Comic review: 2000AD PROG 1938- Still in love with the cult of the order follower

Writers: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 8th July 2015


2000AD has gone a bit sleepy, liberal, statist, feminist and irrelevent at the moment, so why should I waste my time constructing a detailed review when all I will do is repeat what I said about it last week?

Judge Dredd, an icon of authoritarian cool.

If you want to know what I think about Judge Dredd and female protagonists punching men in the face and bossing everybody about then look at my previous reviews. I’m not going to repeat myself, so I’ll keep this week’s review of 2000AD PROG 1938 short, and to the point.

The cover (by Neil Roberts) is nice. I like the layout, the blur and unconventionality to it, it’s a good one, and that’s coming from somebody who hates Judge Dredd.

Absalom has one panel with our heroes (the Police) rushing off to capture a dangerous criminal. As their van thunders through the streets they knock somebody of his bike. This is not going to be a big part of the narrative, it’s a minor detail, but it’s the best thing about the story, as it shows a truth about the Police.

Cops don’t actually give a s*** about people, it’s just fun and games to them, a case, a puzzle, a promotion, whatever, people don’t really matter, it’s all about them and their precious careers, not the people that they pretend to serve.

Cops are not there to defend the public. They are there to protect the status quo, the corporate overlords, the political minions and the demonic banks that control them.

If politicians decided that the wearing of a hat was now a criminal offence punishable by a lengthy prison sentence, cops would happily arrest you for wearing one, and send you to a gulag to rot away forever.

Order following thugs portrayed as heroes

The truth about cops is that they are not good people, they are order followers. Order followers are never good people. All cops are bad cops because they have chosen to disregard personal moral responsibility for the selfish pursuit of a career and money.

Don’t believe television cop programmes and don’t believe comics, books and all of the other media that portrays cops as heroes, because that is not based on reality. Cops are order following, selfish, immoral cowards. They always have been, and they always will be. That’s the truth, like it or not.

That’s all that I want to say about PROG 1938 of 2000AD. All of the stories have cops/soldiers as protagonists. Order followers all, there are no heroes here. If you are still under the misapprehension that order followers are good people then pick up a copy of Mein Kampf, and carry on as before. I have better things to do with my time.

Order followers are bad people. You will not sell me on the virtue of being a Nazi. It cannot be done. Comic books that portray cops and soldiers as heroes to children are doing a disservice to humanity. They are infecting the minds of the young, instilling in them a disease that maintains the evil, immoral, world that we live in today. I will not promote disease. I will not bow down to the immoral cult of the sociopathic order follower. Humanity needs to recognise truth, and to stop promoting, and bowing down to agents of the state. Cops and soldiers are order following servants of the satanic ‘elites’ that enslave us all, and it doesn’t matter how they are portrayed in mainstream media ‘programming’ vehicles. Truth will eventually out, and humanity will not be enslaved forever.


Rating: 3/10 (The narrative in Helium has a tame correlation with the many resource wars that the corrupt western elites have engaged in since 2001)

2000AD PROG 1937-Review- At least a beaten dog knows how to lie

Writers and artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion (Rebellion?)
Released: 1st July 2015



It’s supposed to be hot today, but I’m not hot. I’m cool, man. Yeah, ha ha, I’m cool alright, that’s why I read comic books, and that’s why I’m spending my time now, indoors, typing away, listening to black metal and writing more words about PROG 1937 of 2000AD than anybody else will bother to do. And why should they bother? It’s hot, they are outdoors, doing sweaty stuff, but I’m cool, so I’ll stay indoors doing cool stuff, and onto the review.

It starts with Judge Dredd, we get some torture, it works, and I’ve had enough of the story already. Torture doesn’t work in the real world, but as long as they pretend that it works in the realm of fiction (see 24) the justification stands. All evidence coming from western torture centres (Guantanamo Bay) that demonstrates how torture actually works (it plants information, rather than extracting it) continues to be ignored by a criminally complacent, compliant, condoning mainstream media. Until torture is shown for what it actually is, nothing changes.

Absalom starts in a 1980's UK care home with some Satanic child abuse. It’s nice to see some reality in 2000AD for a change. I’m not joking btw, see David Icke for more details. However, it denigrates quickly with the cops acting as heroes trying to protect the public. Sorry, but reality doesn’t work like that. Cops work for the state, not the public. They protect their masters, like the obedient dogs that they are. The tax paying, voting for slavery, cattle public is controlled, not protected, and cops are little more than the dogs of the corporate elites. Don’t believe me? Try going to a cop when you need help, and see what his response is. They don’t care, because it’s not their job to care. It’s their job to maintain the status quo of their masters, and that is what they do. Absalom ends this week with a reference to Jim Davidson, a comedian whose jokes were woefully dated in 1993. Oh dear. How long does this one run for?

Helium is starring another dog of the elites, a female dog this time. The world controllers love female dogs, they are so materialistic, so career orientated, so easy to control, and so willing to do anything, as long as it pleases their masters. Girl power baby, anyway, this female dog/cop is on protect the public duty, just like Absalom, so at least 2000AD has it’s story straight. Cops protect, remember that, even though it’s not true. The story is better than Absalom, but it is very progressive with men in the role of women and women in the role of men. Welcome to the New World order kids. Don’t be sexist, have a nice day. The story ends with a bloke talking about destroying the world in order to save it. Hey, with a progressive mindset like that the guy is perfect new world order material. If he does what he is told and looks good on the tel lie vision he could even be a future EU technocrat, head of a troika bank or the next US president. Quick, somebody get him a scholarship immediately.

I’m in no mood for nonsense this week. It must be the weather, as truth is boiling up, and rising as steam from my keyboard, and onto the screen, vomited onto the Internet for one man and his dog to look at, dismiss, and to continue their lives as usual.

Next story in 2000AD is Outlier. Oh crud. I couldn’t make any sense of it last week. This week must be better, right? Oh, double crud, it’s beginning with a weak man and a strong, determined, steely-eyed woman bossing everyone around. I see patterns evolving. I read on, and they’re soldiers, or cops, more dogs of the elites. Patterns man, patterns, they form a whole, and the picture is tyranny in a uniform, wearing lipstick, smile, comply or they’ll send the drones.

I’m almost at the end of PROG 1937 of 2000AD now, with one story to go, and it’s been about worship of the uniform, of authority, of female authority working for the corporate elites. That’s not good, but I have faith, so onto the final story, a new one, Jaegir/Tartarus- Part One. Ah man. Here we go again, a female soldier, bossing around the men on the first page, she’s tough in control, action, now back-story.  The villains in this one are dressed up like Nazi’s, no joke, bloody Nazi’s again. Oh, and it has dinosaurs in it. The story is about a young woman acting like a man, following orders in the army, like a female dog, end of review.

I’m very disappointed with PROG 1937 of 2000AD, because there’s nothing here for me, at all. It’s all strong independent female dog stuff. I’m not a female Police officer, or a female army officer, and I consider neither of these two types of people to be worthy of my time. I hope that they have lots of fun following orders and acting like men, but I don’t care about them, and I don’t particularly want to read about them either.

2000AD wasted my time, and now it’s just wasted more of my time on a review that will do me no good whatsoever, and will only end up with bad feeling against me, and inevitable accusations of sexism.

I want to be clear. I dislike feminist liberal marxist types. I dislike the neoliberal corporate status quo. I dislike social justice warriors. I dislike fake rebellion. I dislike anti-human, anti-family propaganda that comes from corporate whore mainstream media programming. I want genuine rebellion in my comics. I want comics that recognise truth and attack, attack, attack. They are rare, but these are the times in which we are living, and if nobody else is going to call out the neoliberal consensus of contemporary comics, I’ll do it myself.

PROG 1937 of 2000AD is a whimpering female dog, begging to serve, all rebellion is gone, oh dear, I think it just pi***d itself. Last week I saw some hope in 2000AD, but this week all I see is a cowered dog, beaten into submission by a friendly faced socially conscious, progressive slave master. I usually recommend that you pick up 2000AD, if only for one of the stories, but this week it’s pure junk. Pat Mills is gone. Slaine is taking a break. He’ll return in 2016, but what is left, what is there to enjoy in 2000AD at the moment? Not a lot I’m afraid. It’s going to be a long, hot, summer, and I’m starting to really feel it now.


Rating: 1/10 (Good cover)


Do you feel defeated? Do you feel like there is no hope, that sleep is the only escape from new world order tyranny, but that even sleep aludes you now? Watch this video. Here it is, defeated masculinity, predicted by the Richey Manic era Manic Street Preachers in 1993:

Pathetic, isn't it? Don't give up, don't accept the new world order, fight against it, the fight is not over, it is only just beginning. The masses are asleep, but the masses never change a thing. Don't seek the change, be the change. Be strong, be annoying, be loud, be aggressive, be unpopular, be free. 

Comic review: Martian Manhunter #1- Event Quality ‘Threat’ Book

Writer: Rob Williams
Artist: Eddy Barrows
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 17th June 2015



I enjoyed this book. It had a very professional structure to it, screenplay quality, like it was pitching for a television series. The art was very good as well, top end event quality good, and the main protagonist was shown to be a man in a moral quandary, fighting against his programming, fighting against what he is supposed to do, knowing that what he is supposed to do is wrong.

I love this guy.

All top quality comic book stuff, so you can’t complain too much about it, as even if you dislike it, you have to acknowledge that this is a very competent and well put together product. The narrative though at it’s core is a threat based story, so although it might seem complex at first, it really isn’t, and the solutions to the threat are the same as they always are in superhero comics. Normal people are helpless victims, they need outside agencies to protect and save them, and that’s where the superheroes come in.

That’s the one assumption that bothers me the most about superhero comics, the idea that people are always victims, that they need saving, and that they can’t save themselves. The idea is insidious mind control, and it’s pushed by all spectrums of political control, from monarchy to communism to democracy. It’s all pretty much the same thing, and based on the same assumptions. You don’t need your own farm. That’s what supermarkets are for. You don’t need your own education. That’s what schools are for. You don’t need your own guns to protect yourself. That’s what the cops are for.  You don’t need anything of your own at all. That’s what government is for.

Do you see how it works?

So when people read comic book after comic book with superheroes saving helpless victims from various disasters (it’s unspecified ‘terrorists’ in this book) it plays into the cultural programming of learnt helplessness. The idea being that we don’t have to do anything for ourselves, that there’s always going to be some government sponsored agency that will take care of us, to protect us from all of the threats in the world that we are so helpless to protect ourselves from.

It’s not a great mind-set you know, and this is not my opinion. Democide is defined as, ‘Murder by government.’ In the past century our various forms of government have started to excel in murdering their own people. So continuing to rely on governments, or the outside agencies that work for them (as represented by superhero characters) in 2015? That’s probably not a good idea.

‘Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R. J. Rummel as "the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder." Rummel created the term as an extended concept to include forms of government murder that are not covered by the term genocide, and it has become accepted among other scholars. According to Rummel, democide passed war as the leading cause of non-natural death in the 20th century.’ (The Wikipedia definition of ‘Democide.’)

How many of their own people have governments murdered over the past century?

‘Let's start with a number: 262 MILLION. That's the number of unarmed people the late Prof. R. J. Rummel estimated governments murdered in mass killings he termed "democide" during the 20th century. "This democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century," he wrote.’ (reason.com)

The superhero genre is fun, but it’s dangerous, especially when it portrays those in positions of authority as protectors of civilians, when the truth is very often the opposite. Those in positions of authority do not serve the people, they serve their masters, and their masters are government.

Perhaps that’s the one change that comic books need to make before they move forward and evolve the paradigm of dependence upon government authority that is currently caging humanity, and stopping any genuine hope, change or progression?

Martian Manhunter #1 is a fine comic book. It feels big-time, and that surprised me. It read like a Geoff John’s Justice League book, and it looked like one as well. That’s a huge compliment by the way. Everything was there, in place as it should be. Great art, interesting characters, a moral dilemma for the main protagonist and a cleverly constructed script. It was all very good, but that one problem remains. The problem being the idea that humanity is weak, helpless and needs to be saved.

Is it a structural problem, a problem that cannot be resolved without completely tearing apart the entire superhero genre itself? I don’t think so. All we need is less saving the world ‘threat’ plots, less dependence on outside forces, and an acknowledgement that human beings are not as weak and powerless as governments want them to be.

Mainstream corporate comic books buy into the lies of our time. They ignore truth, and promote the authority of government. They promote the lie that we are free people because we have a corrupted version of corporate democracy, a pathetic sham of freedom and choice owned and controlled by corporate/banking interests and protected by their career obsessed friends in the mainstream media.

It’s so easy to ignore truth. It’s so easy to buy a comic book, to enjoy the cool, and to not think about it any deeper than that. People need to stop with the adoration of the cool, they need to get beyond the deliberate ignorance and they need to get with reality. You can’t hide from reality forever. Sorry, did you think that life was just fun and games, that you can do whatever you like, just as long as you are doing what you are told? Sorry, but the laws of the universe don’t let us get away with that kind of behaviour. Sooner or later it’s payback time. You might ignore truth, but truth will not ignore you.

But how to change, what needs to be done? If you care, and most people don’t, read on.

Real change starts with a no, and a refusal to follow immoral orders. Soldiers and cops and other servants of the state unquestioningly follow orders, they are not good people, as morality plays no part in their decision making process. They are ordered, they obey, like a dog obeys. This is a truth that people don’t want to hear, and it is a truth that is born out by the facts on democide that I have included above.

We need to recognise real heroism. Real heroism is refusing orders when you know that they are morally wrong. America has real heroes. It has whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, but when was the last time that Bradley Manning was even referenced within the pages of a mainstream comic book? Do you know why he isn’t mentioned? He isn’t mentioned because he was a US soldier who told the truth, he saw that what was happening was wrong, and he spoke up about it. That is true heroism, speaking truth even when it is not in your best interests to do so.

“When the persecution of an individual (Bradley Manning) who has exposed an evil is pursued so ruthlessly and yet the evil itself is studiedly ignored, all of us know that there is something very wrong with the way that our society is conducting itself. And if we do not protest in the strongest terms about what is being done in our name, then we become complicit.” (Alan Moore)

Humanity needs to wake up to truth, and it needs to look at itself in the mirror, however uncomfortable that might be. Comic books play their role. Governments need threats, just like comic book narratives need threats. In comic books an outside threat is used to push the narrative, to create tension, excitement, drama and action. Threats are used in our own world in order to justify wars, a restriction on freedoms and all kinds of totalitarian, Orwelian new world order government policies.

Where did you think ISIS came from?  Why are they running around in US vehicles and using US weapons? Why are they being promoted in the mainstream media, and given free publicity like they have the best PR people in the world? Threats legitimate state control, and that is why states will always manufacture new threats in order to justify their positions of authority, or domination over our lives.

As superheroes characters are often little more than stand-ins for government order followers, the parallel should be perfectly clear. Both entities (comics and governments) are dependent upon permanent new threats, and both entities are more than willing and able to create their own threats to push their individual narratives. What they have more in common though is the idea that these threats cannot be handled by normal people, that people in positions of authority need ‘special powers’ in order to deal with these threats. In comic books it’s superheroes who save you. In the real world, it’s a gang of murderers, liars and thieves called government.

Real change is not going to be easy. You are not going to be able to watch your television and vote for it. It’s time to demolish false heroes, and to recognise uncomfortable truth. Superheroes will continue to work as stand-ins for government control, and the corpses will continue to pile up, just as before, as long as we ignore truth, ignore reality and pretend that comic books are just a bit of fun that we don’t really have to think too much about. Threats can be real, but who is creating the threat, and why have they created it in the first place? That’s a good place to start, and a good place to end as well, and that’s where I will finish off this review.


Rating: 8/10 (Fine book, but it’s just another threat narrative that portrays humans as helpless victims, in need of rescue by government sponsored heroes)

‘Drones’ by Muse- Review- Is Anybody Listening?

Released: 5th June 2015

Official Site:
http://muse.mu/home.htm


Our freedom’s just a loan
Run by machines and drones
They’ve got us locked into their sights
Soon they’ll control what’s left inside

Don’t try to hide it, don’t tell me it’s not there

You’ve got strength
You’ve got soul
You’ve felt pain
You’ve felt love
You can grow (you can grow)
You can grow (you can grow)
You can make this world what you want
You can revolt
You can revolt
You can revolt.’ (Revolt)


Matt Bellamy is being very direct in what he is saying here. I don't need to interpret it. I don't need to spin it. I don't need to analyse it. Just read the lyrics.

Go to YouTube, find the song, and check out the comments. What are the Muse fans saying about it? Here are some random examples:

‘F****** awesome. Full of energy and spirit, got a real nice queen vibe. All the hipsters/haters can fuck off back down their mum’s basement.’

‘I'm having nightmares about Matt chasing me while singing this silly chorus D:’

‘I looooove this song!!  But I need help, there's a part in the chorus that reminds me of and very famous old song (like in the 60s or something), but I cannot remember which one! Has anyone any idea? It's the part when he says "You can grow (you can grow!), You can grow (you can grow!) at 1:13 thanks!’

Take this one song, the message, and then the entire ‘Drones’ album as a whole, and Muse fans reaction to it, and it’s pretty much the same. They go straight into fanboy/girl mode, defending the songs, attacking ‘haters’ and then detailing why the song is good because it reminds them of something else that is also good.

That’s okay. I agree with them, the songs are good, and they remind me of other good songs too.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE THINGS HE IS ACTUALLY SINGING ABOUT????

There’s no discussion going on about that, and when it is brought up, it’s dismissed like his actual words and thoughts are completely irrelevant, even though these people are supposed to be passionate, loyal fans of his band.

So why aren’t the fans discussing what their favourite band are actually singing about?

Before I give my opinions on that, here’s a quick break-down of some of the best songs on the album, and what they are actually about.

1- Dead Inside- A good guy is turned into a selfish, cold-hearted person through his contact with a person who is ‘dead inside.’ At the end of the song the protagonist is ready to serve the system of human enslavement, death and war. He is ready to become a drone pilot.

2- Psycho- About the army indoctrination cult training process that prepares soldiers for mass slaughter and obeying orders (Nazi style).

3- Mercy- The song’s protagonist looks for forgiveness, explaining that he was trying to infiltrate the system, to change it from the inside, but has seen that this is impossible. He now wants out of it, and forgiveness for what he has done whilst serving the system.

4- Defector- The song’s protagonist loudly declares that he is a free man, unable to be brainwashed and manipulated by the anti-human control system, or ‘society’ as a whole.

Meaty stuff, don’t you think? So, again, what do the fans make of it? Go again to YouTube, pick any video and tell me what you are reading. I’ll do it now. I’ll pick one song at random, and type out the first comment that I see. Here we go:

Psycho (first comment, 24 likes):

I love the music...
Matt says: I gonna break you. 
Lol.... 
He is intense... 


So, why no discussion? Why aren’t the fans discussing the song lyrics, at all? Their hero is belting out his heart and soul, and telling them what is happening in the world NOW, and their reaction is largely banality and LOL jokes. What is going on here?

Here’s my opinion:

Muse fans are not stupid. They love the band, but they are mainstream people. They watch television, they vote, they go to school and college, they work, they have children, they like cool music, they want to rock out to a catchy tune.

In other words, they are normal, everyday people. They are not rebellious, and they don’t want to think about horrible things that are happening in the world around them. They are stuck in ‘little-me’ mode. They want a good job, friends, relationships and to be happy, and if they have to become a Drone pilot to do this, then that’s just fine, they’ll do it.

They’ll pay their taxes, support the latest wars and believe what their betters tell them to believe. They love Muse, but they are just a band, nothing more than that. They are entertainment, you don’t have to listen to what he is saying, just enjoy the cool tunes, high notes and guitar parts.

This is the attitude not just of a Muse fan, but of an indoctrinated mainstream media programmed slave, a person that will not rebel, not because s/he is stupid, but because s/he has chosen to live a life of DELIBERATE IGNORANCE. It’s a choice to accept slavery and to try to make the best of it. It’s a choice to not care about anybody in the world beside themselves, their families and any friends that they are particularly fond of this week. It’s the mindset pushed by the corporate whore mainstream media, pushed because it maintains the status quo, pushed because it turns people into mindless animals, easily controlled, and easily culled when the time comes.

‘Drones’ by Muse, is an anti New World order/globalist/neo-liberal/corporate hegemony concept album. I was always going to appreciate the lyrics, but there’s passion, defiance, fight, emotion and a lot of really good tunes in there as well. The album, tells a story, even though Muse fans are unwilling or unable to hear it at the moment, so to get the best out of it, put on your headphones and listen to the entire thing from beginning to end. This is how you will get the most out of it, and that’s what Muse fans should do as well.

Your rock God hero is trying to tell you something about truth, morality, the human experience and the world as it is today. He is telling you that all of that wacky ‘conspiracy’ stuff is real, and that you are a part of it, and that you help it move along with your quiet acquiescence and feelings of weakness and learnt helplessness. He’s telling you to wake up, telling you that you are stronger than you think, telling you to fight against the new world order beast, but only by recognising that it exists at all will the true fight begin. That’s where most Muse fans are right now. They don’t want to look under their own beds, because they fear what they WILL find there. Matt is yelling, but how many people really want to hear what he is so loudly, passionately, eloquently and beautifully saying?


Rating: 10/10 (Are you turning into a human drone?)

Comic Review: Planet Hulk #1- Captain Pony-Tail & His Pet T-Rex

Writer: Sam Humphries
Artist: Marc Laming
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Released: 20th May 2015



I’ve often wondered, and reading Planet Hulk #1 has made me think about it again, that the only thing that makes a comic book hero an actual ‘hero’ is that he fights against dictators.

The hero stands up for ‘democracy, and freedom.’ That is what he does, and that is why he is a hero. The unquestioned assumption of course being that democracy equates to freedom.

So what happens when a democracy becomes compromised? What happens when obscenely wealthy people purchase the democracy, and propagandise the people through their media manipulation machines, thus making the democracy a sham, an empty charade where the people are not as ‘free’ as they might think that they are?

What happens when change is impossible, when the political parties represent not the people that vote for them, but the people who fund them? What happens when a democracy becomes nothing more than a dictatorship of the wealthy, and people go along with it in the hope that they can at least make a decent living out of the corrupt situation that they have found themselves living in?

Where are the comic book heroes to be found in such a situation? Where are the comic book heroes in 2015? What do they do, what do they say, and do they even deserve to be labelled as 'heroes?' Let's jump into the larger than life world of comic books, and see what the heroes of today are getting up to.

Heroes in Marvel comics of 2015 come in many different shapes and sizes, but they all do one of two things:

1- They fight against fictional bullies and dictators (whilst ignoring real ones like the western backed gangster family in control of Saudi Arabia) and pretend that democracy in the west is not broken.
2- They become ‘social justice warriors,’ and fight for all of the politically correct ‘freedoms’ that are pushed by the mainstream media, the same media that is ran and controlled by the people who run and control the sham democracy.

I think it's safe to say that Marvel comic books of 2015 focus mainly on evil dictators, and social justice warrior issues. The writers are almost 100% feminist neo-liberal in their world-views and frequently pat themselves on the back for having stories that deal with issues related to race, sex or gender. Their idea of controversial is what would have been controversial thirty years ago, not what is actually controversial today.

Why am I bringing all of this up in a review of Planet Hulk #1? It's because that backdrop informs what I am now going to say about this particular comic book.

Planet Hulk #1 has a simple story, and reads like any other mainstream comic book that you will find in your comic book shop today. It doesn’t have as many zombies or third-wave feminist empowered young girls as most of the other junk books on the shelves, but its overarching assumptions are very familiar.

The book’s villain is an evil, world controlling dictator. This dictator (Doctor Doom) sits on a thrown and orders people to do his bidding. People follow his orders (just as they would do in a democracy btw) and the world is a horrible place that needs the help of some comic book heroes. Captain America is one of these heroes, and as we begin this story he is a pony-tailed gladiator who rides around on a T-Rex. He works for said evil dictator in order to help his friend, Bucky. The book is about fighting, and if you like fighting you’ll like the book.

Oh, I almost forgot. You also get a backstory about how a place called ‘Greenland’ got to be radiated, and thus turned into a big monster play-park. The story might be fun, but only for those under the age of about ten years old. This add-on story is about monsters, and more fighting. So again, if you like fighting, you'll like this bit as well, and if you like monsters fighting then this will really make your day.

Here’s how I read Planet Hulk #1. Captain America is a US marine, a man who is fighting not for a great cause, but because he wants to help his buddy. I’ve read interviews with real soldiers, and when they are asked what they were fighting for their answer is normally the same. They were fighting to help their friends, not America, not democracy, not freedom, they are fighting for their friends, and their friends are fighting for them. Their objective is to get home safely, and if they have to murder people to do so, well, they’ll do it, a lot.

Don’t ask the soldiers why they are occupying a foreign country, and don’t question why they would agree to do such a thing in the first place. You don’t question the troops, and you certainly don’t criticise the troops. They are heroes, just like Captain America. What they actually do is not important. You thank them for your freedom, and you don’t question anything that they do.

Do you see the problem here?

I don’t have to spell it out, do I? You have a culture being created, being celebrated in comic books like Planet Hulk #1, where questioning is something that you just don’t do. But then look at the comic book again and look at the villains. Who are they?

Who are the villains in Planet Hulk #1?

It’s not Doom. He’s the face of it, but look at what he actually does. All he is doing is sitting in a chair. He’s not killing anybody. He’s not forcing people to do anything. All he is doing is giving orders, and people are obeying him.

Doom has an army of ‘Thors’ who fly around subjugating the local population on his behalf. This army of Thors rain death and destruction from the sky, targeting civilians as they do so, indiscriminately using violence to sucessfully complete their missions.

The Thors are the villains, the SOLDIERS. Doom is a politician, the president, and the man who gives orders, but he doesn’t do the actual killing himself, that is what his order following Thor/Soldiers are doing.

The villain in this book is not Doctor Doom. The villains are the people who follow his orders, the Thors, the SOLDIERS.

How do comic book readers read this book, and then look at their own soldiers as heroes? The Thors are soldiers, but they are not heroes. Soldiers are never heroes, because people who follow orders are not acting under moral law. They are voluntarily giving away their moral responsibilities, and acting in an immoral way that is inconsistent with the actions of a good, moral person. This is what soldiers do. It’s what soldiers always do. It’s a part of the job. You cannot be an order following soldier and also be a good moral person, the two things are completely incompatible. People might not like to hear this truth, but truth is what it is, and it needs to be said.

After acknowledging that order following soldiers are not heroes, the book then uses the ultimate order following soldier (Captain America) and attempts to portray him as the hero of the narrative. It’s already contradictory, that a man who follows orders is a hero, but then look at what he is actually doing in this book.  He is also working for Doctor Doom, accepting a mission where he is to murder somebody, just on the say so of Doom. His rationale of course being that he is doing it for his friend, the same rationale I discussed previously in this review.

What is this comic book saying?

To me, it’s saying two things. Firstly, that it’s bad to be an order following Thor/soldier, but if you are doing what you are doing in order to help your buddy (remember, the cry of all soldiers) then, well, that’s okay, you a good moral person now.

I guess that if you are following orders to help your buddies then morality no longer counts? You are not a villain anymore. You are Captain America now.

Tell that to the Nuremberg trials of 1945/6 and see if they’ll buy it. They won’t, and do you know why they won’t? They won’t buy it because it’s BS. You are always morally responsible for the results of your actions, no friendships, no orders, and no excuses. If you do evil things, the only person responsible is YOU.

Do you see the insanity, the self-delusion, and the practised ignorance of reality that is on display here in this (very typical) comic book? It’s quite incredibly really, and that’s what you have going on in most mainstream comic books in 2015. An acknowledgement that following orders is probably not a good thing, but this idea that if you are doing it to help your friends then that’s perfectly okay, and even admirable.

It’s madness, pure madness, encouraged in comic books, like Planet Hulk #1, by Sam Humphries, and on display in countless other Marvel, DC and independent comic books that are on the market today.

Is the world mad, or is it just asleep? They understand that western democracies are broken, don’t they? They understand that following orders is what the Nazi’s did, and that is why we call them ‘evil’ don’t they?

They have to understand, and yet they (I’m talking about the writers and readers of contemporary comic books here) are ignoring these two issues.

I’ll read other reviews of this book and they’ll talk about the plot, the art, the characters. I know they will. The deeper issues will not be discussed. My review will be the weird, ignored one. I know that is going to happen, because that is what always happens. And so I put out this review for one reason only, for the sake of my own conscience. I saw what was going on, and whilst others remained silent, I refused to say ‘cool,’ and ignore what was going on. I’m the bad guy who told the comic book reading world that their emperor is not wearing any clothes. Somebody had to do it, sorry, but it had to be done.


Rating: 4/10 (Get it if you want to see a pony-tailed Captain America riding a T-Rex)