The Four Color Media Monitor

Some people might've thought the revived Valiant titles would be a great thing. But it looks like now they too have succumbed to politicized storytelling, as the new Archer and Armstrong series pits them against a bunch of villains called the One Percent:

Occupy Wall Street went after them and now, too, a mismatched pair of heroes are doing the same.

Whereas the so-called one per cent is blamed for having a majority of wealth at the expense of the other 99 per cent of society, in Valiant Comics' upcoming Archer & Armstrong, The One Percent is a secretive and sinister cabal of money managers and financiers willing to sacrifice more than jobs for profit — human lives, too — to steer the fate of the world for their own gain.

The characters Archer and Armstrong — an ancient immortal and a home-schooled, combat-trained teenager acting as a fist of God — find themselves at the cabal's mercy deep under Wall Street in ancient crypt where they find out about a plot to stabilize the euro and boost profits by destroying Greece.

What's offensive here is that this story makes capitalists into villains who care only about themselves and are willing to sacrifice other humans in the process. And the left-wing anarchists who've caused more than enough chaos for Greece (and Microsoft's overseas business) apparently don't matter. Considering that the Euro hasn't really helped the continent in the long-term, it's hilarious if the people behind this ridiculous story think any capitalist would really want it kept around either.

[Fred] Van Lente said he had no fear about creating and writing The One Percent for the new title. When he pitched Valiant about his ideas for the series, it was a concept they embraced.

"In later issues they'll fight ninja nuns beneath the Vatican Library and learn the secret connection between Nazi occultists and Tibetan monks," he said of the heroes.

"So claiming that the American financial markets are secretly controlled by a Masonic cult of devil-worshippers sacrificing the homeless to the New Testament demon Mammon beneath the NYSE wasn't really that big of a stretch."

Oh really? Van Lente is pushing the stereotype that capitalists don't care about the poor, and probably doesn't think the poor have any responsibilities of their own either. He also must be quite hostile to religion and think that's the cause of all the world's problems. One can only wonder if they consider many of the most successful veterans of the comics medium itself - including but not limited to Stan Lee - "one percenters" who don't deserve the fortunes they made for all the amazing wonders they brought to this world?

And just who are the people now running the show at the new Valiant setup? Clearly, they're not all that far removed from many other leftists. And maybe Van Lente should be afraid of something: that he may have cost Valiant a wider audience in the long-term by resorting to laughable cliches.

Labels: dreadful writers, indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics