La Ron S. Readus
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The Utopian's Code is BROKEN! (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-05-10 20:00:04 +0000 UTCI'm just gonna get this out of the way NOW before you even have a chance to ask.
No. It is absolutely unfair to compare Sheldon's situation to Clark.
Because as I'm about to explain, Clark and Sheldon's ideals are on the COMPLETE opposite spectrum from each other.
How? Well, one was created by two individuals who actually EXPERIENCED it. The other was created by Mark Millar
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Readers, I admit; I have a bunch of soapboxes I really love to stand on
And as some of you might know, one of those soapboxes involve my opinions about #5 on my Shitlist, Mark Millar
The most famous of my opinions about him -- specifically his work -- is that it shouldn’t have to take the talent of OTHER individuals to make his own work enjoyable
And thanks to the theatrical interpretations of the likes of Wanted, Kingsman, and even the way the Kick-Ass movies were translated to film, I am CONSTANTLY reminded that my case is COMPLETELY capable of being rested, every single time.
So while I wasn’t necessarily THRILLED that Netflix decided to stroke Millar’s ego when they bought Millarworld from him back in 2017 for 31 million dollars, I knew that this would mean more iterations of his IPs that will prove to be significantly better than when he first came up with them.
/And with the first and most highly anticipated of these titles being released on Netflix being season 1 of Jupiter’s Legacy, I wasn’t surprised to find out that it was given the same treatment./
While there are, in fact, aspects about the comic like the lore and certain character dynamics that made the transition to the television show, the narrative direction is completely different from the 10 issue Image comic it's based on.
And while the conflict and critique of superheroes upholding a “no killing or political involvement” policy are a couple of the plot points that survives its comic to television transition...
It’s handled in a way that allows us to better explore the mindset of the in-universe character that not only created the code, but is absolutely disassociated with how the world has changed in ways that allow other characters to bring his willingness to uphold it into question.
/That character is Sheldon Samson, aka The Utopian/
A little backstory on the patriarchal head of the Union of Justice as it’s shown in the series.
/Sheldon’s the last son of the Samson family, who founded Samson Steel in Chicago during the early 1900’s, running the business with his father and his older brother Walt./
They were the very pinnacle example of the American Dream; a family obtaining prosperity and success via hard work and due diligence. (Pause) Yeah, I only JUST started the explanation, and you can already start to see the problem here.
They were just about to start expanding in 1929, with Sheldon’s hope that by creating more jobs across the nation, he’d do his part to give other citizens the same chance at the American Dream that his family had.
Then the events leading up to The Great Depression hit, and tragedy struck the Samson family, not once but twice.
/First when the crash initially happened and he witnessed his father commit suicide, and second when he found out through a local paper that his father did the steel workers dirty and claimed their pensions. Combine that with the fact that the board decided to close up shop for a few months in order to save money, and now we have a Sheldon that’s not only let down by the actions of his father, but also has the burden of dealing with his sins./
Soon after Sheldon is haunted by visions of his father, accompanied by an island beckoning himself and 5 others to discover something amazing on it.
/Those individuals are his brother Walt, Claire -- the woman who wrote the expose piece on his father after his death -- his best friend George, Fitz, a worker at the steel mill that was laid off thanks to the combination of the Depression and the actions of Sheldon’s actions, and Richard, a doctor who survived the sinking of the ship caught in the storm heading to the island that Sheldon’s expedition was able to save./
They pass the island's tests and are granted superhuman abilities, immediately using them to do good across the country as the Union of Justice.
/Sheldon takes the leader position as the Utopian, Clare becomes Lady Liberty, Walt becomes the telepath Brainwave, George becomes Skyfox, Richard becomes Blue-Bolt and Fitz becomes the Flare./
And along with superpowers, another gift the island gives them is an extended lifespan that allows them to age slower than normal humans.
/Because while each of the characters were in their mid to late 30’s during the time they first acquired their abilities during the Great Depression, the main story of Jupiter’s Legacy takes place roughly 90 years in the future and the surviving members of the Union only now look like they’ve just entered their mid to late 60’s/
And now that we’re in modern society, the conflict of the story is that thanks to an action made by one of the second generation of superheroes -- including the children of Sheldon and Clare...
The rules of the Union created by Sheldon that he calls “the code” that have been upholded since its foundation, is something that is constantly proving to be a relic of its time over the course of the season and is slowly yet surely responsible for more civilian and superhero deaths than supervillain defeats, because of how exploitable it’s become.
/Yet despite everything, Sheldon refuses to back down or even consider altering The Code he produced all those years ago. Which leaves to ask a very simple question: Why?/
Well, in actuality, we get PART of that answer in his backstory. And it's ACTUALLY thanks to one of the changes the show makes from the comics that help us gain a more idealistic perspective in Sheldon’s overall societal development.
/The change in question: changing the race of Samson Steel worker Fitz -- aka the Flare -- from a white man to a black one./
Now I understand part of the reason for Fitz’s race change when it comes to what the show was aiming to inform us about Sheldon.
The emphasis of this portion of their lives taking place in Chicago in the late 1920’s, implies that Sheldon -- like the other white members of the Union -- is a Yankee; a white northerner who SAYS that they see African Americans as equals and condoned the confederate south’s practice of slavery.
/By making Fitz and his family black when we’re introduced to them as steel workers he doesn’t mind shooting the shit with as if they were the same skin color as his own, it’s supposed to help reflect the aspect of Sheldon’s beliefs that the American Dream is accessible to ANYBODY, no matter their ethnicity./
But the side-effect of doing so, /Other than producing imagery of recently laid off black workers protecting their white boss from their fellow laid off co-workers that does NOT sit right with me...
/Is that it only further factors into the root of Sheldon’s delusion of how America NEEDS to make sense to him, thanks to a system he’s been benefiting from without knowing it was initially designed with him in mind./
You see, along with that underlying aspect of Sheldon’s mindset reflecting that of a 1920’s white northerner who -- as far as we’re aware -- treats people of other ethnicities as equals...
Both his way of life and his view of the world also reflects that of an individual heavily influenced by the early ideals of capitalism. Y’know, back when the illusion of it was at its prime.
The thing about Sheldon though, is that his mindset regarding how America worked was -- and still is -- a very naïve one.
/He sought to expand Samson Steel to produce more jobs and give others a chance at the American dream, because he genuinely believes that the way things were set up that allowed his family to build what they were able to create with the company are the ideal.
/White privilege unbeknownst to him comes into play, because while he isn’t racist, his belief in how capitalism is interwoven in the American dream keeps him blind to the struggles of how the now black Fitz has to combat an economic system that can be easily manipulated and adjusted to keep him from having the opportunity to participate in Sheldon’s ideal America, even while living outside the grasp of Jim Crow.
/Sheldon’s philosophy and ideology -- especially after becoming the Utopian -- is a mixture of blind faith, dedication and reliance on a multitude of gears that prove to him that the system can work for everyone because his lineage is the product of it, not realizing that there’s a reason WHY the system worked for his lineage in the first place./
Which is why I think the therapist episode is not only the most important episode of the season, but also my FAVORITE one.
/First of all, I LOVE the reveal that Sheldon’s therapist is also one of the most dangerous villains he’s ever fought; that is an amazing concept./
But what’s JUST as impressive is that it analyzes not just the societal reasoning for why Sheldon’s code is important to him, but also how it mixes in to the trauma he experienced leading up to him becoming the Utopian.
Yes, Sheldon won the American Dream l*ttery. He’s a white man who greatly benefitted from how capitalism molded corporations from 1920 to 1929, seeing it as the tried and true way for the country as a result.
And because he’s a white Northerner, he genuinely believes that because the way things are established in the country that ANYONE -- not just the likes of himself -- can achieve this level of success.
So when the market crashes, so does his depiction of things. His father commits suicide, and he feels guilty that he couldn’t stop him considering how close he was.
Clare publishes what he thought was a smear piece that not only reflects negatively on his father -- despite finding out that every word of it to his dismay was true -- but also on the economic and political system he’s been brought up to believe is the best in the world, because of how things worked out for him and his own.
He has to eliminate jobs from the hard-working people he once took pride in giving them a means to chase the American dream themselves, while struggling to explain to them that his father gambled away their pensions.
/So when he’s able to convince Walt, George, Clare and the others to join him on this expedition to find the island and they’re given these amazing powers, he sees this as an opportunity to do better by not just the country, but to himself./
But because he’s still living under the idealism of a 1920’s white man who is blissfully ignorant to the fact that the way the country is ran isn’t the ideal that it SHOULD be for EVERYONE because things worked out well for him once upon a time, the code reflects exactly that; a way of life that works for him and his own, but not necessarily that of the rest of the world it directly impacts.
Just like capitalism has been perverted and exploited way past its initial intention back in Sheldon’s hayday, so has the code by multiple villains of various degrees in the show and what I assume the comic.
It’s based on an ideal that was fundamentally flawed from the beginning because it only catered to a SPECIFIC type of American, not ALL Americans, and that reality hits ESPECIALLY harder in the modern era the story takes place in.
And once you mix that in with the fact that the code also acts as a way of Sheldon wanting to be remembered in a way that’s -- in his opinion -- better than that of his father in the people he cares about, then what starts off as an over simplistic ideal evolves over the course of 90 years into stubbornness that’s unintentionally holding back progression.
/Stubbornness that can properly grow into understanding and still reflect on the American ideals he upheld for so long, if he just took a moment to listen and better reflect on how things got to where they currently are./
But, I digress Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of Jupiter’s Legacy if you’ve seen it.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, how you think the Utopian’s code could be adjusted in order for it to properly reflect the reality and the potential of the American dream
Regardless of which question you answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
