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    Ares

    Character » Ares appears in 779 issues.

    Ares is the son of Zeus and the Olympian God of War. After years of fighting against The Avengers, Thor, and mostly his own brother Hercules, Ares joined the ranks of the Avengers. He was a member of Tony Stark's official Avengers team and later Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers. After he attacked Osborn for tricking him in starting Siege on Asgard, he was stopped and killed by the Sentry.

    In a way, is Ares more honest than Thor or Hercules in matters of

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    seekquaze

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    #1  Edited By seekquaze

    Ares is often portrayed as a villain for his love of war regardless of side and, in the opinions of many, lack of morals and rules of engagement. In a way though, does Ares instead have a brutal honesty Thor and Hercules refuse to accept?

    In Hercules: Agents of Chaos, Ares stated it was his divine duty to interfere in mankind's affairs and spread war. In Incredible Hercules, Ares pointed out how war makes nations into empires and men into heroes. In War Machine, Ares claimed one reason men like him and Rhodes go to war is it provides them with the enemies they need to be heroes instead of monsters. In his Psych War Profile at Marvel.com, Ares claimed his villainy was largely a matter of perspective. The side he fights for considers him a hero and the side he fights against would consider him a villain.

    Would you say there is a certain brutal honesty to Ares? Think about things from his viewpoint. Zeus claimed to be the upholder of morals and law. Yet look at his treatment of mortals, mistresses, and what he did to Metis making him little different from Kronos. Time and again throughout history Ares sees mortals fighting. Each side claims to be in the right and for a just cause. Time and again he sees them engage in the same tactics as the ones they villainize. Whatever cause they fight for fades away and a new one comes up. Throughout history long periods of warfare are only stopped when one power conquers the others and many benefits have come from empire building. Since to him all sides use the same tactics and eventually fade away no one side has a strong claim to moral superiority over the others so why should he favor one side or the other?

    Now look at Hercules and Thor. In ancient times, Hercules was as violent as Ares and prone to fits of madness. His targets were usually acceptable targets like monsters, but not always. Hercules was known to sack entire cities or slay entire families due to a king provoking him. Yet in modern times he is remembered as the greatest of Greek heroes. He may have mellowed some and is nowadays more of a brawler, but still without violence of some kind he is bored out of his mind.

    Thor is a great warrior who fights in defense of Asgard, but how do you think the frost giants see him? In the older tales, Thor would often go hunting giants in Jotunheim. Would not he then be a villain to the giants? What would Thor do if there were no giants or trolls to fight? It has been implied one reason Odin kept them around was to give someone his soldiers to fight. Hardly the peaceful utopia many people think society should aspire to.

    thoughts?

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    starrk_coyote

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    #2  Edited By starrk_coyote

    @seekquaze said:

    Ares is often portrayed as a villain for his love of war regardless of side and, in the opinions of many, lack of morals and rules of engagement. In a way though, does Ares instead have a brutal honesty Thor and Hercules refuse to accept?

    In Hercules: Agents of Chaos, Ares stated it was his divine duty to interfere in mankind's affairs and spread war. In Incredible Hercules, Ares pointed out how war makes nations into empires and men into heroes. In War Machine, Ares claimed one reason men like him and Rhodes go to war is it provides them with the enemies they need to be heroes instead of monsters. In his Psych War Profile at Marvel.com, Ares claimed his villainy was largely a matter of perspective. The side he fights for considers him a hero and the side he fights against would consider him a villain.

    Would you say there is a certain brutal honesty to Ares? Think about things from his viewpoint. Zeus claimed to be the upholder of morals and law. Yet look at his treatment of mortals, mistresses, and what he did to Metis making him little different from Kronos. Time and again throughout history Ares sees mortals fighting. Each side claims to be in the right and for a just cause. Time and again he sees them engage in the same tactics as the ones they villainize. Whatever cause they fight for fades away and a new one comes up. Throughout history long periods of warfare are only stopped when one power conquers the others and many benefits have come from empire building. Since to him all sides use the same tactics and eventually fade away no one side has a strong claim to moral superiority over the others so why should he favor one side or the other?

    Now look at Hercules and Thor. In ancient times, Hercules was as violent as Ares and prone to fits of madness. His targets were usually acceptable targets like monsters, but not always. Hercules was known to sack entire cities or slay entire families due to a king provoking him. Yet in modern times he is remembered as the greatest of Greek heroes. He may have mellowed some and is nowadays more of a brawler, but still without violence of some kind he is bored out of his mind.

    Thor is a great warrior who fights in defense of Asgard, but how do you think the frost giants see him? In the older tales, Thor would often go hunting giants in Jotunheim. Would not he then be a villain to the giants? What would Thor do if there were no giants or trolls to fight? It has been implied one reason Odin kept them around was to give someone his soldiers to fight. Hardly the peaceful utopia many people think society should aspire to.

    thoughts?

    you have put me point of view in to writing,when it all said and done it is all ways comes down to the 2 biggest words in the english language! perspective andPerception which are to me at lest are the most powerful words in the english language. One's junk is another's treasure. one man's hero is another's villain. theconversation will all ways comes down to perspective and perception.

    thanks for this post man :)

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    HellionVulcan

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    #3  Edited By HellionVulcan

    In his Savage Axe of Ares one shot he pretty much told a tale that all empires fall & the toll war takes on both sides & that in the end you're left with nothing as i think Ares knows what he is deep down a natural part of life ,while Hercules & Thor just try to blend in & act all hero like not being who they really are .

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    Paracelsus

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    #4  Edited By Paracelsus

    It is true that one side's villain is often the opposing side's hero( think not just of both World Wars, the Cold War and terrorist groups like the PIRA and Al Qaeda),and that back in the day both Hercules and Thor were as bloody warriors as Ares, but just as individuals grow from childhood to adolescence and full adulthood, so do moral and ethical attitudes- humanity has thankfully arguably outgrown the need or desire for war save for the most manifestly necessary occasions- Ares seems unwilling to accept this paradigm shift for twentieth century humanity- hence his anachronistic nature nowadays!

    Terry

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    seekquaze

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    @paracelsus said:

    It is true that one side's villain is often the opposing side's hero( think not just of both World Wars, the Cold War and terrorist groups like the PIRA and Al Qaeda),and that back in the day both Hercules and Thor were as bloody warriors as Ares, but just as individuals grow from childhood to adolescence and full adulthood, so do moral and ethical attitudes- humanity has thankfully arguably outgrown the need or desire for war save for the most manifestly necessary occasions- Ares seems unwilling to accept this paradigm shift for twentieth century humanity- hence his anachronistic nature nowadays!

    Terry

    I can see where you are coming from about humanity outgrowing Ares in some ways, but in others ways I disagree. Ares has been stated to be one of the Olympians still relevant to the modern world. Granted, the full blown war he approves of his not condoned by western nations in modern times. But the overall value of war and the necessary bloody part of it is still there. Some say one reason Iraq and Afghanistan were disasters were the U. S. tied its hands far too much. They were needlessly dragged out. In the real world there are still cases of torture like water boarding by supposedly highly moral countries like the U. s. The Cold War was fought through proxies and through the military-industrial complex turned both into superpowers. The Marvel Universe is worse. To Ares, modern day humans are denying the realities of war.. In a way it is the same old story for him. Both sides claiming moral superiority, growing strong or surviving through war, but denying the value of it.

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    Paracelsus

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    Again it is true that heroism or villainy are arguably a matter of perspective- pace individuals like the Crimson Dynamo(or Airstrike as he is now) , the Titanium Man and the Red Guardian would have been seen as "bad guys" by most Westerners(not just Americans) during the Cold War, jst as Vlad Tsepes( aka Vlad IV or more commonly "Vlad the Impaler" who is best known as the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula)'s and Ivan IV (Ivan Groznyy- Ivan the Terrible) and Peter the Great(and present day Soviet leaders such as Stalin) are venerated as heroes in present day Russia and Romania despite and maybe even because of their brutality-because it was undertaken in defence of their societies, but my point that just as individuals grow from infancy , adolescence and ultimately adulthood, so too does mankind- and war has evidently become one of those things that we have arguably grown out of-save for the most demonstratable reasons such as self-defence. Besides the unparallelled destructiveness of modern day weapons( nuclear, chemical and bacteriological) makes war a dubious proposition in the 21st century!

    Terry

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