Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Difference between revisions
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** Marvel Comics has done stories for over twenty years in which treating super-powered mutants differently is the same as racism. In the context of Marvel Comics fandom, this is a very Family Unfriendly Aesop.
** Some of the individual writers in the story didn't agree with the [[Word of God]]. Their stories clashed badly with the central theme, and turned it from a Family Unfriendly Aesop into a [[Broken Aesop]].
** Most importantly, the entire pro-registration side (which [[Word of God]] essentially pointed to as being "right") consisted of a bunch of complete bastards who actively committed incredibly immoral acts in the name of their goals, freely interacted with villains, and were willing to fight with lethal force. Several of them were written out of character to be more evil, and were led by the most jerktastic version of [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]] ever to be written (which is quite a feat). Meanwhile, the anti-registration people were led by one of the most morally upright characters in the Marvel Universe, generally acted in a far more "heroic" manner, had a stance that echoed the "correct" viewpoint of 30+ years worth of Marvel continuity, were led by Captain America (who is consistently upheld to be the most reliable moral barometer in the Marvel Universe), ''and'' acted on beliefs ("government isn't always right," "persecution is wrong," and "sometimes, you have to fight for what you believe in") that would FAR more accurately reflect those of the target reading audience (ie, young males). There's almost ''nothing'' within the actual context of the story that would imply the reader was even ''remotely'' supposed to see the pro-registration group as being in the right.
*** The game (''[[Marvel Ultimate Alliance|Ultimate Alliance 2]]'') didn't help either. If you chose the anti-registration side, the next task is to thrash some Registration Flunky Robots. If you chose pro-registration, you have to beat up a teenage superhero.
** This also ties into the [[Reed Richards Is Useless]] trope. The U.S. government on Marvel Earth-616 can build giant Sentinel robots, powered-armor suits, and flying Helicarriers. Yet when it comes to stopping super-villains, or alien invasions (as in the following ''[[Secret Invasion]]'' crossover) they are wholly dependent on super-powered vigilantes. Mainly because they devote 100% of their ultra-tech resources to oppressing genetically-enhanced superheroes, who are usually doing the government's police and national security jobs for it anyway.
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* ''[[Little Orphan Annie]]'' had a [[World War II]] strip where Annie sees a man physically attack an obnoxious war-profiteer simply for expressing an opinion and stops a cop from intervening saying "It's better some times to let folks settle some questions by what you might call democratic processes."
* This is a bit of a mix of Family-Unfriendly Aesop and [[Broken Aesop]], but the moral of ''[[Birds of Prey]]: The Battle Within'', the arc from issues 76 to 85, appears to be the fairly stock aesop of "You should accept your friends for who they are and not try to change them," except that what Oracle was trying to change about Huntress is her tendency to kill people. In the end, Oracle apologizes to Huntress, and, in the ''Dead of Winter'' story arc (issues 104-108), actually tells Huntress to use deadly force against the [[Secret Six]] if she thinks it appropriate, possibly making this the Family-Unfriendly Aesop that sometimes killing people is a good idea, and very headbangerish as well. Oracle is a Bat for heaven's sake. The one unwavering thing about the Bat Family is that "thou shalt not kill" is mandatory.
== Fairy Tales ==
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