John Walker: U.S. Agent #3

[cyberghostface]

"Once upon a time we'd have elections. Somebody would win, the rest of us would take a seat for four years, and that was that. Roads still got built, schools still got funded, government functioned. It is a darkly sinister time now where conflicting views of patriotism are defended by offensive language and the threat of violence.

We are all American zealots. There are many competing visions of America, with each constituency working overtime to impose its vision on the whole. But, instead of our ideas competing in the forum of American opinion, we are openly hostile to one another. This misses the point of the value proposition of America: a quilt of voices, faces, cultures, values, and ideas.

Our American Zealot storyline is pretty obvious: there are three main characters representing three distinctly different Americas, with each character fighting to impose their view on the whole. The challenge to a writer is to present these views fairly and, ideally, without bias if that's possible. The idea is to promote discussion and learn how to agree to disagree." -- Christopher Priest

Comments

[nyadnar17]

This feels pretty damn accurate to how the conversation usually goes.

[lordultimus]

I feel like this is kind of missing the fact that naming a black guy Bucky was an accident done by a black writer that was quickly undone.

[cyberghostface]

Mark Gruenwald isn't black.

[lordultimus]

I could have sworn that he was teamed with a black artist. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

[bravest_spinja]

Keiron Dwyer and Paul Neary look to be the first artists to draw him. It was very much Gruenwald's mistake, and to his credit he took the L, and confronted in-story. (And also to be fair, I think it's pretty obscure as far as slurs go).

But the meta does not exist in the universe. I don't think Priest is so much lashing out at Marvel per se, so much as depicting a radical leftist antagonist as somebody who is consumed by anger for innocent mistakes committed for five minutes at least a decade ago (Or perhaps strategically employing shame as a psych-out).

[icon_uk]

Not quite, the story is a remarkable one, involving Mark Gruewald and Dwayne McDuffie and highlights what professionalism looks like from all parties involved.

[bravest_spinja]

As I understand he's now black, yellow, magenta and cyan, as per his wishes to have his remains printed with the Squadron Supreme trade.

[icon_uk]

You might want to clarify that he was cremated first (the alternative is... disturbing in it's implications) and only a little of his ashes went into the first print run of the Squadron Supreme TPB! :)

[skjam]

Right, this was Marvel, not EC.

[jlbarnett]

there were three Buckies for John Walker, so initially he was just fitting in and then he ended up being the last one standing

[thezmage]

No real comments on the comic but I pretty much disagree with everything in that quote

[themajesticmoose]

Everything about that quote genuinely nauseates me

[scorntx]

Y'know... one of the first comics I ever read was about Lemar (a back-up story, but still).

So watching him getting the living stuffing beaten out of him is pretty tough to read.
Really hoping he doesn't get killed, but... I'm not gonna trust to hope.

[thehood]

He's not dead, just pretty beat up.

[scorntx]

Well, that's mildly reassuring.

[starwolf_oakley]

This Zealot/Battlestar fight is a *little* like the Luke Cage/Power Man fight from SHADOWLAND. Power Man says insulting stuff to Luke but crosses a line when he starts to say "And married a..." Whoops.

But that was more personal, since Victor Alvarez was the son of Shades, a friend of Carl Lucas turned foe of Luke Cage.

[leahandillyana]

It's not a normal situation that someone "wins" and the rest "take a sit". A normal situation in a democratic country is that nearly every political position gets represented in the parliament and the actual politics implemented are co-created by representatives of various options. "What coalition will form this time?" is much better a question than "Which party will win this time?". I also strongly dislike that the author utilizes shit-libs' favorite bullet point of "Both sides are equal, both have a point, both deserve public discussion time, can't we just be nice to each other?" when some positions root from considering opposing ones not equal to them.

[juniper6]

It’s an accurate, if reductionist, description of politics and government in the U.S., and he does appear to be referring to America. We don’t have a parliamentary system; we have a two-party system. Coalitions aren’t a thing, although cross-aisle cooperation used to exist. It was a fairly orderly system that has gotten extremely polarized in the last 30 years.

[themajesticmoose]

As far as I'm concerned "Agree to disagree" when it comes to politics and things that actually affect the world is cowardly garbage and always has been. I don't "Agree to disagree". That's something you say when it comes to whether pineapple belongs on a pizza. Not when it comes to anything that actually matters

I've no time for the idea that we should be tolerant of bigotry and hatred because it's someone's "Opinion" or "Belief".

Hitler believed that the genocide of anyone who wasn't a white straight cisgender christian was the right thing to do. The weaklings, morons and cowards in Germany who "Tolerated" his beliefs have the blood of over sixteen million innocent people on their hands.

I realise that's an extreme example but my point is simple. Being "Tolerant" of bigotry and hatred is moronic. Being "Tolerant" of people who think that it's okay to take away rights and freedoms, to control how people can live their lives, who they can love, what religions they can follow, what they can do with their bodies...being "Tolerant" of people whose beliefs and opinions cause actual harm to real people just for the "Crime" of being different...is just as bad as the actions of the bigots themselves.

There are some things we should not be tolerant of. We should not be tolerant of racism. Homophobia. Transphobia. We should not be tolerant of hatred of people for the nation they come from or the religion they belong to. We should not be tolerant of people who think that what consenting adults do sexually should be controlled or repressed or persecuted. We should not be tolerant of people who think that women shouldn't have control over our own bodies.

And people who think we should be "Tolerant" of any of this is, in my opinion, at best a priveleged and clueless moron and at worst just as evil and monstrouss as the people whose opinions they are "Tolerating"

[cyberghostface]

Since themajesticmoose banned me from replying to his comments (IDK why but I have since reciprocated) I figured I'd state that he his views that Hitler wanted to genocide everyone who wasn't a "straight white cisgender christian" ignores Hitler's actual views on Christianity, that he ultimately wanted to eradicate it from Germany or that thousands of Catholic priests and Christian pastors were sent to Dachau.

[juniper6]

Not taking a side here, but it’s fairly common for people discussing Jewish issues to say “christian” when what they really mean is “gentile.”

[reveen]

The whole 'agree to disagree spiel' sounds nice and feel good, but not only is it just kinda cheap moralizing it's also outright bullshit for a lot of the most relevant political issues. If there's one thing to learn about the last four years is that politics is struggle. It's conflict. At the end of the day it's about groups of people with their own interests they want to see accommodated in society, and sometimes these interests are mutually exclusive.

If you have a group of workers trying to unionize and the company. That is not an agree to disagree situation. It's not a scenario where people are just too blinded by pure opinion and ideology to work together. The workers want to form a power bloc to look after their own interests and the company wants to prevent them from doing so. The best you can hope for a collective solution is an imperfect compromise that no one is happy with.

And it's not like America doesn't know this. The America that Priest is waxing nostalgic about is the America that crushed the unions, suppressed black political activism every way they could up to and including terror bombings and assassination. During the AIDS epidemic all the LGBT community wanted was the CDC to be allowed to do their damn job, and the Reagan administration said 'No. Fuck you.'

If anything, it's the American political mainstream (especially conservatives) are the ones who have an totalist mindset where it's their way or the highway, and dissent is not to be tolerated. All the activists people like Priest complain about are just behaving in response to that fact. Because they know that digging in your heels and yelling as loud as you can is the only way to get your interests represented in the country.