Hello. It’s me…I was wondering if after all these years, you’d like to meet…Sorry, it feels like it has been a lot of years since I was here on my blog writing regularly. I have been focused on NaNoWriMo for this past month, so most of my writing energy has been spent there. That’s over, at least for now. I will have to go back to what I’ve written and make it a lot less, well, not good. The nice thing, though, is that I won’t be under some crazy time crunch, like I was this whole month. In any case, I am back, and hopefully better than ever. Some of you may be thinking that won’t be too hard. To that, I say thank you. I like low expectations because they are easier to meet.
December is a big month because right in the middle, or middle-end, of the month we have a giant movie being released in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This post has absolutely nothing to do with that movie. I’m sorry, I know you are probably scouring the internet for anything you can find about Episode VII. I promise to have a post about that subject very soon, but it is not this post.
Instead, I wanted to write about something I have been thinking a lot about lately. After Star Wars, the next really big blockbuster will be Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice, and then we have Captain America: Civil War. These two movies have one big thing in common, besides titles that are probably longer than they need to be. The one thing I was thinking was the fact that these two films pit good guys against good guys. Up to this point, in the Marvel and DC Cinematic Universes, it has been easy to tell which guys (or gals) were the good guys (or gals). They were the ones who were fighting against the obvious villains. That all changes with these next two films, and they may leave you asking: So, who are the heroes, anyway?
It’s the question we’re all asking, in some form or another. Whose side are you on? #TeamCap #TeamStark. Are you Batman or are you Superman? What we’re really asking is who do you identify as a hero. Is it Cap or Superman, with their ideals and always standing for truth, Justice, and the American way? Or is it Iron Man or Batman, who still stand for justice, but are willing to be more realistic about it, come down to the villains’ level if needed. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t really matter in the long run. Cap and Tony fight side by side, so you don’t really have to choose sides at all. You may be more Team Superman, and your buddy or spouse may be more Team Batman, but that’s ok, because traditionally they don’t have a “v” between their names.
The real answer to the question of who the heroes are in these upcoming films is all of them. It is a lesson we could all take from these films and learn from it. I can almost guarantee that by the end of each of these movies, they will all end up on the same side. Iron Man and Captain America will be fighting side by side against some new evil (probably Hydra related), and Superman and Batman will be teaming up together on the big screen for the first time (probably to vote Aqua Man out of the Justice League because he smells all fishy). They will find a way to look past their differences and work together, and be friends, despite how unalike they are.
Why, all of a sudden, do we have two films that are pitting iconic heroes against each other? I think there are a couple of reasons for it. I think the first reason is that comics have been telling these types of stories for a long time. They aren’t always as one-dimensional as the films we have seen up to this point. I love the marvel films and have grown to love Man of Steel, but the basic story was always the same- good guy or guys show up and fight the bad guy or guys that show up (like when all of the Avengers together took on an alien army invading Earth and barely won, or when Superman, alone, took on an alien army that was invading Earth and won). There was always a clear light and dark, good and evil. It was pretty simplistic, when you think about it. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It has been working on certain levels for a long time. However, in real life, there isn’t always a clear-cut good and clear-cut evil. Sometimes, you have two good people who want good things but they have different ideas of how to get them. They then disagree. This has been happening in comics for a very long time.
The other big reason why I think these stories resonate so much with us right now is because we as a society have become so disagreeable. This is where I could get on my soap box and talk about how social media has allowed all of us to share our opinions, with or without manners, under a certain amount of anonymity, and how this has led to the complete and total downfall of civilized discussion or debate. I am not going to talk about that, though, or even mention it. We see this all the time, when people argue about either side of an issue and refuse to see it from the other side’s point of view. We have forgotten how to agree to disagree. The conversations may not always come to literal blows, but on some level, Civil War and Batman v Superman play out online everyday.
As I mentioned before, Superman and Batman are going to end up being friends in the end of their film (unless Superman dies). That’s why it is called the Dawn of Justice, and not “The time the light of Justice went out completely and left the world a cold, dark place.” Cap and Tony will be friends again at the end of Civil War, and the two will work together in the upcoming Infinity War. I promise, it will happen. Maybe we can all go see the movies and learn something from these superheroes, like how to disagree with someone, but recognize you are still working on the same side. That’s just what I have been thinking about lately.
What have you been thinking about? Let me know in the comments below, or send me an email directly at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you. For more on the upcoming Civil War film, check out Liz Cole’s three-part series on the road to Civil War. Here are Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. She offers an interesting view-point on the Civil War storyline, Captain America, and Tony Stark.
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