Comic Review: C.O.W.L. #10- Union City Blues

Writers: Kyle Higgins & Alec Siegel
Art: Rod Reis
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 13th May 2015


How many people have been reading and enjoying C.O.W.L. a comic book about a superhero union, political intrigues, corrupt officials and organised crime, that is set in a mythological 1960’s setting in Chicago USA?

To me, it’s Watchmen with unions, but set in the 1960’s, not the 1980’s. I don’t understand why it’s set in the 60’s and not now, a time where we really need unions to fight back against a neo-liberal political consensus. A cosy consensus between politics and corporations with the corporations having all of the power because they own the governments, and with the workers (that’s you, and me) being screwed over and told that everything is okay by smiling corporate faces on their HD television sets.

It was the late 70’s and early 80’s when union power was largely destroyed in the UK by the first wave of neo-liberalism. Margaret Thatcher used the police to beat up striking miners and to destroy their communities. The miners were standing in the way of corporate profit, so they had to be destroyed, and destroyed they were.

Working class communities all over the UK today have never recovered from Thatcher. In 2015 these communities have been devastated by privatisation, by international markets, by corporate, state backed neo-liberalism. The people still living in these devastated communities are addicted to drugs shipped in from Afghanistan, long-term unemployed, working in MCJobs that don’t even pay a living wage, fighting (and dying) in evil foreign wars for corporate profit, or languishing in prison. Destroyed by neo-liberalism, the people are herded like sheep, controlled by the drug laws that are designed to ensure that they never again become a threat to the neo-liberal elite.

Somebody should write a comic about that, but C.O.W.L. is an American comic book, so it’s about Chicago, not Liverpool or Durham. Like I said in the opening paragraph, I don’t know who is reading it, because in my comic book shop in Swindon, Wiltshire I am the only one. Batman and Spiderman sell hundreds of copies. C.O.W.L sells one, to me.

I buy it because there is a hint of reality there, just a hint, but that’s about as good as you are going to get today. I buy it because it shows how the cops and politicians manipulate public opinion, how they stage events to justify their own existence.

Imagine a comic book where a terrorist event in the west is shown to be staged, not for the illuminati, or stonecutters (Simpson’s reference) but for the obvious reason that the staging of said event justifies budgets for anti-terrorist departments within the police, military and intelligence agencies?

C.O.W.L. gets about as close as doing that as is allowable today. It counterbalances it by having good people working in the Police, and I’m sure that the villains will be exposed in the end.

People enjoy cleverness in their movies and books, but if that cleverness exposes how the real world actually works they get uncomfortable with it, and label it a ‘conspiracy theory’ that nobody should take seriously. That shows you just how effective mainstream media propaganda still is in this world of the Internet. It’s sad, but true. People buy conspiracy, intrigue and manipulation in entertainment, but in real life they want to pretend that it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but the world is a bit mad at the moment, so it doesn’t surprise me that people want to believe in fantasy more than the harsh reality that they are actually living in.

I always wondered who was reading this book other than myself, and as I read the letters page at the end of this issue my question was answered.

The book will be wrapped up in next month’s issue #11.

I know why comic book readers in the UK weren’t reading the book. They weren’t reading it because it was complex, because it was about new characters, and because it was about fictional US superhero unions in the 1960’s. That sounds like ‘politics,’ and the last thing that comic book readers want to read about in their comic books is boring old politics.

That says a lot about my generation, a generation of men unwilling and unable to connect dots, to see how important politics and unions used to be, and still are today, if they wanted them to be. But rather than getting involved, joining unions themselves and fighting back against neo-liberalism, what instead do they prefer to do?

Here’s what they do: They buy comic books that remind them of better times, when they were children, when they didn’t have to worry about work and bills. Anything that reminds them of adult reality is no fun. They don’t want to read about that. Give them Batman, Spiderman, and the Avengers. Give them cool quips, action, characters, plot-twists and exciting stories about nothing. That’s what they want, that’s what they demand, that’s what they buy, and the corporate comic book publishers are happy to oblige.

Enjoy this week’s event book. What, your future career went to China? What, your college degree now means nothing? What, you can’t even afford to buy a house? What, you are on a conveyor belt of endless work, no retirement in sight? What, no unions anymore?

Never mind, here’s a copy of the latest Batman. It has zombies in it, just like the walking dead. It’s a mocking metaphor. Don’t try to understand it, just enjoy, it’s cool, zombies are cool, it’s cool to be the walking dead. Bang, cool man, did you see his head explode?

I’ll miss C.O.W.L. It was about politics and unions, and about questioning those that claim authority over you. I would have preferred it to have been set in 2015 so they could have dealt with what is going on in the world today, but for a book about US superhero unions in the 1960’s it was a worthwhile read. I enjoyed it, and next month’s finale will be a book that I’m very much looking forward to reading, just to see how everything is tied up and whether or not it concludes with a message about what is happening in our neo-liberal, non-unionised slave worker world of today.


Rating: 8/10 (Nicely ramps up the tension for next month’s finale, plus there’s a ‘cool’ Nosferatu like villain for all of the geeks to enjoy)

Comic book review: C.O.W.L. #4- Before our jobs were ‘outsourced’ to Chinese slave factories

Writers- Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel
Artists: Rod Reis and Stephane Perger
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 27th August 2014


This issue of COWL is the penultimate issue before the end of the first arc, so what it’s doing is setting up a few pins before issue #5 knocks them all down. There are quite a few pins, and if you start reading the book at this issue you’ll just be hopelessly confused by it all. This book isn’t exactly simple anyway, and I always take my time with it because everything is so subtle and the characters are constantly lying to each other. You don’t know who, or what to believe, and there are quite a few characters in the book as well, so unless you take your time with it, this book can be frustratingly difficult to decipher. I’m okay with that as I’m cutting back on the stupid Marvel and DC superhero books that I buy on a weekly basis and I have the spare reading time to take it slowly with this one, and re-read the pages that initially confused. It’s enjoyable, but it does take some patience and concentration.

The basic story here is that superheroes are on strike and as is usual with strike situations their bosses are looking to bring in replacements. Some of the striking superheroes are starting to question their union boss, and probably thinking about going free-lance, for the same selfish reasons that exist in the real world, because it will be the best for them as individuals.

There’s some investigation going on as well involving COWL weapons going to villains, and that’s probably the most interesting part of the story to somebody like myself, because it suggests that the leaders of COWL might be creating their own enemy in order to justify their existence. This brings to mind how the FBI creates ‘terrorists’ by giving them fake bombs. It also brings to mind how the US and EU have been giving military support and weapons to Al Qaeda in Syria (now known as ISIS) in order to justify invading Syria in order to stop the very people they have created.

The other three plot-lines in this issue involve a disenfranchised second in command, a psychopathic pervert who is tolerated because he is useful, and a superhero doing a bit of work on the side whilst the strike goes on because she is a girl-scout type who just waits to take down the bad guys. If it sounds like there’s a lot going on here then it’s because there is. It might be packing a bit too much into the mix for some, but it’s okay with me, as I mentioned before I have the time and so I’m reading this one slowly, very slowly.

The book ends with things kicking off, as it should do in this issue, and we’re guaranteed some riotous action in next month’s end of arc instalment. It’s all set in 1962, which I don’t like, because it’s 2014 now and I don’t see any reason why comic book writers can’t be brave and deal with contemporary issue and concerns that are happening in the world right now. I lived through a period in the UK when unions had power. They thought the law, and the law won. We have been living with the legacy of that loss ever since. In 2014 unions have been decimated, and workers rights are not what they used to be. We are now living in an era of zero hours contracts, a form of slavery that would have been impossible for employers to get away with during the 1960's and 1970's when they still had some power. What is this book going to say? That unions were destroyed by globalism? That as soon as the jobs were ‘outsourced’ to China and the politicians no longer needed to keep workers on side it was all over for them? Why say that? We already know that, and putting superheroes into it doesn’t change anything.

If you want to talk about unions why not set it in 2014 where they are struggling to get their voices heard against politicians that no longer need to listen to them? That would be really interesting and relevant to the lives of the readers as well. This is an interesting book, but it’s out of date. The art is great, and the characters are very recognisably human and realistic, but it’s a book about workers rights set in an era before most of the readers were even born.

I go back to the point I previously made. What is it going to teach us? That we no longer have any power, that the strength of the unions were destroyed and we have become socialised, collectivised slaves to big government, a big government owned and controlled by the banks and corporations that helped destroy the unions by shipping the work over to China? Don’t tell us what we already know. Tell us what we can do to change the situation as it is today.

I like this book, it’s a good book, but it’s superheroes, strikes and the 1960’s. It’s good, but it’s old, and no matter how clever they are with the plot and the characters it will only reflect what happened decades ago, what we already know happened, not what is happening today and what needs to be done to change things. History is great, but I don’t need to be reminded that the workers were defeated over fifty years ago. I already know that. I’m living with that legacy today.

Rating: 7.5/10