Justice League turns lefty?

self

[TheBigB]

Okay, for any who have seen my opinions in the past, you know that I'm an avid comic book collector. For a few years now, my favorite title has been Justice League, or JLA for short. The newest issue, #83, came out yesterday. It was, without a doubt, the most unvarnished left-wing piece of Bush-bashing propaganda I've ever seen. The baisc set-up is this (*WARNING*--SPOILERS)...President Luthor (yes, in the DC Universe, Lex Luthor is President of the United States) has decided that the nation of "Qurac" has acquired or constructed Weapons of Mass Distruction, and has decided that he must attack before they can be used (how coincidental). The Leaguers (really, only Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in this issue) are unconvinced. Batman (badly mischaracterized by writer Joe Kelly) states that to attack a sovereign country without UN authorization would violate international law. Luthor attacks his (and WW's) statements as "unpatriotic." Batman even punches out a police officer in broad daylight who was keeping a group of war protesters from boarding a train...the policeman said there was a fire on the tracks. Batman doesn't believe him. Superman says he checked and it was true...there was a fire. Batman says, "I know." That's it. 'Nother words, he punches out the officer because he wanted to. There's more barely-disguised Bush-bashing until the end when...this is true...it all turns out to be a dream of Superman's. Yes, a dream. This issue had no story, no continuity, no connection to anything else in the entire DC Universe. It was, purely and simply, agit-prop Socialist propaganda. And apparently, the entire thing didn't go over very well. If you check the JLA message board at the official DC site, you'll see plenty of readers, both cons and libs, who were outraged by the over-the-top sermonizing:

http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/messages.jsp?topic=35291731&board=jla

Please check it out and feel free to comment (IF you've read the issue). And there is a place to send messages to DC, which is conveniently down. I think they're getting lots of feedback they didn't expect.

[weegee]

Peter Bagge has tried to distance himself from Conservativism in some interviews I read (he was mistakenly quoted as saying that he was conservative in a Comics Journal article, the correction ran in a letter in a subsequent issue; Fantagraphics was publisher of the Comics Journal and Peter Bagge's Hate).

I take back what I said about not buying anything from DC. I am buying Peter Bagge's Sweatshop although I find the humor to be more pedestrian than anything that Mr. Bagge has done in the past 25 years. With the latest issue (#4) he has relinquished much of the drawing to some other artists who "adapt" his style. The comic has an arch conservative boss but I am not offended by the stereotype. He isn't shown to be an out an out racist or anything and I worked for a man who was much like this character and it didn't shake my conservativism. There is also a black cartoonist in the imaginary staff of the comic. He aims to draw the next Boondocks but that strip is ridiculed in the series (the conservative thought that the characters were named G and Homes because that is how they are referred to every strip. It is nothing but political propaganda and deliberately not even funny). The book is satire, I can deal with this and it appears to cast no one in a horrible light and it does a good job of shifting the focus of the stories on the different members of the cast. My problem with the comic book is that much of it just isn't funny (like the strips that "sweatshop" cartoonists are working on), the storylines in some cases seem cliche or obvious.

Hate was much funnier and it seemed more personal.

[HitmanLV]

Comics have gotten impossibly bad. I'm glad I left them pretty much cold turkey back in 1992 or so. They just got too expensive, too contrived, too self indulgent. When I want a comic fix, I read my silver age reprints or old comics - it doesn't get much better than the original Amazing Spider-Man 1-150 or so!

As for this story, it stinks, but it smacks of some hacjk writer being late on a deadline and hammering this out in one night for a throwaway single issue. I could be wrong, though.

[HitmanLV]

Marvel has been very shallow leftist since the silver Age. Spider-Man's angst is classic liberal guilt, and leftist propoganda creeps into the stories a lot, especially between issues 30-130 or so.

[Richard Kimball]

Frank Miller's Batman DID kick Superman's butt. BTW, has anybody else noticed that for a guy with unlimited strength and who is invulnerable, that Superman gets his @ss kicked more than Walter Mondale? I mean, that guy would lose a fight with Archie.

The only Super hero that gets his @ss kicked more than Superman is Daredevil.

[HitmanLV]

Romita Sr.'s MJ is the best! Romita Sr.'s everything is the best! (Romita Jr is awesome, too!)

[HitmanLV]

Hey, I think the Power Puff Girls have tussled with some leftist women and swatted them back to earth. Femme Fatale comes to mind, and the conclusion of that episode is very sobering and rings very true.

[Jonah Hex]

Frank Miller's Batman DID kick Superman's butt.

Yep, I know. Old Bats worked out a lot of personal issues in that one!

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Yeah, if you count libertarians as conservatives, you've definitely got Ditko and Bagge (who does excellent cartoons for "Reason"), and possibly Miller and Sim.

You might even have Garth Ennis. Some of his "Preacher" stuff seems Libertarian or even Conservative to me, once you get past the graphic sex and ultra violence.

[weegee]

Is Bagge a Libertarian? I hadn't heard. I also haven't heard Ditko called a Libertarian (although he is supposed to be an Ayn Rand philosopher). Bagges' interpretation of Ditko lead at least one critic to say that Ditko got Rand wrong and was a Reaganite.

Generally people just say that he is a "conservative".

Harvey Kurtzman and Al Capp were conservative on some issues (certainly when the radical elements of the Democrat party took to the streets and armories in the 1960s). The left doesn't like the "conservative" era work from Kurtzman or Capp (although both may actually be Democrats).

Because of media bias, what they term "conservative" may just be anything to the right of Marxism.

I would be wary of some people who call themselves Libertarians too, Bill Maher thinks he's a libertarian.

[Sofa King]

This is why I don't buy DC comics.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I haven't read the issue you reference... I haven't read JLA since Grant Morrison left the series. I got tired of it shortly after Mark Waid took over the writing. He really tried to ape Morrison's style, but couldn't quite manage it, IMHO.

[longshot1980]

What, did Marvel start publishing "Ambiguously Gay Duo" comics?

[7thson]

When I was a kid and young teenager, that is what turned me to Marvel. Here is Superman as you said - unlimited strength, can never tire, invulnerable - virtually a god among men. Yet, he can barely beat guys like Luthor, the Toyman, the Prankster, et al. Than I got hook onto Marvel. The Fantastic Four fighting Galactus - a being who sucks the life force from planets to survive. Thor battling Hercules or the Absorbing Man - someone who can take on the properties of his Mjoiner. Marvel - in the 60's - introduced what I considered three aspects that revolutionized comics. One - heroes fought villians that were as powerful or more so than they. Two - the social and private lifes of the heroes took a front seat. It's great beating up bad guys but hey - the rent is due and where am I going to get the money? My love life sucks cause I dig Liz, Betty Bryant, Gwen Stacy, and that new chick Mary Jane Parker but I'm such a loser around women that I don't know what to say. That was great stuff! And a third thing which I believe is always overlooked is that not only did the heroes have secret identities but so did the villian. The Green Goblin was secretly respected businesman Norman Osborne. Fisk was the crime overlord Kingpin. No one knew what Dr. Doom or the Red Skull looked like. I loved that stuff and could read it again and again.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

I think Bob "Flaming Carrot" Burden is a conservative

Burden is definitely a conservative! He's caught some heat for it over the years. The first issue of Flaming Carrot has the invading Martians leaving Earth when they learn we have income tax. "The power to tax is the power to destroy!" Comics Journal took him to task for using Gus Hall as a villian, too.

As far as other conservatives in comics, Mike Baron has always struck me as right-leaning, especially his Punisher and Nexus comics.

[DM1]

this is the reason i gave up collecting awhile ago
Ultimate Xmen had a naked GWB cowering to Magneto, Green Lantern had a Gay intern that was in love with him and every issue was how to tolerate etc. Captain America i heard berates the US saying we use blacks as experimental Guinea Pigs and i remember a few years back they had Captain America against the A bomb
they are all lame

[Green Knight]

Speaking of Garth Ennis...

[Modernman]

"Let President Luthor get back to work for the public so that he can help the chil'ren."

"I guess that depends on what your definition of 'megalomanical super-villain' is."

[KC_Conspirator]

Comics used to be patriotic. Having acquired more than a few Golden-Age era books, I love the flag covers, the ones with heroes punching out Hitler, Stalin, or Tojo, etc. But nowadays even Captain America has turned lefty.

No kidding! I particularly was disgusted with the story where Captain America blamed America for the attacks of 911. And the idiots in the industry wonder why their sales numbers have gone into the trash? Oh how I long for the days when he fought real Nazi's like the Red Skull.

[Modernman]

But, just as it would be inappropriate to turn Ollie into some sort of right winger, it's wrong to turn Batman, Superman, etc., in left wingers.

I always saw Superman as sort of an old-school Midwestern type liberal. Sort of equal justice for all, rule of law, fair shake for the little guy, pro-American Dream etc. I don't think Superman would be sitting around on his hands, refusing to help the US liberate "Qurac" because of some vague concept of "international law."

[Modernman]

Awesome.

There was an alternative history Superman graphic novel a few years ago where Kal-El's spaceship crashes in 1930's Germany and he's raised by the Nazi party as Uberman. Chilling stuff.

I always did see Superman as a metaphor for America: powerful, energetic, idealistic, but a little naive and always willing to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt.