When Superman was made to shill for Saddam

An important reminder of one of DC's earlier anti-war propagations. Back in 2003, as Media Reseach Center's Brent Bozell discussed in one of his Town Hall columns, in JLA #83, they put out an absurd story turning Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman into puppets of the UN:

It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Comic-book superheroes have gone into the liberal political indoctrination business.

The September issue of the DC Comics book "Justice League of America," or "JLA," presents Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as U.N.-promoting paper dolls for a thinly disguised propaganda play against President Bush's war on Saddam Hussein.

The story begins with a "napalmetto" attack on home soil. President Lex Luthor -- how nice, a supervillain standing in for President Bush -- connects the terror attack to "Qurac" and says the "Joint Chiefs are recommending military pressure." Wonder Woman protests: "International law and the U.N. Charter forbid unprovoked action against a sovereign nation." She then lectures, "We cannot simply disregard international ethics to depose him ... what message does that send to the world?"

(Ten-year-old Johnny must be on the edge of his seat reading this, don't you think?)

Well not just 10-year-old Johnny. Even college age Johnny could be indoctrinated by this madness. By now, that's what I've been worrying, that adults are just as vulnerable as children. But that aside, they really took WW's role as an ambassador for Themyscira way too far. They make her sound like a UN-worshiping android who doesn't think for herself, and lets "diplomacy" get in the way of crimefighting. And by doing so, that's how they make her seem devoid of a personality.

The scene then changes to people mobbing a supermarket for olive oil because the "Department of Defense" insists it will help in a napalmetto attack. Clark Kent tries to reason with Lois Lane that "the connection to Qurac still isn't clear," but Lois replies, "Every White House official is talking about prevention." Then, Gotham police use a false alarm to shut down the subway system and obstruct peace marchers, and a cop clubs a protester in the face as he says, "It's not safe for ya to risk gettin' badly hurt to attend a lousy cowardice rally!"

Now that's certainly a one-dimensional attack on law enforcement. And Clark is made out to look ridiculous, by thinking that the connections between the local napalmetto attack and Qurac aren't clear, while Lois is presumably supposed to be wrong by buying into whatever the government alone says, because, in the POV of the writer at the time, Joe Kelly, the government isn't being honest. Is that it?

Superman then tells President Luthor that millions of people are protesting worldwide. "No one supports what you're doing," says Super Pollster.

"I hear them," says the evil president, "but I can't listen to them." When Superman says perhaps an attack could be delayed for more proof, the president retorts, "Where do you get off questioning me? ... It's unbecoming to question your president during times of international unrest." He says Batman and Wonder Woman were removed from the room because "they were confusing you with unpatriotic talk."

I think what really annoys me here is that Lex Luthor, if that's how they were going to use him at the time, simply didn't belong in the role of USA premier.

A subsequent picture has an enormous video image of a wide-mouthed president appearing ready to eat a shadowed Superman as he bellows, "America will bear the burden alone, if necessary."

And it's meant to sound wrong, that's the sad thing.

Superman vows, "I will know the truth, and I will not feel ashamed or be called un-American for demanding it."

But what about fighting against dictatorial regimes? Is it un-American to combat terrorist-supporting tyrants? That's something the writer apprarently didn't think of.

The storyline ends with the reader discovering it's all been a nightmare Superman's been having through a Martian therapeutic device. He recalls the dream with horror: "Luthor took the U.S. to war, despite our protests ... he killed everything we stand for." Superman laments being "paralyzed with indecision ... and the world paid the price." Superman shouldn't be so hard on himself. Being paralyzed by indecision is how the United Nations usually responds.

Indeed. And lest we forget, this is the same UN that was exposed as the crooks they were in the oil-for-food scandal a few years ago.

The thing that's really ironic about this is that earlier, Kelly wrote a story in which he seemed to be attacking Iraq, and Iran, in JLA #78-79, in a story in which he featured an alien warlord called the Peacemaker, and the villain's very "war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength" personality was impressive. So why in the later story did he go the opposite route? My guess is that he wanted to please both ends of the spectrum, but which really is a very clumsy way to go, because it only confuses people as to where he stands.

Here's an old interview with Kelly from the old Slush Factory website in which he talks about the politics of the stories he'd written at the time. The part that really appalls me is his response to the following question:

Elder: If we find WMDS in Iraq – and after we've already found the mass graves filled with dead children -- aren't you afraid that Superman may end up on the wrong side of history?

Kelly responds with this:

Kelly: (Again, the “if we find...” question...) No. I don't worry about that. The story was a reflection of what many people were thinking at the time, and I stand by it. If you look at the dialog, he says he'd support action, and he'd even fight, he just wants the truth...

But what for? To prove that there weren't any WMDs?!? I find Kelly's reply here very confusing, and it seems more like he's just trying to avoid the harder questions surrounding the Iraq war.

Rob Kirkman compares Rob Liefeld to Kirby? Please.

Robert Kirkman, who's made a name for himself writing various Marvel books, recently compared Rob Liefeld to Jack Kirby, of all people in Wizard, the tabloid magazine on the comics world (Hat tip: Bobb)

Honestly, I think that Kirkman's gone a wee bit too far into silliness. Liefeld is one of the most overrated writers I know of from the 80s, and Cable sure wasn't anything to crow over. He was taken off of the 2 of 4 Heroes Reborn titles after less than a year in 1997, and what was a big mistake then was soon fixed when it became Heroes Return. As an artist, Liefeld's work ranges from okay to really awful, such as the recent job he did on Teen Titans, in Gail Simone's two-part story last year. Just take a look at the covers for the issues, #27-28. The necks are so weirdly penciled in there, look like they're filled with fat. GAH! Hawk and Dove deserve better than that. And once, when he drew a picture of Captain America in the late 90s, he made Steve Rogers look like a balloon! Another problem with his artwork is that the facial expressions are stagnant. Even his work at Image, where he was one of the first contributors to work for them, was worthless.

And yet, he strangely manages to make the comeback that various other writers and artists don't (Roger Stern is one writer I'd like to see make a comeback, but they don't even seem to hire him now). It's almost as if the editors are trying to insult the readers' intellect deliberately, and for all I know, they probably are. It's a feeling I got when Marvel assigned Humberto Ramos to draw Spectacular Spider-Man a few years ago too.

But whether DC and Marvel's willingness to keep on hiring him is deliberate, they certainly won't be tempting me anytime soon, that's for sure.

These are the Freedom Fighters?

Almost overlooked this, but, here's a bit of something to tell just what kind of damage DC's done to Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters:

The government-sponsored Freedom Fighters finally confront Uncle Sam-- but after a good talking to, they swiftly change sides and turn against the corrupt government that brought them together. Yes, there is some veiled Bush-bashing here but the story seems so shallow, it hardly registers-- despite the obvious attempts by the creators to address larger issues.

"Larger" issues. Ho, I'll bet. And look at what their target is in this 2nd issue of this 8-part miniseries:

The big fight scene, with the Freedom Fighters attacking a government installation, fails to convey the sense of action that is suppose to be taking place.

Most likely because they were more concerned about attacking the government than in coming up with something that the audience would appreciate.

So it looks like the latest to suffer these inside-out turnarounds are the Freedom Fighters, to the point of where you don't know who or what they're fighting for. Instead of writing a story in which they search for and destroy a terrorist gang's base, it has to be a story wherein the US government is the guilty party that the writers come up with. I'm sorry, but this too is nothing more than another insult, and will not draw in the millions of potential buyers out there whom I thought the companies were hoping to appeal to.

Update: hmm, how interesting. From the following site, Comic Pants, while it's sadly a biased review, it does give a clue about where some of the ideas here for the negative attitude this book holds towards the US government and its policies came from:

...while the story is in many ways over-the-top, there are also a number of clever moments and intriguing characters in the first two issues of this series, not to mention some lines and concepts so fun and outrageous that the credit of “based on ideas and concepts developed by Grant Morrison” is hardly a surprise.

No indeed, it's not. After all, this is the same writer whom Marvel let use the X-Men as a personal playground for pacifism, and who attacked Frank Miller's upcoming Batman project with a bewildering response on Newsarama:

I'd rather Batman embodied the best that secular humanism has to offer - a sour-faced, sexually-repressed, humorless, uptight, angry, and all-round grim 'n' gritty Batman would be more likely to join the Taliban surely?

[...]

And while we're on that subject...Batman vs. Al Qaeda! It might as well be Bin Laden vs. King Kong! Or how about the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter! For all the good it's likely to do. Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. I'd be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the Army and, with a howl of undying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life and limb 'vs' Al Qaeda.

No kidding. If that's what you think, Mr. Morrison, then why don't you set a good example by joining the army yourself and blowing the al Qaeda into the depths of hell where they belong? A leftist statement like what Morrison made is pretty easy to critique; maybe next time, he'll think of a more challenging response?

But one sure thing: whether Batman is depicted as grim 'n gritty, the whole notion that he would join the enemy is insulting at best. And what's this about secular humanism? Is that saying that religion, depending on what belief it is that we're talking about, can't be useful or inspiring? Why does it specifically have to be a secular form of humanity? Please, you can do better than that, Mr. Morrison.

And that leads to some of the other parts that I highlighted. Just what exactly is Morrison trying to do when he talks about "bin Laden against King Kong or Hannibal the Cannibal"? Is he trying to compare Batman to the terrorists? Is he insulting the Masked Manhunter? Ugh, I don't want to have to think about it.

Notice also that the VS abbreviation at the end of the paragraph was printed in quotations, even if they're singular ones. Uh oh, is Morrison implying that the US army is fighting nothing? Or that the al Qaeda doesn't exist? Or both? I don't know, but I do think he's just shown why I won't be spending any money on his current Batman stories.

Open trackbacks: The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, Is it Just Me, Mark My Words, NIF.

I've made my decision

I've read the synopsis for the All-New Atom #4, and can safely say that it will NOT be finding it's way into my house, neither in pamphlet issues nor in trades (I tend to buy the latter formatting much more these days). It doesn't get any more aggravating than this:

We shift back to Dean Maryland’s palatial estate. Dean Maryland tells the Atom that he knows he is actually Ryan Choi. Dean Maryland tells Ryan how Ivy has transformed. It has mutated. Each neighborhood has its own special psychosis. One believes they live in the Old West of the 1850’s, another are still attempting to burn witches and another where the people only speak in a series of barks and whines.

Dean Maryland then reveals that Ray Palmer caused all of this to happen. Ray didn’t do it intentionally, but Ivy is now a nexus for the bizarre and nonsensical and these forces have made Ivy a battlefield. Ryan says that he will use his powers as the Atom to protect Ivy. Dean Maryland tells Ryan that being the Atom cost Ray to loves of his life: Laethwen and Jean Loring. Laethwen and her people were killed and Jean became a murderer. Dean Maryland tells Ryan that he would rather see him alive than die as a hero. Suddenly, Ryan’s father walks into the room. Ryan’s father tells Ryan to pack his things. That he is here to take Ryan home. We then see Dwarfstar outside the house watching this entire scene through a window. End of issue.

And end of any chance that this'll ever find its way into my house. Granted, it's not like they've written Sword of the Atom and the Katarthan princess Laethwen out existence, but they've still stuck with Identity Crisis elements such as Jean being a crazed psycho. And they cannot make up excuses here like "Ray didn't do it intentionally", that's still character assassination, pure and simple, and a perfect excuse to try and not use Ray as a protagonist ever again. And if that's all they can do, and just go along and ruin Ray Palmer's character some more, then not only have they made me more of a Ray Palmer/Jean Loring fan than ever, but, any chances that I'd be willing to buy this new Atom series are now in the dustbin, permanently.

I'm also powerfully disappointed in Gail Simone. I shouldn't be? Actually, this could've been written by Roger Stern, who wrote Power of the Atom years ago, and it would still have stunk. I'll certainly have to attribute some blame to the overrated Grant Morrison, as he was the one who wrote the basic premise that Simone worked upon.

Zatanna: without a real purpose

I looked up about the premise of Catwoman #58, which has Zatanna in a guest appearance, but is that great news? They sure know how to take out all the excitement that could've been had in a story with her. This review sums up the current problem:

I'm really, really tired of her every appearance being about the mindwiping. It's not the only thing she's ever done, people. She's turning into a DC deus ex machina with extra angst for flavour, and I don't think it does her justice.

Of course it doesn't. If they're going to do little more than make any appearance of hers an excuse for bludgeoning the whole premise that began with Identity Crisis over the head of the readers, then they're not developing her as a character, and making her less appreciable or admirable. If this sets the tone for any further appearances Zee makes, then it's coming close to character assassination, and only adds to the gloomy and negative tone DC's been setting.

And Zee and the JLA did nothing wrong by punishing Dr. Light*. He comitted a crime, he started it, and he requires a sound punishment for what he did. That's not saying that I want the crime of rape Dr. Light pulled in IC to be part of his canon, but if this had been done believably, they would've told the audience clearly that he'd committed a criminal act.

The Savage Critic isn't pleased either.

* The problem of course is that the way the punishment was meted out was so silly, it took away any seriousness from the subject even there. If Zee and the JLA were really serious about punishing him, they would've done something like what Clark Kent had Lana Lang do in Superman's Lost Hearts storyline: handed Sue Dibny a steel pipe and told her to break his legs with it.

Blogging tip: A way to locate pictures uploaded even without the HTML codes turning up

For anyone who has troubles in getting pictures uploaded to Blogger correctly, and has to keep trying several times before succeeding, I found a way to get around the problem, if not entirely.

If you've uploaded a picture to your Blogger account, but it fails to show up in the enlargening code within the text field, here's what to do: each account on Blogger, from what I can tell, has its own internet address (the photos-dot-blogger thingie) which, if you've already been able to upload a picture, you can take part of the URL, paste it onto the text field, type in the filename you uploaded the failed picture under complete with the extension (dot-JPG/GIF/PNG). Then, type in the IMG with SRC code plus brackets that's used to display pictures with, switch the field to "compose" and then, see if your picture loads. If it does, this means that your pictures are actually uploaded to your Blogger account after all! For example:

Here is a picture of Pepper Potts I tried to upload. As luck would have it, this particular attempt did not succeed in getting uploaded with a frameset to accompany it. But, as I discovered, it was there. All I had to do was to type in the filename under which I uploaded it right after the URL that comes with my database, plus the extension, and voila! It's there.

The upside: thus, you'll be able to post your pictures to the web despite the failure of the uploading options to present the picture with the HTML code surrounding it.

The downside: even if you try to say, copy the code featured around another picture and apply it to the one you've currently uploaded, it may not work, at least not the ones that are aligned to the left and right. That's a quirk about the options that so far, I can't seem to get around. If there's any substitute code that does work, I have yet to find it.

But at least your pictures will still be uploaded to the database, and you'll be able to publish them online. It's the enlargening code that's still a major challenge.

A babbling buffoon

Last year, A. Dave Lewis, who's a contributor to Broken Frontier and may be a comics writer in some capacity himself, wrote two columns in which he attacked Michael Medved and Michael Lackner's critique of Marvel's destruction of Captain America in 2003. Lewis wrote a pretty leftist rant, and what really surprises me was that anyone of his standing could still have cared by 2005, when here, the Marvel Knights series had already been stopped due to the flopping sales caused in part by the swing to anti-Americanism, and Cap had been restored to the regular MCU, though as Civil War now proves, it sadly wasn't that long before Marvel boomeranged back on the Chomskyism again. Meanwhile, let us dissect the first column Lewis wrote for starters: first, here's Lewis's response to the part where Medved and Lackner wrote that the Defense Dept. (Pentagon) must face international terrorism, “without the aid of a celebrated hero of past victories – comics figure Captain America.” Lewis says:

That is an extraordinary statement: That our real-world DOD must contend in the modern era without the renowned Marvel Comics character as an asset.

...look again at the opening line – because it is a subtle, yet remarkable admission. The modern U.S.Government must fight “without the aid” of Captain America.

Can a fictional character truly have such importance? Perhaps so – perhaps enough, at least, to serve as cautionary tale for what the authors of this “Betrayal of Captain America” document believe to be a much larger issue: “the deep cultural malaise afflicting our nation in the midst of a significant war” that one “might expect […] from Hollywood activists, academic apologists, or the angry protesters who regularly fill the streets of European capitals (and many major American cities).” But this stance is not expected from superhero comics – not, at least, by the FDD nor, most likely, by much of middle America.

Oh really, is that so, Mr. Lewis? Tsk tsk tsk. First, Lewis's reaction there reminds me of one made by another moonbat, who took the part about having to fight terror without the aid of Capt. America literally. May I point out that the beginning bit was not meant to be taken seriously? The rest of the article is, though. Secondly, just who is Lewis to determine that nobody expects Captain America to do his part in battling terrorism in the fictional world of comic books? And who is he to determine that nobody would appreciate it? Or applaud it? Please, this man needs to learn more about respecting public opinion by looking at the polls.

For it remains the comic book industry’s legacy to be viewed as juvenile literature, “aimed largely at children and teenagers,” despite any wealth of demographic information and coverage to the contrary. For certain, the major publishers such as Marvel and DC Comics are struggling to regain and expand their consumer base with an influx of younger readers – all to only limited results, such as Teen Titans Go! or the latest all-ages Marvel Heroes fare. Regardless, few outside parties will debate that it is America’s youth, many “of age to serve in the Armed Forces,” that are “precisely [the] demographic group that is targeted by the comic book industry.” The majority of America still would not blink an eye at that statement, unfortunately.

Sadly, it will remain the legacy of comics to be viewed as juvenile literature, so long as they stick to anti-Americanism and gratuitous violence as a means of making sales. Most insulting is how Lewis confusingly uses the low turnout of the kiddies at the stores as a defense for Marvel's publishing this abomination, ditto the quote about the ones old enough to serve in the army while simultaneously ignoring the fact that they too can fall prey to indoctrination. And whether or not the majority of America would blink an eye, that doesn't mean there isn't a sizable number out there who wouldn't find the MK rendition offensive. Alas, Lewis would rather determine than to say more clearly what he personally thinks.

Lewis then seems to exonerate the book's scriptwriters by implying that it's the good Captain who's at fault in this confusingly written paragraph:

As such, in Werthamic fashion, this is Captain America’s perceived power lies: He is betraying us by misleading the next generation of Americans.

Whoa, not so fast! Since when was a fictional character the guilty party? Isn't it the writers and the editors who're responsible for the character's actions? And this is the one who scoffed at the earlier part about the Pentagon having to go to war without the good Captain!

The actual target audience of Captain America comics is debatable, and the character’s “aid” in past wars is likewise questionable. In fact, Captain America’s post-World War II Commie-bashing exploits were retconned away as those of a stand-in hero when the “original” Captain America, Steve Rogers, was awoken from suspended animation in the modern day. Further, he had very little active participation in the Vietnam War, largely staying on the homefront and, in fact, briefly abandoning the Captain America identity for “the Nomad” when strikingly confronted by government corruption in the wake of Watergate.

Sounds like Lewis is blurring things up yet again. He seems to be trying to say - very confusingly too - that it's only Steve Rogers' goal and nobody else's. Or, he's trying to separate between man and costume and say that it's just the COSTUME'S goal! LOL. Man, just how bizarre can these moonbats get?

At the time this was written, Lewis even linked to a page from Wikipedia, which is unreliable as an online encyclopedia because anyone, good or bad, can go in there and edit what's available, that said:

In the 1980s, a similar story was written by Mark Gruenwald when Rogers chose to resign his identity rather than submit to the orders of the United States government and took the alias of "The Captain" instead. This extended story arc was intended to illustrate the difference of Captain America's beliefs from his replacement who was intended to illustrate the jingoistic attitude that the popular movie character Rambo embodied and which Rogers did not share.

Uh oh, UH OH. Sounds like an anti-war activist must've snuck in there and made quite a mess out of poor Steve Rogers' beliefs (and Lewis took it all at face value). Since when was Captain America literally the pacifist that this Wiki propaganda implies? (As of this writing, it seems to have been edited again.) It all depends on who's writing, but if Steve Rogers were really a pacifist and opposed to "jingoism", I find it hard to believe that he'd ever have fought in WW2. Lesson number one there, everyone, don't rely on Wikipedia, because what you write there one day will be drastically altered the next!

For the most part, Rogers has since come to accept the corrupt officials as part of his modern existence, though by no means the widespread rule that “The Betrayal of Captain America” might suggest. “Senior U.S. officials, including members of the Cabinet, are portrayed as arrogant and hostile villains,” rather than discrete individuals. In particular, the FDD specifically notes U.S. Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk “with the same initials as Donald Rumsfeld” as a “government official[…] revealed to be a vicious, lawless thug.” After the publication of this white paper, however, Rusk was revealed to be the arch-villain the Red Skull, an anagram of his alias, undermining Captain America, his teammates, and America from the inside.

First, just because it turned out to be the Red Skull doesn't mean the character from the Avengers storyline spoken about from 2002 wasn't an attack on Rumsfeld. Second, what Lewis forgot to mention is that, at the same time that Red Skull was unmasked, he mouthed off most bizarrely by saying, "I love America." Believe it or not, there is something very unpleasantly cynical in that line, because, while the Skull does want to conquer the country, he still hates America and the values it's meant to stand for. I feel awful about this next part, but, Lewis also didn't mention that the Skull either tries - or does - salute the flag, and whether it was intended as an insult to the Old Glory or an analogy of Americans to nazis, the scene was in grossly poor taste. The Skull later tries to say that Black Panther came up with the poison chemicals the Skull was using against tourists at Mt. Rushmore, and while it may have just been the Skull lying to try to gain some advantage by turning hero against hero (I didn't stick around to find out how exactly it ends), that too was enraging. That Geoff Johns, who wrote the story, went and shilled for Marvel's Truth mini at about the same time as he wrote his own story, didn't help matters.

At the end of Lewis' column, he asks:

...is there an obligation on the part of Marvel Comics and its creative teams to handle him differently during “the War on Terror?” In fact, is there a mandate to do so or, worse, a benefit?

Well, he's lost me there. Does that imply that he didn't want a mandate or a benefit? I don't know, he's just too hazy with this one. And it doesn't get any better with the followup he wrote the next month, in which he goes along and thanks at least two other apologists for railing against Medved's right to free speech two years earlier. One of those two is leftist Steven Grant, and the other is a guy by the name of Scott Slemmons, whom I never really heard of, but whom I do think I'll dissect later on. Until then, Lewis continued to babble, more so than the title of his column:

In the previous column, I took a wide approach focusing on the bizarre, metaphysical responsibility or use a fictional character has to a real-life crisis. This time, however, armed with Grant and Slemmons, it’s worth grounding the discussion in Medved’s argument itself, putting aside that more abstract argument and frankly asking: What are the charges against Captain America?

Hello, earth to A. Dave Lewis! Isn't that "what are the charges against the writers/editors?" Poor Lewis sure knows how to turn the whole argument inside out! He really seems to want to believe that, no matter what Medved and Lackner have to say, that they pointed an accusing finger at Steve Rogers or whoever else wore the costume, and not the scriptwriters. Yeesh, this dude Lewis sure needs help. And please, don't you go around arming yourself with just leftists alone. What you need is a good ice cream cone!

To take issue with Cap’s status as a “popular symbol of nationalism” cycles back, to a degree, to last month’s discussion; he is a trademarked character of a private company, not the American bald eagle or Uncle Sam (who has been himself the subject of numerous comics, actually). But, putting that aspect of Medved’s objections aside, a more concrete – or perhaps more rhetorical – question comes to the fore: How do objections 1-7 add up to conclusion 8?

Is that supposed to mean that Cap was never a popular symbol of nationalism, not even back in the 40s, when he first began? Boy, Lewis sure doesn't sound like he approves of what people like me think, that's for sure! And, he can only think to take the company's side, not the audience's, nor does he have the courage to admit it.

Even if all of Medved’s suppositions are correct, does this truly transform Cap into “a handy bludgeon for America-bashing,” a “politically biased assessment of the war on terrorism,” a “bizarre abuse” of the legendary hero? No. If these indictments are at all true, it only changes Cap from an icon to a character – a man just as he was found in Avengers #4, out of synch with the present and struggling to understand both his place and his views on modernity.

Sigh. Poor Lewis. He continues to be as unwilling to accept the facts as ever, and worst of all, he seems to consider Cap's patriotic stance a robotic one at that. And if that's what he considers Cap as a character, I can only wonder what his standing is on only so many other MCU characters as well.

I think the following should pretty much spell out just how much Lewis needs to get back in touch with reality:

Medved equates the current W.o.T. or S.a.E. to the grandfather of all inspiring American military acronyms: WWII. “Captain America,” says his opening paragraph, “the patriotic superhero whose comic book exploits inspired the nation in World War II, now feels uncertain about his nation’s cause.” Truth be told, Medved might not be wrong here; what is erroneous – or, rather, cunningly disingenuous – is the suggestion that Cap’s role is not only to support America faithfully as he did in the 1940s, but to never cease doing so. To question America-now is to question America-then. Thus, when Cap sees modern terrorist bombings and relates them to Dresden in his mind – “History repeats itself li[k]e a machine gun,” reads the caption – Medved implies that this is a desecration of both 9/11 and WWII. He rules out the possibility that, perhaps, destruction is just destruction to the war-weary Captain America, regardless of in whose nation it takes place.

Dear dear dear. Did it ever occur to Lewis that this is exactly what he did when he wrote this slop? Put another way, he questioned using Cap to fight any war past/present. And, he implies that the WoT, in contrast to WW2, is unimportant.

And while Steve Rogers should be more than just a yes-man for the government, and recognize when there's corruption abound, that doesn't mean he should stop supporting America at any time. Because it's not really the government he's serving, but the citizenry. If it weren't for him, there'd probably be a much worse crime situation on the streets of America, and a lot of the murders, robberies and organized crime syndicates he's foiled over the years, ditto all the deadly plots masterminded by Cold War villains and supervillains, would've gone unchallenged and resulted in disaster. But Lewis, in all the arrogance he showed when he wrote this piece, doesn't make the distinction between government and citizenry. Here too, his assertions are so bewildering that it's a wonder he's even working in comic books.

And as for the part about the desecration of 9-11 and WW2, to be more clear, it's a desecration of the memory of the victims of the nazis and al Qaeda both in the 1940s and in 2001. It's also a desecration of the memory of the brave soldiers fighting against evil both then and now. Unfortunately, Lewis, in all his arrogance still, doesn't seem to realize that, nor that he's being insulting himself. Then, when commenting on Medved's discussion about the moral equivalence in the MK book, Lewis comes up with a bizarre moral equation of his own: when Medved asks why blur the differences between America and nazi Germany, Lewis responds:

To point out that both sides kill, both sides lost lives, and neither side left the field of war unbloodied.

I think this ghastly blurring of good and evil by Lewis speaks for itself. Then, our baffling columnist asks:

Does Medved have a problem with Cap or a problem with reexaminations of World War II?

Mirror check, please. Howzabout you, Mr. Lewis? Oh, and who's side are you on, by the way?

The war is not only “different now,” but so is the public’s awareness of world politics and military history.

Yep, thanks to the internet, but not to you, Lewis.

Even if Cap were written as a pro-war, staunch conservative federalist – certainly, as legitimate a way to write him as any – the problem would still be in his strict adherence to approved standards. At one moment in the paper, Medved chides Cap for not arguing more strongly against the (poorly written) terrorist leader Faysal Al-Tariq – while he’s violently pounding him. Then, later, when he does reply to accusations leveled at America, he “meekly admits” according to Medved that “We’ve changed. We’ve learned.” There seems only one, precise route for patriotism acceptable to the critic, and Cap is not following it. Perhaps it is so precise that he cannot follow it.

*AHEM* Medved did NOT chide Cap, he chided the writer for characterizing Cap as a man who sends out two different messages laced with moral equivalence. And what approved standards are we talking about here? That aside, what Medved was put off about this book for was that Cap was depicted "admitting" to things that America either isn't guilty of, or that are hugely exaggerated, such as that the US is actually responsible for the terrorist's being victimized by supplying weapons to their "enemies". And that, worst of all, Cap actually buys into the terrorist's sob story.

Then, Lewis does a separator trick:

The only true threat to Captain America, the property of Marvel Comics, is lack of sales, not lack of morality.

Correction: without good morality, there will be no sales, and nobody with common sense will pay for this mess, and didn't.

Then, Lewis says:

...it cheapens Captain America as a rich protagonist to have to sell the company line with the War on Terrorism; he’s bigger than that. Or, perhaps, simply as Steve Rogers, he’s much, much smaller...

A double-bladed insult if there ever was one. If it cheapens Cap to sell with the WoT, then it cheapens him by selling him even with WW2, the war against Communism, and even the war on drugs. And to imply that Steve Rogers out of costume is too small to do his part in the fight against terror, or other evils! Shudder.

Lewis can say what he likes, but to separate as he does between the war on terrorism and the war on other evils devouring the planet is not only foolish and removed from reality, it's offensive. And, it proves him no genuine comic book fan.

Open trackbacks: Blue Star Chronicles, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Clash of Civilizations, Random Yak, Third World County.

Diversity = exploitation

Everyone be forewarned that the next time you hear a comics company say that they're going to "diversify" their universe, what they really mean is that they're going to go the exploitation route with gays and lesbians in comics. In Outsiders #41 vol. 2, written by the overrated Judd Winick, he turns two characters that he himself created for this series, Grace Choi and Anissa Pierce (Thunder), into lesbians. Rokk's Comic Book Revolution says:

...this is kind of a lame move by DC to claim they are trying to make the DCU more “diverse.” DC wants to pump up the number of gay characters to try and make their universe more “diverse.”

Or, put another way, something akin to multiculturalism, already fast becoming a negative word in some circles. It's so insulting by now that it's not even funny.

In contrast to DC's publicity stunt with Batwoman, they don't seem to have done the same here. But that doesn't make it any better, and I can see nothing of educational value here either.

Winick may have come up with Choi and Thunder himself as cast members for this series, but if there wasn't any indication before that they were ever lesbians before, then his actions are contrived, doing something not because it's consistent with past characterization (assuming any exists in this series, knowing how some people have written it off as weak), but rather, because it suits his own biased stances. It reeks of poor fanfic writing and is so insulting by now that it's not even funny. And it's downright filthy. And worst is that Winick, of all the "hot" writers at DC, has been one of the most successful in getting away with it.

Worst of all is the possibility that, if minor characters could be exploited for this kind of marketing that aims mainly for the juvenile male mind, then major characters could be next in line. It's uncalled for, and supplants creativity with exploitation.

In Minneapolis, some mothers are protesting a similar case involving a "diversity curriculum" (H/T: Joanne Jacobs). Readers who want real storytelling that's not smutty (to say nothing of exploiting women) should do the same by protesting to DC.

I have zero interest in Winick's work, and I'm not wasting my time on his Outsiders either. There have been people who've dropped it in the past three years of its running, and this only warrents a further bailing out. Winick, IMO, is further proof of why the "hot" writers trend needs to cease, ditto series that are just launched as playthings for said writers.

And to all those who'll apologize for this smut being produced - you can think and say what you will, but just so that you know, this is exactly why comics are floundering now, just like Hollywood box office. It's why they may never again find a wider audience, because all these themes that aren't appropriate for children or even family audiences are keeping them away, once they realize that something's wrong. It doesn't just make series like Outsiders an adults only title, it rubs off on the reputation of even whatever titles do still exist that are appropriate for the younger crowd ("Johnny DC", in example). When DC and Marvel go the dirty route, it can only lead to a bad reputation that affects even the better stuff they have. So think what you will, but, I'd think it better to say clearly that this is exactly what comics need to be moving away from, if they're to get any better.

Update: hmm, this review of Outsiders #41 from Major Spoilers has something interesting about Brian Bendis. They say he's got a

recurring tendency to have his female characters end up naked/in a subservient position

Good that I never cared for Bendis' work. He's clearly another overrated writer, and it's a shame that he's number one on the charts virtually every month.

Jack London gets told in graphic novel format

Here's a newsletter I got from Graphic Classics, that announces the company's adaptation of some of Jack London's stories in comic format:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mount Horeb, WI
October 13, 2006

TALES OF ADVENTURE, HORROR & SCIENCE FICTION

Eureka Productions is pleased to announce the publication of the revised second edition of GRAPHIC CLASSICS: JACK LONDON, the fifth volume in the GRAPHIC CLASSICS series of comics adaptations of great literature.

GRAPHIC CLASSICS: JACK LONDON is completely revised, with more than fifty pages of new material. New to this edition are adaptations of "The Red One" illustrated by Mark A. Nelson and "The Wit of Porportuk" by Filipino artist Arnold Arre. Plus a new comics adaptation of "To Kill a Man" by Greek illustrator Kostas Aronis, and a completely redrawn "That Spot" by England's Nick Miller. Returning from the previous edition are "A Thousand Deaths" by J.B. Bonivert, "Jan, the Unrepentant" by Hunt Emerson and six more thrilling stories. With a dramatic new cover by Jim Nelson.

GRAPHIC CLASSICS: JACK LONDON is available in bookstores, comics shops, or direct from the publisher at
http://www.graphicclassics.com.
______________________

GRAPHIC CLASSICS: JACK LONDON
Edited by Tom Pomplun
Published October 2006, Eureka Productions
Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors
(ISBN13/978-0-9746648-8-0) (ISBN-10/0-9746648-8-X)
144 pgs, 7 x 10", paperback, b&w, 4c cover, $11.95

Well now, that's nice. It's been years since I read such classics of London's as The Call of the Wild, which my dad may still have in his book collection, but this could certainly be interesting.

Having error in comments

It's probably just a minor glitch, but the Haloscan comments aren't showing. I'll see if I can check with support to see what happened.

Update: looks like I was just worried about nothing, they're back and displaying correctly again. Three cheers for Haloscan! Hooray!

Has DC already crossed the line?

If there's any parents reading this, I gotta ask: would you buy your child a toy action figure based on a character who committed a rape?

Of all the marketing I've seen being done for toys, this has surely got to be the worst, most dishonest, and most incredibly immoral of all: toy action figures based on Identity Crisis, and, specifically, one that's based on a villain who committed a violent rape in the miniseries, Dr. Light, and whose crime, worst of all, was trivialized. The incredulous idea for a toy action figure to sell to children can be seen here below:
I first saw this horrific toy line two months ago at the Tel Aviv comics convention. It was while I was in the middle of buying a TPB of Gerry Conway and Paul Levitz's All-Star Comics revival from 1976 and a couple of Avengers back issues. I felt awful standing near the several toy action figures that were piled near the cash register. I hope nobody bought them, but there's no way to be sure nobody did.

These toys may not be new; they seem to have been around for a year and a half. I don't know how to say this, but with this toy product, DC Comics and the company that put this together may have crossed the line. Just how many parents who don't have any idea what goes on in Identity Crisis could've bought the Dr. Light action figure for their children, I wonder? And just how many toy stores put in on display? It could be tons. If you're a parent out there with children whom you'd like to buy comic book toys for: please, DO NOT buy the line of action figures based on Identity Crisis. To buy them is an insult not just to rape victims and battered women, but to family groups as well.

This is another reason why I've argued a few times that comic books need serious debate on television, and that means SERIOUS debate, of course. They're practically getting away with sleaze, and there aren't enough people out there who care enough to discuss this in the national media. Something that's got to be changed, and soon!

Maybe Ant-Man is irredeemable...

But that doesn't mean they had to say so in the title of this new series that's come out. And yet, they did it.

Here's the problem: it sounds almost like a satire, which really doesn't suit the past history of Ant-Man and the Wasp when you take into consideration Hank's assault on her in 1981.

Nevertheless, why do I get the idea that I'd be more interested in reading this than the All-New Atom over at DC?

Here's a review from Rokk's Comic Book Revelution of the first issue. So far, it looks like there may not be any ant-army featured. That's something that the writers of the Avengers downplayed ever since the 1980s, if not discarded altogether.

Will DC's OYL backfire on them?

I looked at this rundown of one of the DC sales charts on The Beat blog, and some, if not all, of the results in sales lead me to wonder if it's possible that all the changes made in the wake of One Year Later will eventually wear thin. Or, put another way, it does look like some of the more needless steps are beginning to backfire. For example, as they say about the Flash:

Sales are leveling out, remaining 30,000 units ahead of the previous Flash series.

Yep, after an almost auspicious start for this third volume, they began to go down steadily. Some audience members have said that, with the moving of Bart Allen to the role of the main speedster, which is very rushed (first he's a new Kid Flash in Teen Titans, then just 3 years afterwards, he's the main man? Too quick, I'm afraid), they've made even less appealing than when he was Impulse. In fact, when I found that in the 3rd or 4th issue, one of the villains uses the female B-word describing him (it's supposed to be slang for "irritating"), I could only sit there amazed at how um...colorful the language has gotten. One more reason why TV writers just aren't suited to deal with this kind of stuff.

On Wonder Woman, with Donna Troy in the lead:

Similar to Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in July, the second issue of Allan Heinberg and Terry Dodson’s Wonder Woman relaunch takes a nose-dive, ending up more than a third below the debut issue’s sales. It’s a very harsh drop, even accounting for the variant cover edition of issue #1.

Of course, sales are still ahead of the previous volume’s by a comfortable 40K.

Even so, there's a potential reason why this too has taken a dive for now: Heinberg, who's Hollywood material, has been balancing his time between this and his Tinseltown job, which does seem to have hurt sales. But there's also the question of if readers are really that willing to accept Donna in Diana's role, and the fact that the notable cast members like Prof. Kapatelis and her daughter Vanessa are being all but dropped.

An interesting aside, I might add that I discovered that Heinberg won't be on the book long, and after 6 issues will be replaced by another writer whom I'll try to find out about later.

On the Outsiders:

The numbers keep declining. Given that Outsiders has been one of DC’s most solid performers since its launch, they’ve got to be worried by the fact that it’s shredded 5,000 units in the last three months.

The thing that was really appalling was that the only reason why it did as well as it did in the past 3 years was because of Judd Winick, one of DC's own "hot writers". Like at Marvel, DC too needs to cut it out with selling a book solely because of the writer assigned and change to doing it according to how well written the story is, which is certainly possible to do.

On Nightwing:

The decline is accelerating. Of course, Nightwing sales are still about 5K ahead of the book’s pre-”One Year Later” numbers and a new creative team is set to take over with issue #125, so there’s no immediate reason to be worried here.

Marv Wolfman is already here, and I'm going to try and look around to see if anyone declares this an improvement over the mess it became when Dixon was shafted.

On the All-New Atom:

This isn’t a disastrous second-issue drop for an ongoing title, but it’s not particularly encouraging, either. Artist John Byrne’s departure after #3 probably won’t help matters much.

I can't say I'm that surprised, partly due to the fact that they intro'd a new Atom at the expense of Silver Age Ray Palmer, tarnishing his background and that of Jean Loring, to say nothing of soiling a lot of what made the Silver Age the great day it was to begin with. Of course, the whole idea of having Giganta running around naked in All-New Atom, when in Wonder Woman #2 by contrast she's far from baring everything, probably didn't endear that many people to this series so far.

On Robin, and this too is something important worth noting:

The numbers are leveling out again, remaining at a perfectly acceptable level in the wake of the “One Year Later” gimmick.

Yes, I do know that the sales have been dropping lately, and it would come as no surprise if it had what to do with DC's ruining Cassie Cain and slaying of Spoiler two years ago. The title's been in freefall storywise for quite awhile now, and does not seem to be recovering that easily.

On Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters:

Another title spinning out of “Infinite Crisis” and promoted in DCU: Brave New World which displays a less than enthusiastic second-issue drop.

On Chuck Dixon's board, they panned it, because it's apparently got some anti-patriotic slant to it. I don't know if that's what leads to this drop in sales, but I do know that, if there's any Chomskyism in this one, I won't be there.

On the Checkmate series:

Yet another post-”Infinite Crisis” title rapidly disappearing off the radar without any sign of sales bottoming out.

Of course, there's also the problem with it being too much of a title featuring superheroes, supervillains, and other characters well within that range, certainly more so than the New Format series seen in 1988. That's the problem with some of the most recent items - that they're too entrenched in the superhero genre to really work, whereas the Secret Six, when it appeared in Action Comics Weekly, was far from being that way and was more self-contained. And that's why for me, when I read it in ACW, it worked.

On Hawkgirl, and this actually saddens me:

Sales are now below pre-”One Year Later” levels. Evidently, the book’s revamp isn’t going over well with the audience.

Admittedly, I'm not happy, yet I can understand why it may have ended up like this.

On Jonah Hex:

Sales keep declining.

And Dan DiDio was highly supportive of this guy, wasn't he? Could be a good way for DC fans to tell DiDio what they think of what he and the staff did this past year!
On Firestorm, which I still can't seem to find any trades of:

Briskly declining. A new creative team is set to take over next year. Apart from Manhunter, which is still around because it’s been granted a reprieve, this is now the lowest-selling DC Universe title which hasn’t been canceled yet.

Putting in a totally new character the way they did and sending Ronnie Raymond off in defeat (at the hands of Shadow Thief, no less), may have eventually doomed it.

And, on a few more notes, Manhunter may have one more story line to go, but it's getting so low that I wouldn't be surprised if it gets cancelled soon. Swamp Thing was axed, and the revival of The Warlord has been too. It does not look like DC's publicity stunts are holding up as well as they thought.

But if things are to be repaired for any characters who were slighted over the past two years, fan action will still be needed. And that's why it's good to have the blogosphere around as one of the ways to try and help out.

Open trackbacks: Mark My Words, Outside the Beltway, Pirate's Cove.

Censorship and commercialization

I recalled seeing this entry on Groovy Age of Horror last month (via Precocious Curmudgeon), a blog that writes about the horror-thriller genre, that shows that Marvel still cannot resist getting into a controversy even within an adult vein. The focus point here is the Tomb of Dracula comics, which have had the nudity in them (the Essential compilations) censored, yet the bloodletting remains undisturbed (surprise surprise).

To make some points of my own, while it's a shame that, as one commentor at the above said, Tomb of Dracula was being sold with no age restrictions back in the day, it's also a shame that Marvel still has to screw up and do with this what they didn't have to. Consider: they have the MAX line, they could surely market the collections under that label, even if they are Essentials. DC, after all, markets some of their books that were originally under the main label in Vertigo format today, such as Swamp Thing. If it works for DC, why couldn't it work for Marvel?

That aside, this made me think of writing about a problem that's come up in the past decade:

As early as 1991, possibly due to the Batman movies, comic books - at Marvel and especially at DC, began to undergo increasing commercialization, more so than in any other decade, which is ironic for a medium that's since become marginalized. And this, I fear, may have partly been to blame for the dumbing down of comic books that's become prevalent today. Green Arrow became more of a mainstream DC title again, and even if it still did deal with human interest stories, the main fact is that it didn't have the really edgy focus that it did during the first five years. Crossover-mania is also a leading factor in the over-commercialization of comics, and in order to avoid being caught up in X-overs, series like Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol and Animal Man had to be in the Vertigo line instead (since then, two out of three of those titles or characters have found their way back into the main DCU again).

This, sadly, is one of the things that led to some of the violence-yes-but-nudity-no approach as well. Put another way, nudity is still rightly or wrongly seen as non-mainstream, whereas violence still is. It's not like there isn't any nudity in comic books, of course there's some here and there, done in both good and bad taste. And yet, is it any wonder that comics, just like the movies, have ended up in a situation where they're too adult for kids yet too juvenile for grownups?

Unless publishers are able to decide where they stand and how to market a book, the dumbing-down process will continue unperturbed.

Marvel's Tomb of Dracula Essentials are decidedly not worth the bother, because what's the point of something that thinks stabbing is okay but nudity isn't? Avoid them and you'll hopefully send a message to Quesada that even this isn't acceptable.

A few years ago, Marvel was overdoing it with violence, such as in Wolverine's series, at least until DC decided to steal the spotlight. Given that even now, there could be more than enough gratuitous violence going around, that's one more reason why the steps with Tomb of Dracula are ridiculous.

Sock puppeteering - worse than trolling

It occurs to me that some people cannot seem to maintain an argument or response to something without resorting to pointless attacks on their rival, and some seem to be so obsessed with being a nuisance that, even after being reprimanded, they go to such lengths as to pretend they're someone they aren't.

Such is the case with the commentor on my blog whose screen name was "Jeff Albertson" which he apparently took from the Simpsons character of the same. This commentor has just been banished for getting nasty and even trying to sound like he was being "fair". Having inspected his IP address, I discovered that this was the same troll as one I had a few months ago, by the name of "R. Johns", who seemed to be up in arms over some posts I had that for him were too conservative in nature for his tastes. And what led me to kick him out then was because of a nasty comment he made about Christopher Reeve (he implied that Reeve had the nerve/gall to uphold Truth, Justice and the American Way, but worst of all was that he was more or less insulting Reeve with what he wrote). Anyone who goes so far as to insult the memory of a man who ran afoul of as awful an accident as Reeve did a decade ago does not get very far in earning points in my book, if at all.

As I said, realizing that this was the same troll as the one who'd disturbed the peace and quiet of this blog earlier, that was one more reason why he has now been exiled, period. Not just simply because he trolled, but because he had the gall to sock puppeteer under a different name afterwards. I'm not surprised that any troll anywhere wouldn't give up so easily, but now, our dear "Jeff Albertson/R.Johns" or whatever his exact name/species is supposed to be is taking a long overdue dirt nap. Checking my backlog of other posts, I found one more from the same address I hadn't looked at before that so disgusted me, I erased it altogether. Any further messages he attempts to post whereever his computer location be will be deleted no matter the tone or content.

Most interestingly enough, the IP address, it turns out, was from around Central America, of all places. One of Hugo Chavez's cronies, perhaps? Or maybe some follower of the long deposed dictator Manuel Noreiga? Or maybe even a worshiper of Fidel Castro? Probably not, but anyone who's going to try and act as disrespectful of law and order around here as this sock puppeteer did will, let us be clear, end up having their commenting rights revoked sooner or later.

Sock puppeteering, if you ask me, is insulting and offensive, and serves little purpose other than to make a futile attempt at winning an argument that these puppet poseurs can simply not claim a victory upon. And I want to make crystal clear here that any visitor whom I find has crossed the line into disguising themselves first as one entity and then as another may find themselves subject to severe disciplinary action.

I'm sorry if I sound as furious as I am just now, but finding someone who was trying to disrupt the harmony of this site trying to sneak back in while wearing a disguise is really maddening. It's also a real shame if and when any blogger is forced to turn to Haloscan comments to keep out the troublemakers, but that's what I too was forced to do. I know it's not something one has to feel sorry about, but all the same, for me, there was still something a bit depressing about having to do it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to eat some dinner, and get ready to go to the Tel Aviv Sci-Fi Festival tomorrow, and hopefully get my mind off of this really depressing encounter. And, I'll see if I can find something else to blog about a little later as well.

Update: as an additional warning to the cybertroll, I am posting his IP addresses here:
189.153.39.166
207.248.40.56
148.244.235
61.191.20.211
207.248.40.2
207.248.40.17
200.94.204.120
201.140.6.26
201.123.208.59
62.117.35
62.117.35.196

He is to consider this a warning - that if he doesn't disappear around here, he may end up getting a call from his ISP.

Update 2: Mark in Mexico, who's been having similar problems, makes some excellent points about the rights bloggers have in deciding policy, and the rules commentors need to be wary of when commenting.

Update 3: I figured out that his specific name may be "Hector Guerra", and he's from Monterry in northeast Mexico. I once knew him from an old message board. I had no idea he was willing to go so far as to make racist cracks of this nature. Interestingly enough, to my knowledge, he may maintain an online relationship with a Jewish girl who once wrote on the same message board too. Perhaps he doesn't think so, but he's insulting the poor lady behind her back, and if I were her, I'd be very upset if I found out that he was doing things behind my back that could be hurtful to others of the same community.

Reality deals a backhand smack to Union Jack

Marvel's 4-part miniseries featuring the British crimefighter Union Jack, which went to press just a few weeks ago, couldn't possibly have come out at a more inconvenient time. Especially considering their stance on the war on terror, that's why I highly doubt this'll be any better. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if this does involve a lot of moral equivalency, in which you have no idea who's in the right or wrong. In the following synopsis of the first part:

Having spent years fighting vampires in London, Joseph Chapman (Union Jack) has finally destroyed the last three. He is called in by his boss, Gavin, in the MI5, the British Security Service. A terrorist organization, RAID (Radically Advanced Ideas in Destruction) is planning multiple strikes, in less than 8 hours. He has the following allies: Contessa Allegra Valentina De La Fontaine from SHIELD, Sabra from Israel, and Saudi Arabia's Arabian Knight (Saladin). The Contessa and Sabra object to Saladin when introduced, but Chapman reminds them they don't have a lot of time.

Forget that they don't have much time; what I want to know is, why does the writer portray Chapman ever thinking to recruit him in the first place?

And this is where all credibility most likely goes out the window. So far, there is nothing to suggest that RAID reflects reality in any convincing way, and it's more likely that they are some perfectly whitewashed take on a terror group, with no Islamofascists involved. And if not, that makes the inclusion of Arabian Knight, a very obscure character, all the less credible. Because he's from Saudi Arabia and is Muslim, and considering the House of Saud's own record of upholding terrorism and providing funding for it, that makes it an insult to the intellect. Some of Saudi Arabia's worst violations of basic rights include:

The exploitation and abuse of migrant workers.

If you're a Christian in Saudi Arabia, you are forbidden to practice your faith. Jews are virtually forbidden to enter the country, and in time, Christians may find themselves forbidden to enter as well. A State Dept. report (via Dhimmi Watch) found that they are the worst violators in religious freedom.

A Saudi was sentenced to 750 lashes for discussing the Bible and praising the Jews.

A Jizan court sentencing a young woman to 500 lashes for allegedly spending time alone with a young man and marrying him just hours after divorcing her previous husband (also via Jihad Watch).

A man from Kerala may have had...no, I can't say it.

"Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of Jihad"

The jihad even extended to their embassy in Washington, and to Boise, Idaho, as well. And recently, a Saudi student in Colorado was arrested for enslaving and raping an Indonesian maid. He has now been convicted and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9-11 were Saudis, and a 20th Saudi terrorist may have tried to take part in the obscenity too. Senator Bob Graham wrote a book about the hijackers connections to the Saudi government two years ago.

They still pledge to adhere to Shari'a (Islamic) law.

When you look at this miniseries from Marvel in terms of reality, it's hard to take seriously a book where the terror gang featured isn't Muslim themselves, yet one of the law agents combatting them is. And because of the real life bombings in London last year, that's one more reason why it's in poor taste.

The miniseries even has a spat featured between Saladin and Sabra - he makes a sexist crack, and she tells him that he's too soft on terror, and I'm guessing that it's done in so morally equivalent a manner that for anyone without an in depth understanding, it'll be impossible to tell who's right or wrong in all this. I'm sure the script doesn't show him mouthing off with anti-Israel rhetoric in this, but from a real life viewpoint, it's hard to believe he wouldn't harbor such sentiments as well.

Another strike against this miniseries is the current state of Britain itself. Someone should tell the mini's writer, Christos N. Gage, to take a good look at Londonistan by Melanie Phillips. Because, if he did, he'd realize that in England, they're not as understanding of what leads to terrorism as you'd think. Some examples of where Britain goes wrong include:

They've been making it a crime to act in self-defense. Thanks to discriminations like these, England has one of the worst crime rates in all of Europe.

They even mulled scrapping their traditional St. George flag to avoid offending Muslims (via Dhimmi Watch).

In recent years, they've been so lax in dealing with crime that they practically allowed scores of dangerous criminals to abscond from Leyhill prison, many of whom may never be recaptured, and many of whom the police may never even try to track down. A more recent report by the Telegraph shows that these figures have trebled in five years.

A local council in the UK banned Christmas lights for fear of offending Muslims.

Last year in Britain, leftists and Muslims both marched against the Iraq war.

Red Ken Livingstone supported "Islam Awareness Week".

Last December, the Londonistan Metropolitan Police - are you ready for this? - sponsored a jihad conference at the Excel Center (via Melanie Phillips and Dhimmi Watch). Yep, you read that right.

The UK even strengthened "defense" ties with Saudi Arabia.

A poll published in February revealed that forty percent of British Muslims want Shari'a law introduced in the UK. This can mostly be attributed to the bad influence the British media's had on them, the BBC being one of the worst.

During the Danish cartoon protests in February, the following shockers were seen among the picket signs in London: Of all the picket signs seen at any protest anywhere, none can top these jaw-droppers. Not only did the British authorities allow them to be toted around at the protest, but it took them at least 3 months before they searched for and arrested the perpetrators. And when more hate and incitement was stoked against Pope Benedict last month after he quoted the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus's argument on Islam from 600 years ago, this horrific display of contempt for human life was repeated right near the Wesminster Cathedral. A Catholic resident of London who was witness to this horror took several photos revealing more ghastly hatemongering. No reasonable nor logical arguments, just hate.

The Home Office made some recent decisions that toilets in prisons would not face Mecca, but that all gravestones in a Nottingham cemetary, including Christian and Jewish ones, would.

Worst of all: the authorities decided not to conduct any raids on terror suspects without approval from the Muslim community (via Michelle Malkin and Tigerhawk). How many terror suspects could evade the law this way? Which reminds me, could a character like Arabian Knight act as a double agent and tip off the terrorists to let them know about the other crimebusters searching for them?

And don't get me started on the absurdity of a man spending two nights in the clink for offending Muslims by "revving up his car engine in a racist manner"!

Not for nothing has practically the whole of England been nicknamed Londonistan in recent years. And that's all the more reason why Union Jack is most likely to come across looking absurd: because it doesn't reflect the reality of what the country is like. And yet, now that I think of it, if there's anything Union Jack is shaping up to look like, it's a perfect mirror of how incompetant the British authorities are, with the hero being made to look more like a knee-jerk drone than someone who can think for himself and know where to draw the line at whom to recruit for a mission to stop terrorists. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that the writer will tell the audience that what Union Jack is doing is foolish.

So once again, instead of writing something intelligent, Marvel seems to have made themselves out to look like ignoramuses by writing a story in which the hero recruits a would-be crimefighter whose background suggests anything but. I think the following excerpt from Silver Bullet sums it up well enough:

This is a stupid line up. You don’t put a Saudi and an Israeli together on a make believe mission to stop terrorism. Their predictable in-fighting proves to be tiresome and takes up valuable plot time--time that could have been used for vampires, I may add.

Yup. And you don't put a Christian and a Saudi/Muslim together on such a mission either. More than that, you don't recruit or assign a Saudi for a mission against terrorism at all, because they simply cannot be trusted.

Cue Big Ben at 12:00 AM for the sound of doom.

Open trackbacks: Is it Just Me, Stop the ACLU.

We could do without more deaths, please

The Cleveland Plain Dealer gushes over the fourth Civil War issue, and sugarcoats the golden calf of death, which turns up in here too:

Issue four is a turning point when one of Cap's crew is killed in a battle. How Marvel is going to end this series and restore some kind of order and trust in the superhero universe is beyond me.

Barring the convenient excuse of mind control (which is certainly possible), there is no way that these folks could ever trust one an other after the smoke clears.

Meanwhile, it's one of the most fascinating story lines to come out of Marvel in years.

Please, do spare us that sleazy approach, because it certainly does not work on me. I have no interest in this dud, and even less interest in if a member of either side's been slain. Deaths are not something to celebrate or even worth using as a selling point anymore. In fact, they shouldn't have ever been so in the first place.

Next week, I'm going to the TA Sci-Fi Festival

Every October, during the Succot holiday, the Tel Aviv Cinematheque holds an annual sci-fi festival, which is called the Icon Festival. Oh, and who's the special guest there this year? Neil Gaiman! And yep, there will be plenty of comic-related material to find there as well.

First edition of the Comic Book Carnival I'm posting

Welcome to the October 7, 2006 edition of the comic book carnival. Although the official date is actually in five days, I decided to post the current results now, because I wanted make sure I had a handle on how this works, as it's only the first time, and to see how I need to edit and fit everything together. So now, here's the entries!

Jon Swift presents Cartoon Menace? posted at Jon Swift, saying, "Why all the focus now on the menace of cartoons?"

JakeM presents "300" Trailer posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Hube presents Movies that make you go "Hmmm..." posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

The Stop Button presents Justice Society. Paul Levitz & Gerry Conway. posted at The Stop Button, saying, "This blog article talks about the Gerry Conway's and Paul Levitz's revival of the Justice Society in the mid-70s."

Hube presents Most valuable comics posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Half a Pica presents An Un-Civil War: Marvel's Half-Ass Indictment of the War on Terror Pt. 1 posted at Half a Pica Distance, saying, "Part one of a look at Marvel's crummy crossover and its one-sided indictment of the war on terror."

Half a Pica presents An Un-Civil War: Marvel's Half-Ass Indictment of the War on Terror Pt. 2 posted at Half a Pica Distance, saying, "The second entry that looks at the dreadfulness of Civil War."

Half a Pica presents An Un-Civil War: Marvel's Half-Ass Indictment of the War on Terror Pt. 3 posted at Half a Pica Distance, saying, "The third part looks at the out-of-character depictions of the cast."

Half a Pica presents Bringing the hammer down posted at Half a Pica Distance, saying, "The fourth update on CW brings Mjolnir down upon it."

Nehring presents Nehring The Edge: X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006) movie reviews posted at Nehring The Edge, saying, "A review of the third X-Men film. They must have meant Ex-Men."

Thomas presents Watchmen? I'd rather read it & the Dossier. posted at Anonymous_X, saying, "Two of Alan Moore's graphic novels: Watchmen & League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III."

JakeM presents A Scanner Starkly posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

JakeM presents House of M posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Hube presents Mark Millar still hates America posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

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