Tagged: SHIELD

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #387

THE AVENGERS GET STANDOFFISH

It’s getting so that in comics nowadays you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys without a scorecard. And sometimes even then.

Maria Hill is currently the director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division or S.H.I.E.L.D. for short – or SHIELD for even shorter and guess which route lazybones Bob is gonna take. So Maria should be one of the good guys, right? Then she came into possession of some fragments of a Cosmic Cube. A Cosmic Cube, when it was in full on cube form and not fragments, is a device that answers to the will of whomever possesses it and can be used to control matter and energy and even alter reality. So whomever holds the Cosmic Cube has to be careful with it, lest reality be warped in strange and dramatic ways. When the Cube is in fragment form, it’s just about as powerful but the holder has to be even more careful with it, because those fragments can go all Julia Child on you and cut the dickens out of your finger.

Avengers-standoff-welcome-to-pleasant-hill-1Hill and SHIELD experimented on the Cube fragments, hoping to be able to use them to reshape reality as SHIELD deemed necessary. What they got was a little girl. The Cube fragments merged into a sentient being and did what newly-formed fictional A.I. that are confuse about their identity have been doing for years; it adopted the form of a little girl.

Seriously, what is it about the symbology of little girl that screams confused and unsure of one’s self? I know a 63-year-old man who fits that descriptiPleasant_Hill_from_Avengers_Standoff_Welcome_to_Pleasant_Hill_Vol_1_1_001on pretty well, but you don’t see confused A.I. programs going all mid-life crisis.

Anyway, the little girl called herself Kobik. Director Hill called her an asset. Hill had Kobik create Wayward Pines… err excuse me, Pleasant Hill, a quaint little town in backwoods Connecticut. It was 300 Kobiks by 50 Kobiks by 30 Kobiks, so was big enough to house a lots of people. Lots of carefully chosen people. 96 SHIELD operatives who oversaw a town populated by super villains.

Hill called them reformed super villains. But they weren’t reformed, they were transformed, because, Hill had Kobik change 58 super villains. Now those villains look and dress like ordinary people. Then Kobik wiped the minds of the super villains; gave them new memories and personalities. They lived like common people and did whatever common people did; except listen to Shatner covers. For all intents and purposes, these super villains were new people, decent people living the American dream in a small American dream town.

A town that was surrounded by a force field so that none of its residents could leave. It wasn’t a small town, it was prison that really looked a picture print by Currier and Ives. Guantanamo Bay in Norman Rockwell drag.

Which is pretty much the set-up of the current cross-over series Avengers: Standoff! that’s currently playing itself out in several books. Then, complications ensued. Several of the Avengers teams opposed what Director Hill was doing in Pleasant Hill which created conflict between SHIELD and the Avengers. But not as much conflict as when the super villains started to get their memories back. (Oops, did I forget the SPOILER WARNING? Not really. Didn’t think it was needed. Seriously, who didn’t see that revoltin’ development coming?)

So why does Bob I. the Lawyer Guy care about this? Because SHIELD is a governmental agency, meaning all those things found in the Bill of Rights apply to SHIELD and its brainwashing Bastille. I wondered is Maria Hill a good guy or a bad guy for creating this program. And is Pleasant Hill was even remotely constitutional.

Obviously, I’m talking primarily about the 8th Amendment. Even the NRA isn’t concerned about denying the right to bear arms to convicts who are actually serving prison terms. (The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with another bad guy with a gun just ain’t gonna cut it.) But how does the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment affect this Attica of amnesia?

It’s unclear. There is no definitive definition of cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court has ruled that courts should follow an “evolving standards of decency” test in determining whether a punishment is cruel and unusual. So the test changes as the standards of decency evolve throughout the world. Centuries ago being drawn and quartered was considered a just punishment. Most societies would no longer consider drawing and quartering to be humane. (And not just because the strain it puts on the horses would be cruelty to animals.)

Pleasant Hill utilizes mind alteration of some sort to keep it’s inmates under control. Such mind alteration would be a form of assault, as they constitute a physiological change to a person. In most jurisdictions assault is a crime and I’m pretty sure that standards of decency wouldn’t permit prisons to commit actual crimes on their inmates.

This isn’t a situation like a mentally ill patient who is given medical treatment to restore that person to mental health. This is taking people who are mentally healthy – criminals, but mentally healthy – and altering their brains so that they don’t behave like criminals anymore. This is an assault on the inmates’ cognitive liberty, which many courts are recognizing as being protected by the Bill of Rights.

The Supreme Court might rule Pleasant Hill unconstitutional because it violates standards of decency and inflicted cruel and unusual punishment. Or it might rule the mind wiping was cruel and unusual, because it a crime. As we don’t actually have a real-world counterpart to Pleasant Hill, I can’t definitively tell you how a real-world court would view Pleasant Hill.

I can tell you this, however, one of the tests frequently used is whether the punishment is unnecessarily severe. We know prisons in the Marvel Universe have power dampening apparatus, which can suppress the super powers of their inmates so super villains can be held in prisons without having their personalities wiped and replaced. That being the case, Pleasant Hill might have difficulty withstanding a legal challenge, because its practice of committing assaults on the mind is a more severe punishment than is necessary.

Another test that is pretty much universal in its application to a cruel and unusual punishment analysis is that prisons may not deprive inmates of the basic necessities of life. While Pleasant Hill does provide food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, and medical care, there is another necessity that Pleasant Hill omits; the inmate’s ability to have visits from family members.

The leading case on this matter is Overton v. Bazzzetta where inmates sued Michigan because of prison guidelines which limited who could visit inmates. The guidelines eliminated visitation rights for inmates who violated certain prison rules. It also denied inmates the right to have visits from their children if their parental rights had been terminated. The inmates sued under the First (free association), Eighth (cruel and unusual punishment), and Fourteenth (due process) Amendments. The Supreme Court upheld these regulations and found they bore a rational relation to the government’s interest in maintaining internal security in its prisons.

Overton only dealt with a partial denial of some of an inmate’s visitation rights. Inmates in Pleasant Hill are Cosmic Cubed into believing they’re different people. They’re not receiving family visits because they don’t know they have any families. And their families don’t know where they are.

Would the Overton analysis apply to the wide-spread and complete denial of all visitation rights by an inmate’s family and friends practiced in Pleasant Hill? How would the courts balance complete denial against the state’s need to maintain order? Especially when, as I noted before, Pleasant Hill’s mind wipe is a more severe form of punishment than is necessary for the purpose of imprisoning super villains.

I don’t know. The courts might rule in favor of the inmates and hold that denying them all visitation from family and friends in a manner that is more severe than it needs to be, is cruel and unusual punishment. Or they might not.

So why did I write this column, if I don’t know the answers to the questions I’m posing? Because these are the sort of things I think of when I read comic book stories. Even if there is no definitive answer, I still wonder what would happen if this happened in the real world.

And sometimes, like when I don’t have anything else to write about, I share what I’m wondering about with you. To see, are you pondering what I’m pondering?

(The first one of you who says anything about getting a monkey to use dental floss is gonna get such a hit!)

Marc Alan Fishman: Loving Age of Ultron

Oh, Avengers: Age of Ultron, how I loved you so! From the moment the pre-movie Ant-Man trailer began to the last second of Whedon-tinted footage befell my eyes, I was a happy camper. Before I roll up my sleeves and dive in to the nitty-gritty details that made the movie for me, I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout from the rafters that this week’s column is chock full of spoilers. So, consider yourself warned. But I digress. Let the love-in begin!

Remembering Where It All Began.

More than once during Age of Ultron, the lingering ideas of Iron Man permeated the plot line. This attention to detail – taking the theme of Tony’s war-mongering past as the driving force for all that has followed – helped create a sequel born of the cinematic MCU, rather than being plucked directly from the proverbial pulp.

That Pietro and Wanda would stare a Stark explosive in the face for several days of mental anguish, would lead them to their nearly permissible antagonistic actions showed a deft hand in the writer’s room. Pair this with the birth of Ultron himself and you have a wealth of villains to combat without it feeling like a bloated mess. I’m looking at you, Spider-Man 3, Amazing Spider-Man, and any other multi-villain movie menagerie. Here, Tony Stark is the spark for the unfurling events. It’s an organic plotline that pays dividends through believable character interaction. Astonishing, no?

Exploring The Details Of The Under-Players.

In the first Avengers movie, Black Widow and Hawkeye were mostly there to flesh out the cast. Believably placed for the ties to S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha and Clint had their moments, but their placement on the team at large seemed more or less to add a human element to an inhuman team. No, not those Inhumans.

Here in Ultron, our truly human Avengers showcase that it was their humanity that was their superpower all along. Hawkeye the family man and the Black Widow the no-baby-mama helped anchor their gifted counterparts when things got too explody. That we would see Hawkeye leap into battle knowing he leaves a wife and kids behind – because he knows his worth and importance to the team – hit me as a parent right in the feels. As for Natasha revealing a secret shame to Bruce Banner in an effort to prove that her budding feelings for Tony Stark’s best science-bro matched his outer monsterhood with her own perceived faults… well, it was a touching and mature a concept placed in a movie I wouldn’t have pegged as either of those adjectives.

A Master Plan Worthy Of A Mean Child.

Loki, granted the mind-gem by Thanos in an effort to conquer Earth, hatched an invasion pitted against  a handful of misguided do-gooders. His machinations included mind-control, sabotage, and ultimately brute force. In contrast, Ultron – very much a child, with more mental capacity and power then he can truly control – opts instead to smash the earth with a big rock. Sure, there’s more to it than that… but really, there isn’t. And it’s a brilliant move. When we first meet him, Ultron seeks to evolve. He sets about his plan not unlike Loki – using mind-control and psychic attack to distract – but when he’s denied his prize, there’s little left to do but start killing. That he was able to create a network of thrusters underneath an entire city in what feel like a few days? Well, I guess that’s what makes him a super-villain.

What I love most about it though, is that the end-game motivations of Ultron end up immature and thuggish when he’s left without the toy he wanted in the first place. We are reminded at the tail-end of the movie that both he and The Vision are very much new to the world. No amount of knowledge can replace wisdom. Again, this is a little detail in a large moving plot that escalates a would-be blockbuster into something that rises above my personal expectations.

And Last, But Not Least… The Promise Of The Future.

When the dust settles, it’s apropo that there’s no schwarma to be had. The Avengers fall into their more natural state. If I might beat this dead horse one last time: the actions presented all felt in line with the characters we’ve seen built in front of us now for the last seven years. Of course Captain America and Black Widow will remain Avengers set to train the first class of new heroes. Tony Stark, tail between his legs, retreats to his vast fortune and his machine shop to ponder where he goes next. Thor returns to his homeland to seek answers, and likely build towards Infinity Wars. Hawkeye gets his well-deserved family time.

And our incredible Hulk? He’ll incredibly sulk for a while, until he’s needed again, I suppose. Given that he turned down the opportunity for a romantic connection in lieu of a martyrs’ life makes sense. He did try to commit suicide only a year or two ago. He’s not ready to move on.

And after a nuanced movie like Age of Ultron? Neither am I. Excelsior indeed.

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Iron Man Invented Ultron!

Did you see it? Did ya did ya did ya? The latest trailer to the future billion-dollar-blockbuster-to-be Avengers 2: Age of Ultron didn’t dance around the revisionist history of the cinematic 616. Ultron, once the product of Dr. Hank Pym – of Ant Man fame, don’t you know – has been shifted to the fatherly arms of one Tony Stark.

Now, the movie isn’t out yet, and I’ve abstained for seeking any real spoilers (that the trailer didn’t spoil itself). For all I know, Tony “invented” it the same way Microsoft invented the Zune. But, let’s just assume that in the world of Joss Whedon’s Marvelverse, Tony Stark did as he said: he attempted to create a solution to the ails of the world… and in doing so, created a would-be destructor instead. Simply put, this is a brilliant move by the boardroom of Mickey Mouse. Old school fans be damned.

An old adage I was taught in screenwriting class was that “you don’t put a gun on the table if you don’t plan on firing it.” The idea being that storytelling in a restricted amount of time (like a 150 minute movie) means sometimes having to consolidate resources. And while I’m sure I could have my ear talked off by someone older than me on the rich history of Pym’s creation of the aforementioned villain, it’d fall on deaf ears. The biggest reason: the story thus far in the Marvel movies has wonderfully built to this outcome.

Take a trip through Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Avengers, and Iron Man 3. The genesis to the Marvel Studios empire was built on the back of Anthony Stark: war-monger, philanthropist, martyr. It makes complete sense coming out of Avengers and Iron Man 3 that Tony would feel compelled to create a machine to solve the world’s problems. And it’d make even more sense he’d imbue it with a bit of his own panache. Any decent scientist will tell you the man who could invent Jarvis as presented is more than capable of creating the AI that wants to end humanity in order to save it. No one builds a monologuing AI better than Tony “Poke the Hulk in the Tuccus” Stark.

What I love even more than the choice to saddle Tony with the idea for Ultron is the potential stories that spin out of it. Akin to Grant Morrison’s astounding Tower of Babel arc in JLA, here the biggest threat to the Avengers (and the world at large) isn’t the rampaging id, alien demi-god, or right-wing cyclops… it’s the narcissist futurist. And given the name drop of Captain America: Civil War and the leaked stories of Tony’s appearance in it, it doesn’t take much brain power to see that Captain America may end up opposite his teammate over something as trivial as potentially almost ending the world. Plus, Tony also sorta created Whiplash and a fire-breathing Guy Pearce. If that’s not enough to go to war, then I don’t know my politics.

Beyond Cap there’s potential steam to be blown off by countless others. And what of Tony’s Science Bro, Dr. Banner? Maybe he’ll be more sympathetic to a man trying to quell the beasts of the world and messing up. And what of Black Widow or Hawkeye? One would imagine they aren’t ones to choose sides quickly. And then there is S.H.I.E.L.D. and all of that potential mess.

Whedon’s recent interviews have all beleaguered the point that with this sequel the story is decidedly more insular than the previous iteration. Avengers pretty much charged out of the gate swinging, and there was hardly time for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to fraternize. Those critics devoid of our fanboy hearts saw the coming together of the menagerie of complex costume choices as being inherently explosive.

In simpler terms, put that many type-A personalities on one giant flying fortress and you were bound to have an alien invasion and the near destruction of New York City. Of course we’d all beg to differ, but the outsiders have a point. And it all comes back to Tony.

At the end of Iron Man we were introduced to the concept of the superteam – a­­nd the tin man was clearly at the core of it. When Tony stepped on the Triskelion, he treated it as if he owned it. And after he illegally downloaded all the secret files within, in a way he did. And he was quick to reveal to his fellow Avengers how secretive and potentially damning their would-be employers were. Forever the smartest man in the world… doomed to see his biggest ideas twisted into death and destruction. Tony Stark is karma’s bitch.

And Avengers 2 will be amazing because of it.

 

Molly Jackson: Huggles to Agent Carter!

With only one episode left (as of this writing), Marvel’s Agent Carter is sadly coming to a close. This exciting, entertaining and funny show is Marvel’s first serious foray into spotlighting a leading female hero.

Yes, that’s right. I called Peggy Carter, brought to life by Hayley Atwell, a hero. Her deductive skills and intuition border on superhuman and her desire to search for the truth. If that doesn’t sell you, her willingness to help another human being should.

So if you haven’t been watching Agent Carter, then you have been doing yourself a serious disservice. Carter brings a whole new look to the SSR and SHIELD while delicately laying ground work and clues for the future. Marvel shows how well they excel at long-term planning in these episodes. They have episodes tying into TV and movie properties and adding backstory to popular characters.

Peggy Carter’s story played second fiddle to Captain America in the movies but Atwell’s portrayal always resonates with me. She is a character who I could see as a strong female role model, as well as a hero. The conviction of this character translates beautifully to an expanded story, adding more depth to the character. We get to see Peggy deal with an unhappy workplace while wanting more from her life and missing her lost love. She spends her days with friends and enemies, and still manages to support those around her. Even though this show takes place over 50 years ago, this is still a character almost everyone could relate to.

This show also acknowledges the misogyny of the times. In last week’s episode, Peggy points out to her colleagues they only see her as the helpless woman in their midst. They all see her as they want to see her rather than as a peer. I admit, sometimes the near constant criticisms of women make me cringe inside. Still, it brings a sense of reality to an otherwise unreal world. Superhero or not, every woman has had to deal with “gender discrepancies.”

Agent Carter took a major step for comic fans by showcasing a female lead. We need to show Marvel our thanks so they and other companies see this is what we want. Strong female characters, not women in refrigerators. Thank you Marvel. Keep Peggy Carter in mind when you write for fans, and you will keep bringing in all types of fans.

Tweeks: Experience The Marvel Experience

TweeksMEXthumbnailLast week, we went to The Marvel Experience during its stop in San Diego.  Taking place in seven large domes, visitors become S.H.I.E.L.D recruits who undergo training in order to fight alongside the Avengers against Hydra in a final showdown. It reminded us of a Marvel themed amusement park, but is it worth the ticket price (ranging from $24.50 to $34.50) when it comes your city?  Watch our review to find out.

Mike Gold: Time Flies When You’re Saving The World

Last week we comics fans were treated to a nice treat that, had other circumstances prevailed, would have been the big buzz in our donut shop. Instead, events mandated – properly – that we turn our attention to the Charlie Hebdo matter. That situation remains unresolved and part of a much bigger and even more disquieting picture, but if we can’t stop to smell the flowers we will surely go insane. That’s why I’m going to talk about Marvel’s Agent Carter this week.

The mini-series – it runs eight episodes, and the first two ran last week – goes a long way towards answering the question “Hey, why won’t Marvel Studios pay more attention to the female characters?” It doesn’t answer the question “Hey, why won’t Marvel Studios do a Black Widow movie?” but I suspect if the executives at Marvel understand what they’re doing on Agent Carter, there well might be.

So, what’s going on in Agent Carter that’s so special? I think the two-hour debut did more to educate people as to the inequities in the workplace than any other single event in perhaps three decades. If things are going to change, illumination through entertainment is an important part of the mix.

Seeing as the series is set in the mid-1940s post-war period – after all, it is a sequel to the first real Captain America movie – it’s all too easy to look at it and say “well, yeah, but that was 1946.” This is true, but as George Santayana said, “when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

(Actually, Santayana said a lot of interesting things, my favorite being “Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.” Check him out at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana.)

Okay, back to 1946. That was a time when nobody gave a second thought about women being paid a lot less then men. That’s because nobody gave a second thought about women being given much responsibility – Santayana, I suspect, probably thought we should have remembered how women held our nation together during the world war that just ended. That was a time when newspapers carried separate want ad listings: “Help Wanted – Men,” for laborers and executives, and “Help Wanted – Women,” for secretaries, maids and cooks. This was a practice that continued until some time in the 1970s; the possibility that such segregation was illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act wasn’t even discussed until 1965. Women were fired for getting married, and society looked down upon those women who chose a career over pounding out babies every year or so.

Agent Carter is set squarely in this environment. Peggy Carter, as last seen in Marvel media, is an extremely competent field agent to say the least, but despite her wartime record she is relegated to secretarial duties at S.H.I.E.L.D’s precursor organization, the Strategic Scientific Reserve. In order to save the day and to fulfill her commitment to Howard Stark (let’s hear it for Marvel continuity!) she starts out by hiding her activities and condescending to the men who order her to do the filing.

Despite this, Agent Carter is not a political screed. It is a solid action show set in the well-defined Marvel Cinematic Universe, complete with time-appropriate established characters such as a comparatively young Edwin Jarvis and a typically burly Dum-Dum Dugan (let’s hear it again for Marvel continuity!), and the actors whose characters appeared in the movies reprise their roles here, including Dominic Cooper as the senior Stark. Marvel’s evil corporate empire, Roxxon, plays a prominent role in this series.

Agent Carter is a very stylish, fast-acting and clever series built around the strengths of its star, Hayley Atwell. We’ll be seeing a lot of her in the future, in the second Avengers movie and in future episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Crom knows where else. But I really hope that Disney/Marvel/ABC (different floors of the same company) has the budget and the audience to take this program to a weekly series.

And then do that Black Widow movie.

 

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