WAITING
FOR TOMMY: MICAH WRIGHT
By
Richard Johnston
RICHARD:
Even the Cubans? And what propaganda do you believe StormWatch
promotes?
MICAH:
The Cubans deserve to be in Cuba more than any of the rest
of the terrorists we're sending there! I hear that many of
those people are open Socialists!
As for
StormWatch, the evil sinister subtext is definitely a Humanist
agenda: In StormWatch, I postulate that if Super-Heroes were
real, they would be an inherent danger to humankind. If not
through actively causing death in their pointless super-battles,
then merely by removing from us the incentive to accomplish
anything for ourselves. In a real-world situation, there would
develop a real "ah, let Superman handle it" attitude. We would
become pets to these things. Absolute power corrupts absolutely...
there have been few, if any, exceptions to this rule.
RICHARD:
So how would you define your own political views? Don't wuss
out, give us a label we can stick on you, then mock you from
afar. I'll start with mine. Wishy-washy liberal with socialist
instincts (especially in an argument) with a sneaky secret
admiration for the right. Your turn.
MICAH:
I wouldn't say that I'm a wishy-washy liberal at all... the
things I believe in, I believe in them with great fervor.
I'm not a man who vacillates on issues. On the other hand,
I am willing to change my mind when confronted with new information...
something which I find fewer and fewer Conservatives are willing
to do. A great example: drug addiction. Rush Limbaugh made
SEVERAL nasty pronouncements about drug addicts while he was
simultaneously addicted to the drug Oxycontin. Now, years
into his addiction, he goes into a recovery clinic for 30
days and suddenly he's forgiven for EVERYTHING by his fans...
but they still want to maintain their previous fiction that
drug addiction only happens to people of low moral character,
scumbags who deserve whatever they get. Meanwhile, I don't
see Rush going around saying "Hey, Drug Treatment really worked
out for me, I think that all of my listeners need to get onto
Congress about changing the laws governing Health Care Insurance
in this country and force all insurers to cover Drug Treatment!"
He knows treatment did right by him, he knows that most people
can't afford it, and yet he doesn't support giving that option
to all employees who may be going through exactly what he
was.
RICHARD:
So go on then. You gain super powers. World-changing ones.
Keep them secret, hand yourself into the UN or rent yourself
out to movie production companies?
MICAH:
Ahh, I'd just rob banks until I was paid by the government
to go rob the banks of our foreign enemies. I truly believe
that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I can't believe in
the all-white-hat good guy... I voted for Clinton in '92 and
look where that got me.
RICHARD:
Yeah, writing Angry Beavers. You know, I interpret that show
so differently after reading StormWatch. now it's arguable
that Wildstorm's central universe, as is, owes more now to
Warren Ellis than Jim Lee. If you were able to put your stamp
across the universe of titles, how would it come out looking?
MICAH:
Uhrm... a lot like it looks right now. The upcoming Eye of
the Storm crossover book, "Authority: Coup D'etat" pulls a
lot from the Team Achilles mythos.
RICHARD:
The attitude you brought to StormWatch nicely placed them
diametrically opposed to the Authority. Ellis created the
The Authority as the bad guys, although most readers missed
that level it seems. Are you making it more apparent?
MICAH:
I think that the history of the United States is one which
discourages Americans from asking hard questions of Authority
figures... you saw this in the recent war. Anyone who spoke
out was suddenly labelled as being "UnAmerican." I think that
in the comic book readership, especially, there has been 60
years of programming the readers to expect that people who
put on a mask and tights are doing so for altruistic reasons...
characters like Captain America or Superman represent Truth,
Justice and the American Way. I think that a lot of traditional
readers just sort of expect that superheroes (and Presidents)
will be heroic... and are horrified to discover otherwise.
I've
seen a lot of fan chat online saying "how could Wildstorm
have turned these characters EVIL?" and I think that's an
extremely naive way of looking at the situation. Does anyone
think that even the most EVIL of people in the Bush Administration
go home and cackle and rub their hands together like Doctor
Doom and rant to their 30-foot fireplace saying things like
"Yes, now I have manipulated America into a war from which
we will never escape... and all for OIL! BWAHAHAHAHA!" That
just isn't the way the world works... villains, if they ever
BOTHER to examine their own actions, have a BILLION ways of
explaining away their actions... "I did it for the good of
the Iraqi people, and so that the Middle East will someday
become free" sounds an awful lot like "we're going to make
a finer world." The Authority have been powerful, violent
idealists from the get-go... and there's nothing more dangerous
than an idealist with power.
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