The Ultimate U-Turn

LOOK MA, WE WIMPED OUT!!!

by ADA Jazzy D

     The realist and the ideologue, the quintessential Machiavelli and Jefferson, are the basic poles of the ethics of action.  The realist gets a bad rap in pop culture—always making back room deals and compromising principles, but realists are no worse than idealists.  “The ends justify the means” could be spoken by either extreme.  But most sci-fi and comics heroes are all idealists about the means they use.  They won’t kill, they won’t make deals, and they won’t leave a man behind.  And, hey, that’s great—that’s very American and noble, but it is good to have a little darkness in our heroes now and then.  The Ultimates had such glorious darkness. 
     But then in the last issue they go all starry-eyed, tea-time at buttercup junction on us.
     

     Ulitmate Cap was a head breaker.  He took out Pym; no questions, no counseling; he kicked banner in the face, just to blow off steam; killed a freaky Russian monster dead because fighting isn’t about honor, “fighting is about winning!”  He even shot Wolverine.  When any evil threatened the security of the US, Ultimate Cap severed its torso with his shield.  He was a soldier, and like Sun Tzu, he took the gloves off and got the job done.
     Don’t quote this on a political science thesis, but basically the realist considers man to be by nature evil, while the idealist believes man is almost god-like.  Realists want to control man and ideologues want to free him of all constraint.  Our heroes reflect it.  In Star Trek, perhaps the most idealist series of all, the first time anybody has to weigh the needs of the many over the few it is some beautiful, self-sacrificing gesture.  Lord forbid a starship captain order someone to die to save his ship, and—because if you stay noble it always works out—Spock cheats death, of course.  Battlestar Galactica is a little different.  XO Tigh vented a couple dozen humans early the in the series to save the ship, in the resistance he used a suicide bomber, and later he killed his own traitorous wife.  But it couldn’t last.  They couldn’t kill ex-president Gaius Baltar, because that would just be so wrong.  And Tigh has to be a Cylon because he’s too cold to be a human.  It is the sadistic choice.  Some times you want to see Spidey save the kids and MJ.  Sometimes you want to see Angel kill a friend to infiltrate the bad guys.  Sometimes you want the hero to live in a world a little more like the one most of us know:  where nobility and honor don’t always get the job done.

Would someone please throw Balter out a airlock or something?

     And doesn’t it make more sense?   In a future infested with mutants, aliens, robots, and genetically altered humans (and possibly gods) why would you not have the Ultimates?  If there was a group of Persons of Mass Destruction wouldn’t it be a government project, wouldn’t the money and resources require that?  Isn’t the whole CWI thing over at the original Marvel U about how the government can’t have a bunch of capes running around free?  The Ultimates made sense, they had military back up, intelligence reports, helli-carriers!  Radical Islamists take American hostages?  Send in the Ultimates.  Rogue state building nukes?  Send in the PMDs.  Get the job done.  It makes sense. 
     But no!  The Ulimates can’t fight Nick Fury’s Machiavellian wars anymore, not if it opens America to attack—can’t be stirring up the hate.  No, when a consortium of super-powered terrorists from all of America’s enemies topples our military might and the Statue of Liberty in the same day the proper response is to fold up America’s super-team and redeploy them with Greenpeace.  So, they beat the Liberators, what about their sponsors, what about securing their tech, what about flippin’ old school revenge? 
Save the world?  When did Cap get so noble?  What happened to “do you think this A stands for France?”  First off, the whole battle was set up by the reality bending being named Loki, so they didn’t stir up trouble with military adventurism, they were played from the beginning.  Second, the theory is that other countries and non-state actors won’t attack America if we don’t attack them.  Well heck, let’s just decommission all the ICBMs while we’re at it, I mean if we don’t have them others won’t use them against us by that logic.  Third, none of America’s enemies will buy this.  They will either not believe the Ultimates are independent or they will propagandize that it is a sham to justify their own actions.  Plus, doesn’t the EU have a super-team?  They the world can trust?  And fourth, what are they going to save the world from?  Aliens, mutants, or random villains?  The real threat is still state sponsored PMDs, and they can’t attack any country’s evil plan without bringing that home with them.  But they’re above all that.
     There’s an old riddle about realism and idealism.  You’re the general of an army trapped in a fortress.  There’s a breach in the wall and the front gates.  If you take your men out the breach all may live or all may die.  If you go through the gate half will die. but half will live.  The goal is to save as many men as possible.  The realist takes half, and idealist risks all. 
     In comics supermen abound, and it is pretty easy to risk all when bullets bounce off your chest or when you know you’ll die heroically saving everyone dressed as a bat.   But the Ultimates were different.  They had to make sadistic choices, Hobbesian choices, and they did what they had to get the job done.  Maybe it is a violation of international law to wipe out a country’s nuke program, and maybe nobler men would go to the UN or sacrifice security for principles.  In the Ulimate U it seemed like the philosophy was that half a country was better than no country at all.  And there’s something enjoyable as a reader to have the heroes live with their choices instead of always saving the day completely or wearing the white hat.
     Now, all comics have a mixture of realism and idealism, but the Ultimates were shelling out a dark heroes fix that was sorely needed.  Of course, now with CW there’s more angst than moral clarity in the Marvel U, but still Ultimate U made sense.  It was populated with pain rather than boundless hope.  Now, the Ultimates might still break heads and choose realism over blind idealism, but it seems silly to have Cap quit America.  Dick Cheney told those terrorists to go to hell because he’s not there to worry about their feelings, he’s there to protect America from people like them—and so was Cap.
     But now they are going to go all international metro-sexual on us and severe ties with the gov’ment instead of torsos.  They’re going to save the world and go into space and do bunch of non-relevant stuff, because the glow of their nobility will when over all the people that want to destroy the world as we know it. 
     Their new HQ?   Happyland, in a gum-drop house on Lollypop Lane.