John Ostrander sinks into "liberal guilt"
John Ostrander, who wrote Suicide Squad during 1987-92, recently came back to the concept with a miniseries. And what's sad here is that he seems to be apologizing for his masterwork of yore. In a recent thread written on the Dixonverse board, the topic starter describes the book this way:
As for Ostrander, that's a real shame if he's apologizing for some of his best work of yore. I own some of Suicide Squad, including the first 2 issues, and it's very good for a suspense comic about covert operations where crooks are made to be the operatives, combatting terrorists and communists in the latter days of the Cold War. It began with a group of criminals being conscripted into making a surprise strike against The Jihad in their mountain bunker in Qurac before they could carry out a real assault against innocent people abroad, with government agent Amanda Waller working as their mission instructor. And now, Ostrander is apologizing for a well-written story and premise? That's quite a comedown from the time that he first began his career on Grimjack and was hired by Bob Greenberger to work at DC Comics in the mid-80s.
I wonder if any of this explains why the series hasn't been released in trade paperbacks yet? There was supposed to be a black-and-white Showcase edition published last year, and then I found out it had been delayed, for reasons I don't know. I do hope it's published in trades soon, because it was one of the best series published in its time, and Ostrander is doing even himself a really big disservice by apologizing for some of the bold ideas he'd featured there. I can understand now why the recent miniseries ("Raise the Flag") didn't do well.
I am loving reading the Suicide Squad by John Ostrander again...but...Dixon himself explained why: because Ostrander is a lefty:
*sigh*
Why are the villains a bunch of fat, cigar chomping, brandy swilling, white guys working for a company that rhymes with Halliburton and headed by a dude who looks just like and is almost named Dick Cheney, who all gather in a lab and watch brown-skinned test subjects dying of a virus while they discuss how much money they can make from it?
This is so over-the-top it's hard to even be offended. (Rather like that Justice League of the Amazon book where the bad corporate guys have a table made from the stump of an old-growth Amazon tree.)
What bothers me is that this seems passe. Doing a lame attack on Halliburton and Cheney in 2008?
I guess it just bothers me that a great book goes out of its way to offend a large portion of its readers with needless politics.
He doesn't keep it a secret.The topic starter continues:
I know you and he disagreed about "Seduction of the Gun", with John thinking he did a fair and even-handed job and you...er, not agreeing.As Chuck explains, the world today has changed:
Frankly, if he's been trying to spread the gospel of liberalism in his work, he's been doing a piss-poor job of it. I'm not kidding: aside from Amanda's crack to Reagan in her first appearance ("You DO remember social programs?") and the rather silly J. Danforth Kale as an allusion to Dan Quail, I would have thought that Suicide Squad of the 1980s was written by a raging conservative! I mean, you've got the Squad fighting The Jihad, Commies, cultists, third world strongmen, and doing it all by conscripting criminals into fighting for their country against their will. The criminals are scum, and that's clear even after we get stories that delve into their sad histories. Presidents Reagan and Bush were portrayed so believably and fairly that I would have held it up as an example of someone NOT slamming them in comics for once.
When this new mini started up and the first thing the narration makes clear is that Qurac is misusing the name "The Jihad" for their team of criminals... well, it doesn't seem like the same writer. For crying out loud, the first Suicide Squad had The Jihad staging a terrorist attack on an airport! Is it REALLY so necessary to divorce that team from radical Islam?
It's like Johnny O feels guilty for ever making terrorists the bad guys, and so he'll make sure that the bad guys are American ex-Defense Department corporate fatcats while also sneaking in an apology about the whole Jihad thing.
It was harder in the 80s (at the mainstream companies) to put political messages into comics. Today the climate has changed. Creators wear their beliefs on their sleeves if they're liberals and hide them if they're anything else and want to continue working.Dixon is right, that the constant leaning, and domination, of many publishers by leftists has resulted in far less of an audience, because they're willing to alienate potential customers for the wrong reasons. It wouldn't surprise me if it's gotten to the point where even liberals have become alienated. Unfortunately, there are still some liberals who've not made it easy to be a conservative and to put their own viewpoints into comics as freely as liberals can. As one of a handful of conservatives in the industry, one who's bold to make his opinions clear, Dixon has taken a bit of flak at times, most recently because he may have criticized the lesbian relationship that Judd Winick, who previously wrote the Outsiders, put into the book whose cast Dixon is now writing, and possibly even for his writing an unreleased book for Crossgen called American Power that was about fighting terrorism. I've sometimes wondered if DC editorial allowed for a couple characters he'd introduced in the 1990s to be killed off because they resented his political views: he was the one who introduced teen vigilante Spoiler in Detective Comics 15 years ago, and also a handful of regular villains who appeared in Nightwing, such as Torque and Double Dare. Many of the disasters that his creations went through began to take effect just a short time after he'd left writing them 6 years ago, and no one contributing to DC at the time ever seemed to lift a finger to help him out.
Also the audience for comics is primarily liberal and much smaller because of that.
John probably feels (and rightly so) that his political beliefs are a boon to his career since they're in sync with his editors and audience.
As for Ostrander, that's a real shame if he's apologizing for some of his best work of yore. I own some of Suicide Squad, including the first 2 issues, and it's very good for a suspense comic about covert operations where crooks are made to be the operatives, combatting terrorists and communists in the latter days of the Cold War. It began with a group of criminals being conscripted into making a surprise strike against The Jihad in their mountain bunker in Qurac before they could carry out a real assault against innocent people abroad, with government agent Amanda Waller working as their mission instructor. And now, Ostrander is apologizing for a well-written story and premise? That's quite a comedown from the time that he first began his career on Grimjack and was hired by Bob Greenberger to work at DC Comics in the mid-80s.
I wonder if any of this explains why the series hasn't been released in trade paperbacks yet? There was supposed to be a black-and-white Showcase edition published last year, and then I found out it had been delayed, for reasons I don't know. I do hope it's published in trades soon, because it was one of the best series published in its time, and Ostrander is doing even himself a really big disservice by apologizing for some of the bold ideas he'd featured there. I can understand now why the recent miniseries ("Raise the Flag") didn't do well.
Labels: dc comics, islam and jihad, politics, terrorism
