As you may already know, I am big nerd and, among other nerdy things, I like to read comic books. I try to mix my choice between all the publishers and try new series whenever I can. With their recent success with their film division, Marvel seems to want to give some new life into some of their B-list, lesser known heroes and recent start a new monthly series for NightHawk. Unfortunately, There are somethings that are bothering me about this series.
Now you might have heard some uproar from certain parts of the comic book community early this year because of a page in the fourth issue of ‘Angela Queen of Hel'(more details here). One of the antagonist had his dialogue redacted and was captioned with heavy handed sociopolitical remarks that were not well received by many of the reader. Thankfully, the Angela comic series did not survive much longer after that.
Seemingly not pleased with their botched job, Marvel decided to have another go at it with NightHawk. They are heavily grounding the setting for the series into reality by setting it into modern day Chicago, playing on relatively recent protest between black protesters and the police in ferguson and the militarization of the police forces in those areas. So far, I have no issue with the setting, it is contemporary and, most importantly, the hero makes it clear that he will beat the crap out of violent protesters if he needs to. Things take a turn south when they decided that it was not enough for the bad guy to be a giant racist, They decided that he needs to be a trump supporter:
I think we can all agree that a vast majority of Americans do not support white supremacist organizations like the KKK, and that most people would enjoy a vigilante beating the pulp out of a racist bigot. However, when you start inserting your own political views in the story, and characterize Trump supporters as white supremacist, that is taking it a step too far.While this did not blow up online like the Angela panels did (probably because no one reads nighthawk…), by inserting what some might consider far left leaning politics into their comic books, I think Marvel is hurting its image and potentially alienating some of their readership.
I will probably buy the next couple issues but if this the tone for this series, I will probably not continue reading it. I guess they are trying to balance out what happened in the latest Captain america with this. Of all the crazy and fantastic stories one could write for a super hero, why would you deliberately go out your way to take pot shots at political figure…
Talking of pot shots, they also try to make fun of Batman and the bat-signal:
Sorry Marvel, but this is like flinging pebbles at a tank: you might think you are a bad ass but really it is complete ineffective and you look like an idiot…
The Adventure of Alexandre in Nebraska! 