The Four Color Media Monitor

Ann Nocenti, famous in the 1980s for her share of work on X-Men and Daredevil, is unfortunately very much to the left and made quite a career out of it years later at leftist bastions like The Nation. And one of the most embarrasing moments in her career is when she associated herself with the Occupy movement 2 years ago and even went out of her way to be an apologist for them.

But recently, in an interview with the Suicide Girls website, she said something very surprising about her experience in China and something inspiring she did with Green Arrow:

AD: You’ve traveled a lot and spent time in Pakistan and Haiti, made a documentary about Baluchistan, taught film in Lapland–I stand a little in awe of many of the things you’ve done. Does it make it easier to write about globe-trotting adventures, physical risk and accepting that as part of daily life in comics as someone who’s done all these things?

AN: Yes, I think so. I was in China a few years ago, which wasn’t dangerous so much as there was a creepy sense of being watched, of a surveillance society and a firewall that blocked much of the Internet. At the time I was writing “Green Arrow,” and he was pitched to me, in the New 52, as a young tech-savvy international playboy guy, so I had him get into a tech war with the Chinese. China’s cyber attacks and surveillance culture has become big news. Of course, I proceeded to tear down Green Arrow and take all his money and toys away from him, but I found his arrogance hard to write without knocking him around a bit. The idea was to eventually give him the kind of bones and DNA of the Denny O’Neil era social justice Green Arrow, but he just isn’t there yet. Did that answer your question? Maybe not.

How amazing that she's willing to admit China's an oppressive regime in their own way, and to write up a story that Marvel's movie adaptations don't have the courage to do. But much as I'd like to think this signals a wakeup on her part to the badness of communism, that might still be a long way off. Too bad then, because she'd do herself a lot more good by recognizing how socialism has only helped make anybody and everybody poorer.

Labels: dc comics, Europe and Asia, marvel comics, politics, technology