Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Ron Paul Picks Pope's Jewish Batman

batman-and-robin.jpg
No, you did not misread that headline. The comics site ComicMix is surveying prez candidates for their choice for favorite superhero, and Ron Paul (or a very well-informed young nerd on his staff to whom the strange task was likely delegated) quite rightly chose Baruch Wane, the Jewish, Nazi-era version of Batman created for DC Comics by libertarian writer-artist Paul Pope (and I was informed of this by Ali Kokmen of Del Rey Manga, which by the way has itself just made a deal to start producing X-Men manga — that is, comics in the Japanese style — in cooperation with Marvel Comics).

I’m largely avoiding comics blogging for several months, but this is important political news.

The best part of it all is that in the comic, Baruch Wane rescued a manuscript of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action from the Nazis, and the story took a very respectful attitude toward the book (which I, uh, confessed to not having actually read, in a recent Retro-Journal entry — though I read Mises’ Socialism and Liberalism), calling it a classic of human liberty (and thus a threat to fascists everywhere). So a vote for Ron Paul is now really a vote for Batman and a vote against the Nazis, symbolically speaking. Beat that, Huckabee!

While I think of it, this reminds me that perhaps my favorite New York Post headline of all time, for an article about some cops deciding to boycott Warner Brothers movies such as the Batman films to punish Warner for selling the Ice-T song “Cop Killer,” was: “Cops Pin Rap on Batman,” accompanied by a full-page, front-page picture of Batman. (And, no, “Cop Killer” is not technically rap, but don’t feel too sorry for poor, misrepresented Ice-T, who, I’m told, confesses to multiple unsolved bank robberies committed in his youth, without apparent remorse, in his partly autobiographical 1994 book The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?)

P.S. The Post, by the way, has many of its infamously catchy/trashy headlines framed in its offices, including the immortal “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” And when my then-girlfriend Dawn Eden was a copyeditor there, and we differed not only about the existence of God but about the relative merits of 60s-style power pop and 80s New Wave, she wrote a headline for an article about traffic snarls caused by that year’s MTV Music Awards that said, partly as a jab to me, “Biggest Losers at Tonight’s MTV Awards: The Cars.” That’s very clever — though the Cars are still better than Gerry and the Pacemakers, in my opinion. (And there is no God.)

P.P.S. And just to get back to serious politics for a moment: you know Batman could defeat Huckabee-supporters Chuck Norris, Ted Nugent, and Ric Flair even if they all fought him at the same time.

5 comments:

Avery J. Knapp Jr. said...

Haha. Great find and post Todd.

D------- said...

Perhaps. Do you, in our lifetimes, think we will ever see Adam West and William Shatner make a film together? The acting would be… so funny.

Todd Seavey said...

We can hope. My respect for both men’s work increases as they hone their crafts in _Family Guy_ and _Boston Legal_, respectively, leading to a new appreciation both for Shatner’s subtle mix of humor, confidence, and concern in certain pivotal Trek scenes (as when he gently upbraids his men for failing to transport him back to the Enterprise in the climax of “The Doomsday Machine”) and West’s drily hilarious portrayal of a has-been TV detective on the tragically short-lived O’Brien/Smigel-scripted series _Lookwell_ circa 1990.

D------- said...

Pro-wrestler Val Venis (Sean Morley, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Morley) is backing Ron Paul. See http://freetarian.com/ for his blog.

(Venis’ gimmick or character is that of a porn star.)

Todd Seavey said...

Victory is now assured — and fittingly, a party is scheduled for Ron Paul 2008 New York City HQ for this Sat. at 9pm, I’m told.