The Four Color Media Monitor

The Conversation wrote about what they see as the scientific benefits of comic storytelling. It's an interesting subject in itself, but they make the mistake too many today do of citing modern, PC-laden mainstream publications to make their points:

Some superheroes have scientific careers alongside their alter egos. For example, Marvel’s The Unstoppable Wasp is a teenage scientist. And DC Comics’ super-villain Poison Ivy is a botanist who saved honey bees from colony collapse.

And why must this new protagonist in a Wasp outfit count, but not the classic creation of Stan Lee to fill the Winsome Wasp role, Janet Van Dyne? She dabbled in science almost as much as Hank Pym did; that's one of the reasons she could handle her costumed crimefighting career as well as her fashion career in the past stories. Though citing a villainess like Poison Ivy can be worse, because there've been too many villain-worship examples in this era.

I think the medium can be a great place to teach science. But the way they play up the new Wasp at the expense of the old is decidedly going a PC route that doesn't serve the article's main focus well, and only ends up validating Marvel's politically correct pathways. And why does Poison Ivy count for focus in science, but not Swamp Thing, considering Len Wein's plant creature was practically science walking on two? These cheap citations are ruining what could make for good science articles.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, msm propaganda, science