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Friday, February 3, 2012

International Exchange: JLI #6

This month's installment of Russell Burlingame's "International Exchange" column includes a small sampling of Dan Jurgens' breakdowns for the issue. It also includes a bit of social commentary.

IX: It's funny—Batman's comments about people feeling angry and pushed to the brink by governments they no longer trust is as true in a world without aliens and superheroes and madmen with atomic backpacks as it is in-continuity. Was that an intentional observation or just the way life and art play together?

DJ: Very intentional.

I've made it clear from the start that there are elements of this book that are supposed to reflect the world we live in. Consensus has become an impossibility. Any topic or situation seems divided with one party on one side, the other party on the other. MSNBC take an unreasonable stance to one extreme, FOX News the other.

And the minute one party actually does achieve supremacy and do something, like in Wisconsin, the opposite side goes so far as to try to throw a governor out of office. It's not a question of, "I want government to get moving again." It's more, "I want government to do what I want it to do." There's a big difference.

So, yeah, people are angry. If the DCU is to reflect our own world, there's no way everyone would embrace heroes because there's no way it could happen in our reality. With that in mind, Batman's commentary extends to both worlds.

After DC's last major continuity reboot in 1985, the first major crossover was Legends. At the time, America was embroiled in conflicts ranging from drug wars to class wars, cold wars to cola wars. Reflecting the social and political turmoil, Legends was primarily concerned with exploring both the role of super-heroes in the contemporary DC Universe as well as the public's reaction to them. After all, what good is Superman to a world that ignores or hates him?

It sounds like Jurgens is interested in re-investigating some of the same territory a quarter of a century later in the light of the terrible economic times and divisive political culture of the modern day. Hopefully, Jurgens and his fellow writers don't take reality too seriously. I'd hate to one day realize that the DCnU isn't a nice a place to live, and I wouldn't want to visit there.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: comicbook.com dan jurgens international exchange justice league international legends reboot russ burlingame


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