You know those comic books where Cyclops tries to explain to Wolverine that if we use the bad guys' methods we're no better than them?

We've become the Hellfire Club.

You've got to admit, that's a catchy name. Better than the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, at any rate.

Oh, I don't know, Jon. At least Brotherhood of Evil Mutants may not be catchy, but at least it's honest and unpretentious. Me, I was always fond of the Legion of Substitute Superheroes.

There was a comic book 4 issue mini-series I was rather fond of, called "Damage Control." It was a group of non-superpowered folks who went around cleaning up the messes left by the battles between the heroes and the villains. Sort of combined insurance adjustors and building contractors.

A one note joke, but worth considering.

Dave, happened to note this in your first entry so I thought I'd ask: why are you self-conscious about writing spec fic?

Not only that, Greg, but "Brotherhood" is evokative of familial/fraternal bonds, whereas "Club" seems more clinical and organizational.

Then again, relating back to the inciting entry, perhaps "Club" is more reflective of the current state of national affairs.

I was thinking more like Jon “Dr. Manhattan” Osterman in the last chapter of Watchmen. It wasn't the amorality of the policy that disturbed me — second-rate supervillain behavior seems par for the Administration's course these days — it was the feeling that, somehow, I'd overslept and missed the entire war. Doesn't that headline read more like one printed about six weeks after the bombs start falling on Baghdad than like one printed a week before Hans Blix is due to deliver his report to the UN?

You know, I bet Kofi Annan feels like this all the time.

But speaking of comics — Can anyone tell me what Superman was up to from about 1967 to 1970?

Could be totally talking out of my arse, but seems around that time Superman was leveraging his newspaper experience into a career as a TV talking head, had developed a brief invunerability to kryptonite, and was growing out his sideburns.

Thanks, Greg. Are we talking New York local news here, or was he anchoring for NBS or CBC?

(In Japan they have places called “comic cafés”, where for two or three bucks an hour you can sit and read bound reprints of just about every major Japanese comic. Here, of course, I'll probably have to bust into some Microsoft millionaire's air-conditioned, pressurized, inert-atmosphere vault and pull the originals out of their cellophane bags.)

By the way, Jon, I think your question deserves a longer answer than I can stand to type into this little tiny slow box. I’ll try to come up with one and post it.

That's surreal ... "the last phase of the showdown" "track and kill Iraqi Hussein" ... and here I thought we were still in the opening feint.

I was talking with Rusty (founder of kuro5hin.org) today about how people in Portland are reacting, and he was talking about how everyone there is against the war. This surprised me, as opposition to the war in Maine isn't something I would have predicted from what i've seen of press coverage, and that got him off on a riff about how bizarre CNN's coverage is --- CNN seems to think we're already at war. Which I hadn't noticed, since I don't have tv.

It got me thinking, though, about the standard line in high school history about why we fought the Spanish-American War: that the Hearst people whipped up this frenzy of nationalism in order to sell more newspapers. And here we have CNN, implying that we're already at war, and ignoring the existence of opposition in places that aren't traditional liberal peacenik havens ... and i'm not saying that's why we seem to be sliding into war, but it does seem to me that CNN, which is known to enjoy higher ratings during times of crisis, might have an interest in portraying things as being different than they really are.

Which really makes me wonder about the possibility of unbiased news sources. Where are they? Whose reporting can we trust? Or am I just getting paranoid in my old age?

A history of Superman: http://theages.superman.ws/comics.php

(short answer on what he was doing 1967-1970: not much, but he changed quite a bit January 1971).

Aphrael, the last Gulf War made CNN a media player (if "Live From Baghdad" is at all accurate). But the country seems more conservative now than then, so maybe they're making a play for stealing away some of the FoxNews crowd.

I don't think there are any truly 100% unbiased news sources out there. The human factor of what gets reported and how always gets in the way. I think it works better when you know what the news source's biases are, and to just try and get it from multiple sources. Which is why this whole consolidation of media markets is such a pain in the ass.

David, I await your response re: spec fiction with interest (no ulterior motives; I'm just nosy).

Jon, you're right, of course. With respect to the particular issue of CNN, CNN's ratings had fallen below Fox News' ratings prior to the arrival of the drumbeat of war.

My concern here is that a large segment of the American news media appear to have simultaneously developed the same institutional bias (as opposed to ideological biases, which remain different): present the war as a sure thing, and minimize opposition to it, and you'll sell more news.

I am aware that something very similar happened during WWI and during the early stages of the Vietnam War. (WWII was something of a different beast). But this raises a couple of questions in my mind: (a) to what extent do policy decisions become self-perpetuating because the media, in using those policy decisions to sell news, creates a public mood which is more supportive of them than would otherwise be? (b) what causes the media to shift gears (and this happened in vietnam) and decide that opposition to the policy will sell more than promotion of it?

These are questions an activist might ask, I suppose, but that's really not what i'm after; I think they're interesting questions with respect to the way mass democracies work, and I think they become more important to understand as media is concentrated.

Thanks for the link, Jon. I'm reminded that I can believe whatever I want to believe about the DC universe and then just explain it away as Earthn.

Also that if I want to romanticize the comics it's best not to look too closely at any actual comic books.
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As for bias in the news — I think the best we can hope for is that the media will find that provoking fear and anxiety sells more air time than provoking jingoism and belligerence. That's not much, but it's something.

"Also that if I want to romanticize the comics it's best not to look too closely at any actual comic books."

Yep. I'd say that's pretty much a universal rule of romanticization, be it of people, times, or places. Close scrutinization of the facts always drains away the romance.

"(a) to what extent do policy decisions become self-perpetuating because the media, in using those policy decisions to sell news, creates a public mood which is more supportive of them than would otherwise be?"

Gee, it sounds like we're talking about a Presidential election, wherein the media decide who is a front-runner and only cover those candidates, thus ensuring the continuing anonymity of anyone else.

"(b) what causes the media to shift gears (and this happened in vietnam) and decide that opposition to the policy will sell more than promotion of it?"

Dramatic (but not threatening) opposition photo ops. IMHO.