October 25, 2011

The State of Affairs

James Bond in Live and Let Die
Super villains of the good old times always tried to kill the awesome hero (and heroine) by tying him up to a pole and dramatically lowering him in slow motion into a shark tank with some extra piranhas. While the hero's dramatic descent into certain death happens, the super villain explains his super evil plan which is usually launching/procuring some new kind of weapon system (while the heroine screams) and the evil speech ends with, "And the world shall be mine! Muhuhhaa muhuhaha... "

The story as usual ends with the defeated super villain swearing revenge (for a sequel) and the as-awesome-as-ever hero riding/walking/driving into the sunset (with the heroine in his arms) while the sharks are left hungry (No one cares for the sharks) and the world -- saved once again! 

Sketch by Jason Casey
Look at the really bad ass villains these days. Hannibal Lecter, The Joker... have you noticed that the super bad-ass villains of today don’t want to rule the world? Isn’t that slightly disturbing? Right now, the planet is so screwed up that even the super villains have given up their global ambitions of taking over it and have resorted to becoming psychos who kill women and children just for the fun of it! 

The funny thing is, the lack of ambitions among super villains reflects poorly on the super heroes! While the awesome hero of the good old times often saved the world from nuclear holocaust/“communism”/descent into anarchy, all that the super hero of today does is bring things back to normal. Maintain status quo! 

And status quo is a world with super power countries waging imperial wars to control oil and other natural resources so that the evil corporations and greedy corporations can continue to draw lavish paychecks while destroying the world economy. How lame is that?