How Sci/Fi are comic books?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Mainly DC/Marvel.

[ProfessorDetective]

Depends on the day, honestly.

I mean, you have aliens, wizards, criminologist martial artists, myth gods, space gods, Elder Gods, talking animals, self-aware robots, and the, usually mad, scientists that create them, all existing side-by-side with, ostensibly, our modern-day Earth.

I'd say Marvel is a bit more consistently Sci-Fi, mainly because magic and science are more likely to intermingle and overlap with each other, there. DC tends to keep the invincible aliens, demigoddess warriors, and buff detectives separate unless something BIG is going down.

[Yukaphile]

I would say that Superman's stuff has more flavors of sci-fi than anything else found in DC, given they go to great lengths to expand on his biology, his history, what his world is like - and yes, they contradict at times depending on the continuity, but it's also world-building, and that's what sci-fi is.

[MissKittyFantastico]

In the sense of sci-fi being "Here's this possible future development, how does this affect us?" - maybe better to say 'speculative fiction' - sure, superheroes do that from time to time. I haven't read Civil War II (apart from the A-Force bit) but I gather it was about here's a mutant who can predict the future, do we go around locking people up to prevent future tragedies, or what? and that's basically Minority Report, which I feel most people would allow as sci-fi. Granted I imagine the answer was 'let's all have a bit fight' rather than really getting deep into the human condition, but the question was asked. At the moment I'm just reading Squirrel Girl which is primarily screwball comedy that sneaks up behind you and mugs you with the power of heart, but even so, now and then they set up some bizarre bit of fiction and look at what it means to people. It ain't Asimov, but it's in the ballpark.

I feel like there's an argument to be made that the 'superhero genre' has become a setting, not a genre. There's speculative fiction happening, but that's just one of the options open to the writers who're all inhabiting their own corners of these shared worlds.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

In the sense of sci-fi being "Here's this possible future development, how does this affect us?" - maybe better to say 'speculative fiction' - sure, superheroes do that from time to time. I haven't read Civil War II (apart from the A-Force bit) but I gather it was about here's a mutant who can predict the future, do we go around locking people up to prevent future tragedies, or what? and that's basically Minority Report, which I feel most people would allow as sci-fi. Granted I imagine the answer was 'let's all have a bit fight' rather than really getting deep into the human condition, but the question was asked. At the moment I'm just reading Squirrel Girl which is primarily screwball comedy that sneaks up behind you and mugs you with the power of heart, but even so, now and then they set up some bizarre bit of fiction and look at what it means to people. It ain't Asimov, but it's in the ballpark.

I feel like there's an argument to be made that the 'superhero genre' has become a setting, not a genre. There's speculative fiction happening, but that's just one of the options open to the writers who're all inhabiting their own corners of these shared worlds.

Very good, that shines a light on the convention of sci-fi. Mostly though you just hear of the distinctive aspects of sci-fi from fantasy, in which they tend to gravitate opposite each other pretty neatly. I'm not sure the nuance of transformative sci-fi is the same in fantasy. As far as I can tell, fantasy is more about crafting a story to maximize enchantment and effect. Like how Inception was with Nolan.

[Yukaphile]

There's the Legion of Super-Heroes, with their futuristic tech.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Black Panther came to mind for me.

[clearspira]

The problem with this question is that comic books are not one whole. I could probably find you a stack of hard science fiction comic books from the last 100 yrs of the medium if I looked hard enough. And I could obviously find you many that aren't. My answer: yes, probably, sometimes, no.

[ProfessorDetective]

The problem with this question is that comic books are not one whole. I could probably find you a stack of hard science fiction comic books from the last 100 yrs of the medium if I looked hard enough. And I could obviously find you many that aren't. My answer: yes, probably, sometimes, no.

Depends on the day.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The problem with this question is that comic books are not one whole. I could probably find you a stack of hard science fiction comic books from the last 100 yrs of the medium if I looked hard enough. And I could obviously find you many that aren't. My answer: yes, probably, sometimes, no.

That's pretty fair. I did provise that I'm mainly talking about DC/Marvel, but ultimately that's a helpful response imo.