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.

 

ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY VOL. 2 HARDCOVER

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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