If Jenny Sparks were alive today, she'd be disgusted to see the manner in which DC Comics, a division of AOL/Time-Warner, is playing into the wishes of the terrorists that destroyed the World Trade Center, attacked the Pentagon, destroyed a jet over Pennsylvania, and murdered thousands of people of many races and nationalities.
Of course, Jenny Sparks is not alive today. While some might think she died at midnight at the turn of the millennium in Authority #12, the fact is, she has never been alive. Jenny Sparks was a fictional creation. A damned good one, as fictional creations go, in a book that was once DC's best and is now mired down in well-meaning, politically correct idiocy. It is the very nature of what made Jenny's character compelling that lies at the wrongheadedness of DC's decision to cancel or otherwise alter forthcoming issues featuring the team she left behind to do her work, The Authority. Jenny Sparks wanted to make a better world, and showed by example that evil must be expunged by any means necessary. As she used her available resources to do good work, so must the peoples of the real world use theirs to destroy the will and the infrastructure of those who would murder innocents, using their religion as their excuse, but really only because they are frustrated, angry, twisted, sexist, hateful, and very small men.
Government officials at every level have been urging Americans to get back to their normal lives in the wake of the events of 11 September. To do any less, we're told, to live in fear -- is a concession to terror and a victory for the extremist religious zealots who murdered those thousands of human beings one month ago.
Delaying the release of Authority: Widescreen was understandable in the days after 11 September. The Authority has always been a book about violence and terrorism and mass destruction, and it would have been insensitive to say the least to release it just days or a couple of weeks after the faith-based initiative that took thousands of lives on 11 September.
But it's time to get back on the clock. America is back to work, and it's time to resume our lives; changed forever, yes, and in ways we may not even be able to fully imagine yet. But even George W. Bush knows it's time to go back to work.
Despite that, DC has permanently shelved The Authority: Widescreen, altered upcoming issues of the regular title, and put plans for a new version of the title up in the air for the indefinite future. I submit to you that this is both counter-productive in its intent and hypocritical in its execution.
I promise you that not one person that died on 11 September wanted this country and its people to stop living and working as they always have. Above all, if I knew I was about to die, I would want my family and friends to keep going. I am certain the victims of the murderous attacks on 11 September would want their sacrifice to mean something, and it will, it only will, if people of conscience everywhere realize that events like 11 September are what comes of putting dogmatic, fundamentalist, extremist religious zeal above rational thought.
It will mean something if people all over the world learn that they need to begin to embrace (or at least accept) each other's differences instead of using a false claim of being God's Chosen People to justify terror, oppression and murder. Unfortunately, extremists in many religions have used just that argument for thousands of years in myriad ways, always to one end: the degradation of humanity. So, if the sacrifice of all those lives one month ago wakes us up to that fact, then something positive will come out of this global nightmare. I'm not optimistic, not as long as The American Taliban such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are able to spew forth their extremist hate speech and all they have to do as a consequence is issue an apology. Thousands of people fund the careers of these men. Thousands of people whose countrymen and women died at the hands of men who spew the same sort of hate and virulence that their religious "leaders" let slip in the days following 11 September. Where is the outrage? Where is the reprisal? Why are Falwell and Robertson still at the head of their organizations? The people who allow them to continue as if nothing happened should be deeply ashamed, and should act to remove such despicable scum from the power they have attained.
The cancellation of funnybooks by DC, on the other hand, in an attempt to be "sensitive" or "politically correct" is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Why is it hypocrisy? Have you heard anything from DC about plans to stop reprinting the two existing Authority trade paperbacks? Or the Jenny Sparks and Stormwatch trade paperbacks? Of course not. Those books all contain scenes of mayhem, violence, terrorism and mass destruction. And none of them are being pulled off the shelves, according to someone I spoke to at DC. The fact of the matter is, DC doesn't even understand the subject matter of these books, or they would be less afraid to continue them.
Let's take the first Authority storyline, available as the first half of the Authority: Relentless trade paperback, which I am quite certain has not been recalled from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Borders, or any of the thousands of comic book stores at which it is readily available.
In this storyline, Kaizen Gamorra, a terrorist, sends super-powered clones to wreak destruction on Moscow, London, and Los Angeles. The destruction is, in fact, very similar to that in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September.
But readers do not thrill to the scenes of destruction that open up the story. It is horrific to see a mother and her baby killed in the attacks. It was horrific then, it is horrific now. Nothing has changed but our awareness of the horror.
The thrill comes in seeing the protagonists of the story, Jenny Sparks and the rest, use their powers to stop the terror and save lives. The thrill is in what's right about the story, not about the destruction and murder. The message is not "Go forth and terrorize," it's "Go forth and use your power to make a better world." Just because the message is couched in widescreen superheroics does not lessen its impact or importance. Long before 11 September, I admired Jenny Sparks's desire to make a better world. I admired the work that expressed it, created by Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary, Laura Depuy and others.
The Authority was a book about kicking the asses of those who would seek to control humanity through totalitarianism, terror and murder. The protagonists of the story were super-powered, but we were reminded at every turn that they wanted to make a better world. I have no doubt at all that if we could corner and execute Osama bin Laden, his reaction would be much like Kaizen Gamorra's at the end of the first Authority story: "I only wanted to have some fun." Because that's why he is doing what he is doing. He enjoys it. He may justify it with his dogmatic religious lunacy, but no one does such monumentally complex work as went into 11 September without enjoying what he is doing. And yes, that makes him a sick fuck who needs to be eradicated from the face of the globe. Quickly. With extreme prejudice. By any means necessary. The Midnighter knew that about Kaizen Gamorra, and we know it about Osama bin Laden.
The only question is, do we use our powers to make a better world? Those among you who think we have no powers, think again: We have logic, we have strength, and we have resolve. We can begin to leave behind the religious delusions of the previous 20 centuries and go forth as wiser humans, anxious not to kill in the name of the God we imagine prompting us to terrorize and kill. Instead using the spiritual impulse inherent in mankind to work for peaceful co-existence. It could happen. I am not optimistic.
As long as we choose to conceal stories about characters who would do just that, make a better world, as long as we censor information instead of making it openly available for rational and sentient beings to judge for themselves, we are not moving to a better world. We are, in fact, unknowingly, collaborating with terrorists. Giving them what they want.
DC is not making a better world by denying readers The Authority. They're taking away an inspiration, albeit an action-packed, thrill-filled one. And as long as they keep eight volumes of material with the exact same themes and mayhem and violence in print, they're hypocrites, proving that they are not doing what they're doing for the reasons they say they're doing it.
-- Alan David Doane