History Anvilicious / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Follow any work involving Spider-Man. Mainstream comic book, alternate universe comic books, films, animated series, whatever. From the beginning or from some arbitrary point of your convenience. It won't take very long (if it doesn't happen right away) that you will read a story with the aesop that "with great power {{comes great responsibility}}". Decades have passed since ''ComicBook/AmazingFantasyNumber15'', and the comics still enforce that aesop.

* And then there's ''ComicBook/BatmanFortunateSon'', in which Batman has a nigh-psychotic hatred of rock music (particularly punk) because some time in the past, he saw an {{Expy}} version of [[Music/SexPistols Sid Vicious]] killing Expy-Nancy Spungen. This leads to the memorable line "Punk is nothing but death and crime... and the rage of a beast!" As crazy as it may seem, the comic actually seems to ''support'' Batman's attitude by setting him against Robin, who comes off as TooDumbToLive because he refuses to believe that his favorite rocker could be a criminal just because he makes enjoyable music. On top of that, the villain (said rocker's manager) did it because he wanted to [[WarForFunAndProfit martyr the guy in order to boost record sales]], and ends up [[DisneyVillainDeath falling off of a tall building]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic and gets impaled on a cross-shaped fence]]. What makes this all the more interesting is that the book is fixated on pounding an anvilicious 1950s-style "[[TheNewRockAndRoll Rock And Roll Music Is Evil And Will Kill Everyone You've Ever Loved]]" message in an [[PoesLaw apparently]] straight-faced and serious fashion despite being published in 1999.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': Early ''Superman'' stories basically saw our hero as a leaping anvil. The formula went like this: someone was doing something bad ([[WarForFunAndProfit profiteering off of a war]], running a [[OrphanageOfFear corrupt orphanage]] or mining operation, etc.) and Superman came in to either give them a taste of what they were doing (making him join the war, trapping him in a collapsing mine) or just giving them a taste of his fist or some such. This was more like a fantasy escape for readers riding on the wave of [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt Roosevelt's]] New Deal, who were fed up with society and just wished they could punch out all the corrupt rich and powerful people who they blamed for society's ills, specifically TheGreatDepression.

* An Italian [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Donald Duck]] comic from 2013 featuring the Junior Woodchucks features an unsubtle GreenAesop: Huey, Dewey and Louie, exploring an underground, notice some gas pipes and mention how in Duckburg there are less and less of them since they started using more enviroment-friendly energy sources. Then they stop for a panel and [[BreakingTheFourthWall ask the readers themselves]] why aren't they doing the same in real life in the most guilt-inducing way possible.
* A fair amount of Creator/ECComics stories are spectacularly unsubtle; "ComicBook/JudgmentDayECComics" in particular. A robot civilization with clear different castes for robots with orange casing and robots with blue casing being evaluated for whether or not it's worthy to join TheFederation falls short, the two castes mirror "Separate but Equal" very closely, and at the end we see that the evaluator is black.

* The 1970's ''Comicbook/GreenLantern''/''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' (co-starring ComicBook/BlackCanary) series, touching on issues such as xenophobia, racism and drugs, all in a highly unsubtle fashion.

* Follow any work involving Franchise/SpiderMan. Mainstream comic book, alternate universe comic books, films, animated series, whatever. From the beginning or from some arbitrary point of your convenience. It won't take very long (if it doesn't happen right away) that you will read a story with the aesop that "with great power {{comes great responsibility}}". Decades have passed since ''Amazing Fantasy #15'', and the comics still enforce that aesop.
* Parodied in ''ComicBook/TheSuperiorFoesOfSpiderMan'', where Shocker keeps giving a kid he meets morals like "stay in school and don't do drugs". Note that Shocker is a supervillain.
* Early ''Superman'' stories basically saw our hero as a leaping anvil. The formula went like this: someone was doing something bad ([[WarForFunAndProfit profiteering off of a war]], running a [[OrphanageOfFear corrupt orphanage]] or mining operation, etc.) and Superman came in to either give them a taste of what they were doing (making him join the war, trapping him in a collapsing mine) or just giving them a taste of his fist or some such. This was more like a fantasy escape for readers riding on the wave of [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt Roosevelt's]] New Deal, who were fed up with society and just wished they could punch out all the corrupt rich and powerful people who they blamed for society's ills, specifically TheGreatDepression.
* A common criticism of ''ComicBook/{{Thor 2014}}'' is how heavy handed the feminism is, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fight between Thor and the Destroyer. Odinson (the original Thor) calls on all the women he suspected of being Thor (which apparently includes every woman he's ever met) to help in the fight when Frigga questions how they'll stop it. Frigga proceeds to shout what may as well be, "girl power!" Many readers also noted that there are ''no men'' among the group, even though it would've been pretty easy for Odinson to round some up while finding the Amazon Army, and felt the feminist series even ''more'' Anvilicous, at best, and sexist at worst.
* Some controversy has arisen over a scene in ''Comicbook/UncannyAvengers'' where Havok urges people to not refer to him as a mutant, stating that he abhors the [[FantasticRacism "m-word"]] and wants people to just recognize that we're all human. Given that mutants are historically positioned as a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything not-so-subtle metaphor for minorities and LGBT individuals]], this has understandably ruffled some feathers, especially since the writer is a straight white guy.
* "ComicBook/WhatsSoFunnyAboutTruthJusticeAndTheAmericanWay", an issue of ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' that satirized the comic team ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' and their violent approach to crime fighting. It's basically a long TakeThat at anti-heroes as a whole, but specifically those that kill as if a natural (even fun) part of saving the day and making the world safe. It also doesn't help that the villain is basically [[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic Devil Boner]] crossed with [[Music/TheSexPistols John Lydon]].
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': One Golden Age issue has a kid cheat on a test, without even realizing it since it was his tutor that cheated by stealing the test to have the kid study the exact answers, and the fallout endangers the lives of all the students in his class and nearly gets him killed. The opening blurb ''did'' at least warn readers that this would be the case.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Creator/GailSimone mocked the tendency for the character to be depicted with this in mind in her run on the book; Franchise/WonderWoman sees a movie based on herself and is embarrassed to discover that it depicts her as a StrawFeminist who constantly gives {{Narm}}-filled rants about the superiority of women.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'' can become this under bad writers. Yes, bigotry is bad, but you don't exactly see the government building giant killer robots to murder black people.
* In ''ComicBook/YoungJustice'', when Arrowette's school psychologist is brutally killed by gun violence, she explodes at a pro-gun rights Congressman who tries to blame it on violent video games and comic books. Therefore, the gun control message also doubles as an attack against MoralGuardians. In the official DC forums at the time, the writer Creator/PeterDavid mentioned that few readers picked up on the ''third'' anvil he dropped, that the enraged Arrowette apparently had no problems at all hurting people with her own weapons of choice during this story. It didn't help that the psychologist was killed by an abusive ex-boyfriend, not school or gang violence which made the "Guns are bad" message seem very forced (What would Arrowette have done if the psychologist was murdered by being stabbed or strangled?). Not to mention that on occasion, David put in his own views on gun control into the book (this being one such instance) that he was protective of, which led to a flame war on his forums once which was started when David himself sarcastically dismissed a fan who had criticized one such use of the heavyhandedness of this message in a book which the fan had already stated was good otherwise.

* A fair amount of Creator/ECComics stories are spectacularly unsubtle; [[http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/54803.html Judgement Day]] in particular. A robot civilization with clear different castes for robots with orange casing and robots with blue casing being evaluated for whether or not it's worthy to join TheFederation falls short, the two castes mirror "Separate But Equal" very closely, and at the end we see that the evaluator is black.
* In ''[[http://www.mgmbill.org/foreskin-man.html “Foreskin Man”]]'', the morality of each individual character is based entirely on an argument for or against circumcision. All the heroes are anti-circumcision while all the villains are pro-circumcision). The way that the characters in the story act in the name of circumcision is universally camp and over-the-top, despite orbiting around real life arguments.

* In ''ComicBook/America2017'', writer Gabby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman, that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.

* And then there's ''Franchise/{{Batman}}: Fortunate Son'', in which Batman has a nigh-psychotic hatred of rock music (particularly punk) because some time in the past, he saw an {{Expy}} version of [[Music/SexPistols Sid Vicious]] killing Expy-Nancy Spungen. This leads to the memorable line "Punk is nothing but death and crime... and the rage of a beast!" As crazy as it may seem, the comic actually seems to ''support'' Batman's attitude by setting him against Robin, who comes off as TooDumbToLive because he refuses to believe that his favorite rocker could be a criminal just because he makes enjoyable music. On top of that, the villain (said rocker's manager) did it because he wanted to [[WarForFunAndProfit martyr the guy in order to boost record sales]], and ends up [[DisneyVillainDeath falling off of a tall building]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic and gets impaled on a cross-shaped fence]]. What makes this all the more interesting is that the book is fixated on pounding an anvilicious 1950s-style "[[TheNewRockAndRoll Rock And Roll Music Is Evil And Will Kill Everyone You've Ever Loved]]" message in an [[PoesLaw apparently]] straight-faced and serious fashion despite being published in 1999.

* Early ''Superman'' stories basically saw our hero as a leaping anvil. The formula went like this: someone was doing something bad ([[WarForFunAndProfit profiteering off of a war]], running a [[OrphanageOfFear corrupt orphanage]] or mining operation, etc.) and Superman came in to either give them a taste of what they were doing (making him join the war, trapping him in a collapsing mine) or just giving them a taste of his fist or some such. This was more like a fantasy escape for readers riding on the wave of [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt Roosevelt's]] New Deal, who were fed up with society and just wished they could punch out all the corrupt rich and powerful people who they blamed for society's ills, specifically TheGreatDepression. This changed when Superman stopped being a grassroots folk hero, and became an arm of the power structure he fought against, turning his attention to less controversial societal ills such as petty crime, treason, robbery, and murder.

* ''[[ComicBook/NickSpencersCaptainAmerica Sam Wilson: Captain America]]'' might as well be named "Right-wingers are bad: The Comic", whose [[SarcasmMode subtle leanings]] can be summed up with [[http://static1.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11127/111279141/5232174-1026399205-XUymu.jpg Red Skull]] as a Donald Trump {{Expy}}. The ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' event takes this one up a notch by having the first issue of ''Sam Wilson'' in the event have Sam encounter two white people who unironically use the "fake news" bit to describe ComicBook/{{HYDRA}}.

* In ''[[ComicBook/AmericaChavez America]]'', writer Gabby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman, that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.

* While no particular side in the war is implicated as the bad guy in ''ComicBook/PrideofBaghdad'', the hits in the face as hard as it can with the message that WarIsHell. ''With the suffering of adorable animals.''

* {{ComicBook/Invincible}}: '''''Rape is bad.''''' End of story. It doesn't matter whether if it's a man doing it, or woman. Both are equally depraved and the victim, no matter the gender, is going to be scarred for life.

* "ComicBook/WhatsSoFunnyAboutTruthJusticeAndTheAmericanWay", an issue of ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' that satirized the comic team ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' and their violent approach to crime fighting. It's basically a long TakeThat at anti-heroes as a whole, but specifically those that kill as if a natural (even fun) part of saving the day and making the world safe. It also doesn't help that the villain is basically [[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic Devil Boner]] crossed with [[Music/TheSexPistols John Lydon]].
* The graphic novel ''As the World Burns'' slams home its belief that all forms of "going green" are complete BS and that renouncing all forms of modern life and returning to the wild is the only way to save the planet.

* Some controversy has arisen over a scene in ''Comicbook/UncannyAvengers'' where Havok urges people to not refer to him as a mutant, stating that he abhors the [[FantasticRacism "m-word"]] and wants people to just recognize that we're all human. Given that mutants are historically positioned as a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything not-so-subtle metaphor for minorities and LGBT individuals]], this has understandably ruffled some feathers, especially since the writer is a straight white guy.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Creator/GailSimone mocked the tendency for the character to be depicted with this in mind in her run on the book; Franchise/WonderWoman sees a movie based on herself and is embarrassed to discover that it depicts her as a StrawFeminist who constantly gives {{Narm}}-filled rants about the superiority of women.
* In ''ComicBook/YoungJustice'', when Arrowette's school psychologist is brutally killed by gun violence, she explodes at a pro-gun rights Congressman who tries to blame it on violent video games and comic books. Therefore, the gun control message also doubles as an attack against MoralGuardians. In the official DC forums at the time, the writer Creator/PeterDavid mentioned that few readers picked up on the ''third'' anvil he dropped, that the enraged Arrowette apparently had no problems at all hurting people with her own weapons of choice during this story. It didn't help that the psychologist was killed by an abusive ex-boyfriend, not school or gang violence which made the "Guns are bad" message seem very forced (What would Arrowette have done if the psychologist was murdered by being stabbed or strangled?). Not to mention that on occasion, David put in his own views on gun control into the book (this being one such instance) that he was protective of, which led to a flame war on his forums once which was started when David himself sarcastically dismissed a fan who had criticized one such use of the heavyhandedness of this message in a book which the fan had already stated was good otherwise.
* The 1970's ''Comicbook/GreenLantern''/''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' (co-starring ComicBook/BlackCanary) series, touching on issues such as xenophobia, racism and drugs, all in a highly unsubtle fashion.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'' can become this under bad writers. Yes, bigotry is bad, but you don't exactly see the government building giant killer robots to murder black people.
* Early ''Superman'' stories basically saw our hero as a leaping anvil. The formula went like this: someone was doing something bad ([[WarForFunAndProfit profiteering off of a war]], running a [[OrphanageOfFear corrupt orphanage]] or mining operation, etc.) and Superman came in to either give them a taste of what they were doing (making him join the war, trapping him in a collapsing mine) or just giving them a taste of his fist or some such. This was more like a fantasy escape for readers riding on the wave of [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt Roosevelt's]] New Deal, who were fed up with society and just wished they could punch out all the corrupt rich and powerful people who they blamed for society's ills, specifically TheGreatDepression. This changed when Superman stopped being a grassroots folk hero, and became an arm of the power structure he fought against, turning his attention to less controversial societal ills such as petty crime, treason, robbery, and murder.
* And then there's ''Franchise/{{Batman}}: Fortunate Son'', in which Batman has a nigh-psychotic hatred of rock music (particularly punk) because some time in the past, he saw an {{Expy}} version of [[Music/SexPistols Sid Vicious]] killing Expy-Nancy Spungen. This leads to the memorable line "Punk is nothing but death and crime... and the rage of a beast!" As crazy as it may seem, the comic actually seems to ''support'' Batman's attitude by setting him against Robin, who comes off as TooDumbToLive because he refuses to believe that his favorite rocker could be a criminal just because he makes enjoyable music. On top of that, the villain (said rocker's manager) did it because he wanted to [[WarForFunAndProfit martyr the guy in order to boost record sales]], and ends up [[DisneyVillainDeath falling off of a tall building]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic and gets impaled on a cross-shaped fence]]. What makes this all the more interesting is that the book is fixated on pounding an anvilicious 1950s-style "[[TheNewRockAndRoll Rock And Roll Music Is Evil And Will Kill Everyone You've Ever Loved]]" message in an [[PoesLaw apparently]] straight-faced and serious fashion despite being published in 1999.
* Follow any work involving Franchise/SpiderMan. Mainstream comic book, alternate universe comic books, films, animated series, whatever. From the beginning or from some arbitrary point of your convenience. It won't take very long (if it doesn't happen right away) that you will read a story with the aesop that "with great power {{comes great responsibility}}". Decades have passed since ''Amazing Fantasy #15'', and the comics still enforce that aesop.
* Parodied in ''ComicBook/TheSuperiorFoesOfSpiderMan'', where Shocker keeps giving a kid he meets morals like "stay in school and don't do drugs". Note that Shocker is a supervillain.

* A common criticism of ''ComicBook/{{Thor 2014}}'' is how heavy handed the feminism is, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fight between Thor and the Destroyer. Odinson (the original Thor) calls on all the women he suspected of being Thor (which apparently includes every woman he's ever met) to help in the fight when Frigga questions how they'll stop it. Frigga proceeds to shout what may as well be, "girl power!" Many readers also noted that there are ''no men'' among the group, even though it would've been pretty easy for Odinson to round some up while finding the Amazon Army, and felt the feminist series even ''more'' Anvilicous, at best, and sexist at worst.

* In ''[[ComicBook/AmericaChavez America]]'', writer Gabby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman, that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.

* An Italian [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Donald Duck]] comic from 2013 featuring the Junior Woodchucks features an unsubtle GreenAesop: Huey, Dewey and Louie, exploring an underground, notice some gas pipes and mention how in Duckburg there are less and less of them since they started using more enviroment-friendly energy sources. Then they stop for a panel and [[BreakingTheFourthWall ask the readers themselves]] why aren't they doing the same in real life in the most guilt-inducing way possible.
* ''ComicBook/HotheadPaisanHomicidalLesbianTerrorist'' has a rather grating premise of the title character dealing with unrepentant misogynists, who make up pretty much all of the comic's male characters, and being treated as in the right for assaulting, killing or castrating them.

* ComicBook/Invincible: '''''Rape is bad.''''' End of story. It doesn't matter whether if it's a man doing it, or woman. Both are equally depraved and the victim, no matter the gender, is going to be scarred for life.

* "What's So Funny 'Bout Truth, Justice, and the American Way", an issue of ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' that satirized the comic team ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' and their violent approach to crime fighting. It's basically a long TakeThat at anti-heroes as a whole, but specifically those that kill as if a natural (even fun) part of saving the day and making the world safe. It also doesn't help that the villain is basically [[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic Devil Boner]] crossed with [[Music/TheSexPistols John Lydon]].

* Follow any work involving Franchise/SpiderMan. Mainstream comic book, alternate universe comic books, films, animated series, whatever. From the beginning or from some arbitrary point of your convenience. It won't take very long (if it doesn't happen right away) that you will read a story with the aesop that "with great power {{comes great responsibility}}". Decades have passed since ''Amazing Fantasy #15'', and the comics still enforce that aesop. May be a case of SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.

* In ''[[ComicBook/AmericaChavez America]]'', writer Gabby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women [[HetIsEw is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman]], that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Creator/GailSimone mocked the tendency for the character to be depicted with this in mind in her run on the book; WonderWoman sees a movie based on herself and is embarrassed to discover that it depicts her as a StrawFeminist who constantly gives {{Narm}}-filled rants about the superiority of women.

* In ''[[ComicBook/AmericaChavez America]]'', writer Gabby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman, that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.

* ''[[ComicBook/NickSpencersCaptainAmerica Sam Wilson: Captain America]]'' might as well be named "Republicans am bad: The Comic", whose [[SarcasmMode subtle leanings]] can be summed up with [[http://static1.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11127/111279141/5232174-1026399205-XUymu.jpg Red Skull]] as a Donald Trump {{Expy}}. The ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' event takes this one up a notch by having the first issue of ''Sam Wilson'' in the event have Sam encounter two white people who unironically use the "fake news" bit to describe ComicBook/{{HYDRA}}.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'' can become this under bad writers. Yes bigotry is bad, but you don't exactly see the government building giant killer robots to murder gays.

* The post-Disney "New Marvel" titles have been heavily criticized for being driven primarily by the concept of "diversity for the sake of diversity" and a concentration on "stories" that were little more than feminist- and social-justice-driven propaganda pieces that, unfortunately, contained flat, uninspired, and sometimes offensive characterization, plots that were badly -- or thinly -- written, and often either eliminated, distorted, or marginalized long-standing fan-favorite characters (who just happened to all be white men) in favor of new "diverse" versions of the same characters. In response, Marvel's fanbase revolted and the company's sales plummeted through the floor. The situation was only made worse when Marvel's Editor-in-Chief, Axel Alonso, tweeted that the reason for the plummeting sales was that Marvel's "old" fanbase was primarily made up of racists and sexists who "couldn't handle the new reality," a charge that many Marvel fans -- especially fans who are people of color or female themselves -- objected to strenuously.
** A common criticism of ''ComicBook/{{Thor 2014}}'' is how heavy handed the feminism is, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fight between Thor and the Destroyer. Odinson (the original Thor) calls on all the women he suspected of being Thor (which apparently includes every woman he's ever met) to help in the fight when Frigga questions how they'll stop it. Frigga proceeds to shout what may as well be, "girl power!" Many readers also noted that there are ''no men'' among the group, even though it would've been pretty easy for Odinson to round some up while finding the Amazon Army, and felt the feminist series even ''more'' Anvilicous, at best, and sexist at worst.
** Likewise, ''[[ComicBook/NickSpencersCaptainAmerica Sam Wilson: Captain America]]'' might as well be named "Republicans am bad: The Comic", whose [[SarcasmMode subtle leanings]] can be summed up with [[http://static1.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11127/111279141/5232174-1026399205-XUymu.jpg Red Skull]] as a Donald Trump {{Expy}}. The ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' event takes this one up a notch by having the first issue of ''Sam Wilson'' in the event have Sam encounter two white people who unironically use the "fake news" bit to describe ComicBook/{{HYDRA}}.
** In ''[[ComicBook/AmericaChavez America]]'', writer Gabby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman, that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.

** In ''[[ComicBook/AmericaChavez America]]'', writer Gaby Rivera makes sure that the reader is aware that America Chavez is a brown-skinned Hispanic lesbian just about every third sentence. In addition, dialogue and narration has outright stated that the romantic love between two women is purer than anything that can be felt between a man and a woman, that men are corrupt and violent by nature, especially ''white'' men, and that anything with a penis simply cannot be trusted. Ever.