On this day after the State of the Union address for 2012 and in the midst of the campaign season for the Republican nomination, all things politics and political are in the air.
President Barack Obama faces a tough reelection campaign, with attacks coming from within his own Democratic Party, to the Left of his political efforts so far, and from the Republican Party and its various and varied candidates.
This is par for the course in American politics.
Yet this is not like the campaign year that first saw him come into office nor the reactions to his election. Even the comics world embraced President Obama with open arms and once it came out that he was a comics fan, it seemed like a president who understood the geek world, who was, well, Komplicated, had finally come to office.
Whether it was the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #583 celebrating his inauguration…
Or the veiled reference to the president also being the Superman of one of the 52 Earths in Final Crisis #7…
Or the near prescient variant cover to Savage Dragon #145 where President Obama knocked Osama Bin Laden out…
It looked as though the comics world like many others was enthusiastically embracing the 44th president.
Not that all the imagery generated in reaction to the president has been favorable or heroic.
Whether it was the merging of Obama’s face with the Joker make up from The Dark Knight or the Curious George based smear coming from the South, Obama has also suffered the arrows and barbs of those who find him distasteful or lacking. That is no big deal. Just another part of public life.
Yet there was no call for this:
It is possible that no one at DC Comics would have thought that any of the images made available to retailers for co-op ads would ever be used in this fashion.
It seems that someone at A Comics Shop in Florida (home of Dizzy World and the hanging chads) decided it was funny and appropriate to adapt the above cover image for the Justice League featuring Cyborg prominently in a promotion to encourage those folks who might be holding onto old manga books to trade them in for any of the DC New 52 #1s. A good deal as some of those books are already marked up to prices equal to or greater than the price of a typical manga trade. But was this really necessary?
If one wanted to, one could read both jingoism and racism into this image.
After all, treating a fictional black superhero as being interchangeable with a famous black public figure could be construed as meaning that old saw, "you know them black folks all look alike." Add to that an almost victory dance vibe into the end of the manga revolution, one could see more going on in this ad than simply bad taste in mash ups.
According to reports, there are plans to hand out this very same image as a flyer at the upcoming Megacon, also in Orlando, Florida, but is known for having significant manga and anime fan attendance. Best of luck with that.
We at Komplicated will keep our eyes open for any other questionable co-op ads in the future. Which probably more than DC or Time/Warner is doing.
[Source: Bleeding Cool]