I’m a big fan of Confessions of an Aca/Fan, Henry Jenkin’s blog. He’s begun an incredible series of posts analyzing how comic books have dealt with war and conflict in the past and how comic books are dealing with 9/11 and current events.

Some of you might know that I’m a big Green Lantern fan. I’ve fallen behind over the summer, but the DC Universe is really coming to grips with the ethical issues when super powers set themselves up as supra-national police. With the Green Latern Corp, we have a group of extremely powerful agents enforcing the policy agenda of an immortal and alien race on a galactic scale. In sci-fi, galactic scale civilizations seem to be either a) totally alien and disconnected from “human” scale events, i.e. another plane of existance; b) bound by a moral code of non-interference, like the prime directive;  c) galactic super-police, or, of course, d) hegemonic empires.

In sci-fi, though, it’s usually clear whether the civilization is a C or a D. I think comic books are struggling now with the realization that reasonable people can disagree on the boundary between the two.

Technorati Tags: comics, 9-11, superhero, culture

Posted by M in Interesting Link