it wasn't worth it

By Nicholas McCoy

Originally written for The Thunderword.

Comic books are more important than most people think; they are a volatile medium for the expression of political disillusionment and dissatisfaction as well as a charged medium for cultural celebration. Both small-time published comics and the big mainstream ones by Marvel and DC reflect the questions and issues of a given time.

During the Bush administration, an extremely politically controversial time in American politics, Marvel comics embarked on a storyline titled “Civil War.” The storyline on its surface featured the Marvel comic book heroes such as Spiderman, Iron Man and Captain America at war with one another over the idea of “registration;” legislation that would give the government a list of the real identities of the series’ superhuman characters, additionally enabling that government to essentially draft them to do its bidding.

Supporters of the bill in the comic argued that registration would impose necessary restrictions on people who could otherwise do terrible, unchecked damage.

Later in the series it is implied that some of the supporters are doing so to prevent more extreme legislation from being put into effect.

More than just a story about superhuman characters and ridiculous fights against super-villains, the series create an allegory about the Patriot Act, an actual bill that was passed in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that had the goal of helping to prevent another such disaster. Controversy about the bill has been ongoing, however, because pieces of the bill appear to seriously abridge the privacy of the American public.

When I read the “Civil War” series as a teenager, with the controversy of the Patriot Act erupting online and in the media, it helped me understand other view points about the legislation that I wouldn’t have otherwise really had.

To me, without that additional filter, I only saw the Patriot Act as a terrible, evil piece of legislation that was potentially violating the constitution and giving the government a level of power that frightened me. I did not have a sympathetic viewpoint to the people advocating for the bill; I intensely disliked Bush and his cabinet, and while I did not have a political affiliation, I knew it absolutely was not Republican.

The comic series, however, put some of the same arguments for the Patriot Act into the mouth of a character I did like and was sympathetic to, Iron Man, with his support for the comic’s “registration” act. The character argued not just for the necessity of public safety, but also at points during the series gave tactical reasons for supporting legislation you don’t personally like or even find personally offensive; any given political situation is always going to be more complicated than you know.

Because I saw that the issue of the registration act in the comic was more complex, it made me realize that the Patriot Act was also a more complex issue deserving of close study and understanding, and that all politicizing issues deserve our full consideration and scrutiny. I still disagree with the Patriot Act, but I can understand some of the reasons others thought it was a reasonable course of action.

Comic books allow us to set up allegorical studies of the world around us by reinterpreting the issues in a new light. Comic books have the additional advantage that, while they can and often do have much deeper content than people ascribe to the them, we tend to be more open to thematic introspection when we read them. We expect entertainment more than a message, so we’re less sensitized against receiving the ideas contained therein.