STATE DEPT. DOING A COMICS PROJECT IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE 99'S CREATOR

The US State Department is running a project where they allegedly ask for people to create a "global" superhero, but, they're doing it in cooperation with a very unreliable source:

Early Wednesday morning, the U.S. State Department asked citizens of the world, from Moscow to Madagascar, to design a superhero who represents global values. And since Washington needed a guide through the pow! zap! world of comics, it turned to a reliable source: San Diego’s own Comic-Con.

“No matter where we live in the world, or what our external circumstances are, people are more similar than dissimilar,” said David Glanzer, Comic-Con International’s director of marketing and public relations, who flew to D.C. for this international online discussion. “Righteousness, justice, strength in the face of adversity — these transcend cultural differences.”

Glanzer will be joined in Washington by Evan Ryan, assistant secretary of State for educational and cultural affairs, and — via remote connection — Naif Al-Mutawa, a Kuwaiti psychologist who created “The 99,” a comic book featuring Muslim superheroes.

And to make it worse, the SDCC's involved with this too? What's ludicrous is how al-Mutawa is the most prominently featured speaker here, but not some of Europe's career cartoonists. Just because European comics writers aren't as big on superheroes as Americans are doesn't mean they wouldn't make great consultants. Alas, they must be doing this deliberately, inviting an alleged psychologist who created nothing more than a propaganda vehicle for the Religion of Peace.

What do they even mean when they speak of "global" values? "Moral" could sum it up better, if not perfectly. And people aren't similar if they don't maintain a firm belief in civilized value systems.

Take, for instance, “The 99.” This eight-year-old comic book series has a premise that may — scratch that: will — sound familiar. Ninety-nine ordinary folks suddenly gain superpowers (a la “Spider-Man”), a development that brings them into conflict with super villains (a la “Superman,” “Batman,” “Star Wars” and an overflowing intergalactic toy chest more). If the 99 superpowers loosely follow those the Koran attributes to Allah, and if the archenemy’s lust for power and his twisted theology echo Osama bin Laden, well, Al-Mutawa doesn’t push the parallels too far.

This, after all, is just a comic book.

And now a cartoon series, seen in 20-odd countries on “Cartoon Network” and in the U.S. through Netflix.

Just a comic? That's about as effective as saying Triumph of the Will is just a movie. Based on some of the research I'd read in the past few years, that's dishonest to say the lust for power the book's archenemy has echoes bin Laden's. If Netflix is airing this, I'm beginning to think it's not worth subscribing to them, nor to Cartoon Network. A commentor to the article said:

Our tax dollars at work. Is this really what our state dept. should be doing?

Not if it involves taqqiya masters like al-Mutawa, that's for sure.