Since Julian's terrific article -- and seriously, I can't recommend enough that you all read it -- allows me to talk about comics on Tapped today, let's have at it. In his piece Julian mentions Ultimates 2, in which American overreach leads to Chalmers Johnson's much talked about "Blowback" in the form of an international consortium that develops a team of superheroes, including a Captain America analogue, to swoop in and essentially decapitate the USA, on grounds that we've grown too dangerous. This works for awhile, then the Hulk rips somebody's arms off. But in some ways, the more interesting one was Secret War, which essentially used comic heroes as stand-ins for a CIA regime change plot during the 80s. The beginning of the book even includes an anonymous forward from an intelligence officer who claims he told the author this story and, save for the characters and repulsor beams, it's all pretty much true. Like in Ultimates 2, this overreach ends with a massive counterstrike that does enormous damage to relevant heroes, but, in the end, good prevails, and the assembled individuals end the series a bit more cynical about the US government, but basically okay. Which gets to one of the failures of comic books as vehicles for political commentary: They focus on the powerful. And the powerful are generally fine. It's like looking at the consequences of the War in Iraq through the experiences of George W. Bush. His popularity may go down, he may even have a few long nights of the soul, but at the end of the day, he's got a pretty sweet job, huge earning potential, endless individuals willing to fete him, and so forth. He'll be fine. So will the heroes, who need to remain in the picture in order to sell more comics. The temporary anguish and unrest these events create for the empowered are nothing compared to what they do to the disempowered. The powerful, basically, get pissed off. The powerless are serving multiple tours in Iraq, or losing their homes after American bombings, or raging ineffectually at the graves of their loved ones. They don't need to stay in the picture for future speeches or comic series. In fact, they never enter the frame at all. Unless, that is, they decide to seek revenge. --Ezra Klein
