SCARLET #6: Scarlet derides Occupy Wall Street

[starwolf_oakley]

SCARLET is a Bendis/Maleev series about a young woman whose boyfriend is murdered by a crooked cop. She kills the dirty cop out of revenge, then decides to go after "the system." Then things get... out of hand. The first five issues were released in 2010 and 2011. Now the 6th issues it out.

Comments

[mrosa]

So what's Scarlet's way? Kill bankers and stockholders?

[mrstatham]

Her answer to being hospitalized and having her boyfriend killed before her eyes after a police officer tried to set them up as holding was to kill the officer in question and then kill one of his relatives, also a cop. Since then, she's appeared at a protest where once of the officers tried to kill her with a grenade. So.. I'm betting she's aiming to be a little more extreme.

The refreshing thing - at least from the first HC collection, is that Bendis *isn't* particularly saying she's right. Which makes it feel like a distinct change from the indie work of say, Brian Wood; Reading Supermarket, for instance, I felt like I was having my nose rubbed in the fact that the lead had an electric car, still had a job despite being in school, and was so cool she could turn down coffee offered by her folks because of where it came from. So it feels like less of an author tract - because I don't think Bendis is advocating what she's doing - and more like, say, House of Cards (either the BBC original or the new US series) where we feel more like accomplices because she talks to us directly.

[filthysize]

No, she kills cops.

[starwolf_oakley]

In issue #6, she specifically says she kills “people dressed up like police officers.” Since the dirty cops she killed were, um, dirty, they weren’t really cops any more, just dressed up like cops.

Because *that* makes more sense? Just because Scarlet claims to know what she's doing doesn't mean she isn't crazy.

[filthysize]

That was kind of a dumb argument at the TV station there, because people who just dress up like cops don't have the kind of power to truly ruin a citizen's life, or receive the kind of brotherhood solidarity and union protection that allow corrupt cops to get off scot-free.

She also reasoned that you separate "people dressed up as cops" from real cops by the fact that real cops swore an oath to serve and protect. Which isn't true. The courts have ruled that police officers are not legally required to protect or serve anyone, even if they said they will, or even if they're standing two feet away from the crime.

I'm really glad this series exists, though. It's an extremely necessary topic to talk about. Certainly the most interesting book Bendis has done in a decade.

[mrstatham]

But the court ruling is irrelevant because Scarlet's arguing for what is the most common motto of any American police force - at least to my knowledge. When they become police officers, that's the motto they follow, that's the standard they should be trying to uphold. Scarlet's arguing that even though these men receive the same benefits as cops, they stopped being cops the second they opted to do what they're doing. She might be holding them up to some kind of unrealistic standard, but I think that's the point given her age and what she wants. And again, Bendis - refreshingly - isn't always portraying her as being in the right.

[stolisomancer]

This isn't a very scan-friendly issue, but the whole sequence where Scarlet turns out to be sitting cross-legged on the mayor's desk was a deft little bit of storytelling.