Does Mark Waid believe George Zimmerman is guilty and Trayvon Martin innocent?
Waid's turned Daredevil into a politicized mess again, with a subtle metaphor for the George Zimmerman trial:Waid’s run has done brilliant work juggling Matt’s superhero life with his struggles outside of costume, giving him a new role as legal coach for people defending themselves in court, a new flame in assistant D.A. Kirsten McDuffie, and a potentially fatal new enemy in the form of his best friend Foggy’s cancer. While Foggy undergoes treatment for Ewing’s sarcoma, Kirsten has taken his old place at the law firm of Nelson & Murdock, adding a constant source of sexual tension to Matt’s workplace. (See how this would make a great TV show?) As Matt deals with these personal issues, Daredevil has been facing down the white supremacist group The Sons Of The Serpent, and their latest act of terror brings an old rogue back into the mix to send New York City into race-fueled chaos.What a cliche. If he'd offer up a story that featured a metaphor for the new Black Panther Party, or anything else involving racism coming from the black side of society, then he might at least make a story about a white supremacist group sound better. But he hasn't, and that's just one reason why this story sounds so easy lazy.
The Bainwood case finds “an entitled society harpy with a long and recorded history of bigotry” going free after following and shooting a “suspicious-looking” black teenager in her building, and this not-so-thinly-veiled stand-in for the Trayvon Martin trial is a great way for Waid to explore a major theme of the series in a different context. Fear is an essential part of Daredevil’s character, and Waid’s plot looks at fear on a broader scale as New York City citizens rebel against a justice system that has betrayed them. This anger is bred out of fear that the system in place is no longer serving the best interests of the public, and all it takes is the smallest spark to turn that fear into a raging fire. That spark comes courtesy of the Jester, an actor-turned-supervillain who is hired by The Sons Of The Serpent to interrupt a post-trial news broadcast with footage that shows D.A. James Priest revealing the names and addresses of the 12 jurors who let a racist murderer run free. (Among those names: grown-up versions of Family Ties’ Alex P. Keaton and Mad Men’s Sally Draper.)
If this story is an allegory for the George Zimmerman trial, then challenging queries include: did Waid pay any attention, early or late, to the evidence presented showing that Martin attacked Zimmerman first, and to evidence discovered that Martin had taken cannabis? Has he taken any note of the black assaults on Latinos that occurred following the trial's end? If not, then he's become a real life variant on J. Jonah Jameson.
The part about the D.A exposing the identities of jurors is also stupefying, probably Waid's special tactic for moral equivalence. And curious how he puts a woman in the role of the supremacist on trial too. This is no better than the apologia Waid wrote for Islamofascism in the same series.
Labels: Daredevil, dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, politics
Massad Ayoob's blog in Backwoods Home magazine (available online at backwoodshome.com, or google "massad ayoob blog") has a detailed analysis of the Zimmerman/Martin case, from the confrontation through the trial and aftermath. Some of the comments are the inevitable demagoguery and hysterical rants, but most of it is rational discussion based on objective examination of the facts. Unfortunately, most liberals will not read it, since the facts don't fit The Narrative. Martin was black, Zimmerman was white (and, even worse, owned a gun). That's all the leftists need to know to conclude that Martin was the innocent victim. And yet, they consider themselves "free thinkers," and anyone who disagrees with them is "racist" and "prejudiced."
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:26 PM
I heard that Law & Order:SVU was planning an episode where a racist TV hostess shoots an innocent black kid and falsely claims self-defense. No wonder Zimmerman was acquitted. Paula Deen shot Trayvon Martin.
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:30 PM
To go on the 2nd Anon, yes, I heard about SVU going there in combining Deen and Martin. CI or the original Law & Order series at least would be a little more original and throw in an ideological curveball or two, but not SVU. Sighs.
As for Waid, I'm amazed the Sons of the Serpent aren't in every Marvel comic, as that's the only "acceptable" target for comic villainy, anymore, yet read anything of Hudlin's Black Panther, that's pretty black separatist to me.
And given how political and racial Marvel has become, they forgot about La Raza. Oh, wait, they didn't. Heh.
(Still, Alex P. Keaton? C'mon, Waid, you can be more obscure than that in your name references.)
Posted by
Killer Moth |
6:38 PM
afaik, Trayvon Martin never got into any serious trouble when his stepmother was raising him. When his father dumped her and took up with yet another woman, the kid was yanked out of the only home he had ever known and ended up getting dumped on his biological mother, who had not been involved in his life for fifteen years. It was then that he got involved with drugs, vandalism, and probably burglary. He punched someone and complained that the victim didn't bleed enough. He was negotiating to illegally buy a handgun. His mother threw him out of the house, and he ended up getting passed back to his father. On the night of the shooting, he was going through neighbors' yards and looking in windows, not "trying to get home to his father" (who was at a lodge meeting, not at home). Now the biological parents are celebrities and cashing in (the mother trademarked her son's name and is selling merchandise). They are petitioning for repeal of Stand Your Ground laws, which both the prosecution and defense said had nothing to do with the shooting. Meanwhile, the stepmother-the only person who actually tried to help the kid-was not even allowed to sit in the front row at the funeral. Instead of basking in the media limelight, Trayvon Martin's biological parents should be in jail for child neglect and for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:41 PM
USA Today did an editorial that said something like, "The case is controversial, but one fact is not debatable: if Zimmerman had not had a gun, Trayvon would still be alive." (Maybe, but then Zimmerman would be dead or in a coma.) I'm not so sure Martin would still be alive now; the path he was on could only lead one way. Most likely, he would have been killed in a drug deal that went bad, or he would have died from an overdose or from HIV or Hepatitis (the autopsy showed organ damage consistent with drug abuse). Anyway, we can look forward to USA Today's next editorial: "Thank goodness Delbert Belton and Fannie Gumbinger were not armed. Someone might have gotten hurt."
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:03 PM
"Does Mark Waid believe George Zimmerman is guilty and Trayvon Martin innocent?" Yes. After all, all African-Americans are saints and all Caucasians are Nazis. And all gun owners are trigger-happy nuts who thought that "Death Wish" was an instructional video. And anyone who says otherwise is a racist. Just as anyone who disagrees with Waid about anything is a racist.
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:10 PM
Good stuff here, post and comments. My thoughts on this are here.
Posted by
Hube |
6:13 AM
Waid's tweet (which you can see at Hube's link) perpetuates the myth that Zimmerman started the fight after disobeying a police officer's order not to follow Martin. The facts are available from several sources (e.g. the Ayoob blog), but facts are never allowed to interfere with Waid's rants.
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:45 AM
In Avengers #33 (1966), the Sons of the Serpent turned out to be agents provocateurs for Communist China or North Vietnam. In Iron Man 3, the Mandarin turned out to be a figurehead for the American Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If that's progress, I'd rather go back into my cave and draw pictures of mastodons on the walls.
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:37 AM
I think General Chen was an agent of China who was trying to create racial strife in America to make it easier for his country to conquer us.
And the Mandarin in Iron Man 3... ugh. Just the latest example of Hollywood turning Chinese and/or Arab villains into white American businessmen in order to avoid "offending" people.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:37 AM
And indeed, Killer Moth, Hudlin's Black Panther was anti-white propaganda and turned BP into a HUGE Mary Sue-type character as well.
And good point about La Raza, a group whose goal is to "take back" the Southwestern U.S. for Mexico because we "stole" it from them.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:39 AM
You guys ever see the Hudlin-based Black Panther cartoon? It was a lot like the earliest Marvel 'toons (basically panels with moving mouths and such) and was dramatically anti-white. I believe it only aired (briefly) in Australia.
Check it.
Posted by
Hube |
6:52 AM
Hube: I've seen those cartoons. They're pretty anti-white, a theme directly lifted from Hudlin's run of the story. I posted about it last October and got chastised by a commenter who hilariously claimed that it wasn't anti-white. The comment originally showed up in the spam folder and was never posted. I think it's still in the spam folder.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:46 AM
Are you sure Martin and/or Zimmerman didn't do these things just to get on the news for 20 seconds?
Posted by
Drag |
1:48 PM
Any rebuttals?
http://shawnsjames.blogspot.com/2012/04/george-zimmerman-is-sociopath.html
Posted by
Drag |
6:05 PM
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Posted by
Unknown |
3:12 AM