Beyond old-school Iron Man, what other capitalists exist in comics? Conservatives as well. So far I've got:
Capitalists:
>Tony Stark
>Norman Osborn
>Justin Hammer
>J.Jonah Jameson
>Bruce Wayne
Communists:
>Titanium Man
>Crimson Dynamo
>Gremlin
Liberals:
>John Constantine
>Wonder Woman
>Steve Rogers (more of an old-school one)
Any other ideas?
Green Arrow
Blue Beetle
Iron Fist
Reed Richards in most versions is a Capitalist of the Warren Buffet school, and arguably could be very well modernized Elon Musk style.
The feuding right and left of the JLA are Hawkman and Green Arrow, with Barry occasionally being working class conservative. Green Lantern is famously politically wishy washy, honestly I'd write it as Hal having such a larger scope than his contemporaries he sometimes just honestly loses track of the minutia of earth politics.
Cap's a New Deal Liberal and has consistently been portrayed as such to the point where the Reagan/Nixon administration wanted USAgent as a cap for their values until very recently and Superman's philosophy usually evens out to Truman Democrat, though out of every superhero except many Wonder Woman Supes is the most prone to reflecting author opinions. USAgent or whatever John Walker's calling himself these days is a conservative though I imagine he'd be furious at the republicans these days, he was never portrayed as part of the neo-con cult that's running the party now, while the pill guy, Nuke, is such a hard liner he makes Walker look soft.
>Green Arrow
Hardcore Leftie
>Blue Beetle
Dunno.
>Iron Fist
Eh, depends. He has his company but never does anything with it.
>Nuke
Boy, how could I forget that wacko? Unironically one of my faves because he's like Bullseye but turned up to 11.
Good job on the others as well user.
Lots of heroes, unfortunately, tend to have whatever political mindset their writer has. Not that every, or even most, superhero should be super political,but it's nice when they make it a consistent trait that isn't (usually) turned into a joke.
>Conservatives as well.
T'Challa. Can't be more conservative than a semi-isolationist monarchy.
Namor and Black Bolt are similar.
I know, and it's a shame. Ollie not being a literal SJW (not in the internet sense) makes him less interesting. Same with Stark not being a mega-capitalist. But writers forget that either because they project, or because they don't like "labels".
What about Doom?
Doom is hard to fit because writers can't decide if his a socialist or a fascist, a proponent of progress or of stasis.
Anarchist
Ghost
Mad Stan
V
I'd definitely write Stark as an old school capitalist (ironically, since everyone's obsessed with Tony the futurist since Ellis called him one.) who comes from money and gives a fuck about what happens when he's gone. Vulture capitalists and other types would make him sick to his stomach.
Not that he doesn't like a healthy profit, but his concerns should be Stark Industries while someone filling the vulture capitalist role would care more about their bank account. ...actually a professional company ruiner would be a great Iron Man villain.
T'Challa's supposed to be nearly revolutionary for Wakanda, which still reads as very conservative for us. Its a part of the character that keeps getting lost; it's a BIG DEAL that he leaves the country and is trying to modernize it in a lot of ways. Not technologically, of course, but socially, trying to introduce outside ideas he likes and thinks will make Wakanda stronger.
Namor actually IS a hide bound monarch but one that kind of gives a fuck, Black Bolt too.
Doom has such good PR that how good a ruler he is changes from writer to writer. I prefer asshole autocrat Doom because Marvel already has this huge boner for kings and I loved the scene where the F4 found what happens to dissidents in Latveria. Lots of people like Bryne's "actual good ruler!" take, but I think it cheapens Doom's evil to make him give a fuck about his country except as a way to show how great he is to people.
Yeah, I know. At one point he's all about closed borders and isolation and LATVERIAN SUPERIORITY and the other he's all "lel, let's open our borders, lollololo backwards ways".
Well, Scrooge McDuck is a capitalist, so are some of his antagonists.
>Stark
Yup, that's my view as well. Hammer is the vulture. Tony is a capitalist, but he actually cares about making the world a better place. He jst believes his way of doing things, his philosophy included, is plain better.
As for the futurist aspect, i like it a lot, but writers don't really know what it means, how it begun, and thus can't portray it as good as Ellis would've. So it's just code for "I make cool tech".
While Stark is a old school capitalist, his easy use technology is not. He has a very transhumanist approach for things, just look at Extremis. I think this is meant when Stark is described as a Futurist.
Eh, the two ideologies don't really clash, tbqh. Making yourself better, through whatever means, doesn't go against the principles of capitalism.
and if the path necessary for improving your position require you to subvert capitalism?
Futurism began as mstly an artistic movement, like cubism and whatnot. it took on the meaning of "muh cool tech" much later.
>and if the path necessary for improving your position require you to subvert capitalism?
You can replace capitalism with any other ideology or philosophy with that mindset. What if you needed to abolish democracy? Or privacy? Or whatever. You can ick and choose points and have your own POV. You don't need to agree with every single thing to support a view.
user, all I'm saying is
>the two ideologies don't really clash
is an arbitrary statement that isn't always true
Sure, but I don't think these two aren't combatible. You may wan to advance humanity, but to do that, you need funding. Maybe you want to advance just one group. Maybe just yourself. Ideologies have a shitton of branches.
>Liberals:
>>Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman's from a totally alien culture. She probably has zero opinion on any of our political issues apart from female empowerment.