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Sometimes a theme just leaps out
at you. As we near Christmas, it's tempting to write
about peace and love. But instead, this week brings us
Mekanix #3 and Captain America #6.
So welcome, to yet another X-Axis
September 11 Fallout Special. To be continued
periodically until America starts acting sensibly again, or
alternatively until American comics writers lose interest in
the subject and start writing about something else.
Whichever comes first.
We start with this week's only
X-book, Mekanix #3. Thus far, we've had two
issues of relatively standard Claremont themes - Kitty just
wants to get on with her life, but her efforts are continually
derailed by the vicious, violent, evil, bigoted, anti-mutant
terrorists.
In issue #3, a rather surprising new theme
comes barrelling into the series, as the "Homeland
Anti-Terrorist Task Force" turns up and starts random searches
of people's homes on the basis of no evidence at all. It
doesn't take a genius to realise that Claremont is doing a
riff on the current US government's delightful disregard for
civil liberties. Ah, America, land of the free - "free"
meaning the people who haven't been slung into an internment
cell yet, presumably.
That Claremont disapproves of infringements
of civil liberties is perhaps not surprising given his usual
broadly liberal agenda. What's more surprising is the
sheer vehemence of his attack. The Task Force's FBI
agents are presented as vindictive, petty and aggressive,
needlessly taunting their search victims solely because they
can get away with it. They're given the same line of
dialogue - "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to
fear" - which was used as a slogan for the Purity movement of
racist psychopaths in the previous issue. Claremont
doesn't present his metaphor for the Homeland Task Force as
something he disagrees with. He depicts them explicitly
as dangerous bigots with a total disregard for human rights.
By Claremont's standards, it's a bit of a
party political broadside, to put it mildly. Since I
agree with it wholeheartedly it's difficult to resist the
temptation to cheer along. Plus, it takes the series
into territory which isn't so well trodden. It's a
subject well worth dealing with.
Having said that, the issue does suffer
from a certain lack of subtlety. I think most readers
will get the general idea of invasive, unfounded searching
from the plot alone. A page of montage of Kitty's flat
being ransacked accompanied by the narrator reciting a verse
from "My country 'tis of thee / Sweet land of liberty" is a
bit blatant on the lecturing, even if it is completely
correct. Granted there's a time and a place for
subtlety, and this is not such a time - any Americans who
actually like having civil liberties really ought to be doing
something very visible to complain about it.
Nonetheless, this is an incredibly blatant bit of soapboxing
by any standards, and pushes the story into a somewhat comical
melodrama.
But despite its preachy excesses, I can't
help but approve of this issue, and I shamelessly admit that I
do so for primarily political reasons. Anybody who
opposes the current US government is fine by me.
And that's especially so as a
counterbalance to the next book...
Rating: A-
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