so why is it that with all the greatest minds in the DC universe, the high-tech alien inventions, the super-genuis', the mystical shamans,and the omnipotent entities, why is it that there is no cure for such a mundane( in terms of what else they have faced) desease?

the new speedy, mia, has aids, well that makes sense, being she was a 15 year old prostitute. and it makes a cool political statement about people with aids can still make a difference and people don't need to b afraid of them, and whatnot.

my beef is that don't you think, that it should be a simple matter of just good ol' ollie having her seen by dr. mid-nite or hook up with his old buddy hal, aka, the spectre, the guy who resurected ollie from a peice of human smagma off of superman's cape.

now i admit i have missed some holes in the green arrow books, i have all 4 TPB's, which cover's issue 1-30. and i have began reading the monthly title's a couple of months ago. so maybe this was addressed, and maybe it was not.

have they even commented on it being curable? cuz if not, i find that a little silly, with all the power's and ability and knowledge at their disposal.

Pick up and read The Life and Death of Captain Marvel for a TPB that sort of answers your question.

I suspect that if the writers of comics would simply cure anything that came along, we would find ourselves identifying less and less with the characters.

For example, could so many people identify with Peter Parker if he didn't have the girl problems, family problems, etc... that he has.

Comic book characters have a level of invulnerability that we don't have, but they need a level of vulnerability that we do have to make them human.

p.s. Unless your in the Marvel universe, then you never are "all dead"

i understand that, and i want the charachters i read about to have weaknesses and flaws.

but i do want those flaws to be cohessive with the logic of their universe.

if they had choosen an alien desease, one that noone has ever seen before, i would understand why there would not be a cure. but with aids, something that people are allready studying, i would think that superhero's would want to do something about it.

to me it just feels like the writers, are simply trying to make a statement, but in the process destroying the crediblity of their universe.

I'm sure the Lazarus pit could cure it. One of the machines in the Fortress of Solitude could probably cure it also, but only the Eradicator would know which one, and he's kind of crazy right now. Really, the main problem isn't the inability of the DC heroes to cure aids, but that it just isn't a priority right now. Supervillains kills more people than aids ever could, and combating them is really a full time job. Perhaps some day, after evil has been conquered, Superheros can focus their attention on more social issues, but until then, the battle for truth, justice, and the American way comes first.

but what if one such superhero had aids?

green arrow's new speedy, has aids, i would think it is a priority for him to cure his new sidekick.

he has friends in high places, and he could get it done, but i have yet to see any real attempts to do it, as it would make the whole drama rather hollow.

It shoudn't be. His duty, and that of his hooker sidekick, are to Star City. They don't have time to go around looking for cures with guys like Count Vertigo and Clock King on the loose, slaughtering innocent people.

damnit, you have a point.

In the superman comics they have introduced a new character named Father Leone who has cancer. One of the man questions he asked was if it was possible for superman to cure him of his cancer and superman said he didn't know if he could nor would he try because people would expect miracles that he wouldn't always be able to deliver. I can understand the philospy behind his choice if super heroes resolved all of humanities problems then the average human would come to expect them to solve all our problems and we'd grow dependant on them. I'd also like to point out that it is feasible to cure diseases with in the confines of the DCU that are life threathing Father Leone is cured of his cancer by an unethical shadow organization that no doubt withholds life saving cures ect. for unknow purposes and no doubt the method of curing such diseases are extremely costly

In the superman comics they have introduced a new character named Father Leone who has cancer. One of the man questions he asked was if it was possible for superman to cure him of his cancer and superman said he didn't know if he could nor would he try because people would expect miracles that he wouldn't always be able to deliver. I can understand the philospy behind his choice if super heroes resolved all of humanities problems then the average human would come to expect them to solve all our problems and we'd grow dependant on them. I'd also like to point out that it is feasible to cure diseases with in the confines of the DCU that are life threathing Father Leone is cured of his cancer by an unethical shadow organization that no doubt withholds life saving cures ect. for unknow purposes.

You guys realize the ONLY REASON the new Speedy was diagnosed with AIDS is to sell comics. Green Arrow sales have dipped and the writer, Judd Winick, thought this gimmick would get the title some mainstream publicity. And it worked. I remember the local news spending 30 seconds talking about it. Sales briefly rose... briefly. The title is still struggling.

It was all a publicity stunt.

I think Cyke's question was a serious one and he was merely using Mia's condition as an example. For all the heroes powers and abilities in both comic universes such as marvel and DC its a valid point. Why wouldn't they try and cure disease, world hunger, over population,over throw tyrants ect. Cyke's question warranted a response valid response and had nothing to do with why they made Mia had aids but instead focused on why don't super heores deal with the worlds troubles

The following is from Paradise X : A

Tony Stark and Hank Pym confront Mar-Vell and he tells them --

"You have come to judge me for my show of power, haven't you? Ironic, isn't it? Because you cast no regret on you own missed opportunities. Your brains are very small. You are geniuses on your worlds, but still you do not see it is simple math. You believe that Two cannot be One, and One cannot possibly be more than that.
You Stark, with all you could build, with all you could do, hid behind a mask. Hid behind a desk. Hid behind a bottle. Hid behind petty ambition.
And you, Pym. Your discovery of the "Pym Particle" could have cured the mutations on Earth. Your discovery could have isolatedthe Celestial Seed and shrunk it to nothingness. The same goes for cancer, Hank. For almost all viral diseases."

Mar-Vell then speaks to Black Bolt who asks him -- "What Are you doing to the others?"
Marvel tells him -- "Only showing them what they might have been. They see so easily the good they did, but not the good they might have done. Their evil is missed Opportunity. To be what the must be, they must feel the pain of discovered regret. They must taste and feed upon the good they might have done but did not."

Well that was alot of typing. Biz is right though - the heroes get distracted by being heroes. That's the big problem.

I'm not really enjoying the Speedy-AIDS story. Ollie has dealt with AIDS before but now he's acting like Mia is the first person he's met with it. It's too important to not talk about though and GA is the right book for it. And not to sound morbid or offend anyone, but I hope Mia's death really hurts people. Fictional characters or real readers. And I hope the media picks up on it to.



EDIT : this came in while I was typing --

I doubt very highly that Winick would use AIDS as a sales gimmick (try finding a biography for him). A chick Speedy is a gimmick. The mystery of the death of Sue in Identity Crisis was a gimmick. The use of AIDS is message. An attempt to get it into the public eye.

If you're right and it is all a publicity stunt I will lose all respect for Winick and the little I have for DC. Then I'll be selling anything I own produced by DC. Seriously, that's not cool.

GA's sales slipped because the over-rated (as far as comics go) Kevin Smith stopped writing him.

Yeah, I know, Winnick has always been a hack. I'm just explaining why there will never be a "The Heroes of the DCU Team Up to Cure Cancer and AIDS" mini-series.

And Green Arrow is one of those characters like Aquaman, Dead Man, and Plastic Man. They keep giving him series, but he can never hang on to them for long.

It was a publicity stunt. Why do you think the news was first told to the AP and Mtv before it was told to any comic book news site. Things like this has been done before, but there hasn't always been the level of attention that Winnick got. The same thing with Aids was going on in the Monolith right before Winnick did his, and that didn't get any attention. Winnick seems to like doing this and similar thing, for example in Green Lantern where he made a young boy gay and then was beat up. It seems in just about every one of his books he tries to put some sort of message in there.

Nopt sure what you are talking about there. Both the last Aquaman and Green Arrow series lasted over 100 issues. I'd consider that fairly long in this day and age.