Guilded Age

Yesterday, I mentioned Flo’s concern about “Superman vs. bank robbers” scenes and how they could bore the reader. That might’ve been what inspired this little plot twist, wherein Superman-vs.-bank-robbers scenes are at risk of boring the Gastonian reader.

Flo clearly put in a lot of work to get in the text I wrote for this newspaper section, and I’m quite grateful for that. Bedard is clearly trying to channel and shape prejudice to help the war effort, and races that might’ve been demonized one or two years ago are now being presented as just so darn goofy. This reduces fear of them without presenting them as equals, which could threaten the audience’s own fragile self-regard.

Sometimes the “comic relief” phase can be a stepping stone toward more nuanced and respectful representation, if it’s the first acknowledgement the minority exists and has feelings, or if it’s a transition away from a strictly villainous role. See the history of the portrayal of various minorities in American media. But that won’t be the case here if Bedard can help it, and the mercenary nature of the “acceptance” in his paper is probably clear enough.

“1514,” hm? Hmmm. Don’t know if we ever established how widespread that year-measuring system was.

That Gravedust face gives me the giggles every time I see it. Everyone else here is rendered through the lens of the illustrator’s prejudices, obviously, but it’s like Gravedust was listening to the entire article being read aloud to him as he sat there and posed for his head-shot.