Comic Review: Rebels #3- Careful, don’t upset the Feminists

Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Andrea Mutti
Colours: Jordie Bellaire
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 10th June 2015


Writing a book set in the late 1700’s with men at war, and women at home, is tricky today, as a generation of comic book readers and writers have been indoctrinated by Rockefeller funded third-wave feminism, and don’t even know what a man or woman is any more.

Gender lines and roles have been blurred so much recently that there is no longer any difference between men and women in mainstream comic books. I know why this was done.

Women no longer get to stay at home, to bring up the children. Women have to work now. Try buying a house on one wage. That is no longer possible, unless you have a (very rare) extremely well paid job. The traditional role of women (child rearing) has now gone to the state, and the state is also prepared to take the role of the man, topping up poverty wages with money and resources that a man is supposed to provide. That is why men are forced out of the home (family courts) and marriage is in decline whilst single parent households have never been higher.

The state is Mummy and Daddy now, and that is why we are slaves, owned like cattle by the globalist corporate/banking Mafia gangs that control the world.

I want to make this point very clear. Feminism used to be about empowering women, but not anymore. Today, feminism is about disempowering men, women, children and families as a whole, and empowering the state.

What does this have to do with Rebels #3? Quite a lot actually, as writer Brian Wood is writing for readers who don’t know what it is to be a man, or to be a woman. That statement will anger people, and it should, because it is true. A lot of readers will read a book about the 1700’s, see that the men are doing all the fighting, and that the women are staying at home, and it will confuse them.

Where are all the kick-ass women that they are used to seeing in their Batman and Avengers books? Where are all the kick-ass girls they see in their ‘Kick-Ass’ movies?

Sorry kids, but history doesn’t do political correctness, it does reality. Men fight in wars because men are more expendable to the tribe than women. If men die, so what? But if women die, then the next generation dies as well. That’s a simple fact, and that is why men are genetically programmed to protect and fight for women, and to die in wars to protect those women. That’s not sexist, it’s a matter of tribal survival.

Men have sperm, women eggs. Lots of sperm, not so much eggs. It takes a long time to bring up a child, men can die and the tribe will survive, but when the women die, it’s game over.

Brian Wood has to be careful, because accusations of sexism are so easy to come by now, and writing a book based on reality is always going to be difficult in these Orwelian days of ridiculous political correctness. The plot of Rebels #3 is balancing on a very precarious PC tightrope. It has a young girl acting in a cowardly way, and that’s not going to be very popular today, and the adult female lead is staying at home, not joining the war with her husband, as she inevitably would do in any modern, politically correct comic book.

I can sense the third wavers lurking with their accusations, but Wood makes his main female character tough and resilient and has his male lead protagonist say a few lines that makes him sound like a progressive male drip of today.

‘I was one of the new generation who knew revolution couldn’t be won without the women.’ 

Plus, the narrative concludes with a good reason why this woman won’t be coming along, and it’s a reason that is real, and cleverly deflects the inevitable accusations that always come when you portray women as anything other than heroic warriors today.

Will that be enough to stop the accusations of sexism? Probably not, but at least he tried, and look at that front cover, a strong independent young woman with a gun, a means of defending herself, she is empowered, not sexualised and that must be good enough for the PC Police, right?

That was the main thing I took from the book this month, the careful way that Wood was navigating his way through unpopular (real) gender roles in the 1700’s and how they are a bit different to the messed up globalist controlled world that we live in today. I could say a lot more about the book, but that was the main topic of interest for me this month.

Gender roles in 2015 are so messed up, and it’s the left’s fault that this has happened. They have been used as the useful idiots that they (sometimes) are, and even the best of comic books are liberal left leaning these days. Brian Wood doesn’t want to upset his readers, he knows who they are, and he’s done a pretty good job here of telling a 1700’s story with some reality, and at the same time not upsetting his PC readers of today.


Rating: 7/10 (A character building issue, slow, no action or excitement, but necessary)

Comic review: Rebels #2- In the Forrest with Mr. Wood

Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Andrea Mutti
Colourist: Jordie Bellaire
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 13th May 2015


The most note-worthy moment in Rebels #2 occurs after the story has finished, and writer Brian Wood engages with his readers in an essay about American flag waving.

I found that to be illuminating, because what it really is, is an attempt by Wood to convince his liberally minded readers that, don’t worry lads/lasses, I’m still one of you, I’m still a left leaning good guy.

That’s okay, I understand it, especially given his history where he has written books that have savaged the right wing types, putting all of the blame for the world’s ills (and imagined future ills) onto the racist, homophobic, intolerant right wingers.

The problem in 2015 for long-time liberal minded writers is that the paradigm of left versus right, or good versus evil is not quite as secure as it once appeared to be. Brian Wood then is like a lot of long-term leftists, negotiating within himself and trying to work out just what went wrong, why his ideological foundations are now looking a bit on the crumbly side.

I’ll leave that for him to figure out, and talk about Rebels #2 for a little bit now.

The book will probably read better in tpb, but that doesn’t mean that the single issues are not worth getting, because they are. It’s just that in this age of instant box-set access the month long wait can seem a bit prolonged, especially when a book is taking it’s time and telling a well structured fully rounded story.

This issue is about one guy, older than he looks, and I like that touch because it feels genuine, and how he is a new husband, and a revolutionary soldier, and how he manages to handle that balancing act. The story is told through his POV, and that has its pluses and minuses. The pluses being that it means you build up more emotional connectivity with the story because the bloke is talking directly to you, the minus' being that you know he’s never going to be taken out by a random red coat bullet because then who would be telling the story?

You lose some tension with this story-telling technique, but you gain bucket loads of empathy as his nearest and dearest will inevitably pay a huge price for what he is engaged in. I can live with that, and I like the slow pace of the book, despite what I said earlier in the review, it works well, because life isn’t all fast, all action, there’s lots of slow bits in it as well.

The key to the story is making it seem real, and the art is a big plus here. There’s a grit and darkness to certain panels, then bright white to signify the freshness of a day in the countryside. The people look like real people, there is spittle in their mouths, there’s no big muscles here, and I really enjoyed the dramatic splashes of colour during the action scenes as well. 

I have some good news for left leaning comic book fans, and let’s face it, that’s probably about 90% of the comic book reading audience of today. Brian Wood is no right wing gun nut, and you don’t have to feel bad about reading his book. He’s hanging, doggedly onto the left, but I do feel that his grip is loosening, and in that sense he’s no different to any other long time hope and change boyhood Marxist type. He’s got a good book here in Rebels #2, and I’ll continue to read along, not just to see where the story goes, but to follow the journey of Mr Wood as well.


Rating: 8/10