Comic review: Doctor Fate #1: PC Muslim Hero Abandons Faith to Join Egyptian Cat Cult

Writer: Paul Levitz
Artist: Sonny Liew
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 17th June 2015




Here’s an interesting book, that within its pages includes a valuable lesson about the portrayal of Islam in contemporary neoliberal western comic book narratives.

The book stars a Muslim hero, with a white Mother, a hot girlfriend, and a promising future career as a Doctor. Wait, it gets even better. If all of that wasn’t enough for you, the narrative then has him saving a baby from underneath the wheels of a subway train, sacrificing his life for a complete and utter stranger.

What a guy hey? See multiculturalism is great, no problems to be had at all. Muslims love to integrate and contribute to society, they even save babies from underneath subway trains. I say let them all in, and take over the country, take over the world actually, what could possibly go wrong?

White racists need to die anyway. Let’s bring in the dawn of this brave new era of ‘moderate’ Islam, with tolerance and diversity for all.

Certain kinds of people are going to love this review. They are going to read it, and positively explode with righteous indignation and rage. So I say, come on, bring it on. Come on then. Accuse me of being an evil intolerant Islamaphobic racist. I know you want to, go on, accuse me until the cows come home, it will be fun.

Jump up on that moral high horse of progressive liberalism and tell me that 99% of Muslims are moderate and tolerant. Pretend that ISIS doesn’t exist. Pretend that Saudi Arabia doesn’t exist. Pretend that Syria doesn’t exist. Pretend that Libya doesn’t exist. Pretend that Boko Haram doesn’t exist. Pretend that Sharia law doesn’t exist. Pretend that the Rochdale sex trafficking gang didn’t exist. Pretend that the Beslan school massacre didn’t happen. Pretend that the Charlie Hebdo massacre didn’t happen. Pretend that all of the other massacres and beheadings and atrocities worldwide didn’t happen as well.

Blame US foreign policy. Hell, even blame George Bush if you like. Pretend that the UK Muslim community doesn’t shut itself away in their own little communities with their own laws. Pretend that Muslims just want to integrate into society like some kind of neo-liberal mythical paradise. Pretend that reality itself is an abstract construct and those moral high horses and neoliberal utopias are the ‘tolerant’ way of looking at reality.

It doesn’t matter what evidence you see or hear, it doesn’t matter, because you will always be right. Even in the middle of a massacre when you yourself are being chopped up because you are not the right kind of wahabbi Muslim. They are not extreme, it’s intolerant to say that, they are just expressing their dissatisfaction with US foreign policy as they chop you and your kids into little pieces whilst screaming for their god like a nightmarish cult of devil worshippers. No, you will always be right, because you are a liberal, a dead, chopped up liberal, but always right, and always tolerant and always passive and pathetic and indoctrinated and self-hating and feeble and weak, and useless until the very end.

Here’s a question. Have you ever read a comic book where Muslims were portrayed as the villains? I have. It happened ONCE, in a book called ‘Holy Terror,’ by Frank Miller. The following quotation pretty much sums up how it was received by the mainstream press:

"Frank Miller doesn't do things halfway. One of the true comic-book greats, he’s created several of the most extraordinary stories ever to grace the art form. So perhaps it's fitting that now he's produced one of the most appalling, offensive and vindictive comics of all time ... Miller's Holy Terror is a screed against Islam, completely uninterested in any nuance or empathy toward 1.2 billion people he conflates with a few murderous conspiracy theorists." (Spencer Ackerman of Wired Magazine)

You don’t criticise Islam in comic books, even in a very small way, and if you do, then prepare for a whole heap of trouble coming your way. No, if you write Muslim characters in a 2015 era comic book then they must ALWAYS be positive, heroic, tolerant, liberal drips, just like the writers themselves actually.

Doctor Fate #1 then is a specimen of it’s time, an example of how you write Muslim characters in contemporary comic books. For that reason alone the book is worthy of study. I don’t expect contemporary comic books to demonise the Muslim community, because that would be horrible, and completely unfair to the vast majority of peaceful Muslims around the world. So what do I want? What is the point that I’m making here?

My point is that comic books have to stop being so bloody cowardly. I know that the writers watch the news. I know that they see the same things that I do. I know that they have opinions on it, so why am I not seeing a DIVERSE range of opinions in my comic books when it comes to the portrayal of Muslim characters? They can’t always be heroes can they?

What is being created here is a parallel universe, with mainstream comic book creators going out of their way not to offend. This snake-bellied cowardice is creating a mythical almost idolatrous image of Muslim people that is completely at odds with what is happening in the real world and DAILY on our television sets. What I am complaining about here is a LACK of diversity when it comes to the portrayal of Muslims in mainstream comic books, as described by the dictionary definition of the word.

Diversity
/daɪˈvɜːsɪtɪ/
noun 
1.
the state or quality of being different or varied
2.
a point of difference
3.
(logic) the relation that holds between two entities when and only when they are not identical; the property of being numerically distinct

All I am calling for here is for diversity, a point of difference, and when it comes to the portrayal of Muslims in comic books in 2015 I am not seeing this at all. What I am seeing is a very PC image, an image of the tolerant Muslim, of the not very religious Muslim, the neo-liberal fantasy Muslim. It’s a fantasy as real as the moderate rebels in Syria and the integrated Muslim television characters I see in Eastenders, that fantasy neoliberal London paradise of integrated communities that bears zero resemblance to the real London of today.

So what about this actual comic book? This is supposed to be a review, right? Yeah it is, so here we go.

The art is messy, the tone is soft and fluffy, and the story is about Ancient Egyptian Gods preparing a new flood to wipe out humanity. The Muslim protagonist takes to the Egyptian religion very easily, a cat speaks to him, tells him to put on a silly hat, and after some initial fears that have nothing whatsoever to do with his own faith, on it goes. This means that the protagonist is about as serious and dedicated to his religion as neo-liberals are to their own. He doesn’t even identify himself as a Muslim. Instead he very noticeable describes himself as ‘an American.’ Ah, it’s the liberal dream of diversity, alive and well within the pages of comic books at least.

In reality, this guy is a terrible Muslim. He completely disregards his own faith and jumps on board a new religion like it’s no big deal at all. He is a Muslim, but his faith plays no part in this comic book narrative whatsoever. His Muslim identity then is exposed as hollow, and meaningless. It’s a token gesture, a bone of political correctness thrown out so DC can stamp a label of ‘diversity’ onto one of it’s comic books.

This book is not going to impress any strong believer of the Islamic religion, as the religious aspect is mere background, and when faced with miraculous, amazing things that are happening around him, the protagonist doesn’t even refer to his faith one single time. So if it’s not trying to impress actual Muslims, who is the book trying to impress, and what is it trying to do?

You already know my answer to that question, right? The book is simply ticking PC boxes, and going out of its way to not offend anybody. The ironic thing about this situation is that offending Muslims is an extremely easy thing to do, and as hard as you try not to offend, the more likely it is that you will end up offending somebody. I’ll explain.

The very fact that the writer has put the old Egyptian religion into the lap of a young Muslim is probably something that he didn’t even think about. It’s just a story, something cool to do, right? What he has actually done, if he thought about it for a bit, is to make a young Muslim a Kuffar (an unbeliever) by willingly accepting the authority of another religion that is not Islam. As soon as he buys into the powers of the magic helmet, he has in essence rejected his own Muslim faith.

‘He that chooses a religion over Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the world to come he will be one of the lost.’
Quran 3:85, "The Imrans,"

So by going out of his way not to offend liberal sensibilities, what writer Paul Levitz has actually done here is to create a narrative that demeans Islam and would likely cause huge offence to many Muslims all around the world.

What a twit.

That’s how it goes when you pussy foot around a topic that needs to be tackled with true courage and integrity. The more you try not to offend, the more you do offend, and that’s the problem with Islam, the problem that mainstream comic books do not want to discuss.

Writer Paul Levitz probably really is a very decent and tolerant person, but that counts for nothing, and by trying to write another PC Muslim hero he’s just gone and dug his own pit of trouble. I feel sorry for the guy, really. His intentions were good, they always are with liberal types, but this whole fake ‘diversity’ thing is a difficult construct to escape from, especially with people shouting ‘racist’ at you whenever you even question it.

I didn’t hate the book. I see it as misguided, and it teaches a valuable lesson about the portrayal of Islamic heroes in contemporary comic books, so it’s worthy of a purchase. American popular culture is at a bit of a crossroads at the moment, it’s lost, confused, and trying to find it’s way through these dark times of neo-liberalism where truth is dying at the alter of political correctness. This time period in world history will make for a fascinating area of study at some future date, but at the moment it’s not easy. I can write my reviews and say whatever I like, but the poor comic book writers are trying to make a living, they are trying to be PC, trying to be good people, but ultimately they are just ending up getting lost in a maze littered with corporate ‘diversity’ landmines.


Rating: 4/10 (PC Muslim hero ends up quickly abandoning his faith at the first opportunity, oops)