As mainstream comics creators have been falling all over themselves to mock the War on Terror, the Iraq War, President Bush, Republicans, and the United States in general, Darius LaMonica and "Sleet" have done something ... "unusual" in this day and age -- they've created a comic about heroes fighting radical Islamic jihadists, titled Matamoros. But it will most likely meet with much of the same disdain that noted creator Frank Miller's Holy Terror, Batman did (and still may -- it's scheduled for release later this year). Just take a gander at what Miller faced:
Wow. I thought that even the most hardened lefties believe that al Qaeda are real terrorists. And Miller is "full of hate" because he has the temerity to create a story that vilifies real haters! Oh. And then, of course, there's the obligatory jab that Miller is somehow a "chickenhawk" for not actually joining up and fighting. (Miller, by the way, is in his 50s.)
That's easy for you to say now, Stan -- you, the very personification of the Cold War stereotypist.
And the various blogs out there are chock full of bad things to say about this Miller work.
Which brings us back to Matamoros:
"Matamoros" follows an American NCO, Charles Sobietti, who is wounded in the war, undergoes an experimental medical procedure to recover, returns home to New York to recuperate and then discovers a radical Islamic terror cell in Queens. We put Sobietti in New York because radical Islam has been there for quite a while. The blind sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman reached New York mosques in 1990 and currently a radical group called the Islamic Thinkers Society is located in Queens. This group is believed to be an offshoot of the UK's al Mahajiroun, the radical group that is now banned by the British government. And of course we all know what radical Islam did to New York in 2001.Authors LaMonica and "Sleet" had to self-publish. Apparently no comics publisher wanted the project; amazing that, considering said publishers have little hassle signing up a story which has a "superhero" team storming the White House, arresting and then executing the president for "election fraud" and "starting an 'illegal war.'"
Why would LaMonica and Sleet have to self-publish such a book? My first guess was -- you got it -- political correctness, and LaMonica pretty much confirms this:
FP: Why do you think most of popular entertainment and Western academia confronts Islamo-fascism with moral equivalence in comparison to our own side? And then why does it refuse to use moral equivalence in reverse? In other words, when the Islamists do something evil, they point to something Bush or America did that they consider just as bad if not worse. But when our side is accused of something, they never point to the enemy and start equivocating.LaMonica: Part of this is related to the whole notion of the loss of an "objective" sense of right and wrong which forms the basis of moral and cultural relativism. Let's face it -- the counterculture won big in the cultural wars and today it's un-PC even to call Islamofascists evil.
I think the "elitist left" frames the war with radical Islamism through a post-colonial Edward Said-ian lens. They view radical Islam as some type of "people's reaction" against western "imperialism" -- as if Islamism is some type of "liberation theology" which aims to empower peasants struggling against plantation owners through the crescent instead of the cross. It's as if the left views these Islamist thugs as drinking coffee and reading Gramsci while plotting to overthrow the bourgeoisie. They're stuck in a mindset and can't seem to process the information which would indicate that Islamism doesn't fit with this post-colonial worldview.
Possibly worse still for these elites is that Matamoros uses symbolism from -- gasp! -- the reconquista (reconquest) of Spain by the Christians over the Muslims. The very term "matamoros" means "kill Moors," "Moor" being the then-temporal term for "Muslim Arab." And if that's not bad enough, once people discover this fact, the title will be associated with the Crusades. But LaMonica is quick to clarify (my emphasis):
We were aware of the etymology of the word "moros" and even of its origins from Greco-Roman times ... the name was used in the context of classifying Moslem invaders during the civilizational war for the Iberian peninsula. The sole use of the word in the comic was in the context of resisting a jihadist military attack.I think it is unfortunate that people just equate [matamoros] with the Crusades. The "crusades" is now equivalent in postmodern lingo to a religiously motivated imperialist war, which nobody wants, whereas the reconquista was about punching an aggressive bully in the face. People do not want to forcibly convert Moslem countries from their religion, but neither do they want Islamists to destroy Western civilization and replace it with a sharia state. FYI - I think the west has done enough self-flagellation about the Crusades. I have yet to hear an apology for 1400 years of jihadist imperialism.
The cover of issue #1 features a "Moorish-style doorway with a crumbling painted Cross of Santiago Matamoros," which was the emblem worn by the Knights of the Order of Santiago during the reconquista period. But the cross image is crumbling, and this represents the status of Western civilization in Europe. The solider on the cover isn't European, it's American since, as LaMonica notes, "Europeans have given up fighting against the jihadist imperative to "fight until all men say 'there is no god but Allah.'"
I know people (usually on the right) have postulated how the Left would have reacted in the 1940s if said reactions were similar to their present reactions to the Iraq War and War on Terror. Here's a couple of hypothetical comic adventures that might have taken place had such a mind-set prevailed then:
Thankfully, our heads were a bit clearer back then.
Avi Green at Four Color Media Monitor has more on Matamoros.