In the Marvel Universe, They Apparently "Teach the Controversy" About Alien Life [Commentary]

In the real world, there are a great many things that science cannot explain. Even in the case of widely accepted scientific theory, experts concede that it's just that: theory. And so we get things like political movements to "teach the controversy" about evolutionary science, asking teachers (particularly in publicly-funded K-12 schools), demanding acknowledgment that religious groups and people have their own version of the origins of the species and that they want to work into the syllabus. It's not uncommon, or particularly frowned upon, for such people to be teachers themselves, provided they teach to the syllabus and work within the system rather than making up their own rules. In the Marvel Universe, though, you would expect things to be somewhat different. There are certain things where our world might not have an answer, but in Marvel there should seemingly be no controversy. Like, for instance, the existence of extraterrestrial life. From the very earliest Marvel Comics, aliens have appeared with regularity. A recent example was the Secret Invasion mega-story, in which members of the government, superhero community and more were replaced by Skrulls, a shape-shifting race of warlike aliens who have been harassing the Fantastic Four and other Marvel superheroes since 1962 (or, for those who are going by Marvel's sliding timeline...since the second-ever adventure of the FF, Marvel's first super-team). There are still apparently those who are in denial, we learn in Nova #15 this week, and one of them is Sam's teacher (seen above) [caption id="attachment_88448" align="aligncenter" width="550"]

[/caption] And some readers took issue with it. An anonymous fan took to Formspring to present it to Tom Brevoort: "In this week issue of Nova, Sam's teacher says that he thinks that its 'possible' aliens might exist but he 'doesn't see any evidence of regular visitations.' Earth gets invaded by aliens every single friggin' year in a very public way, the government and media openly talk about the existence of aliens, it's how Norman Osborn got named top cop. How can any educated person in the MU possibly think something like that? I can understand people in the MU not believing in magic, but this is dumb." Brevoort's response came down to, basically, "If people believed in aliens, it wouldn't be enough like the real world." Here it is, via his Formspring: To some degree, this is a storytelling conceit. The Marvel Universe is meant to be the real world, our world, and to reflect it as much as possible. In our world, whether aliens exist or not, they are generally not believed in. Once you get to the point where everybody in the Marvel Universe believes in things like aliens, the whole landscape of the world begins to change in ways that make it into something very different from our world. We don't really want that to happen. And given that there are moon landing deniers and such in the real world, this isn't too much of a stretch. Wait, what? He's seriously comparing moon landing conspiracy theorists to somebody who lives in Marvel's world, where video pours if every week fresh from their bizarre New York, refusing to acknowledge the possibility of alien life? How many times has Galactus visited that city? He's pretty hard to miss. [caption id="attachment_88428" align="aligncenter" width="349"]

[/caption] We're pretty sure nobody could look out their office window and see the Moon Landing with their naked eye. Ditto evolution, the Big Bang or anything else that is popularly debated. But they surely did notice when Manhattan got pulled into the upper atmosphere by Terrax and Galactus showed up.  Or the time Ego the Living Planet tried to assimilate the earth.  Or the time the Impossible Man showed up on a televised boxing match within the first 15 issues of Fantastic Four. Our buddy Ben Grimm commented on Brevoort's response, "I cannot put into words how flippin' stupid this is. I understand Brevoort's point but...I can't even form the words.  I understand you want the Marvel U to mirror the real world but with the events that have taken place within it which are common knowledge to the population, you can't just pretend that it wouldn't impact the world or at least be part of the popular consciousness." It's worth mentioning that, okay, some people whose worldview would be threatened by the existence of aliens might say that those apparent extra-terrestrials are actually just mutants who are either lying, or delusional, about being from another planet. [caption id="attachment_88453" align="aligncenter" width="550"]

[/caption] (We'll leave aside, for the moment, the fact that "Once you get to the point where everybody in the Marvel Universe believes in things like [mutants], the whole landscape of the world begins to change in ways that make it into something very different from our world.") Even if that's the case, what are the odds that the kids in Sam's class wouldn't collectively mock the teacher? Okay, so a denialist got a job in public schools. It could happen. But unlike proponents of intelligent design, a Marvel Universe denier of alien life would have a classroom full of kids who have personally experienced an alien invasion. Maybe some of them lost friends or relatives in a building collapse. When fans talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of the things they talk about is that the movies are fun, they're light, they don't try too hard to be gritty or "real," and they aren't ashamed of their source material. Maybe Brevoort should take note.