This is why my head canon for the Cauldron stuff is “this is all the international heroes that show up in various countries licensed Sentinels lines”, a la the MarvelUK stuff in the 70’s/80’s.
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General aside that the idea of MLK being a Republican or VP to a Republican in and of itself is not entirely as weird as it sounds, because the parties used to be a bit flipped and more mixed politically compared to how they are now and it was Nixon’s Southern Strategy that is what solidly shuffled the Democrats and Republicans into how they are now.
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“Flipped” doesn’t fully convey the nuance of it all, but that is exactly why I was questioning the choice to make him a Democrat VP. In case people didn’t know, there was strong support for segregation in the Democratic party up into the 60’s. Which is why it would make more sense for him to be a Democrat VP in 72, but I still don’t see that happening.
Having MLK run for president or VP for either party just doesn’t make sense to me, but it is definitely something that would happen in a comic book! Especially since the issue was released during a stint of Republican presidents.
Yeah, there’s a lot of nuance. But I can imagine a scenario where an MLK that survives his assassination attempt gets recruited by McGovern or someone else, as Nixon’s Southern Strategy starts to really pick up steam. I can see the VP role being offered to King as a way to cement some kind of anti-war coalition.
Also, on this subject, I appreciate how C&A point out just how old (or rather, how young) King would be in the time of the comics. The point of how recent some of this stuff was is something that is hard to get across for many born after the late 70s, but before the rise of the internet and the sharing of stories it enabled (myself included, late GenX, here).
Yeah, I admit I was a little influenced by how a popular disingenuous argument from shall we say certain elements is “Lincoln and the Republicans were the ones who ended slavery” and having to constantly point out that’s because the parties were differently aligned back then.
A more accurate way I should have put it is that the matter of racism was still often heavily aligned along Union/Confederate lines regardless of party and that’s why Nixon’s strategy worked to begin with was realigning the matter more strongly along party lines.
Along similar lines, a popular way to blow people’s minds IRL is to point out the fact that Anne Frank and MLK were actually born in the same year.
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And Harriet Tubman died in 1913. Look up her last portrait, if you want a good example of a “I don’t have time to deal with this ***” look.
On a lighter note, a mind blowing comparison is also the Nintendo company (1889) predates the publication of Dracula (1897) and Sherlock Holmes (1892).
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I had a hard time swallowing King as president specifically in 1984, which in our world Reagan won with nearly 98% of the electoral vote. Also the Cold War was a strong force driving voting back then, and King was known to be sympathetic to socialism (though anti-communism).
Maybe the point was that King was just that insanely popular, but I feel like we missed some geopolitical stuff that made this plausible.
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Considering what we’ve lived through in the past few years, I’m willing to accept the idea that history could go in any direction given any slight nudge, no further evidence required. @_@
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I have a lot of faith that our history can go in one direction given a slight nudge, but it isn’t that one.
The way I look at it is that’s something a comic book company would do. It doesn’t make sense, but considering it came out in 1990, when George H. W. Bush was President after both of Reagan’s terms, it’s likely a comic book company would make a story about a history far different from our own, ignoring the facts you mentioned.
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So, I wanted to note something, outside of the alt-history rabbit hole that, while fun, is note entirely game relevant. Anyone notice the enumeration of powers? Lot of stuff that’s VERY close to the original Legacy. Except that regeneration bit. Almost like… a Variant that, instead of the Galvanize power, would have some kind of self-heal…
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Plus, TBH, nothing happening right now is the result of a slight nudge, it’s all been literal decades of brewing. There are various unexpected things that caused a lot of them to arrive quicker and more bundled than expected, but all of them were a bubble waiting to pop at some point.
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I mean, that’s history all over, right? We look back and see these tipping points - assassinations, great leaders, famous inventors - but I feel like a lot of the time what’s really behind events is just the thoughts and feelings of thousands of people whose names we’ll never know, and the tipping point is a convenient thing that we can pin it on. People’s choices definitely matter, both historically and in the present, but if we’re being strictly realistic it’s hard to suggest that just one person, even one superhero, could change things to that huge of an extent.
On the other hand, if superheroes didn’t change things, there’d be no story in the first place, so I guess I’m willing to give it a pass there!
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Out of all the Disparation stories we’ve gotten so far, this is the one I most want a follow up on. The Baron Blade plot was fine; showing how this Legacy is more proactive and inspires the people to make change, but now that this alt-history is established we could have a longer main plot with even more interesting character and historical deviations.
I imagine based on the stinger it would be about Legacy gathering his own Freedom Five, and there’s a lot of potential there. Dawn and Chairman feel like good villains for a setting like this. It would be cool to see more direct results of the historical changes, like an independent Ireland somehow resulting in the new version of a hero or villain.
I really hope we see this again once they start taking Disparation questions again.
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I feel like there’s something you can do with Shrieker/Glamour, since iirc she’s Irish. Not sure what though
The other idea I had was having Wraith be a descendant of someone who fought alongside Joe Parsons III in the Irish Civil War, since there’s a fun story there about legacy (pun semi-intended).
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I would honestly prefer they just quietly forget the Irish bit ever was said as to put it very very delicately I don’t think C&A actually understand what is/was actually going on there. (The fact that Fanatic is already an amazingly problematic example of what passes for a “Catholic hero” in Sentinels makes me further not really interested in this.)
If they do continue this I’d rather it stay centered in the black American experience (which they did put in the effort to educate themselves on) and explore more of how getting rid of Nixon and Reagan in favor of an anti-Vietnam War advocate and a civil rights advocate would have changed our landscape.
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I finally caught up on this episode, and like many of you, I really enjoyed this reimagining of Legacy! As I get older, I find I appreciate the idea of a hero doing the right thing despite institutional inertia, biases, and historical behaviors more and more.
Which reminds me, I’m still eager to hear the Termi-Nation story expanded!
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