The Four Color Media Monitor: How the "Movement" depicts police

Here's a fluff-coated review of Gail Simone's The Movement on CBR that even tries to justify how it's built by comparing it to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns:

The issue is built around three main sequences: The first has a pair of corrupt patrolmen accosting a pair of teenagers, before being chased off by a Movement group; the second (previewed online) involves another troubled super-powered youth and a well-meaning clergyman; the resulting standoff leads into the third, as the main cast shows up to resolve the situation. The issue ends with a speech reminiscent of Batman’s “none of you are safe” soliloquy from “Batman: Year One,” and a coda showing the range of the Movement’s influence.

In fact, the opening sequence reminded me immediately of Frank Miller’s hypothesis (and here I am paraphrasing) that Batman works best when society’s institutions have broken down. Miller’s original Dark Knight miniseries made corrupt cops a staple of the Bat-mythology, but Miller emphasized further that superheroes were “outlaws” practically by definition. While The Movement doesn’t mythologize or otherwise elevate its superhumans like Miller did, these first few pages still tread some very familiar ground. One cop even hints at raping a 16-year-old, echoing the threat that got the Amethyst relaunch in trouble.

Whatever anyone may think of Miller's 1986 miniseries, the whole attempt to compare this story with that older one falls flat. If the Movement is an allegory for the Occupy bunch and whitewashes them, that's exactly the problem with this book. And the way the cops are depicted here sounds pretty degrading to boot.

Curiously enough, while the reviewer is tilted in the book and writer's favor, he is willing to say that:

The question is, how long does The Movement have? As I mentioned in Monday’s “Cheat Sheet,” it comes with a decent set of expectations. Simone has a dedicated fanbase, but she and Williams are pretty much introducing a new cast with no immediate connection to the rest of the superhero line. A setup which recalls the “Occupy” protests might also turn off conservative readers (although I wonder how many conservative fans Simone has). The Movement has been marketed on the strengths of its creators and its subject matter, not its “importance” to the New-52; and if it does poorly, it could discourage DC from taking similar chances.

Let's hope it does. What makes this book worthless is if it whitewashes the Occupy movement, and as of today, I'm far from being a fan of Simone's if this is the kind of mishmash she's going to come up with.

And what's so "decent" about a book where cops are depicted so crudely?

On a semi-related note, the new Sword and Sorcery series, where the remake of Amethyst took place, was recently cancelled. The main problem with the attempted rape there is that the whole subject was dropped so quickly, they just plain trivialized the issue. No wonder it took a nosedive.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, politics, violence

Love how Simone inverted everything: make the cops into the Occupy thugs with their rape tents and the Occupy thugs into saintly cops. Don't you love standard Leftist moral inversion?

Following such "logic," I can't wait for Simone to write about the Occupy thug who was defecating on a cop car. Oops, I mean, the cop crapping on his own car, instead. Hah....

Posted by Killer Moth | 4:24 PM

Gail Simone's next masterpiece will be about heroic arsonists saving the city from evil firefighters. Or America's sneak attack on Japan on Dec. 7, 1941.

Posted by Anonymous | 7:48 PM

Or maybe she'll do an Elseworlds about how those silly, ungrateful American and Filipino POWs whined and complained to their Japanese captors merely because they were transferred to another prison during the Bataan "Death" March.

Posted by Hube | 4:45 AM

Wow. The bile here is remarkable. God forbid someone actually have a positive view of a movement that was focused on holding corrupt financial institutions to task.

Posted by Joshua Epstein | 7:50 AM

Alexander, to which movement are you referring? OWS was focused on disrupting the public peace, calling attention to themselves, and shouting about how much they deserve something for nothing. With rape, destruction of public and private property, and public lewdness as fringe benefits. So you obviously can't meant them.

Posted by DocSavage | 9:27 AM

Wow. The bile here is remarkable. God forbid someone actually have a positive view of a movement that was focused on holding corrupt financial institutions to task.

What DocSavage said. Not to mention we're "treated" to this ridiculous fairy tale analogue of the Occupy movement, while guys like Brubaker depict real peaceful movements like the Tea Party in ludicrous fascist terms.

God forbid modern creators tackle a real controversial subject.

Posted by Hube | 9:48 AM

It's pathetic how people like Simone continue to whitewash one of the most vile movements in history. Like Hube said, they should tackle a REAL controversial subject.

Posted by Anonymous | 10:29 AM

I have no objection to holding "corrupt financial institutions" responsible. I would like to see incompetent CEO's get fired, instead of being paid millions to voluntarily resign. And I don't doubt that there were some well-meaning people involved in the OWS movement. But Simone's simplistic scenario apparently portrays all of the Movement members as saints, and all of the police as corrupt and brutal. If a story depicted all cops (bankers, lawyers, engineers, soldiers, whatever) as conscientious good guys, it would be ridiculed as simplistic. And if a story portrayed all Muslims as terrorists (or all Italians as gangsters, or all Jews as loan sharks), then it would be (rightly) denounced for bigotry and prejudice.

Posted by Anonymous | 10:53 AM

And Killer Moth, it's called projection. Liberals project their violent tendencies onto others all the time. Take a look at the gun control crowd. They frequently threaten people who are pro-gun and project their own violent tendencies onto them, which they then use as "proof" that gun owners are violent.

Posted by Anonymous | 10:55 AM

Yeah. Liberals assume that if you own a gun, you will end up shooting someone in a fit of rage over a minor argument. Because that is what they themselves would do in that situation.

Posted by Anonymous | 11:31 AM

I know, Carl. It's all about projection, projection, projection, or magical thinking. Whichever.

Here's some more "bile" to add:

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/10/irs-oh-by-the-way-we-improperly-targeted-conservative-and-tea-party-groups-last-year/

Don't worry, everyone, your Media Matters overlords are still tax-exempt.

Anyway, I do love all these liberal hacks rail against "The Man," except, this time, "The Man" is one of them. What to do? Oh, noez!

Posted by Killer Moth | 3:00 PM

Our local chapter of Occupy was best known for allegedly using a storm drain as a porta-jon. When the cops started to investigate, they were ordered to stand down by the local Dem-run government.

Kind of a metaphor that explains why I chose to move outside the city...

Posted by The Drizzt | 6:39 PM

The only difference between Occupy and Tea Party is their political leanings, the movements seem to cause more trouble than they're worth, mostly due to the supporters and detractors surrounding them!

And as for projecting, are you guys suggesting that conservatives are incapable of this concept?

Posted by Drag | 11:42 AM