Posted by
Icarus on Friday, December 22, 2006 12:24:53 AM
WARNING - Spoilers Ahead
There are a great many stories inspired by our war against
Islamo-fascism. Almost all of them oppose America’s efforts to defeat the
enemy, especially as they present themselves on the Iraqi front.
In film, there is Syriana, Paradise Now, Jarhead, Good Night
and Good Luck, Munich,
and many more. In comics, one can find the attitude that America is the enemy of freedom in
Marvel’s “Civil War” and the numerous tie-in titles. DC Comics gives us “America,
the enemy” in such as ‘Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters’ and the miniseries ‘Battle
for Bludhaven’.Very few titles, however, dealt directly with events on the
ground in Iraq.
Back in 2004 Marvel came out with a mini-series based on Karl Zinsmeister’s
work Boots on the Ground and Dawn over Baghdad, titled “Combat
Zone: True Tales of GIs in Iraq”. Don’t bother looking for this on the shelves
of your local comic book store. My search throughout Southern California has
lead me to the conclusion that those who run these shops are just as disdainful
of the military as is every other so-called independent bookstore owner. Just
ask the kid sitting behind the counter at your local shop for Combat Zone and
you’ll get a little more than a blank stare. If you want this, get thee to
Amazon.com.
One title that directly tackles events
in Iraq
is Vertigo’s (an imprint of DC Comics) Pride of Baghdad. This story is
inspired by real events, in which four lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo
during the initial days following the Coalition of the Willing’s liberation of Iraq. I
came away from the story with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I want to like
it. Each lion represents a different perspective on liberation. The old
matriarch, Safa, longs for the safe and predictable life in the
zoo. The young female, Noor, dreams of freedom and breaking out of the zoo. The pride’s patriarch, Zill, takes things as they come, attempting
to be a voice of reason between the extremes of Safa and Noor. Finally, there
is Ali, a cub; drawn as if inspired by The Lion King, for whom each moment is an
adventure and something new.I don’t think I’m giving anything
away by saying that this book is very clearly anti-war, and beyond that, it is
anti-American in its approach to what is happening in Iraq. American soldiers show up
only three times in the book: once in the very beginning, to get the story
rolling by destroying the zoo, once at the mid-point, to scare the crap out of
Ali and Safa, and finally at the end, which I will get to later. All three moments
when Americans are present, they are terrorizing the lions. This is an
interesting perspective given that the artist and writer both thank soldiers
serving in Iraq.
Artist Niko Henrichon writes, “It is also important to thank … soldiers - who
were and still are in Iraq,
for sharing their experience…” Writer Brian K. Vaughn writes, “And a very
special thanks to the dedicated men and women of the United States Armed
Forces, particularly everyone from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division.”
It is a special thanks indeed after depicting the acts of these “dedicated men
and women” as the cause of little more than chaos and death.
Let’s step into the real world for
a moment. American troops were forced to kill
two lions that dug their way out of the Baghdad Zoo. American bombs did not
free them as is depicted in the “Pride”. Furthermore, the American military,
specifically the 3rd Infantry Division, restored
order to the zoo and gave the animals a chance at life after Iraqis
abandoned the animals to starve and dehydrate to death. The very Division
thanked by Vaughn brought order, but Vaughn couldn’t bring himself to depict
this in the story. Things that make you go hmmmm.
Let us put that aside and grant
Vaughn his artistic license with the story. Honestly, a work about a few
starving lions digging their way out of a den, attacking a few soldiers and
then being shot would not have been that dramatic. Vaughn does a good job using
real events as the kernels for a dramatic story.“Pride of Baghdad” does have a few
compelling moments. There is the scene in the beginning in which Noor attempts
to convince Antelope to work with the lions in her escape plan.
Noor, “This isn’t the
time for old grudges, antelope. Not when liberation is within our reach.”
Antelope, “Liberation? But the birds
are saying …”
Noor, “To hell with the birds! We can’t
wait around for some miracle to change the world for
us. We have to take control of our own destinies.”
Henrichon’s art in this moment even
captures the hope for freedom in Noor’s eyes in one panel.
One of the best moments in the book
comes when Noor and Safa discover what is obviously supposed to be one of
Saddam’s palaces. Inside they come across another lion kept as a pet. It is dying,
chained to a wall, its claws and teeth pulled out.Safa, “Brother do … do we know you?”
Dying Lion, “Not if you still have your
claws … your teeth … You were never … on his list …”
Noor, who earlier spoke of liberation,
sees this clearly as one of the many that “disappeared” and suffered the
torture of their Iraqi “keepers”. Safa, on the other hand, refuses to see the evidence
of torture and insists that those who responsible “weren’t evil”. This leads
Safa to say,
“Safa, no matter how they might
treat us, those who would hold us captive are always tyrants. If we had
remained
as we were, we would have ended up hanging from a leash just like this poor
b*****d ... and you know it as well as I.”
As Safa is about to acknowledge the
truth in Noor’s words the stand in for Saddam’s torturers arrives in the form
of a massive black bear named Fajer with glowing red eyes that towers over Safa
and Noor in a dramatic full-page drawing. The ensuing fight between Safa, Noor,
Fajer and eventually Zill gives one a great sense of the struggle everyday
Iraqis must deal with, having to face down Islamo-fascists who want to drag Iraq
back to a 7th Century Islamic totalitarian state.
This midpoint conflict only makes
the overall theme of the book, that liberation is not all it’s cracked up to be
especially when the American military is involved, even more frustrating. I noted
at the beginning, I wanted to like this book. I hoped this would be a story,
using animals as stand-ins for real people, about the struggles everyday Iraqis
go through as they try to establish a free Iraq. Instead, I got a muddled
story that is only consistent in its anti-war stance. It left me wondering what
Vaughn and Henrichon would do with a story about lions escaping from the Berlin
Zoo as American and British forces liberated Germany from Hitler.
As one would expect, Leftist media
love “Pride of Baghdad”. NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” does a softball interview
with Vaughn, in which Vaughn talks about his “conflicted” feelings about what
is happening in Iraq (Btw, Ex-Machina, which Vaughn discusses in the NPR
interview, is about a superhero turned New York politician. The politician is,
of course, a liberal).
Mike Lukich, at Popmatter.com,
writes, “the politics and social commentary, while certainly present, take a
much-appreciated back seat to the sheer, heartbreaking mess of it all.” Excuse me;
Mike, but “the politics and social commentary” is the “mess of it all”. American soldiers’ final appearance
in the book is what pushes me away from this work and into the ‘I wouldn’t
recommend it’ camp. After the fierce fight with Fajer, the ever-hopeful Ali
finally gets a glimpse of the mythic “horizon” that was nostalgically recalled by
Zill early in the story. The sun is setting; the sky is filled with deep reds
and oranges. As the pride stare out at the sky a shot rings out and Zill falls
over dead, soon followed by Safa, Noor and Ali. The cut from the panel
depicting Safa’s final breath is to, what else, a panel filled with an American
flag and a dialog bubble, reading “Jesus Christ”. The soldiers gather round the
dead animals and as one explains why he shot, he asks, “Where’d they come from, sir? Those
things aren’t wild out here are they?”
“No, not wild [the officer answers]. … They’re free.”
Following this scene around the
lion’s bodies, we get two full pages depicting American aircraft destroying a Baghdad neighborhood with
a bombing run. This does not strike me as the depiction of “conflicted” feelings.So if you want a glimpse into the
conflicted liberal soul when it comes to whether or not Republicans should send
the military to fight and die so that others may be free, pick up a copy of “Pride
of Baghdad”.