Review: 2000AD PROG 1921- Corporate tools and imaginary sexism

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: Wednesday 11th March 2015


There are a couple of things worth discussing in this week’s 2000AD, so I’ll go through them now.

Contents

1% (by Eddie Robson) wasn’t about the 1% of billionaires that run and control planet Earth in 2015, so that was a bit disappointing. What it’s actually about is a passenger space ship that goes missing, and you see what is happening from the point of view of those onboard. Not very interesting, at least so far, but what interested me was the reaction of the ship’s Captain when she was called ‘Miss’ by a passenger.

Her reaction (‘And it’s Captain, not ‘Miss’…) was the kind of stuff that social justice twits go on about all of the time. You know how it goes, looking for instances of sexism, racism, homophobia etc, then shouting, whining and complaining about them atop their great big moral horse of righteousness where they act morally outraged that somebody has acted in such an uncouth, politically incorrect way.

They love it, and if they can’t find any real life examples they just make them up, or write about them in a comic, or whatever they can get away with. I found this fictional moment of moral outrage to be quite interesting, as surely it’s only a natural reaction to assume that the uniformed female who is walking down the aisle on a mid-flight passenger aeroplane is NOT the captain? After all, how many females exist in the real world today who actually do that job? I did a bit of Internet research, and found the answer to that question:

‘Globally, around 4,000 of the 130,000 airline pilots are women, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots. Fewer still are captains- worldwide there are around 450.’

I'll repeat that factual statistic. There are 450 female Captains out of 130,000 pilots worldwide. That’s not a lot, is it? So, to assume that the uniformed female on a passenger aeroplane is NOT the pilot would only be a natural and understandable reaction based on statistical FACT, and not something for the social justice twits to get their knickers in a twist about after all? Am I wrong here?

What has happened in this comic book is one of two things. 1- The fictional character is an arse with a huge feminist chip on her shoulder. 2- Writer Eddie Robson is social justice white knighting and trying to browbeat his readers with a daft example of fictional sexism. I’m not certain which one it is, but I’ll tell you this. I hope it’s the former.

The second thing worth mentioning about 2000AD this week occurred in Savage/Grinders. I found it to be a lot better than last week’s strip, as by the end of it I got the distinct impression that writer Pat Mills had stumbled upon an accurate portrayal of how power operates in the real world.

Here's how it works- You have small groups of sociopaths battling for domination, and it’s only the ground troops (cops, soldiers etc) that even try to morally justify their actions.  Those in charge simply don’t care. Morality is for the proles. Human lives are meaningless; control is all that matters.

Dress it up (dress yourself up) as much as you want. Put on a silly uniform, and talk about queen or country, it’s all bullcrap, and the biggest sucker is the person who voluntarily puts on the silly uniform and takes a bullet in the head all the time believing in the lies that he has been told. Bill Savage is that sucker, that twit, that moron. He’s the hero of the story, and also the biggest moron, risking his soul for a lie, just to back up a system that he doesn’t even properly understand. I appreciate that message within the narrative, whether it was intentional or not. It felt real, and it resonated deeply. Join the cops, join the army, join their Satanic control systems and you are a complete and utter tool, simple as that.

The rest of the stories in this week’s 2000AD washed over me. Dredd was blah, but it looked nice. Survival Geeks was self aware wise ass nonsense. The Order was okay.

Is PROG 1921 of 2000AD worth getting? Yeah, but don’t expect too much this week. I got a couple of things, but that’s just me. I’m a strange guy, and getting blood out of a stone is a hobby of mine.


Rating: 7/10

Best story- Savage/Grinders: 8/10
Worst story- Survival Geeks: 3/10

Statistics on female airline pilots available here:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/13/female-pilots-woman-flying-aeroplane