Each time the tide begins to turn it up to push us off the fence

[sovay]

I made this mixtape for kore as an antidote to the whole history-overwriting shenanigans of Marvel's Secret Empire, now with an extra side of this mishegos. It's not especially subtle, but with any luck it sounds good. Contributors include British Sea Power, Jawbox, Odetta, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, Arcade Fire, PJ Harvey, and Marc Blitzstein.

Sam Phillips, "Pretty Time Bomb"

Start counting, everybody—it's going to blow
Pretty time bomb, you're a mirror of your times

British Sea Power, "Remember Me"

Do you worry about your health?
Do you watch it slowly change?
And when you listen to yourself
Does it feel like somebody else?

Kate Bush, "Heads We're Dancing"

It looked just like you in every way
But it couldn't be true
You stepped out of a stranger

Jawbox, "Spoiler"

Working the wrecking ball, maybe you feel less small
Religion for the mean is disbelief

Odetta, "Masters of War"

You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
That I see through your masks

Oh, Rose, "Prom"

No, you're not summing up things with a black heart
Oh, you know something's there, but you're not sure what

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, "Episode 7: The Schizoid Man"

I keep running for you, it's not enough
I keep fighting for truth, it's not enough
I keep feeling I do, it's not enough

Eleventh Dream Day, "The People's History"

My head is spinning in a spiral
The people's history also lies
My heart is strung up on a timeline

Arcade Fire, "My Body Is a Cage"

I'm living in an age that calls darkness light
Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head
I'm living in an age whose name I don't know

PJ Harvey, "The Phone Song"

That the change, changes can happen
That the loop it can be broken
That your heart it can be open

Editors, "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors"

Someone turn me round
Can I start this again?

Scott Hirsch, "Loss of Forgetfulness"

In the parking lot, time had stopped
Recalled all that he forgot
Come on, you remember what it means?

Johnny Flynn, "Barnacled Warship"

Made my way with the fusiliers
I even fought my way back home
But the front line shifted and my rifle got lifted
Had to fight the war on my own

Belly, "Low Red Moon"

I look up and I see the raising of an old hope
Brave and tattered
A shining knight with shining eyes, he shines around me brightly

Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, "Lancelot"

I ain't no untarnished Galahad
Down from Arcadia like a dream in your head
But, gentle lady, lend me the true heart I never had
And I'll bring you roses and bread
And we'll fashion gold out of lead
With all the illusions we shed

DANN KOMMT DIE MORAL:

Marc Blitzstein, "Nickel Under Your Foot"

Maybe you wonder what it is makes people good or bad
Why some guy, an ace without a doubt
Turns out to be a bastard and the other way about
I'll tell you what I feel—it's just the nickel under the heel

I've had a headache on the right side of my face since about two in the afternoon, so I am going to bed.

Comments

[sovay]

The one hope I maintain about it is that Secret Empire # 8's version of that mini-series' wordmark has the "HYDRA-Shield" centrepiece shattered into about 30-50 pieces...and that has to imply something hopeful.

I certainly hope that you're right to hope, but even the possibility of this storyline being reversed doesn't make me think it was a brilliant idea in the first place. As kore heard me expound at length, there are certainly relevant stories to tell about American ideals being perverted into bigotry and totalitarianism right now, but the decision to rewrite a cultural icon in the very history-denying style that the icon was actively serving to combat (Steve as living memory, a link with the reality of the past that unlike the rest of the generation he was born into is not dying out any time soon) was unthinkingly conservative at best.

[dewline]

It's not the first time they've played with the "Steve turned against his cause by the Skull" cards. The first that I know of was in Tales of Suspense, put together by no less than Lee and Kirby themselves. But it was a done-in-two-issues deal back then, and they didn't have a Cosmic Cube, sentient or not, to play with in the process. This is the longest-running and creepiest-to-read variant of the idea yet.

[sovay]

But it was a done-in-two-issues deal back then, and they didn't have a Cosmic Cube, sentient or not, to play with in the process. This is the longest-running and creepiest-to-read variant of the idea yet.

The elaboration that the Allies really lost World War II and it was only false, tinkered history that made us think we won and it's really Nazis all the way down is the twist that I find plays especially unfortunately with current politics.

[dewline]

I chalk that up to Kobik's intervention in Steve's memories of what happened. It still happened in the way we've always known. If this gets permanently implanted in Marvel history as a whole, I can't imagine the likes of G. Willow Wilson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Al Ewing and more among the freelancers not just walking away if not outright denouncing the whole mess and calling for the comics division to be handed over to, say, Kevin Feige to run. With Ike Perlmutter and his chosen crew finally shown the door by Disney HQ.

[sovay]

If this gets permanently implanted in Marvel history as a whole, I can't imagine the likes of G. Willow Wilson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Al Ewing and more among the freelancers not just walking away if not outright denouncing the whole mess and calling for the comics division to be handed over to, say, Kevin Feige to run.

I agree they would be self-immolatingly stupid to canonize the historical reset in any permanent fashion, but see my original statement: as canon in even the short term, I don't think it's doing anyone any favors except the kind of people I don't want favors done for. None of this is happening in a vacuum.