Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Superman Related Orson Scot Card writting a new Superman online version

I am very glad to hear Orson Scot Card. He is a great writer.

I am quite outraged that people can so glibbly misrepresent Card's political views and get away with spewing hate at him.

While people have a right to disagree with his political views, they should at least deal with them as they stand. Card's views on marriage come very a deepseated belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. He does not want to arrest or oppose those with other beliefs, and contrary to the tenor of the rhetoric against him, he does not favor proactive state opposition to other things.

The issue at hand is about the proactive state support of certain institutions. It deals with the negative effects of government policy that re-writes social issues. It deserves much more deliberate and respectful responses than are being given. The fact of the matter is that whole-sale redefinition of marriage could have extreme adverse effects on the rights of those who cannot for moral reasons support a broader definition of marriage.

Even those who do not agree with Card on his opinions about marriage should see this is not relevant to the issue at hand. The attempt to ban someone from writting Superman comics because of their political views, especially when they are deeply connected with their religion and religious views as is the case with card, is just plain wrong.

It might be one thing if people thought Card would enter his political views into this issue. However anyone who expects that to happen is woefully ignorant of Card's writting.

They also tend towards being downright dishonest in their assesment of his actual political stances. Considering the reasons for Card's stance, in a lot of ways this boils down to an attempt to deny someone employment for trying to live their religion.

Writers should be judged on the content of their works, not on their politics.

Here is an actual link just about the upcoming publication, without all the needless political grandstanding.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/06/introducing-the-all-new-adventures-of-superman

Considering that Card is only a co-author even where he is involved, the political grandstanding smells of trying to deny people participation in the community for taking a stand.

It also strkies me that people figure they can get away with anything as long as they control the dialogue on another persons views. The claims about Card's views are just plain false. Card is a strong supporter of man/woman marriage because he firmly believes that having it as a the state supported institution is best for children, and recognizing other forms of marriage dilute the child-rearing goals of marriage in a way that will undermine the positve goods it gives to child rearing.

The actual issue at the heart of the debate is what is the purpose of marriage. To answer its primary purpose is to link children to their biological parents and thus it needs to be in a form where that purpose is central and clear is not to attack or denigrate anyone. It is to face the reality of the situation. Only as the state limits the marriage it recognizes to man/woman marriage will this be clear.

I know nothing of Card's views or the opposition to them, and no interest in discussing them. But I did just have to point out one thing in your post, John:

Actually, that's an opinion, not a fact.

LabRat :-)

I'm really not interested in Card's political views; I don't agree with them, but that's true of a lot of authors on a lot of different sides in politics.

Unfortunately his version of Iron Man (in Ultimate Iron Man) was totally ludicrous, involved child abuse which many readers found offensive, and was greeted with so much derision that Marvel had to explain it away in a later retcon:

For a description of the original see here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Iron_Man

For the retcon see here:

http://tinyurl.com/bdczfyl - sorry, it's a very long URL.

While I know that this series is not supposed to be Superman canon, I sincerely hope that Superman is not going to be changed into a shape-changing green alien (they've already got one) or otherwise badly distorted.

I think 'freedom of speech' is almost lost. There are accepted values (accepted because most people agree with them and therefore the values have to be 'right') and those who disagree are vilified if they dare voice their opinion.

A quick look at history will show that an opinion isn't correct simply because most people believe it. In my own country, the view that Aboriginals were 'not quite human' is a case in point.

I often wonder how people of the future will look at our times. Will they shake their heads and say, 'Can you believe they *all* thought that? Can you believe that anyone who disagreed was considered a political/social outcast? Did *no one* think for themselves? Or were some people just so influential that they managed to convince everyone of the moral value of their views? How did they manage to so effectively silence the dissenters? How did they change 'freedom of speech' to become 'freedom only if you agree'?

The movie, 'Amazing Grace' is set in the late 1700s, but there are so many parallels to our world, it makes me wonder if we've progressed at all.

Corrina.

I'm taking a course on the history of American Mass Media and while the right to free speech IS a right enshrined in our Constitution, that right can (and sometimes does) get Limited (as in the MPAA ratings, one time the comic book code and cases of treason.). With that said there is one right NOT guaranteed within the Constitution. The right not to be offended.

To be clear, I'm neutral on this. Comic book writers have said so e pretty darn misogynistic stuff and then somehow turnaround and write a good story with women in it. The reverse can also be said (the writer if Injustice was very clearly on the side of women in both his early and later interviews and still wrote a story that "fridged" both Lois and Baby at Clark's hand giving them some abusive implications) so I'm not ready to say anything. Now if his opinions pop up in the stories he writes? That's another matter and one I'd be happy to talk about in due course.

The latest on this, as I understand it, is that DC have put Card's story on hold after the artist quit the project.

The companies in your examples agreed to publishing standards in their own best interests. Even in the case of the Marvel Spiderman drug storyline famously printed without the Comics Code seal there was never a question of whether they could legally publish, it was a question of public opinion and backlash in their own industry.

The Constitution ensures that the government doesn’t do the limiting of free speech. If I want to write bad poetry, fine. If I want to have it published I either need to convince a publishing house that it is print (and profit) worthy or pay to do it myself. If I can’t get published then I either need to write better poetry, write something else, find a different publisher or find a bag of money. Nothing requires anyone else to read my stuff or invest money in publishing it.

My input as a consumer is if I don’t find the story engaging, if I don’t like the direction the company takes the characters or if I don’t like how they treated one of their writers I have the option of not buying their product. As a business, they can either write stories that people will buy, get into another business, sell the business to someone else or explain to their stockholders why printing their poor performing magazines are more important than returning a profit.

The latest on this - and I should stress I haven't seen the announcement, just read about it in other people's blogs - is that DC have cancelled Card's involvement and presumably paid him a kill fee. I suppose they decided it was simply too much bad publicity.

Now if they'd just take that attitude about the Wonder Woman thing...