I think Professor Ewing has summed up Charles Xavier (Professor X) … petty … darn … well. The normative ethics of this character has always harbored underlying issues, dating back to the creation of the X-Men. As I explained on my X-Men Ethics – Introduction page, the initial actions of …
X-Men Ethics – Professor X (Charles Xavier)
Thus speaks Charles Xavier’s oldest friend, Magneto, on his death bed. Like in my recent overview of Magneto’s ethics, I think Al Ewing‘s take on these two well-established characters is among the most thoughtful and well informed (from an ethics perspective) in the comics today. There is probably no character …
X-Men Ethics – Magneto
Marvel’s Magneto is an interesting character to profile for normative ethics, as he has gone through a lot of cycles of redemption and reversion over his long run in the comics. He has very much been on the upswing in modern times though, as the opening quote makes clear. As …
Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) Ethics
“Captain Marvel” is an alias that has been used by a number of different Marvel comics characters over the years. When I was first collecting comics in the early 1980s, it was used by Monica Rambeau (currently known as the superhero Photon, since 1996). Before that, it was Mar-Vell of …
X-Men Ethics – Introduction
One of my goals with this site is to show how comic book stories have always illustrated normative ethics principles. But another goal is to show how some normative ethics theories and perspectives have changed over the decades, and how that is reflected in current writers taking a different view …
Spider-Man (Peter Parker) Ethics
As a character, Spider-Man presents a unique challenge in trying to discern a consistent normative ethics theory – he is the most popular Marvel superhero character of all time. Why is that a problem? Because it means he has appeared in more stories – and been written by more authors …
Captain America Ethics
Welcome to my introduction to the ethics of Captain America – one of the longest-standing Marvel superheroes, and one commonly looked to as among its most moral. But what is that morality exactly? To start us off, I picked that recent quote from the most recent run of Captain America …
Clea Ethics
Welcome my overview page on Clea, from the Doctor Strange comic books. Jed MacKay has described her as “the greatest of all Doctor Strange characters”, and I can’t help but agree – in his hands. It didn’t begin that way. Clea has a long history in the Strange comics, and …
Doctor Strange Ethics
Doctor Strange was one of my favorite characters growing up. I was hooked from my second issue, and eagerly sought out back issues to learn more about the history of this fascinating character (editorial comment: this was before the internet). Here was a person of incredible power and responsibility, but …