io9 
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San Francisco, 6:59 PM
Mon Dec 14
23 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/12/09
Absurdly unlikely.
-Kle.
12/12/09
12/13/09
FEMA response was actually at least average, if not superior, in the Katrina crisis. Almost all the major response failures were at the State level, not the Federal. From the document to which you refer: "The Select Committee identified failures at all levels of government".
I know this isn't the popular myth, but it's simply true. Compare to the FEMA response to the midwest flooding of the 1990s, for example.
The biggest flaw in your reasoning is that you are subscribing to "big man theory', the idea that successes and failures are best ascribed to the person at the top of the hierarchy. The failures were not generally only failures of leadership, they were also (and dominantly) systemic failures.
Let's just pretend that the President actually has the power to make all of the changes that would have been required to fix the problems identified with hindsight (he doesn't, of course - most of these changes would need to be made by Congress).
Without some sort of magical foresight that a major hurricane would hit New Orleans during his presidency, why would Al Gore have decided to undertake a huge effort to increase disaster-response intercommunications, funding, pre-deployment, doctrine, and engineering in and around New Orleans?
The government really only takes a major interest in local affairs after a disaster, not before.
There is no reason to think that a different President would have decided to focus on New Orleans' hurricane preparedness problems as a national priority. Everyone knows this sort of thing periodically happens there, but generally, Presidents just gamble that it won't happen during their administration. It's not as if the rest of the country gives enough of a damn to want to spend a lot of their money on it, after all.
If a President were going to decide to invest heavily in local disaster prevention/preparedness they'd be much more likely to invest in the California Wildfire problem. New Orleans only gets wrecked about every 75 years; California burns at least once a year like clockwork. Besides, California fires affect way, way, more rich people - they're much higher priorities in D.C. than poor folks on the Delta.
-Kle.
12/12/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/13/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
It may have been boring, but a lot of American soldiers and Iraqis would still be alive today. Boring Presidencies are scandalously underrated.
I doubt a pre-emptive strike on Afghanistan (sp?) would have prevented 9/11. As I think I understand it, most of the hijackers were already in the country at this time. 9/11 would only have been prevented by domestic intelligence, not the army going abroad.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
He is a nice dude -- this article doesn't suck balls?
12/11/09
But! If we were having the argument you imagined we were having, you totally would've schooled me, brah. Nice! Give yourself some kind of point or star, or points rendered in star form.
12/11/09
Rinse, wash, repeat? Really? How long - why can't I repeat, wash and then rinse?
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That is my lame point rendered in star form....
I have nothing better to do with my life....
12/11/09
I had a cool point rendered in star form... but formatting screwed it up.
I am not going to recreate it... just think - "MAN, that is an AWESOME text star. SO impressed!"
12/12/09
12/08/09
Of course, that's where the money was, at the time.
"So what to make of Siege's Destruction McGuffin? A sign that, even if the rest of the world hasn't gotten over 9/11"
I think you'll find that most of the world got over 9/11 one hell of a long time ago... I expect the man on the street in the PRC isn't all broken up about it, for example... Especially after his own nation went through a much worse disaster since then. I doubt you'll find many people in India that haven't gotten over it, or on the African continent.
I'm pretty sure that the bulk of the world's population thinks of it as a minor historical event, actually.
Fiction regularly depicts much worse events - cities destroyed, nuclear wars, the collapse of civilization, the complete destruction of the Earth and human extinction.
Why is this comic book anything to even notice, much less complain about?
-Kle.
12/08/09
12/07/09
Panel 1) Teeny tiny ship approaches from oooooooouter spaaaaaaaaace.
Panel 2) Ship crash lands on football field while giant fairy twinkles above.
Panel 3) Dust clears, confused football player looks on as random dude with terrible character design emerges from dust.
4) Meanwhile, on top of the billboard above the stadium, some random pink, orange, and grey dudes (when did Jack Kirby come back from the dead, heinously hungover, and vomit these character designs up?) stand at the ready.
5) Nonsensical backdrop panel featuring said interlopers (maybe?) firing up their powers, looking kind of forlorn (or something).
6) They fire their powers at the dude on the field, who apparently fires back and has the wherewithal to say "HA!"
7) Splodey.
12/07/09
12/08/09
The bad guys are The U-Foes, Hulk villains with elemental powers. They were created to kill the Hulk and aren't happy about being turned into freaks. This is kind of beyond their previous power level, iirc.
The previous pages make this setup make more sense...but the artwork is really disjointed here. The story telling is....well, regrettable. It's just ridiculous. The biggest flaw in Bendis' approach to the Marvel Universe is that his attempts at bringing in 'realism' only highlights the disconnect with reality. I mean seriously...the Green Goblin being in charge of the US chief intelligence service and super-hero initiative? A totally unquestioning public? Brand New Day?
When you open up the comics to issues of SOME reality (as Civil War attempted to do) and then ignore huge swaths of issues that the same reality suggests, you only emphasize the lack of reality, which in turn makes the whole exercise kind of pointless.
12/08/09
12/08/09
Recall that we, as omniscient third-person viewers looking in from outside the universe are privy to information that the average person on the street probably isn't. Most people in Marvel's America probably don't know that Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin, and even if it was public information it's probably been swept under the rug as shameful slander by a PR budget equal to the gross national product of Morocco.
12/09/09
Think about this: look how hard it is for a candidate to get through the process for attorney general, supreme court judge or ambassador to the UN. Now consider that Osborne faced no resistance at all. Even ignoring that he's been a super-villian, you've still got the fact that he's on medication for personality disorder. You've got the fact that he's been arrested by the police, SHIELD and the Feds. That alone would prevent him from getting a security clearance.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg for that sort of thing. That's why writers like Bendis are trying to eat their cake and have it, too. They want realism when it suits them...but then ignore the implications of that realism...which only highlights what a shallow attempt it is.
12/07/09
When a bunch of heroes and villains are fighting in Manhattan, and somebody gets thrown through a building or whatever, do you really think that it's empty and no bystanders get hurt? Do you honestly think these cityscapes which are the backdrop for superheroics magically deplete themselves of the humdrum normals that usually live there?
The reason this Siege thing pisses me off isn't because of the content, but the context: I think Marvel has the kernels of good ideas here but they're going to be planted in fallow creative soil. They're going to probably squander this like they have the events of Civil War, Secret Invasion, House of M and all the rest of the stillbirths from the last five years. The only one that's struck me as anything resembling intellectual honesty was World War Hulk, because the normal people of the Marvel universe welcomed somebody who was going to make heroes accountable, who was going to try and cap the madness, and those people were not painted as "dirty hippy" loons.
12/07/09
I just want more intellectually honest MU stories.
12/07/09
12/07/09
This is probably one of the dumbest things I've read on i09.
For one thing, let us get this out of the way real quick: This is a FICTIONAL STORY.
So, what? In a post 9/11 world, large scale death can no longer be used as a plot device? Or, any time it is used, it must be IMMEDIATELY compared to 9/11?
Comparing this to 9/11 is a stretch. And not just a little one.
I for one see no correlation between the real life terrorist attacks on Septermber 11th and the completely fictional death of 50,000 Chicagoans. Marvel hasn't seemed to make any attempt to draw that parallel, either. Indeed, they're trying to draw a connection between this event and Stamford... which is ANOTHER fake tragedy.
So, to call this in bad taste? Thoughtless? I'm sorry, I don't see that. I think that is a grand overreaction to the events in a comic book.
And to your other point, that this is big bad evil supervillainy... well, YEAH.
Norman Osborne is a complete and utter psychotic! He spent a few decades dressing up like a green lunatic and throwing explosive pumpkins at people.
What the fuck did you think was going to happen when a guy like that got almost unlimited access to defense department resources/budgets?
He decided he wanted to make a case for war against Asgard, and did. Osborne doesn't care how many bodies he has to step over to reach his goals or keep his power.
THAT'S WHY HE'S EVIL.
If anything, I think Marvel should be applauded from not backing away from the almost inevitable consequence of putting a god damn SUPERVILLAIN in control of a major political office. To date, the Marvel Universe has gotten off light, with Stormin' Norman mostly acting behind the scenes, or bidding his time.
In other words: Yes. You're being overly sensitive about this. Sooner or later, someone is going to put a bunch of people together in a fictional context, and kill them in a way that MIGHT remind you of 9/11.
But that's okay. We shouldn't forget 9/11. And I don't think any of us ever will. But that doesn't mean we need to all lose our damn minds every time something might possibly maybe remind us of that one time something bad happened.