Self-Censorship in Contemporary Comic Books- Review: Sherlock Holmes VS. Harry Houdini #5

Writers: Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Artist: Carlos Furuzono
Main Cover Artist: Aaron Campbell
Variant Cover Artist: Colton Worley
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 22nd April 2015


*NOTE: THIS REVIEW FEATURES MY LIST OF NEO-LIBERAL POLITICALLY EXPEDIENT COMIC BOOK HEROES AND VILLAINS


By far and away the best aspect about this entire Holmes Vs Houdini series has been the awesome front covers. The plot of the book itself stopped interesting me a while back, and in this final issue it has devolved into some daft, but at least highly contemporary anti-Russian fear propaganda.

Variant cover by Colton Worley

Don’t get upset, don’t start chucking the dreaded ‘conspiracy’ label at me either, because I’m not saying that this book is some kind of devious US government funded anti-Russian operation. It isn’t. It’s a book written by a bloke who needed a convenient villain, and the easy villain at the moment is Russia, so that’s where he has gone with the story.

What do I mean by ‘convenient’ villain? I mean that if you use a Russian villain in your book nobody is going to get upset about it. Heck, nobody will even mention it, well except for blokes like me on my blog.

I won’t go on too much about contemporary geo-political events, but Russia is starting to be demonised and given their cold war era ‘enemy of freedom’ status in the mainstream media once again in 2015. What is portrayed in the corporate mainstream media (as they are the great arbitrators of reality, right?) often trickles down into other forms of popular media as well, such as WWE wrestling, and comic books. So if the evil Russians are the villains on the (fake) news, why not use them as the fake bad guys in comic books as well?

If Russia is the convenient or expedient villain in 2015 who are the people/countries that comic book writers will not use as villains? Interesting question, don’t you think? People might not like to hear this, but in the western world at the moment we are living in the times of neo-liberal political correctness. You can criticise some people, but if you criticise others then it’s CAREER OVER.

Here are the main groupings (in my opinion, and based on my reading of hundreds of comic books over the past decade) of people who you are NOT allowed to criticise.

Non whites. (If there is a tint in their skin, don’t go there)
Homosexuals.
Immigrants (Any criticism of mass immigration will lead to accusations of racism).
Muslims.
Jews.
Feminists.
Social justice warrior campaigners.
The armed forces.
The Police.
China.
Saudi Arabia (and all of the other Gulf dictatorships supported by the west).
Israel.
Democratically elected (selected, in reality) Governments.

I’ve missed a few, obviously, but I think that’s a pretty good starting list. If you are not allowed to criticise any of the above groups of people, who are the groups of people that you are allowed, or even encouraged to criticise in our politically correct neo-liberal times?

The following list is the neo-liberal politically correct go to people that you ARE allowed to use as villains in 2015 comic books. Again, this list is based on my own experiences of reading comic books over the past decade.

White men.
Gun owners.
Survivalists/Preppers.
Southern Americans (always portrayed as redneck racists).
Nazi’s.
North Koreans.
Dictators (Not those supported by the west obviously)
Russians.
Homophobes.
Racists.
Misogynists.
Christians.
Aliens.
Truthers (The 9/11 truth people and anybody who questions government/media lies).

There are rare exceptions, when individuals in one of the two groups are shown to be heroic or villainous, but when this happens that person is not held as a representative of the group as a whole. You’ll get a crooked cop, but there’s always a good cop to defeat him and make sure that the organisation as a whole is not denigrated. You’ll get a nice Christian, but most Christians are still presented as crazy cult followers, and if you are looking for an evil Muslim or a crazy feminist character (they do exist in reality you know) then contemporary neo-liberal comic books are not going to be for you.

So looking at my two little lists, put yourself in the role of a comic book writer. You need a villain, so who is it going to be? You can’t use real life villains such as Islamic terrorists, or murderous cops, so what do you do instead? Easy, you pick a Russian or a Nazi, or a racist white man, or a Christian cult leader, or an alien and you make the story about personalities and exciting plot twists. You avoid the real issues of our times, and steer clear of all of the controversies that will get you in trouble with the neo-liberal politically correct thought Police that will call you bigoted or racist if you dare to go up against them.

Sherlock Holmes VS. Harry Hoodini uses a Russian villain, good old faithful mad monk Rasputin, and creates a safe scenario where the US (represented by Houdini) and the UK (represented by Holmes) team up to beat the evil red threat. You can do that, you are allowed to do that, nobody will mind, and you’ll have comic book fans putting up reviews that talk about the art, the plot and how exciting it all was, or whether or not it all made sense, or surprised, or entertained them.

To me it was just another comic. It messed up a bit after the second issue, and played a bit loose with the detective formula, but from that point on it kind of cruised to the end. The villain lost, his motive was hate, nothing deeper than that, don’t think too much about it, as it’s not important. All you need to know is that it was a fun ride and the heroes won, end of story, or is it?

I didn’t hate the book, but it wasn’t really doing anything. It’s not going to linger long in my memory, but nobody was offended, the covers looked great, and I’m sure that Holmes and Houdini will return. The characters are cheap, available, easy and safe and they have name value that is guaranteed to gain you at least a little bit of interest. I don’t blame Dynamite Comics for using them. If I wanted to sell a few hundred comic books then I’d probably do the same thing myself.

I’ll finish off this review with a quick message to writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery.

I wasn’t that impressed with the content of the book, but no hard feelings lads. I enjoyed the covers, and they are going to look great on my bedroom wall. Best of luck with all future projects, but go on, take a chance. Say something that you are not allowed to say. Be brave. It will be fun.



Rating: 6/10 (Lots of action and last second surprises and twists in this final issue, but the story didn’t say anything, other than to remind readers that it’s still politically expedient to have Russian villains in contemporary comic books)



 Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my list. Did I miss any group out? Who do you think you are allowed to criticise, and who do you think that you are not allowed to criticise in contemporary comic books?