If you like this post or want to support the blog, please consider donating
It’s Fourth of July Weekend here in the US and, given my
obsessive need for topicality, that means reviewing something American. This Independence Day I’m going to be
focusing on one of my all time favorite comics starring one of my all time
favorite superheroes: Uncle Sam.
I’ve already covered Uncle Sam’s history on this program but if you need
a refresher: Uncle Sam was a 1940s superhero version of the famous propaganda
character. He doesn’t really have
an origin in the conventional sense, but rather just exists as a persistent
embodiment of the American Spirit.
That’s a weird set-up for a superhero at the best of times
so Sam’s always had an eclectic history in comics. Case in point, in the late ‘90s, one of the most fertile
times in DC Comics’ entire history, the people running DC decided to give Uncle
Sam over to their newly formed imprint Vertigo Comics for a 2 issue prestige
graphic novel. The result is one
of the most challenging and politically charged works to come out of superhero
comics this side of Civil War or that
one time it turned out Nixon was part of the Secret Empire.
Before I dive in 1997’s Uncle
Sam comic let’s talk a little about the people who produced it: Vertigo
Comics. Vertigo came up in the
‘90s as a response to the new wave of great British talent that was flooding
the comic marketplace. British
authors had been a hot commodity to superhero books ever since Alan Moore blew
in out of nowhere and transformed comics into New York Times bestsellers.
Come the ‘90s there were a bunch of other British authors
with similar sensibilities so DC decided rather than force them to tone it down
for the main universe they’d give them their own imprint specifically for adult
audiences. It was a smart idea,
allowing the writers greater control of the series without having to worry
about the status quo and even transforming forgotten characters like
Swampthing, Sandman, and Shade, the changing man, into critical darlings.
By 1997 all three of those characters had gone from DC
obscurities to comic book hot properties and with Marvel declaring bankruptcy a
year earlier and the extreme craze championed by Image Comics on its last legs
DC was on top of the world. Uncle Sam was, more or less, an attempt
to make the Vertigo lightning strike for a fourth time, taking the character of
Uncle Sam from a bizarre background player into a major name. Obviouly that didn’t happen but it’s a
fascinating attempt and I remain convinced that if Uncle Sam had been produced today it would be consider an all time
classic of the superhero genre.
 |
| Remember, this is from 1997, 20 years ago |
The set-up is a little hard to explain in that, like most
Vertigo Comics, Uncle Sam is steeped
in metaphysics and ideology rather than fisticuffs and physical struggle. As such, the actual, tangible plot of the
comic is almost non-existent as the only stuff that we see in the real world is
Uncle Sam wandering around some nameless city and rambling like a crazy
homeless person.
Where things get clever, to the point that a ton of other
authors have ripped this off, is that the reason Sam seems crazy is that he’s a
homeless super being, a living spirit of American promise and freedom trying to
contain the entire American history and experience within his one mind. That’s a brilliant take on the
character and a great way to repurpose his position as such an iconic symbol of
Americana into something meaningful instead of just a peculiar side note.
What’s more, it provides an innate and immediate conflict
that’s really interesting and worth digging into. See, while Sam represents the ideal of America and the
promise of freedom that represents, his connection to the country means he must
constantly countenance this idea with the reality of a broken system and a
history steeped in blood and prejudice.
This allows the book to frame Sam as a defense of America as a nation
that can be great and do great things while his constant visions and insanities
confront the fact of America’s many failures, both historical and contemporary.
This turns the whole comic into something closer to a
surreal vision quest more than anything else, with Sam encountering figures in
the present reflecting the compromised nature of his history, horrific flashes
of everywhere America is currently falling to pieces, flashbacks to his own place
in moments of American history, and even vision of a strange pocket of
idealized reality where everything exists as an icon or symbol for the larger
world. The stuff with Sam
encountering augmented versions of reality that only he can see is a pretty
unique way to slot us into his worldview and explain how he ended up a rambling
homeless super being.
Seeing him argue with disembodied voices, seeing figures of
history reflected in people of the moment, and able to hear the “truth” behind
political platitudes gives you the sense of how incredibly strange and
frustrating it must be to exist as a spirit of freedom and history in the
modern world.
There’s a pretty
great scene at a political rally where Sam hears the Senator’s victory speech
as a callous and contemptuous declaration for the success of greed,
manipulation, fear over the forces of progress and good sense. It’s a heavy-handed sequence to be sure
and I’ll get back to the political bent in a bit but as a way of emphasizing
Sam’s weird relationship reality it gets the point across.
The flashbacks across American history are the real
standouts of the comic though, as their brevity allows them to exist as these
moving little vignettes from periods like the dustbowl, the civil war, the
revolutionary war, the massacre of the Blackhawk Indians, and other harsh
realities of American history.
These parts, along with the flashes of contemporary American failure,
are the strongest in the whole comic as they emphasize the conflict Sam has
through simply existing.
He essentially has to hold the entire country in his head,
all of its emotions, fears, and failures as well as the triumphs and hopes and
most of the book is basically just him trying to live with the reality of his
situation. It also helps that the
art, by Alex Ross, is just incredible.
Nobody in comics renders the mythic sweep of scope or the subtle detail
of the human face like Alex Ross and he does some of his best work here. The entire series is all hand painted
by Ross and it makes for a deeply moving and truly human experience amid all
the myth and iconography.
Speaking of which, the elements of the story that feel most
inclined towards spawning a series are also pretty compelling. While the first issue is mainly
grounded in Sam’s journey through time the second issue has him encountering a
strange plane of reality populated with fellow national icons like him. He meets Britannia, the Russian Bear,
Marianne, spirit of the French Revolution, and Columbia, Sam’s female counterpart.
This is where the story goes from urban fantasy to
something much more in line with a superhero narrative. The very idea of “superhero” stories is
a kind of nebulous term but I’d be willing to consider this a superhero story
as it does revolve around a colorfully costumed hero with amazing abilities
marshalling his strength to fight a deadly villain.
That’s the final conclusion of the whole comic, after
travelling to the plane of icons Sam encounters this bizarre, plastic version
of himself. The idea seems to be
that the shiny plastic version of Sam is the embodiment of jingoistic American
patriotism, a force for blind patriotism and conflict rather than
self-examination or the drive to improve yourself. Given how steeped all of this is in the realms of myth and
iconography the two’s battle is one more of reality and fantasy, something akin
to a wizard’s duel only, because comics, in the form of a giant fist
fight.
Yeah, that’s one of the awesome things about this comic,
despite being steeped in a harsh critique of America’s history and current
situation and an acceptance that true exceptionalism comes from being aware of
your failures and working to correct them, it all ends with a fight between the
two giant sized Uncle Sams in Washington DC.
It’s like the world’s strangest Kaiju battle but it’s still
pretty great, especially the way the fight is essentially just a metaphor for
Sam forcing his evil twin to accept the American reality rather than the hollow
fantasy he’s built for himself, to the point that the weight of the truth is so
destructive and the fantasy so insubstantial the fake Sam is blown away.
I mentioned earlier that I’d get back to the comic’s
politics and yeah; this is where the book can lose me a bit. It’s not I disagree with its stand
point it’s just that some of the speechifying can get pretty damn taxing. It’s all very anti-capitalist which, I
mean I do agree with but there’s not even like the hint of a two-sided argument
being presented here.
There’s
enough material in America’s frankly terrible relationship with corporate
interests to fuel the book’s righteous anger but I do feel like it’d be
interesting to see how that would be countenanced against American
industrialists like Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller or any of the other men
who defined the American consciousness in the later 19th
century.
However, all the stuff that’s actually coming down on
America’s current flaws are still shockingly spot on even 20 years after the
fact. Any time Sam shows off stuff
like violent racism and bigotry, economic stagnation, political inaction or
malpractice, or environmental collapse rings incredibly true to the right now
in a way that’s frankly chilling.
Uncle Sam is not
necessarily a comic for everyone but it’s certainly a comic for me and I get
the sense a lot of folks would probably really love it if they knew about
it. Superhero stories often get a
bad wrap as being empty and devoid of substance but this comic is exhibit A in
the long list of ways superhero books can be about something.
Even more than having a purpose, that
animating idea and philosophy aren’t relegated to the background or subtext
here: they’re the core of the comic’s focus and conflict. If anything, the superhero components,
the costumes, fistfights, and iconic myth, are what takes up the background
while the searing political critique and harsh historical reality take center
stage. If you’re looking for a
superhero story that puts ideas front and center this is the comic for
you.
If you liked this article, please like us on
Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going 
No comments:
Post a Comment