Episode 266 of the Letters Page: Writers’ Room: Arcane Tales Vol. 2 #506

General GTG Sentinel Comics Lore
#21

Hmmmm, honestly, not really. The Blood War seems more like a literally eternal conflict to me whereas RoD vs. Æternus was limited in how long it went on. Still a lot of potential there storytelling wise, of course.

Also, unpopular opinion time.
I’ve said it before, Nazis suck and I don’t want more of them in Sentinels, especially these days.
I realize I am part of a minority here and kinda wish they hadn’t done such a good job with the General Geist stories (because they did) so that fewer people would ask for more. :grimacing:

#22

I don’t know if I’d call it unpopular, so much as for me there’s a difference between something like Nazis being in a story as presented with having a valid viewpoint or sympathetic, and Nazis being in a story presented as the bad guy and as something you can punch precisely without feeling bad about it.

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#23

Yes! 100% agreed on the difference. I also get the “punch without feeling bad” sentiment.

It’s just a personal opinion because for me - again, personally - too much of it is too close to actual history (which is still showing its effects today, and recently, too). So this takes away some of my enjoyment of my favorite fake comic book series. Other people are probably better at dealing with this, less sensitive to the topic, or not as easily turned off by it. And most seem to enjoy it, which is good for them!

That’s why I wrote “unpopular”, because apparently the episode has been received pretty favorably and people were asking for more General Geist content.

Hope that makes sense.

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#24

Yeah, I admit I just can understand C&A’s motivation that the list of bad guys you can get away with having heroes punch without remorse is getting smaller in a world where everybody wants to make a villain sympathetic or do the whole “[x] was right” deal.

But more I want to try to be reassuring that I doubt people like Geist because they agree with him, it’s more precisely because of the way too many people are whitewashing Nazis today it’s probably cathartic for people to have a story where “nah it’s OK to punch Nazis” is the state of things.

So I think you’re actually in strong company that people are equally as turned off by Nazis as you are, it’s more they personally react by liking seeing heroes punch them.

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#25

Agreed and well put. Just to make clear, I definitely wasn’t trying to say that people liked the story because they agree with Geist – as you say, quite the opposite.

Actually, the discussion and thinking about the topic more has given me some insight into why I am not in the “catharsis” camp (although, again, I totally get it, and am certainly not blaming or judging people for feeling this way), but those are matters that are maybe too personal and not relevant enough to the topic at hand to discuss them here. :sweat_smile:

And they say internet discussions can’t teach you anything :stuck_out_tongue:

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#26

If I helped you figure anything out for yourself, I’m genuinely glad to have done so.

And I want to make it clear I was not trying to invalidate your own opinion in any way or think you were being judgmental about others. Just the opposite honestly: To validate you that I actually think people mostly feel the exact same way you do and it just manifests in different outward reactions.

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