Informed Wrongness / Comic Books

• Anytime a mutant cure is brought up, the X-Men seem to treat it as an unambiguously wrong thing. This is in spite of the fact that there are many, many dangerous extremists who will never stop harming people, and there being mutations where one would be in an And I Must Scream situation for life. This is regardless of the fact that whether one wants their powers or not is a personal matter. But the anti-cure side will always go on about mutations being a part of who you are, and governments and corporations having no business providing mutants with any kind of choice. The whole thing is thoroughly and rightfully mocked in this infamous post◊. On the other hand, granted, these cures are almost inevitably used as weapons,^examplessuch as the Hope Serum that was meant to help mutants with uncontrollable powers (coming in both temporary and permanent forms, with the permanent form meant only for the most extreme cases) which was explicitly made under the promise that it would only be used to help people that want it. It was immediately used as a weapon of terror by a group of people who broke into the Xavier school and forcibly took away a boy's power to fly (which ultimately drove him to suicide.) Or a 'vaccine' that was meant to be used to offer children who might have the mutant gene the choice to use their power. The first we ever hear about it, a congressman is talking about making vaccination mandatory for all children (though he's treated as misguided more than malevolent) and the second it's approved legislation is forced despite the congressman pushing for it having changed his mind and shortly afterward simply being a mutant is outlawed. but while that justifies a certain amount of suspicion, it doesn't justify keeping a cure out of the hands of mutants whose lives would be greatly improved if they were cured of their mutations. While the X-Men would have every right to advocate that a mutant cure should kept under strict lock and key with trustworthy people, the mere existence of a cure shouldn't be something they'd oppose. However, much of the objection to a cure becomes understandable when you transpose it to the metaphor of mutants standing in for various real life persecuted groups, then the cure stands in for stuff like Cure Your Gays, Racial Transformation, Brainwashed, and Sell-Out.
  • Notably, the original Cure storyline in Astonishing X-Men averted this — making it clear that not only would some mutants find a cure helpful, but that the X-Men would not stand in their way on an individual basis. The scientist who invented the cure was also presented as an unambiguously good person who was trying to help people and intended harm to nobody.
• In spite of his knack for Anvilicious strawmen, Jack Chick still manages to create some that present better arguments than his "heroes". Especially when Chick's counter argument consists of someone saying nothing more than "That's a lie!" This is most prevalent in his tract about evolution - Teacher: "We've got a vestigial tailbone. That indicates evolution!" Kid: "It's not vestigial. It's got muscles on it."
• Green Lantern: a consistent part of Hal Jordan's origin is that after his pilot father died in a crash (thanks to a mechanical failure), his mother banned him from going anywhere near any planes. While this is understandable as a child, and her worry over his recklessness is also understandable, Hal ends up running away to join the Air Force, at which point she cuts him off entirely and refuses to see him unless he leaves, and stops being a pilot. It gets to the point where Hal has to follow through (by getting himself dishonorably discharged, because Hal is stubborn) to even get the chance to see her on her death bed - which he is blamed for by his older brother - and by which time she is dead. Hal is consistently framed as being wrong, in this specific scenario, for following his passion and choosing to be his own person, despite the fact that he actually tried to live a normal life at one point and it nearly drove him mad.
• The Spiritual Predecessor to X-Men vs. Avengers, Schism, concerning Cyclops and those who sided with him. The whole situation comes down to Wolverine deciding that Cyclops shouldn't be in charge because he's allowing young students to fight, and Wolverine doesn't want that. Essentially, it's a conflict of idealism and cynicism: The idealistic Wolverine wants the students to stay out of the conflict and keep them safe, while trying to build peaceful ties, while the cynical Cyclops wants to train them to defend themselves. While Wolverine has a point that they're essentially child soldiers, he's completely ignoring that the X-Men have been training teenagers to be superheroes since their inception, and Wolverine himself regularly takes young teenage girls on dangerous missions with him. Wolverine goes so far as to rig Utopia to explode in order to destroy an approaching Sentinel; Cyclops points out that Wolverine will be leaving the mutants with nowhere to go because of it. Things deteriorate from there, as Cyclops uses the memory of Jean Grey against Wolverine in an attempt to shame him, claiming she was always frightened of him. When Wolverine asks who she'd be more scared of if she was there at the moment, Cyclops attacks him, and they end up being so busy fighting, they don't notice the Sentinel bearing down on them, driving the kids to attack and destroy it. Although the immediate menace has passed, Wolverine, disregarding the kids' part in their victory, ends up separating the X-Men into two groups, thereby endangering them all. He comes off as something of a hypocrite and a jerk, yet it's Cyclops who's supposed to be the bad guy in the conflict (Cyke did strike first, on top of playing the Jean card, but before that Wolverine threatened to blow up the island with all his precious children on it, so you can see how it's ambiguous). It's especially bad when you remember that, at the time, there were around 200 mutants left worldwide.
• Spider-Man: In The Amazing Spider-Man (Dan Slott), Carlie Cooper breaks up with Peter Parker after she finds out his secret identity, and the book and the authors insist that Peter was wrong not to tell her and insisted that she was able to handle it. Except the book never stops to have the character of Carlie consider Peter's side of the situation, and has her make outlandish and bizarre accusations regarding Peter and his dual life as Spider-Man, making it seem like they are two completely separate people when Peter's duality has never been treated that way before or after. The creators never have the character acknowledge that Peter might have had a reason for not telling her, or telling her exactly when she asked him, showing no sympathy for Peter who has kept his identity a very guarded secret from even his closest relatives, and knows first hand how bad things could get if the information fell into the wrong hands.
• In Tim Fish's Cavalcade of Boys series, Gordon is depicted as an unambiguously horrible person because he is a sugar daddy to a series of willing young adults (one of whom seduces him). Other characters' more serious moral failings are either forgiven or shrugged off.
• ... And Cyclops again (Or rather, Emma Frost's projection of him) in Death of X. It's not so much that his actions weren't in some degree villainous; the problem was that for months before this flashback story came out other characters had been talking him up as if he'd become history's greatest monster, with one story explicitly comparing him to Hitler. And then Death of X came out, and what did he do? Well, he turned a poisoned gas cloud non-toxic without asking for permission from the Inhumans. Apparently this was enough to turn global anti-mutant sentiment up to eleven and make his former friends despise his memory.
• Most Super Registration Acts fall into this. Villains, jerkasses and obstructive bureaucrats will say that superheroes must be supervised and held accountable for their actions. That, if left on their own, they can be incredibly reckless and destructive, causing untold collateral damage. And they are absolutely right. That being said, whenever the idea of a Super Registration Act is presented in a story, it usually screws the heroes over, and the incompetent governments tend to overstep their bounds and use methods that could be considered morally ambiguous at best, or flat-out illegal and unethical at worst, to force the superheroes to obey the law. You can’t really blame the superheroes for distrusting the mere idea of such a registration act. After all, just because something may work on paper, that doesn’t mean it will work in practice.
• Detective Comics (Rebirth) spends an entire issue having Spoiler rail against Batman's methods and superheroes in general. While the latter is likely supposed to be ironic, given Spoiler herself ends up saving the day as a superhero, the former has her denounce Batman's methods, and ask "how many losses are acceptable?" (In reference to Tim Drake's "Death"). The problem is... well, it's Batman. Zero losses are acceptable! She manages to take down the bad guy using methods that are supposed to be so much better than Batman's... but are in fact just Batman's methods when he's not written as an idiot. In fairness, she herself points out she's still using the same methods as he is in a later issue to Anarchy when he tries to tell her they're doing more.
• In Batwoman (Rebirth), after Batwoman briefly gives in to a massive dose of fear toxin and attacks Scarecrow, both Jacob Kane and Julia Pennyworth harshly admonish her for it, even going so far as to say she did so for fun. Kate makes no attempt at all to defend herself from these accusations. In reality, Kate "gave in" as a way to defeat Scarecrow, by pushing back against his attempt at a Breaking Speech, and had already been dosed at least once before in the previous 12 hours. Plus, neither Jacob nor Julia seem to understand the specifics of the situation.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Diana will sometimes be on the receiving end of this when the subject of using lethal force comes up. The time she killed Maxwell Lord issue is a prime example of this. While the public freaking out is excusable since the video tape that showed her killing Max was edited to look like she'd killed an innocent, unarmed man, Superman and Batman treated her like the Anti-Christ despite having full knowledge of the situation and having even broken the no-kill rule themselves in the past.
  • Wonder Woman (1987):
    • The Amazons' decision to segregate themselves from the rest of the world can be viewed as this, while also crossing over with some Victim-Blaming. Keep in mind that this decision was the result of the Amazons suffering multiple injustices at the hands of paranoid, bigoted men, the final straw being when the demigod Heracles invaded their land and had them all enslaved and raped. When the Amazons kill their assailants, the gods instead treat the Amazons like it was their fault the world turned on them... ignoring mainstream humanity's prejudice and the role Ares played in it. Oh, and the Amazons' punishment? Being sequestered on an island hidden from the rest of the world so they can guard a portal to a realm of monsters. Apparently, the best way to fix the Amazons' isolation was to make them more isolated.
    • The Amazons get hit with this again towards the end of the Greg Rucka run. When Themyscira is attacked by OMAC cyborgs controlled by Brother Eye, the Amazons defend themselves using a weaponized version of the Purple Ray to kill the cyborgs. The situation is somewhat murky given the cyborgs were actually humans enslaved by Brother Eye and would not have been a threat to the Amazons otherwise, but Diana castigates the Amazons for being heartless even though there was no other way to save themselves from the cyborgs and they would have been killed if they spent all their time trying to find a way to free them from Brother Eye's control.
• In A Death in the Family, the narration of Batman's thoughts as he uses sodium pentathol on Lady Shiva describes him as "revolted by the thought" of using such methods (as opposed to his usual interrogation technique of beating or scaring the crap out of people).
• The Incredible Hulk:
  • Writers have a habit of painting anyone who reacts negatively to the Hulk's destructive temper as being in the wrong. Thaddeus Ross is the most frequent victim of this but even other superheroes aren't immune:
    • World War Hulk: The decision of the Illuminati (Iron Man, Mr Fantastic, Black Bolt, Charles Xavier and Dr. Strange) to shoot the Hulk into outer space is treated as an unforgivable crime and a terrible betrayal of a close friend, ally and hero. Except the impetus for the Illuminati's decision was the Hulk going on a rampage which killed 26 people. This was also a period in which anti-superhero political forces were had enacted very strict registration laws in the wake of another destructive incident caused by superheroes. Exiling him was being pretty lenient and arguably doing him a favor since "Leave Hulk alone" is one of the Hulk's catchphrases. That's not even getting into the fact that the Illuminati were innocent of planting a bomb in the ship Hulk was in which was the reason for the Hulk's Roaring Rampage of Revenge in the first place.
    • Giant-Size Hulk #1: The story "Green Pieces" has the Champions of Los-Angeles (Black Widow, Iceman, Hercules, Darkstar, Ghost Rider and Angel) receive word that Banner is back in town. Knowing what tends to happen when the Hulk is around, they scout the city for him. Angel encounters him first when Banner hulks out in the middle of a traffic jam. The Hulk throws a car door at Angel who has to intercept it from hitting a nearby couple. The other Champions arrive and engage the Hulk until he decides to leave for a hospital and turn over a woman who was in the car to the doctors. This woman turns out to be Jennifer Walters, Banner's cousin and after her surgery she explains that Bruce was trying to get her to the hospital after her appendix burst. When Hercules asks why the Hulk did not simply explain his troubles, Jen responds that the Champions never tried to ask him what his problem was. The story tries to make it look like the Champions jumped to conclusions and attacked the Hulk without cause but the Hulk did not make himself look sympathetic by attacking the first person who approached him and endangering nearby civilians. And considering that Jen was in the car when Banner hulked out, it's a miracle she was still alive when he got her to the hospital.
  • Skarr, Son Of The Hulk, was hit with this really hard throughout his entire miniseries. The narration and tone constantly informed us that he was pure evil. And while he certainly did a few morally dubious things in his quest to stop the slavers and slaughterers rampaging across the planet, they were phrased in such overblown ways to make them seem worse than they were that it just seemed melodramatic (with one of his "worst" offenses being a bluff of Pay Evil unto Evil). This culminated in Skarr being wrong for not wanting Galactus to eat his planet because, apparently, Galactus eating the planet was for the greater good... keep in mind, Earth superheroes regularly bluff Galactus with destroying the entire universe to make him leave Earth alone, which means he just goes off and eats someone else's planet.
• Frost is supposed to be a villain in Brute Force because he developed a type of plant that "feeds on pollution". Of course, in the real world, such a thing would be a godsend - a plant that absorbs pollutants and leave only fresh air. But it looks evil, so it's evil.
• Tim in Red Robin, for including Damian on his "hit list" in the eponymous story arc. Said "hit list" is actually a list of superheroes who could be very dangerous if they turn bad – which is an entirely accurate assessment for a former child assassin with a known history of murder and sadism – with countermeasures to use against them. Other superheroes on the list include Superman, Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan, Supergirl, The Atom and even Captain Marvel, which pretty clearly shows it's not meant as a judgment of Damian as a bad seed. And yet we're supposed to sympathise with Damian when he whines "It isn't fair" about being included, even though it was never meant for his eyes (he only saw it after spending six hours hacking into Tim's files) and his response to seeing it was to attempt to murder Tim again by cutting his grapple line.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • Pretty much any character who calls out Sonic or the other Freedom Fighters for being reckless. Compared to other interpretations, Sonic is more fallible because of his cockiness and his failures have much more dire repercussions. He sometimes accepts this shortcoming, but only whenever it falls straight on his head and even then it never lasts. Otherwise Sonic is actually pretty ignorant towards criticism, and in some cases is even hostile to those who try to handle things their own way (be it more stable or not).
  • In an early story of, Sonic, Tails and Antoine find Sally leaving the safety of the forest. When they ask the reason, she responds rudely and refuses to explain herself. After they keep insisting, she claims that she's planning to meet with Robotnik in order to strike a deal with him to release her father, and lets a Buzzbomber take her away. Knowing that Robotnik would backstab her, they give chase, and barely manage to rescue her before Robotnik roboticizes her. After they're back on their place she angrily reveals that she was counting on Robotnik trying to robotocize her, as Rotor had equipped her with boots designed to jam the roboticizer and collect its data, allowing them to analyze it; and blames them for botching the plan. This ignores the fact it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't refused to confide said plan with them beforehand, even lying about what she was trying to do for no good reason.
  • Hamlin is conveyed as a smug weasel who uses a long-lived grudge against Sally to try and get the Knothole Council to persecute her for disobeying orders. However, Sally was the one who created the Council in the first place, and then nonchalantly ignored them when they attempted to do something she personally didn't like. When Hamlin pointed out she was undermining their entire purpose (with some other Freedom Fighters even agreeing with him), Sally outright blackmailed the Council into siding with her. While Hamlin was acting out of spite, moaning about suggesting that Sally was not acting entirely professionally is valid.
  • Mina is depicted as being overzealous and callous for making a public statement about how dangerous NICOLE is and indirectly starting a mass paranoia. However, as sympathetic as she is, NICOLE was shown to be extremely dangerous as a result of the Iron Queen corrupting her programming, leading to Mobians being enslaved and mutilated with cyborg implants. The Freedom Fighters are outraged by Mina's actions and labelled the public as being vindictive, but as she angrily pointed out, people had suffered because of NICOLE, and largely because they were cocky enough to make a huge oversight. It was implied they were taking precautions by that point, but that was closing the proverbial barn door after the horse had bolted. In short: Mina was pretty reasonable that the Freedom Fighters should have done and should be doing way more about NICOLE being a potential threat.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), Shadow shows up with full intention to kill Dr. Eggman (who at this point had lost his memory and become the kindly Mr. Tinker), out of the belief that even without his memories he's still a threat^note and he should know, considering his past experiences. Sonic manages to back him down by bringing up all the things he did before his Heel–Face Turn, saying that if he was capable of redemption, then why can't the same thing be said for Eggman? However, considering that the first thing Eggman does upon regaining his memories is unleashing a Zombie Apocalypse on the entire town, one can't help but wonder if Shadow really had a point.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): Issue 67 to 68 addresses Tempest Shadow's Strawman Has a Point from The Movie with the redeemed Tempest reiterating her complaints about how easily she and the Storm King were able to conquer Equestria which get disproven by her realizing the superiority of idealistic, non-violent means of dealing with such and how it got them though numerous other threats. But while such worked here, they wouldn't apply to the Storm King's invasion and most of the major threats as they were so evil or dangerous they still had to be stopped by fighting, with many having to be defeated before they could be so redeemed or refusing such. That, and many of Equestria's wins still coming down to luck (Villain Balls or Deus ex Machina) and the casualties that realistically should have resulted from the constant threats, mean Tempest's complaints about their lack of effective military to prevent or deal with such sooner still hold unintentional weight. Tempest also bemoans the Crystal Empire depending on magic such it would be invaded or suffer crippling blizzards if it failed, except that's what happened numerous times.
• The Pro: The heroes are attacked for not stopping 9/11 and for not being willing to destroy whole schools to take out one bad guy. But they point out they were busy with another crisis and the Pro does not counteract the Wonder Woman expy pointing out as vigilantes they have no right to decide to take a life.