Justice League #34 may feature Islamic terrorists, but still does enough to dampen the topic
Now here's something where veteran Christopher Priest almost succeeds in offering bold subject matter within the pages of the current Justice League volume, but there's still elements in here that take away impact, and do a disfavor to Wonder Woman in the process. For example, let's take a look at the picture below:
So two jihadists are holding some hostages - mainly two Christian nuns - and Wonder Woman takes the task of finding her way inside to stop them. But the mistake made is that they make her sound naive, which has become a troubling cliche by now. She says, "Praying on the defenseless while espousing a 'godly' ideology is an egregious form of self-deception." Which sounds like the kind of propaganda you might hear bad European politicians mouthing off, or even the weak statements from Dubya that he believed al Qaeda "hijacked a great religion." To make matters worse, Diana even says she doubts the terrorists would carry out their threat. It makes little difference how you look at this from a modern perspective; making WW sound so naive, not confronting the issue with a proper awareness of the barbarism and suicide mentality jihadists can go by, only makes her look idiotic and not well educated or trained at all.
And then, another problem is that the book just had to include DC's most notable apologia creation, Simon Baz, the Muslim Green Lantern. On which note, I recently found the following screenshot on Twitter, and guess what kind of person's upholding the Baz character, seen at the beginning of the issue doing Islamic prayer on another planet while wearing an odd outfit that looks like an Egyptian mummy:
See the hashtag in the text? "Free Palestine"? Yep, that's the kind of people lauding Geoff Johns' badly crafted character. Anti-Israelists. And if Johns and company do nothing to distance themselves from such a bunch, that's one more reason why I see no reason to support this dismal excuse for a science fiction adventure.
Back on the story itself involving Diana's encounter with the jihadists, it ends with one of them getting hold of her sword and using it to stab one of the nuns to death after the police throw in some flash bombs, and Batman arrives too late to stop him either. I don't think WW couldn't accomplish the raid so incompetently, which, coupled with the naive view of the jihadists, is hugely disappointing. She may not be as fast as the Flash, but her speed is still good enough to bring down the terrorists without serious risk that they'd manage to claim an innocent's life.
The following description from the reviewing site of Batman doesn't sound any better:
This could've been a nifty story where the League would have to bring down some Islamic jihadists, but I think they've blown it all the same, because political correctness unsurprisingly dictated the writing.
Diversity and Comics had the following to say in this video:
He seems to understand what's wrong with this whole mess, and why the dialogue simply doesn't do the subject matter...justice. Not even for Wonder Woman and Batman.
And then, another problem is that the book just had to include DC's most notable apologia creation, Simon Baz, the Muslim Green Lantern. On which note, I recently found the following screenshot on Twitter, and guess what kind of person's upholding the Baz character, seen at the beginning of the issue doing Islamic prayer on another planet while wearing an odd outfit that looks like an Egyptian mummy:
Back on the story itself involving Diana's encounter with the jihadists, it ends with one of them getting hold of her sword and using it to stab one of the nuns to death after the police throw in some flash bombs, and Batman arrives too late to stop him either. I don't think WW couldn't accomplish the raid so incompetently, which, coupled with the naive view of the jihadists, is hugely disappointing. She may not be as fast as the Flash, but her speed is still good enough to bring down the terrorists without serious risk that they'd manage to claim an innocent's life.
The following description from the reviewing site of Batman doesn't sound any better:
But I’m not that interested in a series in which we have to watch Batman crying some man tears over his terrible situation. [...]If he's depicted as a sobber, that's another minus detracting from this whole story, which is apparently setting up "The people versus the Justice League". It may have been done before, but this is already becoming too much.
This could've been a nifty story where the League would have to bring down some Islamic jihadists, but I think they've blown it all the same, because political correctness unsurprisingly dictated the writing.
Diversity and Comics had the following to say in this video:
He seems to understand what's wrong with this whole mess, and why the dialogue simply doesn't do the subject matter...justice. Not even for Wonder Woman and Batman.
Labels: Batman, dc comics, Green Lantern, islam and jihad, Justice League of America, misogyny and racism, politics, terrorism, violence, Wonder Woman
