join the military and fly for us, or we take your powers away forever after we jail you." So she goes to bootcamp, makes some friends, sees a bunch of them killed, is forced to kill terrorists, finally graduates from bootcamp, and is shipped off to a new city, where she's separated from all her friends and teammates in the Initiative. This issue closes with Cloud 9 helping evacuate a burning building.
A young girl, upon climbing atop one of Cloud 9's little flying clouds, geeks out saying how awesome Cloud 9 is, and how cool it is she gets to fly. The girl's mother chides her daughter, telling her not to distract Cloud 9, as "This isn't fun for her. This is her job." The final panel is a tight-lipped, emotionless Cloud 9.
Basically, it showed everything that's wrong with Tony Stark's Initiative, as it stands right now. Anyone unlucky enough to have powers will be ruthlessly ground into whatever the government wants them to be, forced to kill, and relocated across the country at a moment's notice, until they become a hollow shell of their old selves.
That's one interpretation.
Another is:
When Cloud 9 arrived, she was a naive child who had no sense of the responsibility she owed other people as a result of having the good fortune of being born with a power. She was, to make a really blunt parallel, Peter Parker when he just wanted to wrestle and make money with his spider-powers. Through the process of the Initiative, which has definitely been mismanaged in many ways, she learned that the gift of powers simply does not come without commensurate responsibility. If she wanted to be anything but a selfish child, she would have to learn to sacrifice part of herself to help others. In other words, she had become Spider-Man after Uncle Ben's death.
The interpretation of this arc really depends on your concept of responsibility: is someone born with an extraordinary power being selfish if they choose not to help those around them?
The first issue of The Initiative opened with Cloud 9, a pretty average teenage girl with the power of flight, zipping around through the clouds having a good time, and just generally being whimsical. It's made very clear that all she wants to do is fly for fun. She doesn't want to fight supervillains, or rule the world. She just wants to fly. Then War Machine zips down and tells her, "Look you either join the military and fly for us, or we take your powers away forever after we jail you." So she goes to bootcamp, makes some friends, sees a bunch of them killed, is forced to kill terrorists, finally graduates from bootcamp, and is shipped off to a new city, where she's separated from all her friends and teammates in the Initiative. This issue closes with Cloud 9 helping evacuate a burning building.
A young girl, upon climbing atop one of Cloud 9's little flying clouds, geeks out saying how awesome Cloud 9 is, and how cool it is she gets to fly. The girl's mother chides her daughter, telling her not to distract Cloud 9, as "This isn't fun for her. This is her job." The final panel is a tight-lipped, emotionless Cloud 9.
Basically, it showed everything that's wrong with Tony Stark's Initiative, as it stands right now. Anyone unlucky enough to have powers will be ruthlessly ground into whatever the government wants them to be, forced to kill, and relocated across the country at a moment's notice, until they become a hollow shell of their old selves.
That's one interpretation.
Another is:
When Cloud 9 arrived, she was a naive child who had no sense of the responsibility she owed other people as a result of having the good fortune of being born with a power. She was, to make a really blunt parallel, Peter Parker when he just wanted to wrestle and make money with his spider-powers. Through the process of the Initiative, which has definitely been mismanaged in many ways, she learned that the gift of powers simply does not come without commensurate responsibility. If she wanted to be anything but a selfish child, she would have to learn to sacrifice part of herself to help others. In other words, she had become Spider-Man after Uncle Ben's death.
The interpretation of this arc really depends on your concept of responsibility: is someone born with an extraordinary power being selfish if they choose not to help those around them?
Cloud 9 can fly. That's about her only real power when you get down to it. I won't even get into how much more powerful Spider-Man is and how much he could do with his powers to help. In terms of the Marvel Universe, her powers are far from extraordinary. The 80 year old grandma down the street can probably fly in the MU. Being forced as a minor to go to Camp Hammond, pick up a gun and shoot people and having her childhood and innocence robbed from her is not the same as Peter sucking it up and marrying a super model while fighting most villains and muggers that have absolutely no chance of even harming him.
It has nothign to do with a person's concept of responsibility. You have money and all kinds of priveledges just by the fact you can post on the internet and buy comic books. Why aren't you being responsible and helping those less fortunate than yourself in poverty stricken countries? She has a cloud and can fly on it. She can't even take a punch from a mugger let alone save someone from a super villain unless it involves flying away.
Being born doesn't mean you owe anyone anything, powers or no powers.
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
Actually, her powers are a bit more diverse than that. She controls this gas that can float people, so she can help lots of people fly, and she can also use it for cover and to choke people (like she did during the WWH arc).
But yeah.
Both of those views are really good ways of looking at it. Makes for a great story and a great character.
Not to say my interpretation's the "right" one or anything, but let's compare Cloud 9's first and last appearances so far.
In her first appearance she's surrounded by very calm, sublime colors, clouds, and has a big ol' smile on her face. Last appearance? She's surrounded by fire, "angry" colors, her mask shape is threatening and almost scowling, and she's grimacing. I'm pretty sure neither Slott or Uy meant for this to be a, "And with that Cloud 9 became a real hero, willing to put others above herself," and more of a, "And that's how the government destroyed someone's life for being different."
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
I'd say her life being 'destroyed' is pretty harsh. She grew up. She got past the guilt of what she'd done (thank you, Trauma), and now she's a grown up hero. It may not be fun anymore, but helping people and doing good have become something she wants to do. Over the course of these past 12 issues she's gone through tough times and matured, and I think that's more the message than 'the government ruined her.'
Cloud 9 can fly. That's about her only real power when you get down to it. I won't even get into how much more powerful Spider-Man is and how much he could do with his powers to help. In terms of the Marvel Universe, her powers are far from extraordinary. The 80 year old grandma down the street can probably fly in the MU. Being forced as a minor to go to Camp Hammond, pick up a gun and shoot people and having her childhood and innocence robbed from her is not the same as Peter sucking it up and marrying a super model while fighting most villains and muggers that have absolutely no chance of even harming him.
It has nothign to do with a person's concept of responsibility. You have money and all kinds of priveledges just by the fact you can post on the internet and buy comic books. Why aren't you being responsible and helping those less fortunate than yourself in poverty stricken countries? She has a cloud and can fly on it. She can't even take a punch from a mugger let alone save someone from a super villain unless it involves flying away.
Being born doesn't mean you owe anyone anything, powers or no powers.
(A) You don't know me. I work as a consultant with one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States, literally doing our best to improve the quality of life nation-wide. Don't preach to me about my lack of responsibility.
(B) There is a fundamental, fundamental difference between whatever I have (which can only differ in scale from any other human) and what someone with superpowers has. Superpowers break all the rules of human interaction (which are premised on the ability of any person to do what anyone else can do, given time and training).
The question of whether you owe anyone else anything by virtue of your birth is not a settled issue, and your acting like it is simply comes across as naive and insulting to those of us who struggle with the idea daily.
It is a valid point that you don't have an obligation to help anyone around you, but it is also a valid point that the more power you have, the more you have an obligation to society to act positively. That doesn't mean a rich person has to dedicate their life to charity, but it does mean that morally they should be doing more to help than a poor person should. Again, this is the entire point of the Spider-Man moral drama.
Now, Munch, as to whether Cloud 9 has been crushed: I have no doubt that it is intentional to portray her as becoming hardened and having lost her innocence. Quite likely that is the primary arc of the series, with her as the star. However, again, there is a question of what you think of when you think of maturity.
When you see a teenager flying around, just enjoying her power, you think "hey, that's great!" When you see a 35 year old flying around, just enjoying her power without doing anything worthwhile with it, you're justified in thinking "gee, maybe she should do something more worthwhile with that power". We ask different things, in terms of charity and good works, from children than we do adults.
I love to write, to draw, to philosophize, etc. Yet, if I want to actually help people, I have to sacrifice time and energy to those goals, meaning I don't get to just have as much fun as I want. That doesn't mean I'm crushed or anything: it means I've acknowledged that I'm a part of a society, and I want to help the people around me. I want to live in a community, not an island.
I'm a libertarian, and if I were born with superpowers I would bristle at the fact that - purely by chance of fate - I would have a greater obligation to do good than someone without powers. Yet, if I want to be a part of American society instead of standing apart from it, then I need to contribute back. For most people that means paying taxes and obeying the law, but for some people (cops, scientists, soldiers, teachers, etc.) it means actively sacrificing your time, energy and potentially your life to make society better.
I find it distressing that you immediately view Cloud 9 as being crushed, as having lost something valuable without having gained something just as valuable in return. She has given up the innocent but ignorant glee of childhood, in exchange for the painful but meaningful truth that in her sacrifice she is helping others. She saved those people's lives because she made that sacrifice, and I think we're intended to honor that.
Look, the fact of the matter is that there is clearly a juxtoposition between Cloud 9 at the start of the Initiative and Cloud 9 at the end.
The end result is, right or wrong, they took an amazing joy in a childs life, yes, a child, and they destroyed it. You can argue the motives, the ends justifying the means... but the end result is, the Initative took what made her so awesome... that innocence... the pure love of flying, and they crushed it out of her.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Look, the fact of the matter is that there is clearly a juxtoposition between Cloud 9 at the start of the Initiative and Cloud 9 at the end.
The end result is, right or wrong, they took an amazing joy in a childs life, yes, a child, and they destroyed it. You can argue the motives, the ends justifying the means... but the end result is, the Initative took what made her so awesome... that innocence... the pure love of flying, and they crushed it out of her.
Again, I don't see why you choose to (much less have to) view it as being "crushed" out of her instead of viewing it as her maturing from childhood to adult. "When I was a child, I played with childish things...", etc.?
There is no doubt she would have enjoyed more time as an innocent, but they're literally engaged in a constant war in the Marvel universe given that there are hundreds or thousands of superpowered foes who regularly cause millions of dollars in damage and kill innocent people everywhere. In that world, shouldn't we be proud of a person like Cloud 9, who makes the sacrifice and serves the public good?
NogsCrap, crap, mega crap.Crap, crap, mega crap.Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
okay, Xavier
I'm just joshin' ya. i think the great part about it is, that you can look at it from both ways. either way in 12 issues, she has had considerable character development and i enjoyed reading it.
Look, the fact of the matter is that there is clearly a juxtoposition between Cloud 9 at the start of the Initiative and Cloud 9 at the end.
The end result is, right or wrong, they took an amazing joy in a childs life, yes, a child, and they destroyed it. You can argue the motives, the ends justifying the means... but the end result is, the Initative took what made her so awesome... that innocence... the pure love of flying, and they crushed it out of her.
Again, I don't see why you choose to (much less have to) view it as being "crushed" out of her instead of viewing it as her maturing from childhood to adult. "When I was a child, I played with childish things...", etc.?
There is no doubt she would have enjoyed more time as an innocent, but they're literally engaged in a constant war in the Marvel universe given that there are hundreds or thousands of superpowered foes who regularly cause millions of dollars in damage and kill innocent people everywhere. In that world, shouldn't we be proud of a person like Cloud 9, who makes the sacrifice and serves the public good?
Again, I don't see why you choose to (much less have to) view it as being "crushed" out of her instead of viewing it as her maturing from childhood to adult. "When I was a child, I played with childish things...", etc.?
A little OT, but this misses the point of that quote. It ends with "...including the fear of appearing childish", and the whole point is that people need to learn that enjoying themselves is not something that should stop when one isn't a child anymore.
What about the positive effects the Initiative had on Trauma, Kimodo, and Hardball? It's not black and white, there are good things and bad things about it.
Again, I don't see why you choose to (much less have to) view it as being "crushed" out of her instead of viewing it as her maturing from childhood to adult. "When I was a child, I played with childish things...", etc.?
A little OT, but this misses the point of that quote. It ends with "...including the fear of appearing childish", and the whole point is that people need to learn that enjoying themselves is not something that should stop when one isn't a child anymore.
I think you're confusing the original biblical quote with CS Lewis' adaptation of it, but never mind.
Edit: original version.
CS Lewis version: 'When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up' - "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952).
You know, I think reading and hearing various forms of this Cloud-9 argument will probably be Dan Slott's Moment Of The Week. One year's worth of his comic has done it's share (if not more) to keep the Anti/Pro arguments going long past the end of Civil War.
What about the positive effects the Initiative had on Trauma, Kimodo, and Hardball? It's not black and white, there are good things and bad things about it.
Trauma came very close to not working out at all. Luckily, someone around him had a fear of death. And Komodo? As soon as she steps out of line they'll take her powers and she'll be crippled again. So hopefully she enjoys a lifetime of military service.
Anyways, to me the Initiative has been very anti-Registration almost since the beginning. They have a Nazi on the staff who says he's Hank Pym's, the guy in charge of the Initiative, biggest fan. They have teenagers killing terrorists after being conscripted for a lifetime term of military service. They've had numerous people killed or maimed already due to their immoral practices. The conscience of the Initiative, Justice, left because he realized how irredeemably corrupt and fucked up the place was. When Spider-Man was battling genuine supervillains, the Initiative interfered and causes the villains to escape, while Komodo and War Machine then tried to apprehend the guy that was trying to catch them.
Back to the people killed. The overseers of the Initiative forced a bunch of people, who had up until that point been getting along perfectly fine, to come to Camp Hammond, saying that they had a better way to do things. That better way cost three people their lives, one person a hand, and one guy both his arms.
Back to Cloud 9, I don't think her situation is comparable to Spider-Man's, or anyone who has a duty to "do good" in any way. She has been recruited to a military organization that has no minimum term. As long as she has superpowers, she's government property. She won't see her friends and family back home unless she's granted leave, she won't ever go to college, she'll never pursue a career of her choice, and she'll never have a day when she's not a superhero. Spider-Man, despite his responsibility, still had a basically normal life. Most of the week he'd go to school, date, pursue his hobbies, and do photography. Being a hero was part of his life, a small fraction of who he was. It wasn't his entire life.
Imagine being really good at one thing, but wanting to do something else. Say you're a science whiz, but you really want to be a professional athlete. Does the government have the right to say, "Sorry but you'd be more useful trying to cure cancer since you have a weak ass jump shot anyways." Because that's what everyone in the Initiative is faced with. Either give up your entire life plan, or give up your powers. Which, as Rictor over in X-Factor has demonstrated, can be so traumatic it can make a person suicidal.
Personally i'd love to see a series about Gauntlets time in Iraq, something along the lines of Gauntlet and a unit of other powered soldiers deployed specifically for the purpose of killing powered insurgents. Treat it as a war comic rather than a super hero comic and i think you'd have a really good series.
Look, the fact of the matter is that there is clearly a juxtoposition between Cloud 9 at the start of the Initiative and Cloud 9 at the end.
The end result is, right or wrong, they took an amazing joy in a childs life, yes, a child, and they destroyed it. You can argue the motives, the ends justifying the means... but the end result is, the Initative took what made her so awesome... that innocence... the pure love of flying, and they crushed it out of her.
Again, I don't see why you choose to (much less have to) view it as being "crushed" out of her instead of viewing it as her maturing from childhood to adult. "When I was a child, I played with childish things...", etc.?
There is no doubt she would have enjoyed more time as an innocent, but they're literally engaged in a constant war in the Marvel universe given that there are hundreds or thousands of superpowered foes who regularly cause millions of dollars in damage and kill innocent people everywhere. In that world, shouldn't we be proud of a person like Cloud 9, who makes the sacrifice and serves the public good?
Yes, but should they be forced to do it?
I'm not going to threadjack this into a pro-reg/anti-reg issue, but I think you personally already know my views there.
I'm not speaking, in this case, about whether she should have been forced to do it. Instead, I'm speaking about how we should feel about her change in personality. They're obviously related questions, but they're still distinct.
Imagine being really good at one thing, but wanting to do something else. Say you're a science whiz, but you really want to be a professional athlete. Does the government have the right to say, "Sorry but you'd be more useful trying to cure cancer since you have a weak ass jump shot anyways." Because that's what everyone in the Initiative is faced with. Either give up your entire life plan, or give up your powers. Which, as Rictor over in X-Factor has demonstrated, can be so traumatic it can make a person suicidal.
Not to get back into the pro/anti reg stuff, but we have to acknowledge that all the moral philosophy in the real world depends on the assumption that human beings differ from one another only in scale, not in nature. That is, while you may be smarter, faster or stronger than I am, you have no abilities which I could not also have/develop. Thus, your greater speed doesn't make you more or less human than I. In superhero universes, this assumption is empirically false.
People with superpowers break most ethical systems, and require a new philosophical framework. The best in-universe explanation of this is in Red Son, and I won't be able to do it justice here with a summary. In short, when you have a super power, your relationship to the 'rest' of humanity is completely different. You are, quite literally, something apart, something more than human. There is no reason to assume that the ethical and moral rules that apply to humanity would necessarily apply in the same way to something inhuman/superhuman/metahuman.
The easy example is this: if you have the power to heal with a touch, can you honestly say it wouldn't be offensively selfish to hoard that healing ability and never use it? That doesn't speak to whether it's immoral to never use it, but it speaks to how the rest of humanity should view you, based on your decisions.
To me, a super-powered individual who deprives humanity of the benefits of his/her powers is offensively selfish, and I would judge them accordingly. Those who would use those powers to the benefit of humanity, sacrificing much of their own life in the process, I would respect. This is precisely the same way I feel about cops/firemen/soldiers/etc.: they give up a great deal of themselves for us. They choose, willingly, to abandon the very things they are protecting in our own lives.
Let's not forget that the Initiative is also completely compromised
Yes this, I mean when you have a Skrull, a Nazi, and a douchebag running the show of course they are going to fuck it up a bunch.
And Gyrich was the one mandating power removal, (and really he only took Armory's because it was something they could conceivably attach to someone else) I dont think they would still do that now that he's been deposed.
Imagine being really good at one thing, but wanting to do something else. Say you're a science whiz, but you really want to be a professional athlete. Does the government have the right to say, "Sorry but you'd be more useful trying to cure cancer since you have a weak ass jump shot anyways." Because that's what everyone in the Initiative is faced with. Either give up your entire life plan, or give up your powers. Which, as Rictor over in X-Factor has demonstrated, can be so traumatic it can make a person suicidal.
Not to get back into the pro/anti reg stuff, but we have to acknowledge that all the moral philosophy in the real world depends on the assumption that human beings differ from one another only in scale, not in nature. That is, while you may be smarter, faster or stronger than I am, you have no abilities which I could not also have/develop. Thus, your greater speed doesn't make you more or less human than I. In superhero universes, this assumption is empirically false.
People with superpowers break most ethical systems, and require a new philosophical framework. The best in-universe explanation of this is in Red Son, and I won't be able to do it justice here with a summary. In short, when you have a super power, your relationship to the 'rest' of humanity is completely different. You are, quite literally, something apart, something more than human. There is no reason to assume that the ethical and moral rules that apply to humanity would necessarily apply in the same way to something inhuman/superhuman/metahuman.
The easy example is this: if you have the power to heal with a touch, can you honestly say it wouldn't be offensively selfish to hoard that healing ability and never use it? That doesn't speak to whether it's immoral to never use it, but it speaks to how the rest of humanity should view you, based on your decisions.
To me, a super-powered individual who deprives humanity of the benefits of his/her powers is offensively selfish, and I would judge them accordingly. Those who would use those powers to the benefit of humanity, sacrificing much of their own life in the process, I would respect. This is precisely the same way I feel about cops/firemen/soldiers/etc.: they give up a great deal of themselves for us. They choose, willingly, to abandon the very things they are protecting in our own lives.
Yeah, and that is the difference.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
The easy example is this: if you have the power to heal with a touch, can you honestly say it wouldn't be offensively selfish to hoard that healing ability and never use it? That doesn't speak to whether it's immoral to never use it, but it speaks to how the rest of humanity should view you, based on your decisions.
To me, a super-powered individual who deprives humanity of the benefits of his/her powers is offensively selfish, and I would judge them accordingly. Those who would use those powers to the benefit of humanity, sacrificing much of their own life in the process, I would respect. This is precisely the same way I feel about cops/firemen/soldiers/etc.: they give up a great deal of themselves for us. They choose, willingly, to abandon the very things they are protecting in our own lives.
Name a single use of Cloud 9s powers that couldn't be preformed with similar or greater efficiently by a SHIELD cape-killer wearing a jet pack and holding an assault rifle. The only one i can think of would be saving people as we see in the final issue and i don't see how boot camp would have helped with that.
I think now that Tony is taking an active hand in watching the Initiative (and Camp Hammond), and Justice and the rest of the New Warriors are watching what's going on with Tony's approval, things are probably going to change for the better in terms of training and recruitment.
The easy example is this: if you have the power to heal with a touch, can you honestly say it wouldn't be offensively selfish to hoard that healing ability and never use it? That doesn't speak to whether it's immoral to never use it, but it speaks to how the rest of humanity should view you, based on your decisions.
To me, a super-powered individual who deprives humanity of the benefits of his/her powers is offensively selfish, and I would judge them accordingly. Those who would use those powers to the benefit of humanity, sacrificing much of their own life in the process, I would respect. This is precisely the same way I feel about cops/firemen/soldiers/etc.: they give up a great deal of themselves for us. They choose, willingly, to abandon the very things they are protecting in our own lives.
Name a single use of Cloud 9s powers that couldn't be preformed with similar or greater efficiently by a SHIELD cape-killer wearing a jet pack and holding an assault rifle. The only one i can think of would be saving people as we see in the final issue and i don't see how boot camp would have helped with that.
So the argument is about efficiency now? I thought it was about Cloud 9's rights.
We get off into an impossible field of questions when we ask whether the Marvel Earth's government is doing things efficiently, because inevitably come up against questions about why Stark, Richards, etc. aren't solving every medical and fuel need in the world.
But where we are on firm ground is the question of where the Marvel universe stands on power: with great power comes great responsibility. That has been an underlying theme throughout Marvel, not just Spider-Man. It's the concept that leads to X-Men being trained as soldiers, not just students, and its the thought behind The Order/Initiative. It's not a perfect and easy concept, because few things short enough to put on bumper stickers are. But it's still the moral compass of Marvel's publishing history.
Now, as to Sentry's comment about "willingly": if Cloud 9 had never used this superpower that put her above humanity, then she'd be fine, on her own, at home. She is there willingly, because she wants the privilege of flying. I was born with the innate physical powers required to drive a car, but you can be damned sure I followed the government's laws about getting a driver's license. The whole point of pro-reg is that you're only conscripted if you want to use your powers. This argument has been fleshed out fully before (like...a year ago...) and I won't sit here repeating the whole thing. The core assumption of the anti-reg - that you have a right to exercise super-powers because you're born with them or whatever - simply hasn't been argued for with any strength or validity, much less a definitive outcome in the positive. The fact is, in the real world we already need to get licenses and follow laws regarding the exercise of our natural abilities.
The biggest problem, frankly, is that the editorial/writing staff REALLY dropped the ball on controlling what the actual content of SHRA was, and as a result different comics portrayed it as having different scopes. Most of the comics made it clear that conscription only happened if you wanted to use your powers. Other comics said that conscription happened no matter what. If the editorial staff were to clear this up, it'd solve a lot of these issues.
Matt, I don't think you want to go with the car driving analogy in this case. I think it's fair to say that your ability and desire to drive a car does not then mean that the government can or should impose unreasonable requirements on you so that you can drive a car. Cloud 9 has the ability and desire to fly, but in order to do so she's required to go to boot camp to become a soldier in a superhero army. This would be like you wanting to drive a car, but the government telling you that the only way you can drive a car is by joining the army and becoming a tank driver.
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
I think what most of you are missing is that the Initiative, and indeed the SHRA as a whole, is going to be revealed as manipulated largely by the badguys. Sure, Stark may have had good intentions, but considering who has been in charge of the whole thing, it's most likely simply a plan to completely compromise and neutralize America's superhuman network. Stark's trust in the people in charge is obviously completely misplaced, he's been deceived, and there really is no way that the SHRA won't end up scrapped, because when the Skrulls start coming, people won't particularly care if the heroes have ID or not.
So the argument is about efficiency now? I thought it was about Cloud 9's rights.
I'm questioning the rationale behind the initiative argument that Cloud 9 needs to be trained to use her powers 'properly'. It seems a rather senseless and arbitrary ruling. If anything Cloud 9s training makes matters worse. Before she was at best a minor flight risk, now she's got the potential to kill anybody she wishes and leave no physical evidence. The whole thing just strikes me as draconian and irrational.
Also does anybody else think that somebody is going to have to put a bullet in Slapstick sometimes soon, little freak seems to be getting a tad rabid of late.
We already know that one of the people in charge is a Skrull and another one was fired for being a gigantic douchebag who didnt give a shit about the recruits.
I think what most of you are missing is that the Initiative, and indeed the SHRA as a whole, is going to be revealed as manipulated largely by the badguys. Sure, Stark may have had good intentions, but considering who has been in charge of the whole thing, it's most likely simply a plan to completely compromise and neutralize America's superhuman network. Stark's trust in the people in charge is obviously completely misplaced, he's been deceived, and there really is no way that the SHRA won't end up scrapped, because when the Skrulls start coming, people won't particularly care if the heroes have ID or not.
I don't agree: I think they're going to restructure SHRA to make some of this more explicit, but I severely doubt they're going to reverse it when they (the editors) let it kill Captain America.
What about the positive effects the Initiative had on Trauma, Kimodo, and Hardball? It's not black and white, there are good things and bad things about it.
Trauma came very close to not working out at all. Luckily, someone around him had a fear of death. And Komodo? As soon as she steps out of line they'll take her powers and she'll be crippled again. So hopefully she enjoys a lifetime of military service.
Anyways, to me the Initiative has been very anti-Registration almost since the beginning. They have a Nazi on the staff who says he's Hank Pym's, the guy in charge of the Initiative, biggest fan. They have teenagers killing terrorists after being conscripted for a lifetime term of military service. They've had numerous people killed or maimed already due to their immoral practices. The conscience of the Initiative, Justice, left because he realized how irredeemably corrupt and fucked up the place was. When Spider-Man was battling genuine supervillains, the Initiative interfered and causes the villains to escape, while Komodo and War Machine then tried to apprehend the guy that was trying to catch them.
Back to the people killed. The overseers of the Initiative forced a bunch of people, who had up until that point been getting along perfectly fine, to come to Camp Hammond, saying that they had a better way to do things. That better way cost three people their lives, one person a hand, and one guy both his arms.
Back to Cloud 9, I don't think her situation is comparable to Spider-Man's, or anyone who has a duty to "do good" in any way. She has been recruited to a military organization that has no minimum term. As long as she has superpowers, she's government property. She won't see her friends and family back home unless she's granted leave, she won't ever go to college, she'll never pursue a career of her choice, and she'll never have a day when she's not a superhero. Spider-Man, despite his responsibility, still had a basically normal life. Most of the week he'd go to school, date, pursue his hobbies, and do photography. Being a hero was part of his life, a small fraction of who he was. It wasn't his entire life.
Imagine being really good at one thing, but wanting to do something else. Say you're a science whiz, but you really want to be a professional athlete. Does the government have the right to say, "Sorry but you'd be more useful trying to cure cancer since you have a weak ass jump shot anyways." Because that's what everyone in the Initiative is faced with. Either give up your entire life plan, or give up your powers. Which, as Rictor over in X-Factor has demonstrated, can be so traumatic it can make a person suicidal.
Short version for those too lazy to read Munch's well thought out post.
The SHRA is flat out slavery for anyone with powers. You kill for them, or they take your powers/kill you if you don't keep their secrets.
EDIT Also, this is just how the Skrulls wanted it, which makes it automatically bad despite the few good things that have come from it.
Double EDIT Sally Floyd was actually useful for the burn on Henry, I liked that.
Matt, I don't think you want to go with the car driving analogy in this case. I think it's fair to say that your ability and desire to drive a car does not then mean that the government can or should impose unreasonable requirements on you so that you can drive a car. Cloud 9 has the ability and desire to fly, but in order to do so she's required to go to boot camp to become a soldier in a superhero army. This would be like you wanting to drive a car, but the government telling you that the only way you can drive a car is by joining the army and becoming a tank driver.
Exactly. Why must the only way to be a reged superhuman be to take on the role of a solider? Why aren't there any desk jobs and non-millitary government work for superhumans who just don't want to go to jail?
Short version for those too lazy to read Munch's well thought out post.
The SHRA is flat out slavery for anyone with powers. You kill for them, or they take your powers/kill you if you don't keep their secrets.
EDIT Also, this is just how the Skrulls wanted it, which makes it automatically bad despite the few good things that have come from it.
(a) Slavery is nonsense; at the very least, they're paid. At the very least, you can give up your powers (which you have no right to use, anyway) and leave. These are all inconsistent with the concept of "slavery". Hyperbole is damaging to your argument.
(b) The government has always had the right to execute treasonous traitors. If you give up government secrets, in the real world, you may face execution. The standard means of dealing with spies for centuries - from monarchies, to dictatorships to democracies including our own - has been to execute them.
(c) I'm not denying that the Skrulls probably supported, maybe even created, SHRA. At the very least, we know that Pym was manipulating Stark/Richards while they developed their list of ideas to improve the world, SHRA being one of them. That doesn't mean SHRA isn't also right in ways. The validity of SHRA in concept has nothing to do with who authored it.
Matt, I don't think you want to go with the car driving analogy in this case. I think it's fair to say that your ability and desire to drive a car does not then mean that the government can or should impose unreasonable requirements on you so that you can drive a car. Cloud 9 has the ability and desire to fly, but in order to do so she's required to go to boot camp to become a soldier in a superhero army. This would be like you wanting to drive a car, but the government telling you that the only way you can drive a car is by joining the army and becoming a tank driver.
Exactly. Why must the only way to be a reged superhuman be to take on the role of a solider? Why aren't there any desk jobs and non-millitary government work for superhumans who just don't want to go to jail?
We don't know there aren't. The options aren't 'service or jail', they're 'service or suppression/removal of powers'. I can't state this more clearly: there is no "right" to exercise your natural abilities within a society of laws. We routinely make it criminal to exercise your natural, physical abilities.
For example, I'm not legally allowed to beat someone up because I want to. I have the physical ability to do so, but I'm legally prohibited because our society of laws requires me to respect the rights of the person I'm looking at.
Similarly, my very freedom of speech is limited where it would interfere with others, because that's one of the prices of living in a society of laws: reciprocal restrictions of freedoms.
Just because you're born with the ability to fly, doesn't mean you have the right to do so, unless you want to leave our society.
Man... a bash Black Panther derailment and an SHRA derailment filled with Matt's complete and utter nonsense? Both in the same 1-2 week time frame? Man... is it Hanukah again?
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Man... a bash Black Panther derailment and an SHRA derailment filled with Matt's complete and utter nonsense? Both in the same 1-2 week time frame? Man... is it Hanukah again?
Man, a a Sentry posting "complete and utter nonsense" without rebutting any arguments, is it every post of Sentry's again?
Do you have a "stop whining" button we can press, or is this your only mode?
And can you explain how it's a derailment when we're talking about the contents of a "moment of the week' scene?
I mean, there are people in this world who are obscenely fast, and obscenely strong, possibly faster or stronger than some of the people drafted, and yet by simply missing a genetic marker, they avoid internment/registration/the draft.
Would Bruce Lee have been drafted? He's probably 100 times more dangerous than 99% of the non-powered people on the planet, but as long as he doesn't put on a mask, would he be left alone? Most of our examples in comics are vastly disproportionate to what we can do, but what about a "mutant" who had the raw strength to bench 200 pounds? Impressive for a skinny 150 pound kid, but does merely having a certain gene (no matter how miniscule or weak the effect) suddenly mean that kid's life and liberty are exempt from the rights given everyone else?
We only focus on the really cool powers, but what if your powers were really lame? Perhaps with some ingenuity a combative/military application could be found, but I just kind of wonder how vast in scope this really is meant to be, or if people under a certain limit get a 'pass'? We've seen from Shield files in various books that they do have a rating system, so maybe people under a certain level with no easily applicable powers (a 1 or a 2, perhaps) are merely kept under watch to see if those powers ever develop or manifest in a more useful form, or just grab EVERYONE and see if you can't poke or prod something more powerful out of them, and even if they can push those weaker folks to max out their potential, who gives them that right? I thought the SHRA was about protecting mankind from unchecked use of powers on par with weapons of mass destruction, but they seem to be scooping up a rather wide array of individuals who may or may not posess any such level of danger to those around them.
Is it right to try to encourage or breed that level of power into those who'd otherwise be simply somewhat unique, if not truly powerful? Would that not, in some fashion, simply be making matters worse?
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Matt, I don't think you want to go with the car driving analogy in this case. I think it's fair to say that your ability and desire to drive a car does not then mean that the government can or should impose unreasonable requirements on you so that you can drive a car. Cloud 9 has the ability and desire to fly, but in order to do so she's required to go to boot camp to become a soldier in a superhero army. This would be like you wanting to drive a car, but the government telling you that the only way you can drive a car is by joining the army and becoming a tank driver.
Exactly. Why must the only way to be a reged superhuman be to take on the role of a solider? Why aren't there any desk jobs and non-millitary government work for superhumans who just don't want to go to jail?
We don't know there aren't. The options aren't 'service or jail', they're 'service or suppression/removal of powers'. I can't state this more clearly: there is no "right" to exercise your natural abilities within a society of laws. We routinely make it criminal to exercise your natural, physical abilities.
We haven't been presented with any other scenarios by Marvel, so until they show otherwise, it seems as though there isn't one. And another thing, what if a superhuman refused to be a solider on moral grounds. Perhaps they were a Quaker, and were thus staunchly pacifist. What then?
(a) Slavery is nonsense; at the very least, they're paid. At the very least, you can give up your powers (which you have no right to use, anyway) and leave. These are all inconsistent with the concept of "slavery". Hyperbole is damaging to your argument.
i think you're going a little overboard there. saying you have no right to use something you are born with is like saying you dont have the right to walk or breathe or blink. its kind of silly. just because you can punch someone doesn't give the government the right to force you into military service because you could theoretically kill someone with your fist.
NOTE: people who willfully acquire powers are another matter.
the militarization of those with powers is the most troubling part. basically you should be trained to control your powers and stop from flipping out and fucking up everybodies shit. thats all. the fact that you then have to use your powers for military ends is beyond suspicious. so cloud 9 can fly, and make people/things fly. why is she trained militarily? why not have her be an engineer and use her abilities to lighten or move building material?
just because someone can kill you with their mind doesn't mean they will. are they dangerous? yes. but so is anyone.
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That's one interpretation.
Another is:
The interpretation of this arc really depends on your concept of responsibility: is someone born with an extraordinary power being selfish if they choose not to help those around them?
Cloud 9 can fly. That's about her only real power when you get down to it. I won't even get into how much more powerful Spider-Man is and how much he could do with his powers to help. In terms of the Marvel Universe, her powers are far from extraordinary. The 80 year old grandma down the street can probably fly in the MU. Being forced as a minor to go to Camp Hammond, pick up a gun and shoot people and having her childhood and innocence robbed from her is not the same as Peter sucking it up and marrying a super model while fighting most villains and muggers that have absolutely no chance of even harming him.
It has nothign to do with a person's concept of responsibility. You have money and all kinds of priveledges just by the fact you can post on the internet and buy comic books. Why aren't you being responsible and helping those less fortunate than yourself in poverty stricken countries? She has a cloud and can fly on it. She can't even take a punch from a mugger let alone save someone from a super villain unless it involves flying away.
Being born doesn't mean you owe anyone anything, powers or no powers.
But yeah.
Both of those views are really good ways of looking at it. Makes for a great story and a great character.
In her first appearance she's surrounded by very calm, sublime colors, clouds, and has a big ol' smile on her face. Last appearance? She's surrounded by fire, "angry" colors, her mask shape is threatening and almost scowling, and she's grimacing. I'm pretty sure neither Slott or Uy meant for this to be a, "And with that Cloud 9 became a real hero, willing to put others above herself," and more of a, "And that's how the government destroyed someone's life for being different."
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(A) You don't know me. I work as a consultant with one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States, literally doing our best to improve the quality of life nation-wide. Don't preach to me about my lack of responsibility.
(B) There is a fundamental, fundamental difference between whatever I have (which can only differ in scale from any other human) and what someone with superpowers has. Superpowers break all the rules of human interaction (which are premised on the ability of any person to do what anyone else can do, given time and training).
The question of whether you owe anyone else anything by virtue of your birth is not a settled issue, and your acting like it is simply comes across as naive and insulting to those of us who struggle with the idea daily.
It is a valid point that you don't have an obligation to help anyone around you, but it is also a valid point that the more power you have, the more you have an obligation to society to act positively. That doesn't mean a rich person has to dedicate their life to charity, but it does mean that morally they should be doing more to help than a poor person should. Again, this is the entire point of the Spider-Man moral drama.
Now, Munch, as to whether Cloud 9 has been crushed: I have no doubt that it is intentional to portray her as becoming hardened and having lost her innocence. Quite likely that is the primary arc of the series, with her as the star. However, again, there is a question of what you think of when you think of maturity.
When you see a teenager flying around, just enjoying her power, you think "hey, that's great!" When you see a 35 year old flying around, just enjoying her power without doing anything worthwhile with it, you're justified in thinking "gee, maybe she should do something more worthwhile with that power". We ask different things, in terms of charity and good works, from children than we do adults.
I love to write, to draw, to philosophize, etc. Yet, if I want to actually help people, I have to sacrifice time and energy to those goals, meaning I don't get to just have as much fun as I want. That doesn't mean I'm crushed or anything: it means I've acknowledged that I'm a part of a society, and I want to help the people around me. I want to live in a community, not an island.
I'm a libertarian, and if I were born with superpowers I would bristle at the fact that - purely by chance of fate - I would have a greater obligation to do good than someone without powers. Yet, if I want to be a part of American society instead of standing apart from it, then I need to contribute back. For most people that means paying taxes and obeying the law, but for some people (cops, scientists, soldiers, teachers, etc.) it means actively sacrificing your time, energy and potentially your life to make society better.
I find it distressing that you immediately view Cloud 9 as being crushed, as having lost something valuable without having gained something just as valuable in return. She has given up the innocent but ignorant glee of childhood, in exchange for the painful but meaningful truth that in her sacrifice she is helping others. She saved those people's lives because she made that sacrifice, and I think we're intended to honor that.
The end result is, right or wrong, they took an amazing joy in a childs life, yes, a child, and they destroyed it. You can argue the motives, the ends justifying the means... but the end result is, the Initative took what made her so awesome... that innocence... the pure love of flying, and they crushed it out of her.
Again, I don't see why you choose to (much less have to) view it as being "crushed" out of her instead of viewing it as her maturing from childhood to adult. "When I was a child, I played with childish things...", etc.?
There is no doubt she would have enjoyed more time as an innocent, but they're literally engaged in a constant war in the Marvel universe given that there are hundreds or thousands of superpowered foes who regularly cause millions of dollars in damage and kill innocent people everywhere. In that world, shouldn't we be proud of a person like Cloud 9, who makes the sacrifice and serves the public good?
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
Yes, but should they be forced to do it?
I think you're confusing the original biblical quote with CS Lewis' adaptation of it, but never mind.
Edit: original version.
CS Lewis version: 'When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up' - "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952).
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Trauma came very close to not working out at all. Luckily, someone around him had a fear of death. And Komodo? As soon as she steps out of line they'll take her powers and she'll be crippled again. So hopefully she enjoys a lifetime of military service.
Anyways, to me the Initiative has been very anti-Registration almost since the beginning. They have a Nazi on the staff who says he's Hank Pym's, the guy in charge of the Initiative, biggest fan. They have teenagers killing terrorists after being conscripted for a lifetime term of military service. They've had numerous people killed or maimed already due to their immoral practices. The conscience of the Initiative, Justice, left because he realized how irredeemably corrupt and fucked up the place was. When Spider-Man was battling genuine supervillains, the Initiative interfered and causes the villains to escape, while Komodo and War Machine then tried to apprehend the guy that was trying to catch them.
Back to the people killed. The overseers of the Initiative forced a bunch of people, who had up until that point been getting along perfectly fine, to come to Camp Hammond, saying that they had a better way to do things. That better way cost three people their lives, one person a hand, and one guy both his arms.
Back to Cloud 9, I don't think her situation is comparable to Spider-Man's, or anyone who has a duty to "do good" in any way. She has been recruited to a military organization that has no minimum term. As long as she has superpowers, she's government property. She won't see her friends and family back home unless she's granted leave, she won't ever go to college, she'll never pursue a career of her choice, and she'll never have a day when she's not a superhero. Spider-Man, despite his responsibility, still had a basically normal life. Most of the week he'd go to school, date, pursue his hobbies, and do photography. Being a hero was part of his life, a small fraction of who he was. It wasn't his entire life.
Imagine being really good at one thing, but wanting to do something else. Say you're a science whiz, but you really want to be a professional athlete. Does the government have the right to say, "Sorry but you'd be more useful trying to cure cancer since you have a weak ass jump shot anyways." Because that's what everyone in the Initiative is faced with. Either give up your entire life plan, or give up your powers. Which, as Rictor over in X-Factor has demonstrated, can be so traumatic it can make a person suicidal.
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I'm not going to threadjack this into a pro-reg/anti-reg issue, but I think you personally already know my views there.
I'm not speaking, in this case, about whether she should have been forced to do it. Instead, I'm speaking about how we should feel about her change in personality. They're obviously related questions, but they're still distinct.
Not to get back into the pro/anti reg stuff, but we have to acknowledge that all the moral philosophy in the real world depends on the assumption that human beings differ from one another only in scale, not in nature. That is, while you may be smarter, faster or stronger than I am, you have no abilities which I could not also have/develop. Thus, your greater speed doesn't make you more or less human than I. In superhero universes, this assumption is empirically false.
People with superpowers break most ethical systems, and require a new philosophical framework. The best in-universe explanation of this is in Red Son, and I won't be able to do it justice here with a summary. In short, when you have a super power, your relationship to the 'rest' of humanity is completely different. You are, quite literally, something apart, something more than human. There is no reason to assume that the ethical and moral rules that apply to humanity would necessarily apply in the same way to something inhuman/superhuman/metahuman.
The easy example is this: if you have the power to heal with a touch, can you honestly say it wouldn't be offensively selfish to hoard that healing ability and never use it? That doesn't speak to whether it's immoral to never use it, but it speaks to how the rest of humanity should view you, based on your decisions.
To me, a super-powered individual who deprives humanity of the benefits of his/her powers is offensively selfish, and I would judge them accordingly. Those who would use those powers to the benefit of humanity, sacrificing much of their own life in the process, I would respect. This is precisely the same way I feel about cops/firemen/soldiers/etc.: they give up a great deal of themselves for us. They choose, willingly, to abandon the very things they are protecting in our own lives.
Yes this, I mean when you have a Skrull, a Nazi, and a douchebag running the show of course they are going to fuck it up a bunch.
And Gyrich was the one mandating power removal, (and really he only took Armory's because it was something they could conceivably attach to someone else) I dont think they would still do that now that he's been deposed.
Yeah, and that is the difference.
Name a single use of Cloud 9s powers that couldn't be preformed with similar or greater efficiently by a SHIELD cape-killer wearing a jet pack and holding an assault rifle. The only one i can think of would be saving people as we see in the final issue and i don't see how boot camp would have helped with that.
So the argument is about efficiency now? I thought it was about Cloud 9's rights.
We get off into an impossible field of questions when we ask whether the Marvel Earth's government is doing things efficiently, because inevitably come up against questions about why Stark, Richards, etc. aren't solving every medical and fuel need in the world.
But where we are on firm ground is the question of where the Marvel universe stands on power: with great power comes great responsibility. That has been an underlying theme throughout Marvel, not just Spider-Man. It's the concept that leads to X-Men being trained as soldiers, not just students, and its the thought behind The Order/Initiative. It's not a perfect and easy concept, because few things short enough to put on bumper stickers are. But it's still the moral compass of Marvel's publishing history.
Now, as to Sentry's comment about "willingly": if Cloud 9 had never used this superpower that put her above humanity, then she'd be fine, on her own, at home. She is there willingly, because she wants the privilege of flying. I was born with the innate physical powers required to drive a car, but you can be damned sure I followed the government's laws about getting a driver's license. The whole point of pro-reg is that you're only conscripted if you want to use your powers. This argument has been fleshed out fully before (like...a year ago...) and I won't sit here repeating the whole thing. The core assumption of the anti-reg - that you have a right to exercise super-powers because you're born with them or whatever - simply hasn't been argued for with any strength or validity, much less a definitive outcome in the positive. The fact is, in the real world we already need to get licenses and follow laws regarding the exercise of our natural abilities.
The biggest problem, frankly, is that the editorial/writing staff REALLY dropped the ball on controlling what the actual content of SHRA was, and as a result different comics portrayed it as having different scopes. Most of the comics made it clear that conscription only happened if you wanted to use your powers. Other comics said that conscription happened no matter what. If the editorial staff were to clear this up, it'd solve a lot of these issues.
Bu
I'm questioning the rationale behind the initiative argument that Cloud 9 needs to be trained to use her powers 'properly'. It seems a rather senseless and arbitrary ruling. If anything Cloud 9s training makes matters worse. Before she was at best a minor flight risk, now she's got the potential to kill anybody she wishes and leave no physical evidence. The whole thing just strikes me as draconian and irrational.
Also does anybody else think that somebody is going to have to put a bullet in Slapstick sometimes soon, little freak seems to be getting a tad rabid of late.
We already know that one of the people in charge is a Skrull and another one was fired for being a gigantic douchebag who didnt give a shit about the recruits.
I don't agree: I think they're going to restructure SHRA to make some of this more explicit, but I severely doubt they're going to reverse it when they (the editors) let it kill Captain America.
Short version for those too lazy to read Munch's well thought out post.
The SHRA is flat out slavery for anyone with powers. You kill for them, or they take your powers/kill you if you don't keep their secrets.
EDIT Also, this is just how the Skrulls wanted it, which makes it automatically bad despite the few good things that have come from it.
Double EDIT Sally Floyd was actually useful for the burn on Henry, I liked that.
Exactly. Why must the only way to be a reged superhuman be to take on the role of a solider? Why aren't there any desk jobs and non-millitary government work for superhumans who just don't want to go to jail?
(a) Slavery is nonsense; at the very least, they're paid. At the very least, you can give up your powers (which you have no right to use, anyway) and leave. These are all inconsistent with the concept of "slavery". Hyperbole is damaging to your argument.
(b) The government has always had the right to execute treasonous traitors. If you give up government secrets, in the real world, you may face execution. The standard means of dealing with spies for centuries - from monarchies, to dictatorships to democracies including our own - has been to execute them.
(c) I'm not denying that the Skrulls probably supported, maybe even created, SHRA. At the very least, we know that Pym was manipulating Stark/Richards while they developed their list of ideas to improve the world, SHRA being one of them. That doesn't mean SHRA isn't also right in ways. The validity of SHRA in concept has nothing to do with who authored it.
We don't know there aren't. The options aren't 'service or jail', they're 'service or suppression/removal of powers'. I can't state this more clearly: there is no "right" to exercise your natural abilities within a society of laws. We routinely make it criminal to exercise your natural, physical abilities.
For example, I'm not legally allowed to beat someone up because I want to. I have the physical ability to do so, but I'm legally prohibited because our society of laws requires me to respect the rights of the person I'm looking at.
Similarly, my very freedom of speech is limited where it would interfere with others, because that's one of the prices of living in a society of laws: reciprocal restrictions of freedoms.
Just because you're born with the ability to fly, doesn't mean you have the right to do so, unless you want to leave our society.
Man, a a Sentry posting "complete and utter nonsense" without rebutting any arguments, is it every post of Sentry's again?
Do you have a "stop whining" button we can press, or is this your only mode?
And can you explain how it's a derailment when we're talking about the contents of a "moment of the week' scene?
I mean, there are people in this world who are obscenely fast, and obscenely strong, possibly faster or stronger than some of the people drafted, and yet by simply missing a genetic marker, they avoid internment/registration/the draft.
Would Bruce Lee have been drafted? He's probably 100 times more dangerous than 99% of the non-powered people on the planet, but as long as he doesn't put on a mask, would he be left alone? Most of our examples in comics are vastly disproportionate to what we can do, but what about a "mutant" who had the raw strength to bench 200 pounds? Impressive for a skinny 150 pound kid, but does merely having a certain gene (no matter how miniscule or weak the effect) suddenly mean that kid's life and liberty are exempt from the rights given everyone else?
We only focus on the really cool powers, but what if your powers were really lame? Perhaps with some ingenuity a combative/military application could be found, but I just kind of wonder how vast in scope this really is meant to be, or if people under a certain limit get a 'pass'? We've seen from Shield files in various books that they do have a rating system, so maybe people under a certain level with no easily applicable powers (a 1 or a 2, perhaps) are merely kept under watch to see if those powers ever develop or manifest in a more useful form, or just grab EVERYONE and see if you can't poke or prod something more powerful out of them, and even if they can push those weaker folks to max out their potential, who gives them that right? I thought the SHRA was about protecting mankind from unchecked use of powers on par with weapons of mass destruction, but they seem to be scooping up a rather wide array of individuals who may or may not posess any such level of danger to those around them.
Is it right to try to encourage or breed that level of power into those who'd otherwise be simply somewhat unique, if not truly powerful? Would that not, in some fashion, simply be making matters worse?
We haven't been presented with any other scenarios by Marvel, so until they show otherwise, it seems as though there isn't one. And another thing, what if a superhuman refused to be a solider on moral grounds. Perhaps they were a Quaker, and were thus staunchly pacifist. What then?
i think you're going a little overboard there. saying you have no right to use something you are born with is like saying you dont have the right to walk or breathe or blink. its kind of silly. just because you can punch someone doesn't give the government the right to force you into military service because you could theoretically kill someone with your fist.
NOTE: people who willfully acquire powers are another matter.
the militarization of those with powers is the most troubling part. basically you should be trained to control your powers and stop from flipping out and fucking up everybodies shit. thats all. the fact that you then have to use your powers for military ends is beyond suspicious. so cloud 9 can fly, and make people/things fly. why is she trained militarily? why not have her be an engineer and use her abilities to lighten or move building material?
just because someone can kill you with their mind doesn't mean they will. are they dangerous? yes. but so is anyone.