Uncle Sam and The Freedom Fighters #1 (of 8)

Script: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
Art and Cover: Daniel Acuna
Colors: Javi Montes
Letters: Rob Leigh


Plot: Set in a post 9/11 society with superheroes, the federal government has created a team of metahumans to take out terrorists and drug dealers. Basically, anyone the government deems “undesirable” is potentially a target of the team. After a superhero announces that Uncle Sam is coming back to protect Americans against this abuse of power, a presidential candidate who is against the team is murdered and a clone more agreeable to the team’s goals replace him. The team then decides to go after one last threat to their power, Uncle Sam.

Review: As with the original book by Alex Ross and Steve Darnell, the first issue of this series is taking a very blunt stab at the establishment. Instead of attacking capitalism as un-American, this book examines our government’s use of force to “to protect the United States and uphold democracy” as a direct attack on the constitution. This first book plainly lays out the good guys as Uncle Sam and the bad guys as politicians and the metahuman team (a not so subtle metaphor for our choice of military deployments and specifically the Patriot Act).

Whenever I read about a writer trying to make a political statement I generally roll my eyes. This book is really no exception. Its biggest problem is taking on a complex issue with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and using bumper sticker logic to justify itself. Attacking the establishment is not edgy, rocking the boat, or even attention garnering in a time when it seems that anyone and everyone has some kind of opinion. In order to stand out and be taken more seriously than every other talking head with a bullhorn you need to bring a new and interesting argument to the table. The problem is this book never says anything more important than what can be read on a “Kerry for President” bumper sticker. Don’t get me wrong, I am not attacking the message, just the delivery. Do you really want to pay $2.99 to read what you could easily get for free in a ten second sound bite on television? On the plus side, DC is using this series to beef up its universe with some pretty interesting superheroes/villains. Hopefully they can use them in other issues of better comics.

Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.
 

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