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   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:38:46 JST Charlie Stross

   Thought for the day:

   Teen superhero teams are morally equivalent to child soldiers.

   Organizations who recruit and train child soldiers frequently do so because they're easier to control (and to induce to commit atrocities) than adult recruits …

   (A VERY grimdark story lurks behind this idea.)

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     null (xerophile@union.place)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:39:21 JST null

     in reply to

     @cstross I dare say The Umbrella Academy addresses that very dilemma.

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:41:37 JST clacke

     in reply to
     @cstross I seem to remember that the Titans live action series had someone, maybe Nightwing, say this out loud in season 1 or so ... and then eventually had reasons to revive the team anyway.
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     Dave ✨ (davidgarywood@social.davidgarywood.com)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:41:39 JST Dave ✨

     in reply to

     @cstross Tony Stark recruiting Spider-Man in the MCU 😬👀

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:44:59 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Dave ✨

     @davidgarywood @cstross Xavier was in one of the universes in the multiverse flick, so Fox Marvel and MCU have officially merged.

     Deadpool 3 will merge them in the prime universe.

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     Dave ✨ (davidgarywood@social.davidgarywood.com)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:45:01 JST Dave ✨

     in reply to

     @cstross (and the X-Men aren’t part of the MCU as such, yet… Fox holds the movie rights etc 🙃)

     TLDW: Spider-man’s like 15 and part of the Avengers, who are kinda militaristic in the movies

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:45:02 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Dave ✨

     @davidgarywood I'm not very familiar with the MCU. (Have seen a grand total of 1 (one) X-men movie in my life.)

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:46:02 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     BRB contemplating what use the New Management would put a teen superhero team to.

     (Inflicting life-changing injuries on political dissidents like the Archbishop of Canterbury: check. Kettling then killing climate protestors at peaceful demonstrations: check. (Corpses rapidly become carbon-neutral!) Being a visible sign of a maximalist law and order agenda patrolling the skies: check.)

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     Mihai (mihailim@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:46:36 JST Mihai

     in reply to

     @cstross You may enjoy Garth Ennis' and Darick Robertson's "The Boys", which sets out (and definitely succeeds) to thoroughly expose the moral implications of the entire superhero genre.

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     FeralRobots (feralrobots@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:46:57 JST FeralRobots

     in reply to

     @cstross there's a small-time famous Superman plotline that's relevant. Superman (after a typical fight-then-team-up thing) discovers that his new bud is actually a young teenage orphan, at which point he hunts down Shazam &...lectures him about recruiting a child soldier. (Shazam: 🤷 .)

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     Daniel Martin (fizbin@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:47:54 JST Daniel Martin

     in reply to

     @cstross
     The webcomic "Strong Female Protagonist" touched on that theme among many others.

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     Scimon Proctor (scimon@glasgow.social)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:47:56 JST Scimon Proctor

     in reply to

     @cstross are you saying Professor X is a war criminal?

     (Yes... The answer is yes.)

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:49:14 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Krista, Darth Møøse Shark
     @grrrr_shark @cstross Kids wielding weapons of mass destruction unsupervised? That's Pokemon.
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     Krista, Darth Møøse Shark (grrrr_shark@supervolcano.angryshark.eu)'s status on Thursday, 04-May-2023 19:49:15 JST Krista, Darth Møøse Shark

     in reply to

     @cstross Hrmph.

     True.

     And yet as a teen, the idea of BEING that superhero was empowering.

     So what would a world look like where those kids exist and have impactful agency WITHOUT some exploitative adult force being involved?