The Funnies Ain't So Funny Anymore
By Omri
Issue #6
So here I was last week,
expecting to fill this week’s column with tons of praise for Uncle
Sam by Steve Darnall and Alex Ross, but it looks like that’s never
going to happen. When I picked this up at the NY comiccon, I thought I
had stumbled into a forgotten piece of history. I honestly believed
that this was one of those masterpieces no one has ever heard of, thus
made even better for those select few in the know who get their hands on
it. Expectations were very high, and deliverables… not so much. I
tried to remain objective when reading this Vertigo title. Tried to
keep my political views in check so that I could assess the quality of
storytelling on its own merits. Whether I agreed or disagreed with the
ideas presented, I tried to disconnect myself from the implications
therein. Apparently, that was not enough. There seems to be a
legitimate reason why this two-issue miniseries never made any noise
among readers.
The premise is simple:
America has lost its ways. The ideas and values on which it was created
have been perverted or forgotten, and it is time to pick them up again
and reincorporate them into the nation. Not too ambitious a premise if
you ask me. There is nothing wrong with reminiscing the days past or
trying to cling to the last vestiges of old ways. Neil Gaiman’s
American Gods did a splendid job at this (albeit in prose and not in
graphic format), creating human equivalents to both old and new
religions, technologies and general objects of worship/ dependence,
pitting them against each other. This Uncle Sam, appropriately
titled U.S., follows the same footsteps, attempting the same
concept but with disastrous results. We have our Uncle Sam (who looks
like our cannon DCU Uncle Sam but has nothing else in common except the
name), Britannia, Marianne and a large brown bear (the British, French
and Soviet equivalents), Columbia (a female equivalent to U.S.), and
another Uncle Sam who has come to replace ours. Each one of these
characters represents their entire nation, or as we later learn, the
ideals on which that nation was founded. All these characters have
something else in common – they have all fallen, and are lost or
forgotten.
Throughout the story,
Uncle Sam falls in and out of conscience, going from reality to history
in a heartbeat. Some of these shifts are way too fast to catch up with,
others are too disorienting, and none of them allow the reader to get a
firm enough grasp on the situation. We go from Sam apparent raving
madness in a hospital to the War of Independence, then back to the
streets and all of a sudden are inside president Kennedy’s head instants
before he is shot. Though each event on its own is confusing, it’s easy
to understand that Sam IS America. His memories take us through all the
wars, all the conflicts and all the mistakes. Though amnesiac, he does
realize those are HIS memories he is re-living, though he still does not
know who he is or what he is supposed to do from here on. On paper,
this seems like a good concept. Take the symbol of the nation, and
portray him lost, confused and on the verge of madness. In practice…
the execution was fairly poor. Don’t get me wrong, Alex Ross’ art was
simply stunning, but the issues at hand basically hit us on the head
like a brick. There is no subtlety, no hidden meanings, and no cunning
ways of hiding the message. It just screams at you: THIS IS WHAT WE
THINK AMERICA HAS COME TO! It is too obvious, and leaves no room for
the reader’s imagination or even his own interpretation of the ideas
given his personal experiences. This is made even more obvious when we
are presented with the parade of characters described above, going
through the French Revolution, Imperialist England and Communist Russia,
all three concepts that do not exist anymore, treating Uncle Sam like
one of them – not ideas, but forgotten ones. Then add a couple
more history scenes depicting how far from the American Dream the nation
had drifted, and all we get is a mishmash of ideas jumbled together in a
salad of literary concepts, none of which are powerful enough to stand
up on their own. By this time, it is fairly obvious to the reader that
Sam is lost and hopeless, but it seems the writers have not had enough.
They just need to pile a couple more of these new symbols on us,
including snipers from rooftops, civil unrest, and how women were not
allowed to vote for the longest time. By now, it had become fairly
boring. I was about to drop it altogether if it wasn’t for this column
that I promised I would write.
Baring with it for a
little longer, I kept flipping the pages until Uncle Sam confronted the
new Uncle Sam. The “new” spirit of America has the same name and
likeness, but this one is much more focused and self- centered. Sitting
on a mountain of mass media and smoking a roll of hundred dollar bills
(if that’s not too obvious, I don’t know what is), this other Sam keeps
throwing slogan after slogan, claiming to be the herald of the 21st
century, the age of technology, truth and clear-cut lines between right
and wrong. Our Sam responds with the statement “It’s a big
advertisement for a product that doesn’t exist,” and the new Sam goes
into a fit and punches old Sam in the face. With every punch, new Sam
becomes more and more scared and loses integrity. Old Sam just takes
these punches, taunting new Sam with each coming one. And then, as
quickly as it began, old Sam disintegrates and blows in the wind. Old
Sam smiles, takes his hat, and walks away happy and content. So I ask
you here: What has just happened? Page after page we suffered through
this repetition of helplessness and wrongs done to people and all of a
sudden, in a single panel, Sam awakens from a dream and becomes a
crusader. He confronts his replacement, and before you know what has
happened, a beaten and bruised Uncle Sam emerges victorious and new Sam,
who was truly beating him, just vanishes. Too fast, too sudden, and too
incomprehensible. The idea of a new spirit of America was a good one.
The confrontation of words and ideals was inevitable. But what was the
meaning behind this being over so fast? How has old Sam defeated new
Sam with a single insult? Why is old Sam depicted to have won if the
nation is still headed in new Sam’s direction? The one-sided physical
fight was there to show that America had become a violent country, but
hadn’t our Sam just showed us countless memories of wars he gladly
participated in? Besides, this was published in 1997, before the current
war frenzy, and is thus a little devoid of context. The ending was too
absurd, and felt more like a quick and dirty ending once the creative
team discovered they had no way out of the story they had created.
Their original ideas were noble: they wanted readers to realize that
their society is far from perfect, and that the new standards of
consumerism and self-absorption were far from ideal. The result,
however, does not help anyone. The new ways just simply vanish in the
wind, and all of a sudden everything is perfect again. There’s no
indication of how or why, or what readers might or should do about it.
And if there is, it’s buried too deep in a book that from the beginning
showed us not to look behind the lines because everything was out in the
open. And as a final kicker, once Uncle Sam finds himself and goes on
to forge his new path, the final panel has Britannia picking up the
leftovers he leaves behind, clearly indicating the writer’s belief that
other nations are dependent on the U.S., and the superiority complex is
still there despite Sam claiming otherwise. My final verdict is still
inconclusive on this one. If someone you know has this miniseries and
you have some free time, the art in it is worth a quick read. If not,
do yourself a favor and save your money for better books. There are
plenty of good political comic books out there; this one is simply not
one of them.
“I have a dream. It’s a
good dream… But it’s all I have.” - Uncle Sam
Until next time,
Omri