SHOUT OUT! Review: The American Way
You can’t turn a corner in Comics without reading a writer whose hustle usually resides in writing novels, or scripting television or film. One such creator is novelist/screenwriter, John Ridley (who wrote the original format for Three Kings). Ridley is a novelist seven times over and it’s clear he is no stranger to masterminding Comics as he steps correct in a new graphic novel titled The American Way.
It’s the early 60’s and the era of “super-heroes” and “super-villians” is on the rise. The american superhero favorites, The Civil Defense Corps (CDC), are charged by the government with protecting the hustle of the american dream. There are so many themes going on in this story that I don’t want to break it all down for you and ruin the flavor. If the Marvel Civil War was actually worth reading, it could have played out like The American Way. Many of the sentiments in the story resonate well with the format of the 60’s. All the relevant -isms boom loudly as everything unfolds. You also can’t sleep on the rise of a Black man as the reluctant but possibly ultimate hero.
History becomes fiction as fiction flows to history in The American Way. The verbiage of the time is evident (i.e. the brutha got it right), and true to the hustle you are moved to feel with every word. Anytime you read a panel and feel like you need to hold yourself back, it’s clear the writer has got you. The artistic stylings of Georges Jeanty really bring the story to the next-level with tight, clean lines as well. Challenge your comfort levels and get down with The American Way. It can make you angry. It can make you ashamed. It can make you redefine your definition of a hero. It’s worth the stretch. Bahlactus has spoken.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Firstly … the new layout is badass, B. Truly, this has all the style your site deserves. So well done, sir. Well damn done.
Secondly … American Way was the best comic book series of 2006, hands down. And it how steep a hill to climb, eh? Having no established characters, no pre-existing setting/universe, a series like AW has to live or die on the basis of story alone. Ridley has hinted at a sequel, and I hope he means it.
All the same, it is hard for me to accept the caricatured nature of the Southern heroes. The names were over the top, but hey, these are superheroes. Over the top is everyday to them. But there was something simplistic about the dialogue given in later issues to the SDC.
Having grown up in the south, admittedly starting a decade after the Kennedy administration, I’ve come to recognize that racism is rarely as incredibly blatant and obvious as Southern Cross’s loose cannon of a mouth. Deep-seated racism is insidious and sly.
That aside, I thought American Way was a shining example of what good comics can be, a work as good as Watchmen and just as much of a classic. Because the tale it tells will maintain relevancy for years to come.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Thomas, hey bruh, thanks for comin’ through! I’m glad you’re feelin’ the new layout — it’s been through a lot of iterations in a short time, but, I felt the flow had to lead here eventually.
I agree that the SDC was way over the top, which, struck me as strangely appropriate (being from the south myself, it is easy to see how it could be blown out that way). If Ridley puts out a sequel, I’m hoping he brings the thunder, because he’s got a huge baseline right now.
March 7th, 2007 at 5:58 am
So did any of you catch Ridley on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO last friday night? I missed most of it, but caught a segment when Maher went off about Cheney’s assasination attempt/ bombing last week, asying that the world would be a safer place if the attempt had succeeded. Ridley was busy NOT agreeing with him and spent some time talking about comments about Cheney that were deleted from a newspaper’s website that said the same things that Maher was talking about. Kinda cool that he was on the show IMO!
That being said, I picked this book up monthly, and loved every second of it! WIldstorm tends to put out some really good Mini’s not connected with their main universe of books (Black Sun, Tokyo Storm Warning etc…), and this one was no exception. I dug this book and saw so many parallels to what is happening in the media now. TV shows like American Idol, Survivor & The Real World are sellng us on people and their personalities that may or may not be what the “Stars” are really all about. The SDC was no different, as they manipulated the media, created powers for some members, and staged events to gain popular public opinion. Pretty heavy stuff, and I take my hat (not my hand like Mike Tyson would want me to) off to Ridley.