Tag: Alt-Hero

The original Comics-SJW

I’ve been a little taken aback by the sheer vituperation of the SJWs triggered by the mere existence of the Alt⭐️Hero concept, at least at this very early stage. And, I confess, I have been more than a little surprised by their apparent confusion between the late Marvel/DC artist Jack Kirby and the superheroes that he drew.

Ayatollah Cumonme‏ @Phonycian
if jack kirby were alive today he’d kick you in the balls and spit on you

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
If Jack Kirby were alive today, he’d be asking to work for me. The SJWs at Marvel and DC today wouldn’t employ him.

rstevens  @rstevens
kirby would cook you and serve you to hogs, dude

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
You’re talking about the little Jewish guy with no biceps, right? Sure, he might draw that.

psychopompous‏ @prognostiq
you really have fucking clue huh. i mean, not surprising but… you’re not fit to shine his shoes, bud.

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
Shine his tiny little size five shoes? I shall endeavor to restrain my disappointment.

Jo O’Donnell ⚘‏ @bowtiednomad
son hed cause more damage to your body than your daily lunch of 5 5-layer burritos

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
A dead guy who went 5’4 and weighed about 125? You’ve read way too many comic books. You know they’re not real, right?

meth lab for cutie‏ @patrickmustdie
jack kirby would of wooped your ass and then tell the story for laughs at parties for years

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
Kirby used to brag about fighting a guy who didn’t show up. I made the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps tap out in less than 7 seconds.

As strange as it is to be threatened with a very small corpse, I understand that comic book fans enjoy this sort of theoretical matchup. So, just to be clear, this is Jack Kirby in his physical prime, with his wife, Roz. This is another picture of Kirby. This is me, with Spacebunny. Another picture of me. Yes, both pictures were a long time ago, but nevertheless, I am confident that I have maintained myself in rather better condition than Mr. Kirby has.

Jack Kirby’s tough guy story: Once, while Jack was in the Timely office, a call came from someone in the lobby. When Kirby answered, the caller threatened Jack with bodily harm if he showed his face. Kirby told the caller he would be right down, but by the time Jack reached street level, there was no one to be found.

Vox Day’s tough guy story: In his second public ringfight, his opponent, a Tae Kwan Do practitioner, broke Vox’s nose in the initial exchange. Vox didn’t notice it until his sensei called time out to stop the bleeding. After the time out, Vox caught his opponent coming in with a sidekick that doubled him over, and proceeded to throw alternating hooks to both sides of the defenseless man’s head until the referee stopped the fight in the first round and declared Vox the winner. After the fight, Vox went to the hospital to get his nose straightened out. Mostly.

For what it’s worth. Anyhow, what explains this weird elevation of Jack Kirby to demigod status by the Comic SJWs? The answer, as it turns out, is that they believe him to have been their much-revered forefather who blazed the social justice trail they so bravely tread today.

X-Men creator Jack Kirby was the original comic book social justice warrior

Over the past week, comic book enthusiasts have been celebrating the late artist Jack Kirby’s birthday by remembering the impact he had on the industry. From his iconic stories and characters to his contentious relationship with Marvel, Kirby’s legacy is a rich and memorable one. A massive part of this legacy was that Kirby was always telling stories — through his heroes like the X-Men, the Thing, the Hulk — of being an outsider and becoming a hero despite living in a world that’s seemingly out to get you. And there are still people fighting battles today in the spirit of Kirby’s legacy.

The past few years in the comic book industry have been underscored by a struggle for more diversity. And while it can get ugly, sexist, and racist, there’s plenty of good to come out of this battle. Case in point: the hugely successful Ms. Marvel series featuring Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager. More characters like Kamala is what Kirby would have wanted.

In the spirit of remembering Kirby, writer Saladin Ahmed tweeted and pointed to a 1990 interview with the Comics Journal, where Kirby explained that he was compelled to create the superhero Black Panther because the default had always been white characters. And one day, he realized he was ignoring how important it was for him, and for the comic book industry, to reflect humanity.

So, yeah. This is going to be SO MUCH FUN. You know how SJWs love nothing better than to deconstruct our historical heroes and literally tear them down? Well, as I have pointed out, any use of a tactic legitimizes it….

And they’re totally NOT TRIGGERED! NOT EVEN A LITTLE!

Georgie‏ @SilverDoe_Iso
Thanks to the delightful replies to this idiot, I was made aware of Faiza Hussein, and just ordered myself a comic ?

Well, that certainly shows me! By the way, in the Marvel universe, Faiza Hussein is the current bearer of the sword Excalibur. That’s right. In Marvel’s world, King Arthur’s blade is wielded by a Muslim woman.

But it must be confessed that it is true that the artists of Alt⭐️Hero don’t draw women like Jack Kirby did. Then again, why they would want to do so remains a mystery to me. I leave it to the reader to guess which image below is Mr. Kirby’s work and which is not. And, in case you’re interested, I should probably mention that we anticipate launching the Freestartr campaign tomorrow.

#1 New Release

SJWs Always Double Down is the #1 New Release in Political Philosophy.

And it won’t actually be released until October 9th.

Meanwhile, SJWs on Twitter are shrieking in amygdala-stress about how no one will read Alt⭐️Hero, no one cares about it, how they are Laughing Out Loud about it, and how it is utterly doomed to failure. This is a rather remarkable response considering that not only has it not been released yet, but we have not even launched the Freestartr campaign for it yet or released the video for the campaign.

I promised you REEEEEEEES. Have I not delivered? Am I not kind?

A few informative examples:

Candy Corn Vampire‏ @BrendanHykes
I look forward to not even noticing this as it comes and goes.

Choz‏ @Chozraham<
I’m sure this will be a smashing success and will in no way lead to your sad humiliation.

zeverzanger‏ @zeverzanger
pfhehehehehe. Oh wait you’re serious. Let me laugh harder! BAHAHAHAHA.

Zachariah‏ @BrainshockZetav
Sounds like you desperately want a comic that panders to your scared white ass but ok lmao

Lil Uzi Vers‏ @bifIexuaI
Lmaoo what

Thibault LDS ?‏ @Thibault_LDS
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Q U E E R VO I D‏ @wryyyan

What I found the most interesting was the idea that anything short of an undefined “success”, which as we all know will be redefined and re-redefined as Alt⭐️Hero meets with the usual metrics of success over time, is tantamount to “sad humilation”. Think about how twisted one’s psyche has to be to make that connection, and what a crushing fear of failure one would have to have in order to think that way.

That is the heart of the SJW, which is not only terrified of failure, but is terrified that someone, somewhere, will be successful doing something of which the SJW does not approve.

Of course, SJWs have good reason to be terrified of Alt⭐️Hero. Because they know they are the true villains and the enemy in the cultural war.

On a very minor Voxiversity note, the new microphone I bought to improve the audio for the videos has already proven its value, as it fixed whatever audio problem I was having with the iPad Mini on Periscope. So if you’re a Darkstream regular, you can thank the 199 201 Voxiversity backers for that.

UPDATE: The first Alt⭐️Hero fanart has already appeared.

A trigger to 11

Don’t worry about the continued SJW convergence of Marvel and DC Comics. The Alt⭐️Hero campaign is very, very close to launch. The art is ready, the video is good to go, and all we are waiting for now is for Freestartr to add a feature that we require.

We all underestimated how bad the convergence in comics had become; we had to actually see it in order to believe it. I suspect we may be similarly underestimating the degree to which the SJWs in comics are going to be triggered by the mere existence of Alt⭐️Hero, let alone if it proves to be even remotely popular. This has the potential to make the response of the SF-SJWs to the Rabid Puppies look calm and measured by comparison.

UPDATE: Judging by the initial response of SJWs on Twitter, which is about as calm as measured as a vampire’s reaction to garlic-infused holy water, this is going to be even more triggering than I’d imagined.

UPDATE: I have been reliably informed that they are not at all triggered. Not even a little bit. No, you see, they’re all laughing. That’s a new one….

Journolist: Comics edition

A group of mainstream comic SJWs from Marvel and DC were caught planning to try to harass, and incite violence against, a critic of their work:

The comic book world has had its share of scandals, including the very recent and highly protested revelation that Captain America is really a Nazi, angering fans worldwide. Mark Waid, who recently took over the Captain America comic book for Marvel, has stepped into more hot water after appearing to call out a fan and popular YouTube reviewer for targeted harassment at this year’s Comic-Con on his Facebook page.

Richard Meyer has a YouTube channel called Diversity & Comics, where he reviews current comic books. Most of his reviews mock the overreaching and suffocating leftist messaging that has infiltrated the entire industry. I’ve seen enough of them to say with confidence that Meyer seems like a pretty nice guy with a passion for comic books. His reviews contain no swearing or major insults, just mild humor and a lot of chuckling.

To make matters worse and more embarrassing for the SJW crowd of comic book writers, a secret Facebook page was revealed where writers plotted to target Meyer with harassment meant to incite violence.

Taylor Esposito is a letterer for DC Comics and is clearly seen on the not-so-secret Facebook page insinuating that critics of their comics are likely to be violent, calling them “nutjobs.” Kelly Thompson of Marvel’s Star Wars Phasma and IDW’s infamous lady Ghostbusters joined in, claiming fear of the awful critics as the major reason she’s never been to a con as a professional. B. Clay Moore, who seems to have written something a long time ago, actually suggests harassing Meyer to the point of violence.

Meyer’s videos are low budget, filmed with his phone usually while sitting in his car or house flipping through comic books and chatting about the stories and plot lines, artwork and themes. It’s not exactly a hate crime. He is knowledgeable, interesting and intelligent and he clearly loves comic books. But he, and others like him, are facing an industry that seems to not want them anymore.

It’s going to be amusing to see just how upset these lunatics are next week. But in the meantime, it should surprise precisely no one that SJWs would attempt to destroy someone, however harmless and inoffensive he might be, for failing to submit to the Narrative.

If only it weren’t for those evil GamerGaters ComicGaters, they’d have gotten away with it too!

By the way, if anyone can suggest 3-5 examples of current SJW comics as bad as that recent She-Thor debacle, please put the links in the comments here. The more recent, the better.

UPDATE: Since I was apparently insufficiently clear, I am requesting links to the actual panels online, not YouTube videos or links to where the comic is sold.

The three types of superheroes

Alex Macris explains his critical theory of superheroes:

  1. Ordinary person accidentally becomes extraordinary through chance.
  2. Determined person becomes extraordinary through dedication and will.
  3. A person born with extraordinary gifts lives up to their birthright.

These are, respectively, proletariat, bourgeois, and aristocratic views of human achievement.

The proletariat sees success as a product of chance. “He got lucky.” “He won the lottery.” “He don’t deserve what he got.”

The bourgeois sees success as a product of hard work. “I earned what I’ve got.” “I tried harder.” “It’s a meritocracy.”

The aristocracy sees success as a product of nature. “Some people are born superior.” “Blood runs true.” “I was born to lead.” Examples of aristocratic heroes are Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Green Lantern.

Examples of bourgeois heroes are Batman, Green Arrow, Nightwing, Ozymandias, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow.

Examples of proletariat heroes are Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, and the Fantastic Four.

Marvel’s mutants are interesting. A mutant who sees his mutation as a mighty gift, like Magneto, is aristocratic but typically a villain. A mutant who sees his mutation is a random event tends to be portrayed as a proletarian hero. Most of the X-Men fall into this group.

Overall, Marvel’s heroes tend to be more proletarian, while DC’s heroes tend to be more aristocratic, with bourgeois heroes in both. Under progressive influence, these roles still apply. DC heroes act with noblesse oblige as aristocratic patrons of the oppressed. Meanwhile Marvel heroes tend to suffer from oppression themselves, as in much of the X-Men tales.

Bourgeois heroes tend to be least susceptible to progressive re-purposing as their bootstrap heroism is inherently a conservative message. Hence the progressive critique of Batman for being a successful businessman who uses his skills to beat up criminals, e.g. oppressed people. A progressive Superman can use his powers to defend illegal immigrants, but a progressive Batman is just George Soros.

This analysis helps explain why the Batman movies had conservative undertones, and the X-Men movies had liberal ones.

As it happens, Alt⭐️Hero superheroes will initially be a combination of aristocratic and proletarian due to the unique collective origin story. But there will be more conventional bourgeois heroes as well as time goes on. As with most of my novels and short stories, there is the story, the metastory that encompasses it, and the metasquared story that underlies the whole thing that is not immediately apparent to the reader.

For example, very, very few readers of the Arts of Dark and Light epic fantasy series are aware yet of the metasquared story aspect of the series, if indeed any of them are.

SJW-converged comics

John C. Wright rightly excoriates the SJW demolition of the comics:

Logic and good storytelling are flung out the window by these Philistines.

Spiderman has been blotted out by Miles Morales, a half-hispanic half-black with no particular personality. The writers seem not to want to give him any personality, for fear of giving his troubles and woes, which in turn might open them to the witchhunter accusation of being racist.

Hawkeye has been  blotted out by female Hawkeye. He has an interesting backstory, and some dramatic personal problems. She is a nonentity who suddenly is the best archer in the Marvel Universe for no particular reason.

Iron Man has been  blotted out by Riri Williams, a teen-aged black girl who steals things and accidentally conquers eastern European nations. Instead of having problems like shrapnel lodged near the heart as Iron Man does, the girl version of Iron Man is both utterly incompetent, and utterly flattered, praised, and supported by one and all.

Wasp has been  blotted out by Wasp, a girl who never puts on her wasp suit, never shrinks down and never fights crime.

Hulk has been  blotted out by Amadeus Cho, and also by She-Hulk, both of whom now use the name Hulk. Unlike Bruce Branner, whose is cursed by a Jekyll/Hyde and Frankenstein’s Monster combo of infinite strength and brain-destroying rage, Cho and She-Hulk are possessed of perfect self control, and have no drama. She-Hulk has lost her John Byrne era good looks, her green skin, and her desire to fight crime, and instead looks ugly and gray skinned.

Sam Wilson, the Falcon, has replaced Steve Rogers as Captain America. This one is not as egregious as the others, and, if taken in isolation, might have seemed legitimate, not an attempt at blot out. But Sam Wilson now has the same problem any black student in an affirmative action college has, when people can no longer tell is his diploma was earned or merely granted.

Also, I like Falcon. Why is his black super identity being smothered?  Are blacks somehow not legitimate in SJW eyes until they put on the garb and take up the name of a white original?

Let me emphasize that these are not cases where, for example, Robin grows up into Nightwing and someone else puts on Robin’s outfit to replace him, or where Blue Beetle takes up the costume and legacy of the original Blue Beetle.

Neither is any one of these a case where Superman has a cousin or Commissioner Gordon has a daughter who is a female version of a previously established character. That kind of thing happens in comics all the time, and no one cares or minds. Those things are meant to honor the previous character, or provide an interesting variation on a theme.

This is different.

This is like Muslims dynamiting the giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. It is the destruction of the icons and symbols of infidels.

This is blotting out the old character. Anyone who is white, straight, heroic or male is being replaced by someone who is not…. Plots, writing, drama, and storytelling has been flushed away down the water closet with very few exceptions.

The fact of the matter is that SJWs cannot tell stories. We saw this same thing in the science fiction field among the Hugo nominees: the more SJW was in a story, the less drama. The reasons for this are complicated, but the basic problem is that SJWs have a worldview that is false to facts about nearly every aspect of human nature and human morality, and instead have a fake, flat, one-dimensional view which contains neither heroism nor personal responsibility.

You might think John is exaggerating. I mean, it can’t possibly be that bad, right? I knew SJWs in comics had gotten out of hand. That’s why, after nearly three years of people requesting one, Castalia House is creating an alternative to the converged mainstream comics. But, as it turns out, the convergence is even worse than I’d ever imagined!

So, Thor is now a woman, who villains (as women) won’t fight out of respect for what she’s doing (as a woman), because it isn’t easy for her (as a woman), but instead engage her in lengthy, boring chatter about their romantic relationships before voluntarily going to prison because girl-power. I”m only surprised the two new gal pals didn’t go on to break out the teapot and sit down to discuss their favorite quotes from Hillary Clinton’s new book over a nice cup of tea.

And doesn’t this all sound a little… familiar? SJWs write science fiction without science, fantasy without the fantastic, military science fiction without war, and superhero comics without heroics. They are dramatic poison, and they are this way by necessity, due to the intrinsic falsity of their worldview.

Next week we will launch the Alt⭐️Hero Freestartr campaign. I guarantee it will be absolutely nothing like this pallid, boring SJW nonsense into which DC and Marvel have devolved. Although I can’t promise we won’t make ruthless fun of it from time to time….

UDPDATE: According to the SJWs, the declining sales of SJW-converged comics are totally not their fault. See, it’s actually the fault of evil right-wing GAMERGATE COMICGATE harassing all those legions of women who totally want to go to comic stores and buy Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Muslim Ms Marvel and Magic Negro Batman, but are frightened out of doing so by evil right-wing ComicGaters failing to make them feel welcome.

Like videogaming, comics culture is steeped in rightwing victim culture, where you convince yourself both that you and your hobby are horribly oppressed and bullied by the jocks, the popular clique, riajuu and that your particular brand of pop culture is superior to what the brainless masses consume because they don’t spent their Wednesday evenings waiting for the new issue of whatever The Avengers is called this week. So you get a culture and industry that bemoans the fact that nobody loves comics anymore, but resents any step made to make people feel welcome.

Alt⭐️Hero incoming

In tonight’s Darkstream, I discussed the upcoming Alt⭐️Hero comics campaign on Freestartr. We expect to launch it in the next two weeks, as we need to finish the launch video and Freestartr needs to add a feature that will allow us to display a selection of the art and finished pages we’ve created.

And yes, Alt⭐️Hero is going to trigger SJWs like you will not believe. The reeeeeeeees are going to be audible in orbit. Here are two of the superheroes of the European Union’s Global Justice Initiative, Rainbow and Redshift.

SJWs are the Tolkienian devil

They create nothing. Like Melkor, all they can do is corrupt, pervert, and destroy. SF/F Grandmaster John C. Wright waxes wroth in response to the SJW version of The Shadow:

Dynamite Comics just put out a new version of The Shadow. The Shadow is and has been my most deeply beloved character of my imaginative life.
They turned him into an SJW who lectures villains on their white privilege.
I am not making this up.
While in the middle of gunning down two Virginia Tech style mass murderers, The SJW Shadow tells them that they were born atop a pedistal of privilege, and their loss of power when the minorities lives improve erodes their “empire”, which is what drives them to their crimes.
Except that the shooter at Virginia Tech was Korean. Columbine guys were white, but were leftwing atheists, not angry white men. The Left yearns so badly to blame white men for mass murders, that they usually report the shooter is a Tea Party member. And it usually turns out to be a jihadist, or a Bernie supporter. But in a comic, the Leftist can reverse the polarity of reality, and have the most proto-Objectivist hardcore vigilante in comicbookdom turn into a morally ambiguous Antifas lefteroon.
The comic also pauses to have the viewpoint character, a Hispanic woman, say that there are no heroes in life, merely violent men. Heroes are merely gangsters in white hats.
Interesting message to put in a story about the most iconic vigilante of all time, the human version of an archangel of merciless wrath-of-heavenly vengeance.
And a thinly disguised version of President Trump appears on the telly in the background, as evidence of the sickness of the world for daring to regard good as better than evil.

I can guarantee this is not happening with Alt-Hero. We will create. We will make anew. There will be heroes and there will be villains.
Coming soon.

The death of pop culture

They rejected Christendom, they rejected America, and they rejected reality. Now the cultural parasites have literally nothing left:

Modern pop culture is running on fumes, and its about to strand its passengers in the desert.

But the final straw for me, and it appears for many others, was the reveal of Ready Player One directed by an over the hill Steven Spielberg.

I think the best sum up of the reaction might have been this one. The pop culture atmosphere the original book was released in is much different than it is now. It’s amazing how fast the climate has changed.

What the criticism boils down to is that nerd culture is really, really embarrassing, and that this generation is starting to realize why. It’s the realization that we are little more than grown manchildren refusing to be adults. Our grandparents are gone, and no one is willing to step up to bat for them which leaves the Millennials and Gen X to make up for it. This is really about the growing self-awareness that “nerd blackface” (as a friend of mine puts is) has finally hit the wall.

This has little to do with liking geeky things. It was never about that. A lot of men like geeky movies, comics, and games, but those things are not their whole world. They have families, responsibilities, friends, and hopes for the future. Their entire world is not crying into their pillow about how much they miss the 1980s and their long gone youth. While this book might have been relevant to the zeitgeist when it came out, a lot has changed since 2011 and mindless wallowing in pop culture references have finally started to lose their luster.

People don’t want to hide in their man-caves and be talked down to anymore, and constantly reassured that their childhood is where they should stay. It was a nice, comfortable place to be.

But childhood is over. Star Wars movies ended in 1983. Chris Claremont doesn’t write X-Men anymore. Kurt Cobain is dead, and so is radio rock. Dr. Who has been treading water creatively since its reboot. These properties have had their stories were told. Now it is time for new franchises and new stories and for the baggage to be left behind. It’s time to stop pining for a childhood that is over.

Which brings us to the bigger point. What comes next?

This is where we realize we are standing in muddy waters.

As Razorfist pointed out above, there’s always a new trend coming along to replace the old one. It’s the way of the beast. But it’s different now. The industry has been working overtime to destroy legacy genres and franchises. They’ve been forcing PC doctrine into every script to make every set of characters interchangeable and every tired plot beat the same. It’s not the same as it once was.

If superhero movies do end, then what replaces them? There is no pleasant answer to this, but there’s only really one .

The answer, is nothing.

What replaces Pop Culture is Alt Culture. What replaces the Superhero is Alt Hero. Winter is coming and the wolves are howling. And it’s coming much sooner than you think.

Speaking of VFM

We continue to move closer to the launch of the ALT HERO crowdfunding. We have covers and sample pages and characters in growing abundance. And while we won’t be superheroes or major characters, there will likely be a cameo or two by a certain dark lord of whom superlatives have been known to be uttered on occasion, as well as his ruthless blonde companion. Given the requirements of the storyline, I would expect a few VFM to make an appearance as well.