I had my convention-walking shoes on and was prepared to visit the Grand Slam Star Trek convention in Pasadena. Jeff Ricketts, the actor who played one of the Suliban's on Enterprise and a Watcher's Council assassin on Buffy, was to be my partner-in-crime. It was to be Jeff's first convention and he was going to sign autographs. However, his really cool photo of himself in full Suliban makeup didn't arrive in time, and he was concerned no one would recognize him without the makeup. Jeff's looking forward to attending conventions in the future and loves the fun, wacky environment of the genre television loving world.
So having time on my hands, I stopped by the rec.arts.comics.dc.universe newsgroup and found that people were writing about the wonderful tributes to the heroes of September 11th. Marvel Comics had produced a very moving tribute shortly after September 11th featuring such artists as Tom Palmer, Dale Keown, and David Mack. If you haven't seen this deeply spiritual response from these talented artists, you will miss their amazing perspective on this tragedy. One of the most haunting images for me was passengers heading up the aisle to confront their hijackers by Igor Kordey with Chris Chuckry. This image made me cry when I saw the resolve and seriousness on the face of the passengers.
While the Heroes tribute by Marvel has been released for a while, there are active discussions about September 11th and its aftermath. Some comic lovers were questioning if one tragedy deserves the infliction of another tragedy. Or to share a quote a friend told me: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth results in a bunch of blind and toothless people." The Middle East seems to be proving that point as of late. I must say I'm not a pacifist, but found the discussions in the newsgroup interesting.
Some comic readers were wondering about history and precedent. For instance, since Europeans less than peaceably settled the land in America, was this an act of terrorism? Do Native Americans have the right to respond to this with violence?
Robert Schmidt wrote, "Several publishers have done benefit comic books for the victims of 9/11. In the DC Comics version, titled simply "9-11," two stories mention America's terrorism against its Native inhabitants…. Crazy Horse's response was a lot more justified than the American response to 9/11: overthrowing an Afghan government that didn't attack us and threatening Iran, Iraq, and North Korea -- all because a handful of Saudi Arabian killers committed an atrocity. Did Indians seek to overthrow the US government and threaten European governments to "secure" themselves from terrorism? No, they fought only to repel the invaders so they could be left alone."
Robert neglects to acknowledge that the Taliban government was principally financed by bin Laden. He brought them to life, made them a reality. They existed to serve and harbor him and his jihadists.
Prestorjohn wrote in to question whether the myth of Native American superiority in relation to living in harmony with the land was correct. This is not at all a "politically correct" viewpoint, but it's good to see people discussing history again.
Prestorjohn says, "While I certainly don't condone the US treatment of its indigenous peoples I've got to say that this last sentence is a myth. The idea of the environmental Indian who lived "in harmony with nature" (whatever that means) is at best a half-truth. American Indians ancestors hunted most of the American megafauna to extinction, by 1492 there was extensive agriculture often using slash and burn techniques, and the plains Indians would routinely stampede buffalo off of cliffs in a very efficient but wasteful for of hunting. Folks who passed by would find huge graveyards of bleached bones resting at the bottom of a cliff."
"While the US treated its indigenous population in an incredibly shabby manner lets not go too far the other way and needlessly sanctify all American Indians. The reason that the American settlers were so easily able to divide and conquer the Indians was that to some of these tribes the US was the lesser of two evils."
While debates will ebb and flow over coming months, we are blessed to have such talented comic artists in America. Great comic art affects us in an immediate, and in this case, a healing manner. Words are not required when facing the unspeakable and incomprehensible. However, words are good and welcome when a culture feels compelled towards reflection. It's nice to see the balance of the two at
rec.arts.comics.dc.universe.
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"Power of Two"
