Ignited! A comic about teenage rebellion and . . . terrorism?

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Ares
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Ignited! A comic about teenage rebellion and . . . terrorism?

Post by Ares »

So, I mentioned this over on the Echoes Discord and it got enough traction that I thought I'd share it here.

Ignited! is a comic series by Kwanza Osajyefo and Mark Waid published under the Humanoids "Humanity First" comic imprint. In it, a group of teenagers survive a school shooting and somehow all gain powers from the event. When the school decides to institute a policy to allow teachers to carry firearms to defend themselves from similar school shooters in the future, the kids decide to become masked superpowered activists to change their town for the better.

At least, that's what Kwanza and Waid WANT the story to be about. Kids being rebellious, bickering with each other Marvel Comics style, but ultimately using their powers to strike back against oppression. Unfortunately, Waid has no idea how to write teenagers (see his run on Champions for further proof of that), and both he and Kwanza have unintentionally written a story where literal terrorists are the heroes.

That's not an embellishment. The kids frequently perform acts of violence, crime and terror against people in their community. This includes but is not limited to:

- Destroying the house of a radio talk show host they don't like.
- Destroying the merchandise of a licensed gun store owner.
- Attacking civilians, reporters and cops at a gun/anti-gun protest where no one was behaving violently.
- Attacking federal agents there to deport illegal immigrants.
- Threatening to attack teachers if the school doesn't change policies they don't like.

And so on. Within a seven or eight issue run, the team has thus far stopped only one actual supervillain who was doing worse things than themselves.

But don't take my word for it. Here are links to Youtuber Just Some Guy, a comic, movie and general story reviewer who has followed the series. Here's his videos in chronological order.

1) Mark Waid Puts (In)Humanity First - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OT-r6pWjfU
2) Ignited - How to become a Teenage SJW Dictator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol_ymwccl6k
3) Ignited: The Far Left Turner Diaries - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfPwH_WcUc
4) Mark Waid Calls Black YouTuber a "Borderline White Supremacist" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QvokbO8lZg
5) Ignited: Worst Terrorists Ever - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbBUSyU3mdM
6) Ignited: How to Make Violent Extremism Great Again - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMllrXUCMWU
7) Ignited: The Comic Nobody Bought - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvW0wFYHSp8
8) Ignited: Trust-fund Babies Unite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi0cl3RTGM8
9) Ignited Goes Full Ruby Ridge Mode - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iauxjNZtHU0

The latest issue just came out, so I suspect another video soon.

Enjoy!
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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saint_matthew
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Re: Ignited! A comic about teenage rebellion and . . . terrorism?

Post by saint_matthew »

A violent political revenge fantasy from an angry violent spiteful has-been & a race baiting never was.
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Ares
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Re: Ignited! A comic about teenage rebellion and . . . terrorism?

Post by Ares »

saint_matthew wrote: Wed Feb 12, 2020 11:05 pm A violent political revenge fantasy from an angry violent spiteful has-been & a race baiting never was.
Pretty much. They kids are also amazingly unlikable with few exceptions, even in their personalities. It's also especially funny how the write-up of the previous issues event on the book's inside cover tries to make it out that the kids prevented a riot at a guns/anti-guns protest, when the only ones doing any kind of violence at the event were the kids. Seriously, the Pro-Guns side never start anything, and the kids attack one of their members. When the Pro-Guns guys go to defend themselves, they're all shown to be acting INCREDIBLY RESPONSIBLY and with RESTRAINT because they keep their guns pointed at the ground and never point their guns at the Superpowered Masked Terrorists attacking them. Then when the cops show up, the kids attack the cops. When the press shows up, they attack the press. And when they need a distraction, they start ATTACKING THEIR FELLOW CLASSMATES, who are all survivors of a school shooting!

The comic and kids act like they did this amazing thing by stopping a violent event, when the only ones constantly perpetuating any violence at said event was THEM!

It's like the most tone-deaf, least self-aware book I've read in forever.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Ares
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Re: Ignited! A comic about teenage rebellion and . . . terrorism?

Post by Ares »

Added the latest Just Some Guy video to the list.

And just in case you thought Humanoids was limiting themselves to just teenage terrorists, it looks like they're pushing another character, Omni, in that direction. Omni is about a woman whose powers allegedly make her the smartest person on Earth, having mastery of the "Seven Kinds of Intelligence", which I believe is a discredited scientific theory. Apparently she was recently handed control of a mega-corporation and is using those resources to . . . basically drive around and lecture people, which is what she was doing before. What her do things such as going into a small city, barge into a city counsel meeting and demand that they do something about about the lead in their water. The counsel tells her that they're investigating the lead in their water, but she tells them they don't have time to investigate, they need to do something. She then explains her theory about where the lead is coming from, tells them to "do better", and then walks out.

I remind you, this woman is a super genius and owner of a mega-corporation, telling the leaders of a small city to fix a problem they were already in the process of trying to fix, and then leave. She doesn't offer to help solve the problem, offer to get them filters that take care of the lead issue, or anything to actually help. Just shows up, yells at them, and walks off.

And when a cop is shown to be asking about her large camper parked in in a questionable spot, she aggressively gets up in his face, directly challenges his authority, and when he starts reaching for his gun to defend himself, she throws out a statistic about police shootings and how there are people with cameras here. And it's worth pointing out this is a woman wearing a tactical vest and several holsters on her.

It says something when the worlds of the Ultimates or Wildstorm seem positively Silver Age compared to the Ignited! universe.

Watch it here:

OMNI #5- The Smartest Woman In The World Can't Even Talk Her Way Out Of A Parking Ticket
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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NoOneofConsequence
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Re: Ignited! A comic about teenage rebellion and . . . terrorism?

Post by NoOneofConsequence »

In a way, superhero comics have always been about fantasy wish fulfillment. But it feels like we've now got an entire generation of creatives who only wish for the power for revenge, destruction, and being able to put their boot on everyone else's neck. :(
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)
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