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Strawman Has a Point: Difference between revisions

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** In anti-reg books, SHIELD [[Mutant Draft Board|forcibly conscripted anyone who happened to have any kind of superpowers]] whether they wanted to fight crime or not, and the pro-reg heroes were [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]]. When [[Luke Cage, Hero for Hire]] said he just was going to not use his powers and stay out of it, armed gunmen showed up at his door on midnight of the day the act went into effect. In ''Avengers: The Initiative,'' kids recruited were told that they either join the initiative, get their powers taken, or go to jail. Cloud 9, whose power was a little cloud that could make her fly, was recruited, turned into a sniper and sent to killing missions, even though she never wanted to use her power for crime fighting. In addition, Stark orchestrated an attack on [[Black Panther]], foreign chief of state, because his wife (who had diplomatic immunity) refused to sign up. It was quite clearly a case of "work for us or else".
** There is also Sally Floyd, the straw news reporter who argued to Captain America that the ideals he represents had already died a long, long time before he did. Though it doesn't bode well for Cap, it may very well be a case of [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|sad]] but [[Truth in Television|true]].
*** Except that her arguments centered around the fact that Captain America was not heavily involved in modern, supposedly important pop culture like Nascar and [[Hilarious in Hindsight|MySpace]]. She might theoretically have had a point if she'd actually brought up anything about the basic ideals of the country having shifted, but all she manages to do is point out that she's shallow and a lot of other people are shallow, so obviously Cap is wrong somehow for not also being shallow.
* The first comic appearance of Alejandro Montoya/El Aguila (Marvel) has the hero returning to his [[Toros Y Flamenco|home village]] and being attacked by random villain El Conquistador for being "the shame of Spain". Consider El Aguila has just mysteriously returned from (fled?) New York after living there for decades and constantly wears a rather ridiculous bright red and black [[Spexico|Zorro-esque]] suit. Well...
* Rorschach from ''[[Watchmen]]'' is pretty much built on this. The reader first sides with him, as in a grim and gritty world where crime is unstoppable, isn't evil stark black and good shining white? Next to Rorschach's absolute refusal to compromise, and his cathartic attacks on criminals, the rest of the morally conflicted Watchmen pale in comparison. But while certainly memorable and fun to read about, he's still a violent, ineffectual, anti-intellectual, homophobic, hypocritically mooching, misogynistic, self-righteous hobo. He basically self-destructs because he can't deal with moral complexity above the level of a small child: compare his childhood essay on why bombing Hiroshima was a good thing with his reaction to {{spoiler|Adrian Veidt's use of a similar act of mass destruction to ensure world peace}} -- he can't see in shades of gray, which makes him into a hypocrite when he has to deal with real human suffering and the complexity of actions on the global scale. Even those who see him to an extent as Moore intended can favor his belief in telling people the truth, rather than manipulating them and leaving them ignorant. Strawman Kind Of Has A Point (even if on the whole he's not a character to "root for").
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