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 […]

September 6, 2017, 6:51pm

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)

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“No, guys, that’s cool. Nobody will notice or photograph this at all.” “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.” 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. pretty hard to miss

“Go ahead — tell the world about me. Nobody will ever believe you OR your cell phone camera.” Ben Grimm

"Good thing I look so much like them! I blend right in!"

PICTURED: Swamp gas, or a weather balloon. 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.” classroom full of kids who have personally experienced