Legal Advice: The Questionable Ethics of one J. Jonah Jameson...

So this came up over the weekend and I thought it bore further examination.  In “New Avengers #15” Spider-Man, newly appointed member of the team, voiced concerns about what his reputation would bring to the venerated superhero organization.  This is after the Avengers Disassemble story arc.  For more details on that, I recommend picking up the collected editions of “Avengers Disassemble”.  So when New Avengers came out, it literally was a splinter group, an off the books kind of situation led by Capt. America and consisting of Iron-Man, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Wolverine, and a rotation of Sentry, Ms. Marvel, Daredevil and Ronin.

However Spider-Man isn’t wrong about his misgivings about joining the team.  At this point, Peter Parker is no longer working for the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson is in full swing with this anti-Spider-Man campaign.  Spidey is right to think his presence on the Avengers team will draw bad press.

Here is where Tony Stark comes up with a brilliant idea: make a deal.  Believing that Jameson is first and foremost a capitalist, he tries to broker a deal with the newspaper publisher offering exclusive coverage of anything the Avengers get involved in to the Bugle in exchange for him laying off Spider-Man.

 

Here is the problem with this idea: Jameson isn’t strictly a capitalist.  I would hesitate to call him a Republican.  He’s more of an independent conservative, and thus will not bend what he believes is right in favor for anything.  Jameson meets with Stark, shakes Spider-Man’s hand (much to the shock of everyone), then the next day blasts the New Avengers for their attempt at bribing him.

On this surface this seems like unethical move, and the team is justifiably outraged because now he’s not only targeting Spider-Man, he’s dug up dirt on almost the entire team, which unfortunately for them wasn’t that hard.  Luke Cage had done prison time for heroin dealing.  He cites that it’s a false accusation; however that won’t necessarily sway the American people.  Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman, is a former HYDRA agent, that’s not a good PR thing.  Sentry, when he is on the team, is mentally unstable, and then there’s Wolverine, a guy who’s left more bodies in his wake than probably any other “hero” this side of the Hulk.  Frankly at this point I had no idea that Wolverine was a publically known superhero, I just figured the X-Men just flew under the radar for the most part.

The point is that while they are outraged, you have to wonder if Jameson was actually wrong for what he did.

Let’s look back at what transpired:  Tony Stark offers Jameson a bribe.  He’s offering exclusive coverage for good press; he’s trying to purchase public opinion.  I’m surprised that anyone was surprised that Jameson took exception to it.  He’s never been one to take a bribe.  Does he unfairly vilify Spider-Man, absolutely, but he doesn’t do so at the expense of his ethical character.

Jameson truly believes that Spider-Man is a menace.  He’s not doing it to sell papers, he can sell papers with any story, but he follows his single minded crusade against the wall-crawler because he believes he is right.  Tony Stark actually severely insulted him on an ethical level by assuming he could purchase his opinion.  The message that Stark sent was “I think your values are so thin that I can bribe you to give my team good press, no matter who they are or what they do.”

Tony assumes he’s going to take the deal, which also says a lot about Tony because clearly this is the kind of deal Tony would take. 

 

Of course Jameson spits the deal back in Tony’s face, and he’s justified to do so.  Then he writes a piece that absolutely blasts the team (see above).  They are outraged, no doubt a few of them are thinking of legal action.  Spider-Man in the comics at one point filed a liable suit against Jameson for defamation of character, so maybe that could work here.  I’m sure that crosses Tony’s mind.

Here’s the legal advice part: It won’t work, because there’s nothing in that article that isn’t true.  All it does is cite the pasts of the individual team members, which he didn’t make up, he used facts.  You can see it on Jessica’s face as she reads the words (brilliant art by the way) that this is absolutely true: she was a member of a terrorist organization; she chose to hurt innocent people.

The blasting of Stark’s attempt at bribery was, in fact, very true and something the public did need to know.  Tony Stark is one of the most high profile superheroes and icons of business in the Marvel Universe.  Everyone knows who he is and/or has supported his business in some way.  That makes him a very influential man, and for a man of that profile and influence to attempt to bribe the media for good press coverage raises a lot of red flags.

Legally, there isn’t anything the team can do.  They cannot demand a retraction or an apology, they have no legal ground to stand on.  The best they can do at this point is lick their wounds and go about their business.

Now the obvious counter is that Jameson violated a contract.  He shook Spider-Man’s hand, which indicated that he accepted the deal, but he never signs any paperwork, he never even verbally says he’s going along with the idea.  He hears Stark out, he meets the team, he shakes Spider-Man’s hand, and leaves.

So why did he shake Spider-Man’s hand?  Well, again, he’s been at a press war with the superhero since day one.  He shook Spider-Man’s hand to say “Good play.” He wasn’t accepting defeat, he was saying this battle was over and he was about to bring it up to the next level.

 

As always, the Avenger, and all associated characters are the rights of Marvel Comics, this post is generated under fair use, and no financial gain was obtained through this post

Thanks for reading.

Whatever Happen to Scar?

Arguably one of the most compelling villains Disney came up with over the last twenty or so years has to be Scar from “The Lion King”.  Voiced by Jeremy Irons and Jim Cummings in the film, the character was the epitome of underhanded evil and deceit.  But just where did all this come from, what is this character’s history?

Scar was born Taka, the second son of King Ahadi, it was pretty much accepted that since Mufasa was stronger, braver, and wiser, that Taka would never be king.  Plus, Mufasa was older and the first born is always next in succession for the throne.  Taka was not out of the loop entirely though, being the second born he had access to the Roar of Elders and lead the Lion Guard, which were essentially the Delta Force for the lion pride.  They were the bravest, the strongest, the fastest, the keenest of sight, and were traditionally led by the second born lion prince.

Using his incredible power and his fighting force, Taka battled in the name of the Pride Lands, however he saw this as an opportunity to usurp Mufasa’s power.  The rest of the Lion Guard disagreed and stood against Taka in battle, resulting in Taka eliminating them with the Roar of Elders.  This abuse of his power cost him the Roar of Elders and the ability would pass into legend until Simba’s second cub was born.

The battle left Taka with a scar, which he now used to identify himself, presenting it as a badge of honor and re-naming himself “Scar”.

This leads us into “The Lion King” proper, where the story picks up with Simba being presented to the Pride Lands.  Simba’s birth took Scar completely out of the running for kingship, which he did not take lightly.  He assembled an army of hyenas and orchestrated Mufasa’s death.

This is where Scar stands out against other Disney villains, as Scar actively kills Mufasa on screen, where others previously arranged circumstances and situations that would lead to someone’s death.  Scar throws Mufasa off a cliff into a stamped.  The event devastates young Simba and Scar convinces him to flee into exile, citing him as the cause of Mufasa’s death.  He then dispatches three hyenas after him, but they fail to kill him, content with him in exile.

Scar takes over the Pride Lands, but his rule sends the land into ruin and desolation because he forces the lionesses to over hunt.  This is actually a scientifically valid situation, as when you have a predatory force that is over taxing a population, it can lead to ruin in the landscape itself.  As things come to a head for Scar and the situation is dire, Simba returns and confronts his uncle.

During the battle, Scar reveals that he caused Mufasa’s death, not Simba, and the pride turns against him.  He falls from a cliff and into the clutches of the hyenas.

Here is where things get, theoretical, because that’s not the last we see of old Scar.

                It’s at this point we have to use a little bit of deductive reasoning to determine what happened to him, but its sufficient to say he probably didn’t stick around Africa, either in the Pride Lands or the Outlands, because he simply wasn’t welcomed.  The next time we see anything that remotely looks like Scar in Disney cannon is in “Hercules” where it’s heavily implied that he is the Nemean Lion, but then the movie doesn’t make that 100% clear.  When we see Hercules battling a lion, it’s a massive beast as seen below.

 

Note that this creature lacks a facial scar, which is pretty definitive for Scar.  But later we are treated to this little Easter Egg:

 

 

Now that is certainly Scar.  But does that mean that Scar is the Nemean Lion? Not necessarily, but it could mean that Scar is a lion of mythic proportions.

 

The story of the Nemean Lion is as follows: There was a vicious lion that was kidnapping women and holding them hostage in a cave.  When heroes could come to rescue said women they were lured into the cave by a woman lying on her side apparently injured.  When they got too close, the woman “turned into a lion” and killed them, offering their bones to Hades as tribute.

We actually don’t need to get into a lot of magic to make this make sense, we just need to understand that this creature:

 

Probably isn’t the creature from the story.  It’s way too big and doesn’t look at all like it would need to lure anyone into a trap for anything.  This looks more like the lion of Cithaeron, a far less famous tale, but one about a lion that was devastating herds and flocks and met its end against Hercules’ brute strength.  That story matches much better with what we see in that image.

The Nemean Lion relied on trickery to accomplish its goals, and feared death so much that it needed to make a deal with him to stay alive.  That’s sounds more like Scar’s methodology.  Plus, with almost mocha fur and a very dark, almost black mane, Scar laying on his side in the dark would certainly fit the silhouette of a woman lying on her side.

But there’s a few things wrong with this.  1) The Nemean Lion is said to have impenetrable skin, able to be cut only by his own claws.  And 2) if you take into consideration that Disney suggests that the Pride Lands are in Tanzania, then Scar would have to travel almost the length of Africa, and cross the Mediterranean to get to Nemea.  Take a look at the map below.

 

That’s quite a jaunt for a lone lion, unless that lion was more than just a lion.  Going back to Scar’s family line and what we know they can do, the male lions of Pride Rock seem to have almost supernatural abilities.  Yes, we said that overhunting can cause landscape changes, but the speed at which we see the Pride Lands change back is beyond natural.  Further, there’s that Roar of Elder’s thing.  That’s certainly otherworldly.  But finally let’s look at what we don’t see.  We don’t see any male lions of Pride Rock hurt by anything other than blunt force trauma, as in Mufasa falling and being trampled, and another male lion’s claws.  Even Simba defies all expectations by surviving the trek across the outlands into a lush green jungle, a trip that probably would have killed any conventional cub.

Suddenly a supernatural lion traveling a distance of 9,631.5 kilometers or 5,984 miles doesn’t seem so farfetched.  This averages out to a trip of about 80 days or about 2 ½ months.  Completely do able.

Getting across the Mediterranean would simply be a matter of stowing away on a ship, since this is ancient Greece were talking and the shipping business was in full swing.

So there you have it, Scar was born in Tanzania, migrated north, and was killed by Hercules.

Magical Matter: Everything has to be made of SOMETHING (a Harry Potter Theory)

So I was watching a video by Super Carlin Brothers on YouTube and they addressed how the Pensive, the Mirror of Erised, and the Veil may be related to the Deathly Hallows.  I won’t get into their full theory here, but I will say that they theorize that they are precursors to the actual Deathly Hallows.  One of the things they touch on very briefly is that they may be connected to thestrals, the invisible flying horse-like creatures that are featured in the books.

 

They point out that the thestrals can only be seen by someone who has seen someone die, like Harry and Luna, but also only Harry and Luna can hear the whispers from the Veil.  Why does this matter?

Because I think that these three possible proto-hallows may actually be made FROM thestrals.

 

Basically, anything that is has to be made from something.  Matter matters, as it were.  Therefore these three objects must have been made from something.  Let’s look at the more basic: The Veil.  In the simplest terms, a veil of any kind is a piece of fabric, which is made up from threads woven together.  We know that the Elder wand contains a thestral hair.  Now here is a picture of a thestral…

 

Not exactly known for its hair, is it.  Well its specified that it’s a “tail hair”.  Now you really can’t have access to a thestral hair unless you…have a thestral.  It’s talked about briefly that the Peverell brothers who were closely associated with the Hallows, possibly having made the Hallows, had access to a herd of thestrals, which would explain easy access to thestral hair.  Which brings us back to the Veil, because that veil had to be woven from something and since it’s a veil leading to the land of the dead, it makes sense that it would be woven from thestral hairs.  Pretty sure if you have a herd of thestrals, finding enough hair without being detrimental to the herd should be a pretty easy task.

So there you have it, the Veil is probably made from thestral hair, and magic.  But mostly thestral hair.

So what about the Pensive?

The Pensive is a little more tricky because its liquid contained in a bowl, but which is the magic, the liquid or the bowl?

Well let’s look at this from a more existencial view, what are memories made of?  When we see them in the film they appear as kind of a liquid, and are dropped into the liquid of the bowl.  Memories are basically dead events, events from the past which have already happened.  So how could a thestral possibly connect to a bowl of liquid?  The bowl that is the Pensive, whether it be the metal or the stone one, is decorated with runes.  These runes could be etched with either a piece of a thestral, such as a hoof or a bone, but rather that getting that gruesome, I’d prefer to think that the etched runes are actually treated with thestral tears.  Thematically it makes sense, even if I’m personally not fond of a crying animal, but it makes the element that much more rare and special.

Now…the mirror.  That is significantly more tricky to riddle out, so for that we’d have to look into some magical biology and the person most closely associated with it.  The Mirror of Erised is, by the Super Carlin Bros theory, the mirror is closely associated to the Elder Wand and Antioch Peverell.  What does the Elder Wand represent?  It’s the tool for which you can get pretty much anything you want, it’s the most powerful wand ever made.  The Mirror of Erised represents everything you desire, you can literally see what you want the most.  If Antioch’s primary focus is personal gain, then he probably isn’t that concerned about the welfare of others, or the animals under his care.

Let’s take a quick side street and look at unicorns in the Harry Potter universe.  When we see Voldemort feeding on the blood of a unicorn we see that it’s a thick, silvery substance.  Its reasonable to assume that most magical equines have similar colored blood, silvery.  Mirrors in the Renaissance period, about the time the Peverell brothers were alive, were treated with silver (or a silvery substance) and then pressed on with glass to maintain a shine.  Its possible that in making the mirror, Antioch slaughtered a thestral and used it’s blood to make the mirror.  Consequently killing a creature to make a magical object usually yields unfavorable results.  If Antioch was trying to make a mirror that would give him what he wanted, and slaughtered a magical creature to make it, then it wouldn’t likely give him what he wanted, just make him look at it.  Magical items are tricky like that.

I really don’t have much to close this out.  I recommend checking out the Super Carlin Bros video that led me to this rabbit trail, and check out their other videos as well.

Thanks for reading.

Supergirl Survivors and Flash Monsters...

Survivors and Monster, Supergirl and the Flash update:

It’s not that I don’t like Arrow…I just don’t talk about Arrow.  Because I don’t want to.

I do want to talk about this weeks’ episodes of Supergirl and the Flash.

In Survivors we get more backstory on Mon-El (is “El” like a common name on Krypton and Daxum?  Like Smith?) and a little more of his personality.  We also follow the teams investigation of the Alien Fight Club run by none other than Roulette.

When translating a character from page to screen, sometimes it can be hit or miss…but they completely nailed Roulette.  The revelation that Miss Martian was participating in the fight club wasn’t all that shocking, we knew pretty quickly that she had some secrets and I would have preferred they dragged that out a bit, but I guess they wanted to get it over and done with soon so they could get into her next shocking secret.  If you haven’t actually seen the episode, I won’t spoil it for you, but it explains why she didn’t want to mind meld with Hank.

Kara’s budding friendship with Lena Luthor, while convenient, does kind of smack of “Smallville”, letting us know that it’s going to emotionally hurt Kara when she discovers Lena is a villain.  I mean, she’s probably going to be a villain.  Probably.

The ended was good enough, it tied up pretty well as well as showing that Roulette would be back to trouble the girl of steel again.  Again, this was a pretty strong episode from a show that hasn’t had a bad episode this season.  But was it good as the Flash with “Monster”

No, no it wasn’t.  This week’s Flash touched on a lot of different notes, but all carried the same message: Fear can make you do strange things.  Caitlin fears what her powers are turning her into, Joe fears entering an intimate relationship, Barry fears he’s not in control of his life (when has he ever been in control?), Cisco fears the new Harry, or H.R. if you will, H.R. fears that he’s actually a fraud, and our weekly villain fears being a victim for the rest of his life.

The biggest reveal comes from Julian however, as he is so driven to solve the case that he nearly kills the teenage hacker responsible for the monster menacing Central City.  Finally after having his soul saved by the Flash, he comes clean with Barry that he lashes out because too is scared of the unknown and unpredictable meta-humans.  Barry invites him for a drink, which both men could probably really use.

So the monster in this episode was, clearly fear.  Many critics are calling this a filler episode but I disagree.  This is a developing episode.  It creates character development while planting seeds that may take root in later episodes.  Like, who is this kid that created the holographic monster?  Will we see him again?  (as of right now I have no idea who the character is supposed to be and all my research into the cast just lists him as “kid”).  I’d hate for him to be a one off character.