this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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Sam Raimi Spider-man spent most of his time saving people from imminent harm and stopping armed robberies. He fought the CEO of a company that developed military technology who was killing people to hang onto his position of power and wealth. He then fought a mad scientist that spent the entire movie putting innocent people in danger, attacking Spider-man and ultimately risking the deaths of millions out of an obsession and the influence his technology had over him. In the third one... he turns into a bit of a dick for a while because he's being partially controlled by an alien, and the theme for all three villains is revenge. At no point in the trilogy does he target anyone who is trying to make a political or social change, just people that are attacking him personally and/or putting innocent bystanders in harm's way.
In the Amazing Spider-Man movies he pretty much just fights a guy who is trying to turn everyone into lizards, his own stalker who just happens to get electricity powers, and the rich brat that blames him for not giving him blood samples which he thinks will cure his disease (they won't, but the reason for the refusal is still poorly defined).
MCU Spider-man gets recruited to fight half the avengers, which might play into this if the civil war was about a larger societal issue, but it wasn't. As far as the movie presents it, the entire issue is about the rules governing the avengers themselves and the fate of Bucky. Arguably the Captain America side is presented more favorably, but that too would go against the point the comic is making because they are the ones resisting the status quo and sticking it to the man.
And in his actual movies, MCU spider-man fights a guy who is flooding the streets with high tech weapons just for the money, a con man that's willing to kill innocent people to make himself look like a superhero, and all those villains from the previous continuities who is actually just trying to send home.
Maybe spider-man was a bad example. Surely the rest of the MCU must be pro-government propaganda, right?
Iron Man 1: Rich selfish asshole has a wake up call, realizes that harm he's done by filling the world with weapons, immediately exits the arms industry and dedicates his company to developing peaceful technologies to help the world. Uses the technology he developed to intervene in conflicts where civilians are getting massacred and no one is willing to do anything about it. Defies the US military to do it. The villain is a greedy executive that tries to kill Tony to seize control of the company and continue building weapons.
Iron Man 2: Tony is continuing his policy of protecting people in war zones, in defiance of an angry US government. The government tries to steal his suit for the military, and works with a rival company to develop drone versions which Tony destroys.
Iron Man 3: Wouldn't you know it, another company developing military tech is run by an evil guy and is killing innocent people.
Captain America: Literally fighting Nazis.
Captain America 2: Fighting the Nazis that have infiltrated the US government.
Captain America 3: Fighting to save his friend in defiance of a government that would rather kill him than bring him in peacefully.
Thor: Shakespeare in space, plus Thor learns humility.
Thor 2: Blowing up the universe is bad.
Thor 3: Thor literally helps start a revolution to overthrow a dictator.
Thor 4: The gods are assholes who should care more about people.
The Incredible Hulk: Science man good, military guy bad. Smashy smashy.
Ant Man: An ex con who went to jail for hacking a corrupt corporation gets recruited by a scientist who helps him take and an evil CEO of a corrupt corporation.
Alright, I'm not listing any more, there's a million of these things, you get the idea.
I took this to be about MCU specifically, so I'll skip the first two Spiderman film continuities.
Homecoming - the villain is a lower class guy who has been screwed by the fallout of the Avengers and is making money to improve his family off of it. He is somewhat sympathetic, but the moral of the story is trust in the authorities because a well meaning guy will fix the hiccup in the system, and responding to systemic issues with force is wrong. Could be argued the real villain is Tony Stark.
I did not see the remaining MCU Spidermen, but they look to focus on more otherworldly Meta-continuity forces.
Black Panther - the villain is an extremist with a point. Killmongers desire for revenge and modes go too far. He should be better, like the royal family are. Luckily Killmonger inspires the legitimate authority to make a choice to do more and be more benign. Maybe he just should have trusted in the legitimate authorities all along and stayed inside the social bounds... Which had not made change until his use of force and theft?
I have seen the Iron Men, but not recently enough to engage with.
Civil War: the authorities want something that is controversial, but it turns out they weren't the legitimate authorities, but secret Nazis trying to bring harm to everyone. The legitimate authorities had folks best interests at heart and fix everything. Could go either way, since forming a terrorist cell to fight authority is pretty radical.
The Thanos films: Thanos' malthusianism is presented as bad, but not actually as wrong. There have been plenty of ways at this point to show that Malthusianism isn't accurate, (and wasn't actually an original part of the character) but it was put in here and not debated or shown to be wrong in itself, just "bad that he did it". Malthusian ideals are strongly linked to right wing ideologies (as well as some nutty far left ones) that have been ascendent in relatively core right wing parties in the last 20 years.
I don’t mind saying, I’m writing a book, and this is one of the conversations near the end. One character says to another: “Yeah, things are better. But can any of us truly say that things wouldn’t have improved if that terrorist hadn’t threatened everyone?”
Thankfully, in the story’s case, the reply to that quote is that while explosions and deaths were far more visible, a variety of powerful people were already making broad changes - just in a slower and less risky way. Of course, that’s fiction; and is not saying those things are a guarantee in the real world.