Rank & Phile #6: Patriotic Heroes
nweathington
Posts: 6,748
To recap, “Rank & Phile” is an idea that spawned out of a discussion in the 2017 Reading Thread. I'll post one list of five subjects each week, and to try to prevent topic confusion and having to sift through pages of posts, I'll start a new thread for each new list. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to rank the five subjects on the list below however you see fit. Why rank my list of subjects rather than have everyone come up with their own list of subjects, you ask? Personally, I find that the more options I am given, the more difficult it is to rank them. This is meant to be a quick, hopefully fun, process that you won’t have to spend too much time on. Also, it might get us talking about characters, creators, or stories we might not talk about otherwise. As always, explanation of your rankings is encouraged, but not required
This week’s obvious choice of themes goes along with the holiday: superheroes who wrap themselves in the American flag. For the sake of variety, I'm only choosing one hero per publisher (and, yes, I know the Shield was briefly published by DC, but since they didn't own the character, I'm letting it slide), and I’m excluding Captain America. So without further ado, here is this week’s list:
Fighting American (Prize) / The Shield (MLJ/Archie) / SuperPatriot (Image) / Uncle Sam (Quality/DC) / US Agent (Marvel)
This week’s obvious choice of themes goes along with the holiday: superheroes who wrap themselves in the American flag. For the sake of variety, I'm only choosing one hero per publisher (and, yes, I know the Shield was briefly published by DC, but since they didn't own the character, I'm letting it slide), and I’m excluding Captain America. So without further ado, here is this week’s list:
Fighting American (Prize) / The Shield (MLJ/Archie) / SuperPatriot (Image) / Uncle Sam (Quality/DC) / US Agent (Marvel)
Comments
2) Fighting American — Simon and Kirby’s satirical take on the subgenre they helped create is a ton of fun. Plus, it was done at an interesting transition point in Kirby’s drawing style.
3) SuperPatriot — The two SuperPatriot miniseries (particularly the second) are surprisingly good. And the early Dave Johnson artwork is wildly kinetic.
4) The Shield — I haven't read very many Shield stories. The early Irv Novick stories are well drawn, but kind of dull; the Simon & Kirby stuff (The Double Life of Private Strong) is fairly interesting, but short-lived; and the DC/Impact series was decent, but all in all the character has never grabbed me.
5) US Agent — I kind of like the costume design, but not the character.
1) Uncle Sam - One of my Brave and the Bold episodes involves plastic man and Uncle Sam. @nweathington said it well, and Uncle Sam always reminds of @JamieD .
2) Super Patriot - he is so much better than he should be. I loved the way he looked and geez stories involving the Super Patriot really are better than they should have been.
3) US Agent - he's beyond a jerk, he's a bigot, and he is government stooge. He also looks pretty great, and has had a few interesting stories. Plus as far as Cap replacements he's better than commie smasher and the Punisher.
4) Fighting American - The difference between hack and satire is that the creators involved really understand the subject they are satirizing. This counts as the later.
5) The Shield - I'm not a fan of having a multi national spy organization big brothering me counted as patriotic. If anything we should be supporting on July 4th we should be supporting the over throw of Shield and disregard for our rights