Category: Judgment
-
Batman is celebrating his 80th anniversary this year, and while he has served admirably as the protector of Gotham City, there is one mystery that the world’s greatest detective has never been able to solve: his own moral inconsistency. Many focus on his all-too-human motivation and lack of superpowers to explain why he’s more relatable…
-
The final issue of Captain America by the now-classic team of Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson, and Joe Caramagna was, appropriately enough, the bonus-sized issue #700, and true to its anniversary status, it serves as a reaffirmation of who Steve Rogers is. In wrapping up their near-future storyline, the team puts Cap in an…
-
At long last, today is the release day for A Philosopher Reads… Marvel Comics' Civil War: Exploring the Moral Judgment of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, published by Ockham Publishing in both paperback and ebook. Comic book readers and moviegoers love to see superheroes fight, whether to protect innocent people from supervillains or to…
-
UPDATE: See new publication and ordering details—new post coming soon with new cover! It's finally here, my long-promised book on Marvel Comics' Civil War storyline and my initial foray into self-publishing with Amazon's Kindle Direct, publishing on February 3 and available now for pre-order: is now being published by Ockham Publishing in print and ebook formats…
-
I clearly remember seeing the internet headlines on a Wednesday morning several weeks ago when the first issue of Nick Spencer and Daniel Acuña's Captain America: Sam Wilson was published, screaming about "Captain Socialism," which were joined later that day (naturally) by Fox News. The irony, of course, was that the alarm was completely unfounded,…
-
Imagine you’re a leader in your community, fighting on behalf of a principle for which you are personally willing to sacrifice anything. Your own well-being is of no concern to you as long as your actions are protecting and promoting the ideal in which you believe so strongly. One day, however, you notice that your…
-
Well, it's time to let the Cap out of the bag… I'm very pleased to announce my next book, The Virtues of Captain America: Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero, which will be published by Wiley-Blackwell next March ahead of the film sequel Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier. (If you're…
-
In Superman Unchained #2, Scott Snyder and Jim Lee show Superman facing insurmountable odds at the hands of an unknown but incredibly powerful foe. Rather than relying on brute force and heat vision to try to save the day, "this a Superman who is all about taking a deliberate, systematic approach to the business of…
-
While preparing my nearly-monthly update to my personal blog, I noticed that Wiley has made my Superman and Philosophy chapter, "Moral Judgment: The Power That Makes Superman Human," available for free at its website. In this chapter, I explain how Superman's powers don't make him immune to the need to make difficult moral choices that…
-
This week's Batman and Robin #8 (written by Peter Tomasi and illustrated by Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray) was a welcome denouement to the Morgan Ducard/Nobody storyline that culminated at the end of #7 when, as Bruce explains to Alfred, "Nobody's dead. Damian killed him." (Imagine parsing that statement if you hadn't been keeping up with the…
Mark D. White 