Comic Review: Green Lantern #39- Questioning American Exceptionalism

Writer: Robert Venditti
Artist: Billy Tan
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 4th February 2015



Green Lantern #39 is a fascinating book because it offers comic book readers a much-needed insight into the current neo-liberal world-view consensus known as ‘American exceptionalism.’

There's always a new threat used to justify US imperialism

The term is a short-hand phrase, commonly used to describe the belief (in US mainstream circles at least) that America is unique in world history, that their empire is a force for good in the world, unlike all of the other empires that have preceded it. The belief in American exceptionalism is a belief that American foreign policy/imperialism is based on issues to do with morality, freedom and human rights rather than reasons of naked corporate/banking self interest dictated by a tiny number of ‘elite’ families.

The Green Lanterns are the American military, and the Guardians are the US political leaders. The Guardians (Politicians) know best, and the Lanterns (Military/Police) unquestioningly follow their orders. The comic book narratives of our post 9/11 times have been simple. A dictator alien threatens galactic peace, and the Lanterns (or Avengers, or substitute any other group in contemporary comic books) are sent in to restore order. After lots of ‘cool’ battle scenes, a misdirection or two, the characters learning something about themselves etc, the threat is defeated, and order is restored. There is no bigger picture; no secret agendas are going on behind the scenes. That’s how these books are structured, that is how these stories unfold, not just in DC comics, but in just about every mainstream comic book available today.

US comic books back-up the mainstream corporate media consensus by supporting a world-view where the US military fly around the world saving people from evil dictators and spreading peace and democracy wherever they go.  The problem of course, is that this version of reality is a lie and in this age of Internet and whistleblower information and revelation the lies are becoming increasing self-evident.

So what happens when the US military/Green Lanterns are no longer seen as the protectors, as the good guys of the narrative? What happens when the lies propagandised through the corporate mainstream media disinformation system begin to break down and the US military are not viewed as defenders of liberty and freedom, but as harbingers of war, destruction, death and misery?

Hi John.

How do American comic books continue to spin the false narrative of US exceptionalism, of US morality, of the US defending democracy and freedom when the real world realities of the past decade lay waste to this lie? How do they get young men and women to sign up to the US military/Green Lantern Corps/Police forces when they are no longer heroes, but the villains of the story?

Green Lantern #39 has a problem. How to push the propagandistic mainstream line when this line is diametrically opposed to reality itself? It tries hard.

The book begins with the main hero protagonist (Green Lantern Hal Jordan) shown upholding the law and treating prisoners with humanity, but there’s tension with local law enforcement. They appreciate the help, but they don’t want the US World Police system that he represents, and he’s politely told to go on his way.

The Politicians

Jordan is then summoned to a meeting with his political masters (the Guardians) to receive his next orders. They outline their concerns, that the Green Lanterns (representing the US military) are becoming a bit unpopular in the galaxy. They are concerned that ‘anarchy’ is going to break out unless they are there to ‘Police’ the galaxy. That says everything that you need to know about the mind-set of contemporary comic book writers.

‘Anarchy’ to the mainstream means black masks, bricks through shop windows, riots and wanton destruction. The Police/Army/Green Lanterns/Batman/Spiderman are needed to stop humanity from destroying itself. Humanity is not to be trusted, and freedom is never on offer.

What does this say about their view of humanity? It says that comic book writers view humanity in a very suspicious, very paranoid, very evil light. This world-view sees people as inherently bad, they need to be policed, they need to be controlled, they can’t be trusted with true freedom, they need to be controlled like sheep with the threat of the sheepdog (Police) needed to keep them in line. The best way to shepherd and control the sheep/people of course is to is to herd them up, and stick them in a prison/pen.

That is the very definition of a scared liberal statist who fears humanity itself, and would rather live in a prison than be truly free. It’s the world-view of the coming New World Order, and it’s pervasive in the mainstream media today, a media that promotes fear, suspicion, and the police state as being the only thing that can protect us from ourselves.

The Soldiers/Cops.

Green Lantern #39 concludes with Soldier/Lantern Hal Jordan being given a new mission by his political masters. They recognise him as a trusted face, so they want him to ‘Help us reclaim the Corp’s good name.’ In other words, they want to use him as a public relations vehicle to sell their Galactic Police state to the DC universe. The most interesting thing about this book is that Jordan does not take the proposition at face value, and as the book concludes he thinks out loud to himself that he just might, ‘Do something crazy.'’

Will he really do something genuinely crazy in the context of a mainstream comic book? Will he challenge the very notion of authority to a centralised control system of political ‘experts’ that enforces their will on the people at the point of a gun, and with the threat of depravation of individual freedom and liberty?

Will Hal Jordan become an advocate for liberty, for anarchy, for freedom from the evils of statism and the New World Order Police state?

There’s a lot of questioning going on here, and I’m glad that I purchased this book now, because I was on the verge of dropping it from my pull-list. What’s going to happen next? Is Jordan really going to put down his uniform and start thinking, and acting based on morality, and not the US exceptionalism and lies that have defined the past thirteen years on planet Earth?

This book can go one of two ways. It could introduce a new threat and carry on business as usual, or it could start to question things on a deeper level. What is it going to be? Where is it going to go? At the moment I’m unsure, but what I do know is that issue #40 is already a must buy book.

Rating; 8/10 (For all of the intellectual stimulation that it provided)


Click on link below for more details on ‘American Exceptionalism.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism