Posted: 03 March 2021 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | 11
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Peter Hicks wrote:
“Trapped in a world he never made”, never made sense to me. Other than God, and a few god like characters, who makes worlds? |
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It's based on a line from a poem by A.E. Housman: The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way. But no, they will not; they must still Wrest their neighbour to their will, And make me dance as they desire With jail and gallows and hell-fire. And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong. And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn nor to Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man. As you can see, in its original context it's more a commentary about individual choice vs expectations of society. Stan was inspired to title the Hulk story in Tales to Astonish #95: "A World He Never Made." Since that was a story featuring the High Evolutionary, he obviously meant the words in a more literal way, since of course the High Evolutionary made Counter Earth.
When the story was reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes #50, the "trapped in a" portion was added to the cover:
Then the following year someone got the idea to use the same phrase as Howard the Duck's tagline. In that context, it seems to mean more something like a fish out of water, caught in a situation not of your own making.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 03 March 2021 at 6:20pm
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