Almost overlooked this, but, 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, , 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 :

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.

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Last year, A. Dave Lewis, who’s a contributor to and may be a comics writer in some capacity himself, wrote two columns in which he attacked . 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 : 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 , 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, , 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 , 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 , 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.

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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!

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, : 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, . 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!

But that doesn’t mean they had to say so in the title of . 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?

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.

I looked at this , 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.

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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. :

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 did Chapman ever think 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 , that makes it an insult to the intellect. Some of Saudi Arabia’s worst violations of basic rights include:

.

If you’re a Christian in Saudi Arabia, . Jews are virtually forbidden to enter the country, and in time, Christians may find themselves forbidden to enter as well. (via ) found that they are the worst violators in religious freedom.

for discussing the Bible and praising the Jews.

for allegedly spending time alone with a young man and marrying him just hours after divorcing her previous husband (also via ).

may have had…no, I can’t say it.

, and to , as well. And recently, a Saudi student in Colorado . He has now been .

Fifteen of the on 9-11 were Saudis, and a . Senator Bob Graham wrote a book about two years ago.

.

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 by . 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:

. Thanks to discriminations like these, England has one of the worst crime rates in all of Europe.

(via ).

In recent years, they’ve been so lax in dealing with crime , many of whom may never be recaptured, and many of whom the police may never even try to track down. shows that these figures have trebled in five years.

for fear of offending Muslims.

Last year in Britain, .

.

Last December, the Londonistan Metropolitan Police - are you ready for this? - (via and ). Yep, you read that right.

.

revealed that forty percent of British Muslims want 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 :

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 .

And when 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. revealing more ghastly hatemongering. No reasonable nor logical arguments, just hate.

The Home Office made some recent decisions that , but that .

Worst of all: (via and ). 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 !

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 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 (midnight) for the sound of doom.

Open trackbacks: , .

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 posted at , saying, “Why all the focus now on the menace of cartoons?”

JakeM presents posted at .

Hube presents posted at .

The Stop Button presents posted at , 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 posted at .

Half a Pica presents posted at , 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 posted at , saying, “The second entry that looks at the dreadfulness of Civil War.”

Half a Pica presents posted at , saying, “The third part looks at the out-of-character depictions of the cast.”

Half a Pica presents posted at , saying, “The fourth update on CW brings Mjolnir down upon it.”

Nehring presents posted at , saying, “A review of the third X-Men film. They must have meant Ex-Men.”

Thomas presents posted at , saying, “Two of Alan Moore’s graphic novels: Watchmen & League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III.”

JakeM presents posted at .

JakeM presents posted at .

Hube presents posted at .

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