Choosing Sides: Comics and Politics

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on November 21, 2006 Sign up now!

by Stephanie Mangold, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 11/21/2006

Sequential art has never failed to jump into the foray of political commentary. Before Spider-Man was a glint in Stan Lee’s eye, early newspaper comic strips and cartoons satirized political culture, starting with The Yellow Kid, R.F. Outcault's attack on social injustice in the late and early 20th century.

But in recent years politically charged mainstream comics have been gaining steady popularity, even becoming bestsellers, like Marvel's Civil War,or winning critical acclaim, like Brian K. Vaughan’s Pride of Baghdad.

Baghdad writer Brian Vaughan had a firm view of the history of political cartoons when he wrote his story. “It was the political cartoons of Thomas Nast that finally took down Boss Tweed in the 1870s," he told PWCW. "And there's a reason that propaganda pamphlets usually come in the forms of cartoons. There's nothing more powerful, more universal than the combination of words and pictures.”

Comic books first went to war, both literally and figuratively, during WWII, with nearly every able-bodied superhero registering to fight the Axis powers. Heroes such as Captain America, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters can trace their roots to Golden Age war comics. From the very beginning, heroes have been able to champion the common man in his struggles against both the extraordinary and the issues that hit close to home. Before Superman fought Lex Luthor and Doomsday, he championed a different kind of justice, challenging corrupt politicians and other oppressors of freedom.

As the political climate has changed and as comics readers have gotten older, the comic book industry has evolved in its ability to tackle such big issues asterrorism, personal freedom and other political hot buttons in the middle of popular superhero stories. Stories subtly pose questions to readers, such as how many personal freedoms they would give up to protect the greater good, and how far they would go for the sake of their country. Indeed, Mark Millar, one of Marvel's star writers, sees this as a logical progression: "Comic creators are the children of political cartoonists. The way we write stories is a reflection of the world around us."

Marvel Comics’ popular ongoing title Civil War and DC's Pride of Baghdad artfully pose these questions under the guise of much simpler stories, allowing readers to discover the political undertones on their own.

Drawing parallels between the plight of estranged Marvel superheroes and everyday citizens, Civil War explores the harsh reality of losing personal freedoms in the wake of an attack where innocent lives were lost. As Iron Man, Captain America and Spider-Man struggle to come to grips with what their own rights are, readers are forced to examine such recent political decisions as the extension of the Patriot Act and the ongoing war against terror; readers fight alongside these heroes to determine where their loyalties lie.

The response has been astounding. Civil War has earned media attention from not only comic news sites but more traditional news outlets such as NPR, CNN and even the New York Times—all while blowing Marvel’s sales figures out of the water. The first five issues have sold well over a quarter-million copies each, with the first issues selling nearly 400,000 copies. Issues #1, #2 and #3 have all gone into additional printings and the series’ popularity shows no signs of slowing down despite a well-publicized production delay.

While Civil War is on one level a children’s story, a tale of heroes clashing, one cannot overlook its political undertones. Author Mark Millar explained: “It's kind of the chicken and the egg how Civil War and Ultimates were shaped. They never would have existed without the current political climate, and neither is the story I would have written in the ’90s.” Children’s story aside, the more mature reader will pick up on issues of personal freedom, the hazards of war and even the subtle similarities between the unmasking of Peter Parker and the unmasking of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Much less subtle, the Grand Theft America story arc of Millar’s Ultimates 2 tackles the issue of America’s aggressive foreign policy, which in the comic is responsible for the destruction of Washington. Begun as a team-up book for Marvel's biggest heroes, such as Captain America and Iron Man, under Millar Ultimates has become a much darker tale about the uses and abuses of ultimate power. "Ultimates is probably more politically dangerous than Civil War," Millar told PWCW. "It's essentially about how America's aggressive foreign policy has upset the world so much that America is attacked." Reflecting on the politically delicate nature of Ultimates 2, Millar also noted his surprise at the lack of editorial interference in this particular story line and the creative freedom he has been granted: “Writing comics is the ultimate aspiration," he says. “As a creator you have complete autonomy with comics; it's just you, the artist and the editor. In many ways comics are kind of the last pirate medium. We're absolutely unsupervised and can get away with anything.”

Continuing the tradition of books like Maus, Pride of Baghdad speaks on a more primal level through the use of animal characters. Brian Vaughan uses the newly found freedom of a pride of lions to explore the pain of war. Inspired by the true story of a group of U.S. soldiers who encounter a pride of lions roaming the streets of Baghdad, readers follow the lions through the war-torn streets as they try to find their place in a dramatically changed world.

Vaughan said in an interview with Newsarama that he originally pitched the concept for Pride in 2003 after the initial backlash against protestors of the war, specifically the controversy surrounding the musical act the Dixie Chicks. He says his goal for readers is not be swayed toward supporting or protesting the war. In the same interview, Vaughan explained that there was no single moral that he wanted readers to walk away with after reading Pride,but to continue to think. In a separate interview with PWCW, he outlined how he wrote Pride in a manner to allow readers to develop their own feelings regarding the war:

“I think it's a matter of having many characters representing many different viewpoints, as opposed to having them all speak with my voice. Each of the different species, and even each of the different lions, represents a unique perspective on the invasion and occupation from the point of view of various Iraqis. No one animal was espousing my own conflicted feelings about the war, so hopefully, the book raises questions with readers rather than haranguing them with my own political beliefs.”

From Pride’s earliest conception, both Vertigo and DC Comics have fully supported the project, and it has gone on to find a spot in PW’s Graphic Novel Bestseller list.

As readers continue to reflect on the recent elections, impending political shift and the political turmoil of the post 9/11 world, it is hardly surprising that these politically charged titles continue to find sales success and create controversy. As more and more readers and creators are discovering, comics provide a world we can escape into but also a place to question what truly reflects truth, justice and the American way.