The Summer of War

As I believe I've acknowledged, I wrote some pretty dumb things back in the day. Nevertheless, I never came even remotely close to writing anything as inane as this: "Even after September 11th, Marvel Comics and other publishers are disseminating comic books that actively promote a destructive cynicism and mistrust of the United States Government." That was April 2003. Shockingly, though, Cliff May is actually bragging about his small role in bringing that pearl of wisdom to light. He must really not like the Ultimates 2 story arc.

3/13/07 11:10AM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Cliff's just mad 'cause Marvel shot down his pitch for a "Captain Neocon" graphic novel.

Posted by: dj moonbat on March 13, 2007 11:19 AM

dj,
not a lot of bearded comic book heroes out there, are there?
[disclaimer to comic book nerds: If I am way off, I apologize]

Posted by: theCoach on March 13, 2007 11:27 AM

Dude, how could he pissed off at Marvel? At this point Tony Stark is little more than Dick Cheney with a brain and a shiny metal suit. They just had a massive crossover that ended with all the super heroes who stood for justice, liberty and freedom being declared enemies of the state, with the super heroes that sold out being drafted to hunt them down and "nuetralize them", either by endless detention or death. Captain America just got assassinated, probably for being too liberal, and Spider Man is America's most wanted fugitive. You'd think Marvel was a neo-cons wet dream at by now.

And yes, I'm aware how very, very dorky I sounded just then.

Posted by: soullite on March 13, 2007 11:31 AM

not a lot of bearded comic book heroes out there, are there?

The Flash had a beard, at least in a couple of issues I've seen. Green Arrow, in keeping with the whole Robin Hood thing, had a beard. The list starts to get mighty short right about then. Heck, even Thor--as strong a candidate for bearded comic-book-hero as one could imagine--sports nary a whisker.

Posted by: dj moonbat on March 13, 2007 11:36 AM

And Iron Man even has a beard.

Well, some kind of facial hair, IIRC.

Posted by: bg on March 13, 2007 11:38 AM

Iron Man (Stark) has a moustache, and when he's drinking heavily (which is often), he lets the stubble go a looong way, but I don't think he maintains a beard.

God, I'm a nerd.

Posted by: dj moonbat on March 13, 2007 11:39 AM

Thor does indeed sport a beard from time to time. There's also a superbeing who wears a moustache.

Posted by: Clark on March 13, 2007 11:42 AM

The Marvel Civil War storyline is very much coming down hard on the neo-con ideology, soullite. The heroes are the resistance. It's very difficult to sympathize with Stark or the FF, at all.

I will say that this is a a robust streak in both DC and Marvel. Batman, since Frank Miller, has been defined as essentially an anarchist, and Superman necessarily is the naive boy scout who is easily manipulated by the US goverment (or the then-President, Reagan, who had somehow ammended the Constitution to become permanent President or something like that). In Justice League Unlimited, the Justice League visit an alternative history where the Justice Lords (the somewhat "chaotic good" versions of themselves, to use D&D phraseology) are basically paternalistic socialists who, despite plausibily good intentions, end up becoming an oppressive force. Without understanding the political threads in these stories, I think it's difficult to understand Batman's principled refusal to kill people (though he's no qualms about putting them in a wheelchair for life). This is the slippery slope for super heros who have god-like powers. Absolute power corrupts, etc.

Frank Miller is supposed to actually have a Batman vs. al Qaeda book coming out, btw. Whatever happened to that? Was he being sarcastic when he announced that? It seemed to me to be utterly out of character, given the political overtones of DKR, to promote the war on terror.

Posted by: jason voorhees on March 13, 2007 11:42 AM

Well, since my dorkdom really doesn't know any bounds, I have to wonder what Cliff May's problem is anyway. He seems (because his title is Re: Captain America) to be talking about the Marvel Universe. The thing is, the Marvel Universe has always made it clear that the government isn't to be trusted. They've gone to that well since the 70's, and especially since their many S.H.I.E.L.D/X-group storylines. They can't really seamlessly go from a government that abducts citizens and performs ghastly experiments on them and then forces them to kill people to a government that acts with flowers and love and no longer makes giant robots that kill people. All the retconing in the world couldn't do that.

This is made even more difficult by the fact that Marvel also makes extensive use of time-travel and alternative reality plots. They've just had too many characters come from a ghastly, totalitarian future. They can't now pretend that while the government was corrupt in wicked in the past, and will be corrupt and wicked in the future, that today the government is great and perfectly correct in all things.

Okay, I think I've gotten all the dorkiness out of my system now, thank you for not throwing rotten tomatoes at me. They sting. A lot.

Posted by: soullite on March 13, 2007 11:46 AM

Using D&D alignments to explain cartoon superheroes? Jason Voorhees, I salute you! Truly, you are KING OF NERDS!

Posted by: William Burns on March 13, 2007 11:52 AM

Jason, I'm not saying that it's not judgmental. Half the Marvel Universe is an allegory to the civil rights movement, so it's hard to claim that it's really a neo-cons wet dream. My point was simply that his argument would have made a lot more sense 5 years ago. Today, with Marvel clearly dealing with today's issues and the "Freedom/Security" trade-off issues, it just doesn't make sense. There is a side that May would clearly identify with, and heroes that have books he would likely approve of. I mean, Mighty Avengers is probably going to be exactly what he wants in a super-hero team, so I don't really understand the criticism.

As For DC books, I never realy got into them. I was a poor navy-brat growing up, and my local comic shop was mostly Marvel stuff. Those early habits are hard to break. As For Batman not killing people, Really? I mean, he always seemed like the type that did what had to be done. Guess that's what I get for forming opinions about stuff I know nothing about.

Posted by: soullite on March 13, 2007 11:58 AM

Comic book characters with beards: Iron Man and Thor have both had them at various periods, as some people have already said. (When we're talking about Thor, do we mean the god, or his human friend who sometimes channeled his powers, Eric Masterson? Did they both have beards at some point, or was it just Masterson?) Marvel Comics' version of Hercules has one. The X-Men's Bishop also had one for a while, I think. And interestingly enough, Superman doesn't have a beard, but whenever he becomes a hermit in a possible future or alternate dimension (Kingdom Come), he sprouts one pretty easily. And the father figures among the various pantheons (Odin, Highfather) have beards, but they aren't superheroes so they don't really count.

And I can't help thinking that a lot more comic book men have had small, neatly trimmed beards at one time or another, even if not normally. All the guys who don't have masks or any distinctive facial features (horns, green skin, glowing eyes, etc.) have to do something to stand out. Does Doctor Strange have a Tony Stark-style goatee? Forge? There must be more like that.

Posted by: Cyrus on March 13, 2007 12:17 PM

Cliff May belongs to an elite group at NRO, which also includes K-Lo and Mark Levin, more than just regular, run of the mill dumb: A very special dumb.

Posted by: M. Duss on March 13, 2007 12:19 PM

Aquaman sometimes has a beard. I think Cliff would like Aquaman a lot.

Posted by: bg on March 13, 2007 12:22 PM

It's funny that Cliff May had the misfortune to start his advocacy organization right as the GOP was taken with the importance of saying the word "democracy." It was a temporary rhetorical gambit, though, a reason to get to invade a place or two.

Now, the administration and conservatives are already falling back on their natural inclination to support the young Saddams and Osamas of the world, all the while patting themselves on the back for their tough, clear-eyed realism.

And May's shop is stuck with that awkward, anachronistic "Democracies" right there in the title.

It's as though he opened a think tank in China in 1973 called Advancing Invincible Mao Zedong Thought through Permanent Cultural Revolution. (Chinese think tanks tend to have more words in their titles than ours). Seems unobjectionable and politically correct at the time, but within a few short years, it feels hopelessly out of step.

Posted by: Elvis Elvisberg on March 13, 2007 12:34 PM

Wow, people really do seem interested in this beard thing. Yes, several heroes have had beards. Doctor Strange has an outright evil looking Goatee, like something Anton Levay would have had circa 1968. But Beards are the exception rather than the rule, as are capes, oddly enough.

And no, Cliff May would not like Aquaman. This is because nobody likes Aquaman. Seriously, who likes a guy who talks to fish and relies far too heavily on his "Magic Hand", if you get my drift...

Posted by: Soullite on March 13, 2007 12:54 PM

I opened it up to see which superhero threatened to assassinate Bush. Turns out it was the Punisher. Figures.

My favorite part was this: "U.S. Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk (with the same initials as Donald Rumsfeld?)" Medved, how can you be so blind?? It's an anagram for "Red Skull"! Why are you so busy looking for anti-American messages and ignoring the anagrammed villain in disguise who is right in front of you??

Posted by: AP on March 13, 2007 12:55 PM

Jason, Miller also wrote "300," so despite his libertarianism, he's very into the whole "defending Western culture" thing.

Posted by: AP on March 13, 2007 12:57 PM

They may have been more common before a beard hunter appeared. (I actually didn't know about that guy before I saw him in the linked blogpost about a week ago).

Posted by: Greg Sanders on March 13, 2007 01:10 PM

I *love* showing up here when Matt and the gang are getting all comic-y.

Last night, as I dropped off my kid at her Mom's, she told me that the last time she had her bedtime snack, she got all wistful that she wasn't at my place, watching Cartoon Network while noshing (I'm sure Mom lets her watch, just not the same thing, eh?).

Teen Titans, baby...good times.

Posted by: Captain Goto on March 13, 2007 01:10 PM

Jason, Miller also wrote "300," so despite his libertarianism, he's very into the whole "defending Western culture" thing.

Interesting...IIRC, Sin City got pretty decent reviews from the mainstream critics, while from what I've seen so far, 300 ain't doing quite as well (e.g. the reviewer on NPR loved Sin City but absolutely tore 300 a new one).

Posted by: Captain Goto on March 13, 2007 01:19 PM

I quit reading comic books when they raised the price from a dime to $.12 -- I think that was around 1961.

http://www.urbanfonts.com/dingbats/Hey_Kids!.htm

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on March 13, 2007 01:23 PM

Submariner...

there, I said it.

Posted by: judson on March 13, 2007 02:44 PM

Captain Goto - by not doing quite as well, do you mean critically or financially? Because it set a record for March opening this past weekend by taking in over $70 million. At metacritic it's got an average ranking so far. Probably not worth the price of admission, but it could turn out to be a huge hit if these numbers keep up.

AP - good point. He did make 300. Maybe his stories aren't a reflection of his own personal politics in reality. Dark knight Returns is positively anarchist, and Green Arrow is a straight up conspiracy theorist (btw, he always sports a beard) in it.

Posted by: jason voorhees on March 13, 2007 02:56 PM

beard hunter!? My god. I did not know what I was getting myself into.

Posted by: theCoach on March 13, 2007 03:05 PM

Using D&D alignments to explain cartoon superheroes? Jason Voorhees, I salute you! Truly, you are KING OF NERDS!

Sigh. I wish. But alas, there is another.

Posted by: jason voorhees on March 13, 2007 03:29 PM

You want a beard? Screw bearded, just beard. From The Tick comes The Russian Beard!

As for Marvel, Hercules has a beard. Corsair as well but he's not superpowered. Magneto sported some whiskers for a while. Mimic too, but that's neither here nor there. Do Mystique, Nightcrawler, Tigra, Beast and Nocturne (and any other furred characters) count?

Posted by: Sarcastro on March 13, 2007 04:25 PM

Frank Miller has actually evolved into a pretty enthusiatic Peretz-esque commentator. Some quotes from an appearance on NPR's Talk of the Nation:

"Well, I don't--I really don't find myself worrying so much about the state of the union as I do about, um, the state of the home front. It seems to me quite obvious that our, our country, and the entire western world, is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants, and we're behaving like a collapsing empire."

"Let's finally talk about the enemy. Somebody--for some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, uh, and the sixth-century barbarism they actually represent. These people saw peoples' heads off. They enslave women, they genetically mutilate their daughters. Um, they, they, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. Um, I'm speaking into a microphone that never could've been a product of their culture. And I'm living in a city where 3,000 of my neighbors were killed by, uh, thieves of airplanes they never could've built."

Posted by: Daniel Warren on March 13, 2007 05:07 PM

a destructive cynicism and mistrust of the United States Government.

Dearie me. So good to have conservatives around to catch that kind of thing.

Posted by: SqueakyRat on March 13, 2007 08:59 PM

Speaking of Ultimates 2...

Words can't express how disgusted I was with the way the Ultimates 2 series finished up ... HORRIBLE. It was all so intriguing up to about issue 9. Then, just mind bending stupidity and a betrayal of all the themes and intrigues so thoughtfully woven in the previous months. Millar should feel ashamed of what he did.

Posted by: Triskele on March 13, 2007 11:39 PM

The neo-Cons are just upset because Captain America chose to side with the dirty, fucking hippies.

Wasn't Mary Jane Spiderman's beard?

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