A Firestone City or something would be cool, Fordlandia was the closest we got in the real world to a city from a BioShock game undone by completely obvious social strife.
Glad I'm on the ground floor for this one.
The Fire Never Dies, Part II: The Red Colossus
- Thread starter Meshakhad
- Start date
- I’m hoping that we can hear more from Disney as the thread progresses. It will be interesting to see how Walt rises in whatever animation collective he gains employment in.
- How will the rise of superhero comics be affected in this timeline? I want to say that the idea of costume crime-fighters would arise as a more modern take on the heroes of yore. Some heroes would be changed, though. I doubt that an Old Money trust fund baby like Bruce Wayne would be seen as particularly heroic in Socialist America.
- I presume that Ford might want to merge what resources he has left with the local McLaughlin company. That would likely be the best way to get himself back on his feet.
glad to continue along
hopping onto @HonestAbe1809 questions about American pop culture, I am interested in what American socialist theater would look like. Melodrama, vaudeville, and probably most infamously, minstrel shows, were still popular in the theater during this time. i wonder how broadway might change during this, and if we might still get to what we might know as the book musical. I'm sure that socialists wouldn't particularly care for stuff like the ziegfield follies.
hopping onto @HonestAbe1809 questions about American pop culture, I am interested in what American socialist theater would look like. Melodrama, vaudeville, and probably most infamously, minstrel shows, were still popular in the theater during this time. i wonder how broadway might change during this, and if we might still get to what we might know as the book musical. I'm sure that socialists wouldn't particularly care for stuff like the ziegfield follies.
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i wouldn't be surprised if in this new socialist America, if he has some influence over the collective that he pushes for more artistic films along the lines of fantasia that push the bounds of what animation can express. aside from snow white, sleeping beauty and cinderella were primarily made mostly to recoup the company's losses after ww2.
Depending on how things go in Liberia, we may get a Firestone Country.
Disney will appear.
Theoretically, the timeline might butterfly away all of the OTL classic superheroes. In practice, I think I'll go with socialist-inspired versions of the OTL superheroes. The one big difference is that without Marvel and DC as separate companies, it's more likely that we get one comic book universe that includes ATL versions of Superman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and maybe even a Batman with a very different origin story. You can also expect more diversity in terms of gender, race, and sexuality from the start.
I might go that route. That said, Ford does have a factory in Canada, so he could make a go at it himself. But maybe we'll get Ford-McLaughlin.
I'm not as familiar with the history of theater. Fortunately, my brother and his girlfriend are both in the theater industry. I'll talk to them.
The ASU still has a money-based economy and film production is under the control of the various studio cooperatives, all of which still need to make a profit to keep the lights on. At the same time, with no shareholders to pay dividends to or exorbitant executive salaries, every dollar of profit from a successful film (minus residuals) will be plowed back into film production. So expect a lot of filmmakers to bounce between safe crowdpleasers and risky artistic films, using the profits of the former to fund the latter.
there are some examples of theater with socialist themes that I've mentioned before in the previous thread actually, such as The Cradle Will Rock, which was an OTL musical made as part of a New Deal Era program. it was actually directed by orson welles and is an opera-like play about a man's attempts at unionizing the workers of "Steeltown, USA". It was shut down otl for being too radical, but it would probably be a good fit for the good ol' AS of U.
Hmm, I don't think the Superhero Genre would really end up dominating the American comic industry as it did historically. That was mostly the product of moral scares during the 50s strangling almost everything but very sanitized superheroes.
Unless they can actually paint Bruce as a "good guy" rich guy, the one who is rich but friendly with his workers. The American culture already has many prototypes of it, including Batman's inspiration, Zorro...
So instead of Mental Patients, the iconic arch foes are akin to Byrne-era Luthor?
Superheroes aren't really Socialist as a concept, to be honest. You've got the one, powerful figure, living by their own rules and code. They're doing whatever it takes to stop evil, and by evil we mean this particular reprehensible, malignant individual.
Essentially, it's that joke about how Bruce Wayne wouldn't need to be Batman if he just ploughed his wealth into systemic reforms of Gothem City writ large.
Sperheroes comics along their OTL lines ITTL would probably end up being a 'Right Counterculture' rather than mainstream.
But... rather than being set in the modern world, you could have superhero-esque comics that are set more in Sword and Sorcery/Pulp Sci-Fi (John Carter of Mars style) settings. Perhaps leaning in to 'Chivalric Romance' and Arthurian Tropes.
This probably would still make them something of a 'Right Counterculture' phenomenon. Not, however, in the same was as the modern day set ones, which would probably be inevitably... Call it 'combative' with the new ASU order.
The Fantasy/Sci-Fi setting types, by contrast, could instead be a way of exploring how you can be a 'Proper, Red-Blooded American' (particularly, Proper Red-Blooded American Man) whilst still reconciling with the New Order. Leaning on the Chivalric/Arthurian Tropes to explore new definitions of masculinity etc.
...I just had the weird thought of a subbranch of comic books out of all this: Native American 'Westerns'. I doubt that your traditional Westerns are going to be au fait (given that they're sort of inherently centered around the glorification of colonialism.) So we might well see a wave of Comics told from a Native American Perspective, about resisting the European Colonialists, both in the West and in the older days when the Europeans were still fighting for the East Coast.
That could well be a... Fraught field, ITTL. I would forsee a lot of Writers (etc.) Still fetishising the Native Americans. Butchering their cultures and traditions, basically projecting whatever they want/need for the narrative onto whichever Natives they picked or made up for the work in question.
And, well. Maybe some works through in some themes about 'old ways' and change being bad and feeling like a stranger in your own country... You know, real subtle points of trying to link the Colonist Founders and the ASU. (Colonising Americans and appropriating the Natives, name a more iconic duo.)
I'm not sure how Conservationist/Environmentally conscious the Left Wing sphere was at the time, now I think on it. A Right Opposition centered around Environmentalism could be interesting (and would certainly lead into the whole 'stealing the Native Americans to make your point.')
Also, Oh. Oh. I wonder how The Lord of the Rings ends up ITTL.
Essentially, it's that joke about how Bruce Wayne wouldn't need to be Batman if he just ploughed his wealth into systemic reforms of Gothem City writ large.
Sperheroes comics along their OTL lines ITTL would probably end up being a 'Right Counterculture' rather than mainstream.
But... rather than being set in the modern world, you could have superhero-esque comics that are set more in Sword and Sorcery/Pulp Sci-Fi (John Carter of Mars style) settings. Perhaps leaning in to 'Chivalric Romance' and Arthurian Tropes.
This probably would still make them something of a 'Right Counterculture' phenomenon. Not, however, in the same was as the modern day set ones, which would probably be inevitably... Call it 'combative' with the new ASU order.
The Fantasy/Sci-Fi setting types, by contrast, could instead be a way of exploring how you can be a 'Proper, Red-Blooded American' (particularly, Proper Red-Blooded American Man) whilst still reconciling with the New Order. Leaning on the Chivalric/Arthurian Tropes to explore new definitions of masculinity etc.
...I just had the weird thought of a subbranch of comic books out of all this: Native American 'Westerns'. I doubt that your traditional Westerns are going to be au fait (given that they're sort of inherently centered around the glorification of colonialism.) So we might well see a wave of Comics told from a Native American Perspective, about resisting the European Colonialists, both in the West and in the older days when the Europeans were still fighting for the East Coast.
That could well be a... Fraught field, ITTL. I would forsee a lot of Writers (etc.) Still fetishising the Native Americans. Butchering their cultures and traditions, basically projecting whatever they want/need for the narrative onto whichever Natives they picked or made up for the work in question.
And, well. Maybe some works through in some themes about 'old ways' and change being bad and feeling like a stranger in your own country... You know, real subtle points of trying to link the Colonist Founders and the ASU. (Colonising Americans and appropriating the Natives, name a more iconic duo.)
I'm not sure how Conservationist/Environmentally conscious the Left Wing sphere was at the time, now I think on it. A Right Opposition centered around Environmentalism could be interesting (and would certainly lead into the whole 'stealing the Native Americans to make your point.')
Also, Oh. Oh. I wonder how The Lord of the Rings ends up ITTL.
Socialist Avengers.
Or X-Men.
Each one has ONE cool power, but to defeat the bad guys they need to work together, overcome their differences and fight as equals. The bad guys meanwhile are corrupt bosses, capitalist generals, etc. Think the early early EARLY days of Superman but also Avengers 1.
Or like Hush/Thomas "Tommy" Elliot, or Doctor Strange (as a corrupt doctor on the payroll of the corrupt elité) or maybe with an anticipated Court of the Owl; meanwhile, there could still be Joker, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, Killer Croc and Mad Hatter, but their initial evil would be lessened and they would quickly become (akin to the "defeat means friendship" trope) friends, maybe allies of the Bat (thus there would be an anarchic organization of heroes like Robin Hood, each one fighting the rich and powerful guys in their own area of interest); Catwoman is an interesting one as her background as a thief who steals from the corrupt guys but is sympathetic for the reader might push her in an even larger role: she could end up marrying Bruce and becoming his regular wife way earlier, taking the role and facade of rich socialite Selina Wayne to topple very nasty and top bad guys (from mob bosses to corrupt presidents)
Basically, Batman stays on fighting mob bosses, corrupt corporate executives, and criminal functionaries like he did in his earlier appearances rather than focus on flashy supervillains. Gordon might be more close to Seargent Garcia, silently sympathetic of Bats but forced to hunt him on the order of the corrupt mayors.
Bonus point if Thomas and Martha, instead of being killed by a low crook, were actually killed on a petty revenge by a thug hired by another rich family...
Also, with the theme of "people fighting against tyranny," we could have different comic book branches develop: I kind off can see historical war comics (maybe set in the American Revolution, the first American Civil War, or maybe the first years of the second one), pirate comics (like the Tales of the Black Freighter from Watchmen) showing those pirates not as thieves, but as righteous freedom fighters against evil colonialists (I am sure both Blackbeard and Anne Bonny would get large roles, and Libertalia might be known earlier); there could be western comics with Native American as heroes...
This reminds me: Superman may focus a little more on the fight against social problems (poverty, unhealthy places, crime, discrimination against minorities, crime against the environment) which would make the story range beyond the simply "Punch the supervillain" (there would still be supervillains, maybe with more aliens or right-wing bad guys, or elite mook of Luthor or other bad guys like Intergang) and would show a broader, more communal POV who might be what it needs to spur Real Life person to be more practice in everyday lives. Like Astro City...
It's the classic dichotomy of models of history; 'Great Man' versus 'Inexorable Masses', naturally socialism would favour the latter.
What abut the possibility superhero comics are associated with another country instead of the ASU? Canada? Germany?
I think Sun Koh is underutilized, he'd be a good choice for a German comic hero.
Nuclear Alchemist
Banned
I just binge read the entire story up 'till now. Great job!
Question: what other countries besides the UK are gonna go Falangist?
Question: what other countries besides the UK are gonna go Falangist?
France and Spain are the only ones I've confirmed. There will be others, and I haven't worked it all out exactly.