Comic Strips

Supporting read arguing the superhero Ego versus villain Id: https://davidgraeber.org/articles/super-position/

Well then, let's put this to the test, shall we?

Since Spiderman is the one presented in this, comic, let's first look at all the spiderman villains:

Toby Spiderman 1: Green Goblin. His motivation is revenge for being taken off a project due to a lack of favourable results. So his, motivation was greed.

Toby Spiderman 2: Doctor Octopus. Guy got his brain rewired with robot voices in his head. Only motivation is the base programming of his robotic arms.

Toby Spiderman 3: Venom is an evil alien parasite. Makes people into edgelords. Green Goblin Jr. wants to avenge his father, as he misunderstands the circumstances of his death. Sandman is a petty criminal in an unfortunate situation. He has no real motivations besides his daughter and doesn't have much agency in the movie.

Amazing Spiderman 1: Lizardman's motivation is the trauma of losing his arm. He then decides to force his lizard transformation on a densely populated city for no real reason, and without consulting anyone about it.

Amazing Spiderman 2: Electro is a hurt fan. Doesn't feel like he's appreciated, but now that he got powers he thinks people will appreciate him by being a murderous dick with them. There's also Green Goblin in here, but I honestly can't remember his motivation as he was just shoehorned into the plot.

MCU Civil War: Spiderman is here just to impress Stark. The guys he's fighting don't like the shift in governance that Stark helped create, but they're not considered villains. Stark could be considered as changing the status quo here, but he's not presented as a villain either. Baron Zemo is the villain, but his motivation is only petty revenge and Spiderman doesn't even fight him.

MCU Spiderman 1: Vulture and Co. feels fucked over by the way things are run these days. But his motivation is not changing the status quo. He wants to get rich and have revenge on Stark.

MCU Infinity War/Endgame: Thanos is the first villain on this list who is genuinely trying to change some sort of status quo as his primary motivation. Not greed or revenge of any sort. However, the method he decides to use is incredibly destructive, and equally as stupid. No, deleting half of life in the universe is not a permanent solution.

MCU Spiderman 2: Mysterio is just... Petty revenge again. Like, the guy's motivation is so shallow. He has absolutely zero intention of changing any status quo.

MCU Spiderman 3: The struggle in this movie has nothing to do with status quo. Mysterio fucked over spoodermahn, which leads to a bad decision, which leads to villains from other movies, which leads to a good decision that fixes rather than defeats. Wait, no, this movie is about changing the status quo, and it's Spiderman who's changing it.

Hmm... Let me think about villains from the MCU for a bit.....

Obidiah Stane: Corrupt greedy cunt.

Loki: Power hungry maniac.

US military (in the Hulk): Trying to "fix" a mistake.

Red Skull: Power hungry maniac.

What's-his-name with the whips: Revenge.

Justin Hammer: Corrupt greedy cunt.

Loki again: Even more maniacally power hungry.

Guy Pierce Mandarin: Corrupt greedy cunt who's also a power hungry maniac.

Hydra: Power hungry maniac with new world order ideals. Yeah, they're trying to change the status quo, a first on the MCU list. But I'm pretty sure we can all agree straight up executing unruly members of the population, even if they haven't done anything, is not the kind of change in the status quo we like seeing.

Dark Elves: Revenge.

That guy from Gaurdians: Power hungry maniac.

Ultron: Wants to change the status quo by introducing everyone to his friend, extinction. Pretty sure most people would want to be alive to exist in a changed world. Preferably one with better living standards.

Hella: Revenge.

Ego: Narcissistic maniac.

That one evil wizard: Can't remember what his personal motivations are, but it involves introducing an extra-dimensional destructive force of nature. Pretty sure whatever it is, it isn't justified.

So... My only conclusion is whoever made that little comic never watched any of the movies he's criticising. Or maybe he's secretly Garo.

Holy shit, but crypto-fascists are coming out of the woodwork to defend their right-wing, Objectivist power fantasies.

This is great.

That's the joke/point in many comics and comic book movies, too.

Subversive ideas can't always be communicated openly in children's media.

I think the world is a better place for having difficult disruptive ideas voiced in children's movies, even when they're only allowed to come out of the mouth of the bad guys.