Captain America -- NOT an Agent of Hydra

Remember how we had this big hubbub about a month ago, when author and leftist schmuck Nick Spencer turned Captain America into an Agent of Hydra?

Remember how he said 

This is not a clone, not an imposter, not mind control, not someone else acting through Steve. This really is Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.

Remember how everyone said it was just a gimmick?

Yeah. It was. The very next issue explains it.

So, apparently, the short version is that not only is Nick Spencer is still an idiot, he's also a liar.

Well, that was short lived.

Did the backlash do this? Unless they had a MASSIVE crash rewrite from the minute the internet backlash hit them, probably not. This was, most likely, the plan the whole time.

In short, it was a gimmick. Like everyone suspected. They just sat there and plainly lied to our faces.

You must wonder just how much of this gimmick is going to be all about f**king around with the legacy. Because Steve Rogers is still evil, of course. Mind controlled evil, but still evil.

It's going to be interesting to see how long Nick Spencer is still on the writing staff at Marvel, because right now, I'm surprised that they're all not getting the ax.

Though if we here a month from now that everyone involved is fired, I won't be all that surprised.

Now, it is possible that there was a massive turnaround, if there were more artists / inkers than are on the cover.

The cover?

One artist. One stupid writer.

If you want what happened in the continuity, it's simple: a sentient Cosmic Cube that works for Red Skull screwed with Steve's brain.

I'm shocked. Shocked I say.

No, not really, but you all knew that.

Now, I don't think it matters what you think happened. I don't even think it matters what actually happened. If they lied to our faces, or if things changed because of blowback, the end result is the same: they wanted to slander an icon, laughed in the faces of all those fans they just backhanded, and they told us to sit down, shut up, and like it.

Guess what, Marvel. We don't like it. We won't like it. We never will like it, and you twits are just going to have to suffer the consequences of your actions. Because if you think that your sales were suffering before this decision, just wait until your sales suffer over the coming months. I know at least two people who have canceled over a dozen subscriptions from you people.

Welcome to Marvel, they've decided that they just don't care. After all, no one's reading them, the audience is just waiting for the next Marvel film.

Fisking Hydra Cap

Nick Spencer, of #NickSpencerIsHydra, crawled out from the rock under which he resides to defend making Captain America a lifelong Hydra Nazi. This interview happened with The Daily Beast. You can find it if you like, it's not hard, but I refuse to give them the clicks.

I know it's memorial day, so few if anyone will read it. I know it's more of a Veteran's Day post, but right now, Captain America has been killed in the war with Social Justice schmucks.

As far as I'm concerned, it's time for someone to fisk him into next century.

I figured that I'm the only one volunteering for the job. Probably because everyone else is reduced to incoherent rage (or, they had vacation plans for the weekend. I was free).

Anyway, here we go.

The interviewer asked if Nick was "OK," because of the vitriol.

(Laughs.) No, I love this stuff. I feed off it, it’s totally fine. It’s looking like it’s gonna be a no. 1 trending topic here in a second. I’m the most hated man in America today and Donald Trump is running for president!

Trump didn't take an American icon of the last 7 decades and make him a Nazi.

You feed off of being hated. Hmm, so does Donald Trump, it seems. And yet you're trying to belittle Trump? Uh huh. Right.  You know, dude, I enjoy being hated, but usually by people who would already hate me for just being myself. I don't go out of the way to make all new people hate me.

It's the first paragraph of the first answer of the first question, and we've already verified that Spencer here is a glorified internet troll. Wonderful.

I was surprised by the sheer magnitude of the response. I can’t remember the last time something that happened in comics upset quite this many people.

It's called One More Day, you may have heard of it.

When you decide to do something like this, you understand obviously that people aren't gonna throw you a party for it. You understand that this is the kind of story designed to upset people and shock people and worry people. That’s the response you’re supposed to have to something like this, when you’re seeing a bad thing. So, yeah, this is certainly the kind of response I expected, but in terms of the magnitude of it and just how many people are chiming in, that part’s unreal. That surpassed any expectation that I had. 

There's "shock" and "worry," and then there's just plain, "Do you have head trauma?"

I think it just comes down to [the fact that] this character, particularly since the movies, has really exploded in popularity. Obviously he represents a lot to a lot of people. They’re emotionally invested, which is good.

Translation: Yes, this character means so much to so many .... so we went out of our way to screw him up so we can have the biggest click bait ever.

The worst thing that could have happened today is people shrugging, or even being reasonable. That would’ve said that we didn’t stick the landing on it. So this is what we wanted, we just have even more of it than we imagined.

So you enjoy being the most hated man in comics right now?  Tell me how you're any different than an internet troll. Because I'm not seeing it.

Q: What sorts of discussion with Marvel went into this? I read your editor Tom Brevoort said this twist had been in the works ever since Sam Wilson: Captain America #1. 

"Hey, you made Sam Wilson into Captain Liberal, so of course you were planning to make the patriotic Rogers a Hydra Nazi. It makes perfect sense."

Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!

Yeah, we’ve been holding onto this for about 16 months now, so it’s been well over a year that we’ve been keeping this under wraps. And that was a hugely gratifying thing, especially in the last couple of months as we started work on the issue. There’s an artist drawing it [Jesús Saiz] and a letterer [Joe Caramagna], and you start to worry because obviously the book is getting passed through a lot of hands and there’s something tangible out there that can get leaked. So yeah, I mean all the credit in the world goes to Tom and everyone at Marvel, they really went above and beyond to keep a lid on this. They took a lot of special measures that we’ve never had before—and it worked! We managed to keep this until it started leaking out last night, which was inevitable because that’s when the book started arriving at various places. But yeah, it was a big success. I was really surprised. I thought for sure it would be ruined. 

Oh, it was ruined, all right.

And was there any pushback on this stupidity?

It’s a really funny thing, there was not an enormous amount of debate about the story. We do our creative retreats and this was a major subject at both of the last two. And honestly, that was a little surreal for me as well. Everybody seemed really into the idea and really supportive. I know that I went into the first [retreat] really expecting to have to fight for it and for there to be pushback, and there was very little. We had a luxury though, I could lay out the whole story for them. What everybody got today is obviously just sort of an opening chapter. I was able to kind of explain the whole thing and put it all into context. I’m as excited about this story as anything I’ve ever done in comics. I think we’re onto something here. And certainly in the room it seemed to go over well and that’s always a really encouraging sign.

In short: "No. They ran out of ideas too."

Daily Beast then softballed it with "Where did this new idea come from and why did a change of this magnitude feel necessary for the series?"

New idea. Bah. You could tell that this guy is a newb. Making the good guy into the bad guy is about as new as Oedipus. In fact, it's even less original than that in comics. Don't believe me? Look up DC's Injustice universe, where Superman is a villain.

It almost happened by chance, really. 

"You see, the Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror was on the television, and ...."

Rick Remender was the previous writer on the book and when I took over, he had had some plotlines that were outstanding. 

Would that be the Captain Liberal plots? If you wanted a real author, why didn't you just get Ed Brubaker. You know, the award winning author who was so popular a few years ago?

Tom ran through them with me, and one of them was that Hydra had infiltrated all the various teams and organizations in the Marvel universe and we were gonna be weeding out the various Hydra clans. And, to be honest, at the time, I had just gotten the Captain America assignment and that story really felt like an event. I felt like it was maybe a little too big for me at that point, and that wasn’t something they would want me to do. 

So I started to kind of drill it down a bit and I started wondering, what if there’s just one Hydra plant? What if they think they’re looking for a hundred people and it turns out there’s just one really good one? And if there’s just one really good Hydra plant, who would that be? Within a second, I realized that Steve was by far the person who could do the most damage. He’s the leader of the Avengers, he has a relationship with the U.S. government, and he works closely with SHIELD. Not to mention just his status in the Marvel universe—he’s a symbol, everyone trusts him, everybody looks to him as an authority. 

So, in short, you took the Secret Wars premise of "The shape-shifting aliens Skrulls have infiltrated the planet by impersonating superheroes," and instead of Skrulls, you just replaced it with "Hydra," and boiled it down to one hero.

You are the biggest, most unimaginative hack in the universe, aren't you?

Q: One of the first things most people will probably think is, “But hasn’t he spent the last 75 years fighting Hydra?” How do you reconcile the twist with the character’s history?A: I can’t say a lot on that front, but what I can say is that that is not a huge point of concern in the story. 

Translation: HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME, PEASANT!

No, really, Captain America punched Hitler in the face, beat up the Red Skull and his minions a hundred times, removed Hydra from SHIELD, and has personally wielded Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and you've just RetConned (or Wreck-Conned) 75 years of comic book history, and THAT'S NOT A HUGE POINT OF THE STORY? IT'S THE ONLY POINT OF THE STORY. It's the ONLY thing that matters.

That question will be answered, at least for the most part, in the next issue. That wasn’t something that we wanted to drag out. We wanted to make that stuff as clear as we could upfront. So now that we’ve gotten the big surprise, we’re going to go back and explain some things to you so that you, as a reader, have a much clearer vantage point. But your vantage point may differ greatly from the characters in the Marvel universe. 

Oh, how nice of you. You're not dragging it out.

The Daily Beast brought up that the creators of Captain America were both Jewish.

Look, everybody who’s working on this story loves Captain America. 

Well, that one's obviously a lie.

I know that it may not seem like it today. 

No! Really? Do tell.

But this book is edited by Tom Brevoort, who has been protecting this character’s legacy for a very long time now. 

That's a lie. He was Executive Editor of Civil War. Considering that train wreck, I submit that the only legacy he wants to protect is his own.

He’s not gonna let me do anything that he thinks is going to endanger that character’s legacy and how the character is perceived. 

A lie so big, it just broke psychic paper, and his nose should be a sequoia.

It’s always difficult when you’re at this point in a story, because you don’t just wanna tell people, “Everything’s gonna work out great!” Because that certainly may not be the case here. But what I think I can say with confidence is that with this story, our intention and our hope is that in its own unique way, it reinforces what everybody already knows about Captain America, which is his power as a symbol and what that means. We are approaching it from a different angle, but I think it illuminates the character in a way that we’ve never seen before. 

You just made the biggest American Patriot ever into a Hydra Nazi. You have just inverted everything that the character stands for. You have betrayed Kirby. You have betrayed the fans. You have betrayed Captain America. I half expect his fist to fly off the page and hit you in the face -- I'd say your balls, but he'd take too long to find them.

It’s always tough. The eternal divide is the reader wants the character to succeed, to be happy, to win.

Obviously, Captain America no longer exists, so we don't actually have that problem.

Our job is often to put the characters through things and that can often be mistaken for a lack of respect or care for the character.

That's not putting the character through something. You've made his entire history as we know it A LIE. Everything he's ever stood for is now a lie. That's not something that just happened to him. That's making his entire existence mean nothing, all so you can pull a stunt. Because that's all this is, a stunt.

It’s just the reality of what draws people into these stories, whether you realize it or not, and this is going to be a major test for a lot of characters in the Marvel universe.

This is going to be a test of your security systems if you keep this up.

Q: The resurgent Hydra that Red Skull is pulling together seems to share a lot of parallels with Trump's “Make America Great Again” campaign. It’s xenophobia and anti-political correctness. What went into forming his recruitment platform?A: What I think I can say about this, is one of the later conceptions of the story was “what if the new Hydra is a blank?” We wanted to kind of get away from the green and yellow costumes and the doomsday machines and things like that and really reconnect with what the organization has at its sort of moral core. 

Yes. You read that right. He just said that Hydra, and the Red Skull, Nazi organizations and personnel from day one, had a moral core.

Did someone not explain that Nazis don't have a moral core? That they make Max Weber look calm? Their entire philosophy of existence is power makes things right. If you don't grasp that concept, you're an idiot.

Even the joker knows better.

If you do grasp that concept, and think that is a moral core, then that just means that you might be a liberal, and you think that the Nazis were the good guys.

As for being anti-PC, you should read Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. He's obviously a Nazi.

We’ve obviously seen a lot of growth in white supremacist organizations and extreme nationalist groups in the U.S., certainly over the last eight years. 

Only if you're an idiot and follow the Southern Poverty Law Center, who classified Focus on the Family as a terrorist group.

Or you, like Janet Napolitano, have classified the Tea party as a terrorist group.

In short, anyone who disagrees with you politically are really Nazis. Thanks for that.

And so I had to do the ugly research of what’s drawing folks into those groups. What’s driving recruitment? 

Nothing. Because it's not happening.

Unless you mean ISIS. In which case, that's Barack Obama.

The Skull speech is a slightly sanitized version of that stuff. It’s been a little interesting hearing people say, “Oh, he’s taking political shots.” We’ve done that kind of thing, where we used a lot of topical language in stories with varying degrees of sincerity. This was a little different. I was looking at something else when I came to this. If people see those things as similar, it’s not my place to say. (Laughs.)

Please, be more insincere, why don't you?

I wanted us to kind of understand where this endless supply of bodies that Hydra always has comes from. And why someone would sign up for the gig. It became pretty clear that that wasn’t going to be a supervillain screaming at the top of his lungs about how he was gonna take over the world and everybody was gonna bow to him. Instead, they would need to see some potential self-interest gain from working in Hydra. It’s probably a pretty good paycheck because it’s a dangerous job. 

We've already covered that. His name is Bob, Agent of Hydra.

Also, if you did five minutes of research, you'd realize that the Red Skull could recruit them all from the Middle East, after the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini became Eichmann's best friend. That's a few hundred million people right there.

Also, cloning. Because comics.

So again, when looking at various hate groups and what drew those people in, these are the kinds of things you see a lot. A lot of times they’re recruiting in areas that are economically depressed, they’re recruiting people who don't have a lot of education or opportunity, who could gain from employment and having future prospects. 

What? You mean that it's not Climate Change? I hear that causes all the problems now.

Also, that must mean that the Red Skull recruits a lot in Detroit.

We [in the U.S.] have a lot of people like that. It’s kind of a miracle that we don't have more of this stuff. So I wanted to bring the camera in close on one of them and give you an idea of who’s filling these rooms of people that SHIELD’s fighting against. I think it makes for a stronger dynamic. It presents SHIELD with some new problems that they’ve never really had to deal with before. 

I'm sorry, did you want to turn a comic book into All Quiet on the Western Front? Because that was crap, even for propaganda.

Q: What should we be reading into Eric Selvig’s expression there at the end? Was he in cahoots with Cap?

You mean this image?

Are you stupid? Or merely brain dead? Does that man look happy to you?

A: I know, he looks a little dark, doesn't he? He looks a little creepy. (Laughs.) That’s a good observation. Good thing to keep in your back pocket for future issues. 

Translation: "I didn't think of that. Thanks for the idea. I know who to ruin next."

Speaking of stupid....

Q:Have you been watching the #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend campaign unfold?A: Yeah. I think the only thing I can say there is it speaks to people’s passion for the character. 

Funny. I thought it spoke to the power of the gay lobby on Twitter.

Which probably isn’t much of an answer, 

Ya think?

but people strongly identify with these characters, they’re strongly invested in these characters’ lives, and I think that this is a reflection of that energy.

Then you made him a Nazi. Now, not even the gay crowd will want him.

What can we expect from the story going forward?

Your usual stupid cliches. Probably the power of love, while we're at it.

I would tell everybody to take the solicits and stuff that are out there with a real grain of salt.

 Dude, we're expecting to wake up the next day and hope this was a nightmare. Also, we're hoping that you're found in a dark alley somewhere.

(Laughs.) We had to embellish somewhat so that nobody would get suspicious.

You made ... CAPTAIN AMERICA .... into ... a ... NAZI. You're embellishing "somewhat"?

What I think I can say to folks that might help them visualize where the story is going is that this is not so much a story about what has come before as it is about what comes next. The story is not Steve’s past, it’s Steve’s future. 

You just made Steve Rogers a Hydra plant since before he was Captain America. That alone has just made everything incoherent. And you think that his past is irrelevant? How many times did your parents have to drop you on your head for you to be just this level of stupid?

So we’ve established that Captain America is Hydra. 

Consider carefully just how stupid that sounds, Nicky.

That is a huge moment in the Marvel universe, regardless of when it came to be or how it came to be.

It came to be because you couldn't think of anything original.

What that means in terms of the doors that are open to Steve, what he can do, and what he chooses to do with that power is what remains to be seen.

Doors that are open? Really? If he's a Hydra agent, he could walk into the White House, shake hands with the President, then rip off his arm and beat him to death with it.

But the thing that I can say is it’s a huge story I really can’t believe that they’re letting me do. 

That's the first honest thing I've heard you say. I can't believe they're letting you do it either.

This is something that is gonna have a profound effect on the Marvel universe. 

Yes. Like tanking books sales.

I’ve seen a lot of people say things like, “Oh, it’ll be wrapped up in the arc,” or “Give it six months.” And I can tell you, that’s not the case. This has real lasting repercussions that are gonna be with us for a while.

You mean until the latest Marvel event that shakes things up? You sure that's not going to bigfoot your stupidity in the next give minutes?  Or did you mean until sales tank so badly, you're thrown out into the street? Did you even consider the impact that having Chris Evans hating the idea?  And did anyone consider that this would be an especially bad idea with the Civil War film coming out the same month? Though I noticed they made sure to release this comic AFTER Civil War released.

I think I've made my point here. This is a stupid, unoriginal, shock-jock stunt that's geared to general sales, and I suspect it's going to have the opposite effect. And I suspect that it will end with Nick Spenser out in the street begging for change.

As I said at the start, Captain America is dead. A victim of political propaganda. But, like with all our real life heroes, he will live once more, and given new life. Only in his case, as he is fictional, it will happen sooner for him than for the rest.

Hollywood Nazis

When Spotlight won the Academy Award for best picture this week, my first response was "What the hell is Spotlight?"

Once I was told that it was about last century's child abuse scandal, my first thought was "Really? Is there nothing new to make films about? It's almost as bad as the 90-year-old Nazis in films!"

And which point all I could think was: Can we please stop with the Nazis?

Not sure if you've noticed, but there are still films trying to harp on World War II and Nazis.

But keep in mind, I grew up in the 90s, where there was a deluge of 100-year-old Nazis. Bulletproof Monk, for example, literally had a Nazi in a wheelchair, who had to have been at least 100 years old. And, sorry, if I want old, wheelchair-bound Nazis, I'm going to stick with Doctor Strangelove.

If you think that this premise is gone, nope. Hate to break it to you. But you've still got The Lady in Gold, a film with Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds released just last year. Yes, 2015 had a film about hunting down art stolen by Nazis. And that premise has been the plot of at least one episode of every other television show in the last ten years.

But don't worry.  As the film Three Kings turned the hunt for Nazi gold into the hunt for Iraq gold, I'm certain that there will be films in a few years that boil down to hunting down pieces from the Iraqi museum (most of which, by the way, was actually hidden by the caretakers of the museum, but it'll work because few people actually know that).

So, part of the question becomes ... why? No, really. Why? Do we not have enough bad guys in the nearly 80 years since World War II? You know, that whole Cold War thing? War with al-Qaeda?Terrorists?

First of all, we have to recognize that this isn't new. That's been part of my problem for a while with films in general. Hollyweird likes to ignore the elephant in the room -- or the actual threat in the crosshairs. Hollyweird has lousy target recognition.

During the Cold War, how many films had bad guys who were Soviets and good guys who didn't look as douchey as the bad guys?  Hell, the closest you get to even having Soviets as bad guys were in films based off of John le Carre novels, and even then, those plots shoe-horned in enough moral ambiguity that you wondered if le Carre could figure out who the good guys were if there weren't a literal map telling him where the bad guys resided.

Don't even try to talk to me about The Hunt for Red October. It was made in 1990, when the Cold War was like five minutes away from ending, and they could get away with it after 8 years of Reagan kicking ass and taking names (seriously, half the news articles of the time were about how Reagan was going to destroy the world by pissing off the Soviets; "Hmm, the Soviets didn't nuke us. Maybe we can make one film....").

And yes, there was Red Dawn. But at the end of the day, for every Cold War film that was actually ABOUT the Cold War, there were a dozen films about evil militias or evil generals. For every Hunt for Red October, or Red Dawn, there's at least one Seven Days in May, about the United States military taking over the government. Even Missing in Action or Rambo films were less about Vietnam and more about how the United States has mistreated veterans (yes, before the VA scandals of Obama. Surprise), or how all veterans are deranged psychopaths (First Blood was just ... ugh).

No, no.  The "real" enemy wasn't the Soviet Union. It was people who really wanted to defeat the Soviet Union. They were the problem. Communists (who were already working towards their ultimate casualty list of 100 million dead -- yes, Communism killed 100,000,000 people last century, look it up) were not the enemy.  Anti-communists were the enemy! And thus the phrase was born that "I am not pro-communist or Anti-Communist, I am anti-Anti-Communist."

Yes, anti-anti-communist.  It was a thing. Really. Look it up.

As much as I liked the mid-90s films The Rock and The Long Kiss Goodnight, both of them wonderfully mindless action flicks, look at who the enemy was in each film. The Rock had a collection of US marines taking US citizens hostages, and the latter had a black ops US government agency creating a fake terrorist attack to increase their funding.   And yes, if you've heard that second plot before, it's only been duplicated about a dozen times since then, perhaps more.

Keep in mind -- both of these films came out within five years after the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993.

(For those of you who want to feel old? This year's college freshmen weren't even alive when it was bombed the first time).

Luckily for Hollywood, one lone atheist militia member blew up an FBI building in Oklahoma City, and the 90s became the decade of the evil militia. Every. Five. Freaking. Minutes.  A cliche that continues to this day, even though it has been superseded by events. And history was rewritten so that bomber Timothy McVeigh was a "Christian." So, double-bonus point for the PC jackpot.

Then there was The Siege, where a campaign of terror is ongoing in New York City, and martial law is declared, and the Muslim community is thrown into internment camps. Funny enough, even though the man in charge of the military occupation of New York (played by Bruce Willis) started the film by saying "Martial law is a very bad idea, you do not want to do this," at the end of the film, he is the "real" enemy, and is arrested for torturing a terrorist to death. He is yet another crazy general. Because that's never happened in cinema...oh, wait, it's a recurring cliche.

After 9-11, when "the world had changed" ... the Tom Clancy novel The Sum of All Fears, where jihadis nuke the Superbowl and try to kick-start World War III, was turned into a film about Neo-Nazis.

Yes, that's right.  At the height of awareness about Islamofascist psychos, they made a film about Neo-Nazis.

See? Hollywood loves them some Nazis to kill. Even when they're almost entirely irrelevant in the real world.

And since 9-11, what films have actually dealt with Islamic terrorism? Aside from historically-based films? Not a lot. American Sniper was a biography. I'm told The Hurt Locker might as well have been a documentary. Zero Dark Thirty? A history. SOrt of.

And then there is Valley of Elah, or Syriana, which are anti-war agitprop, and one film called The Kingdom, the punchline of which is "this is a never-ending, vicious cycle."

Oh yay.

You know how bad it is when Hollywood has finally decided to make Cold War films. Currently. Heck, I'm certain that Hollywood loves Russia right now, and the new Cold War we have going for us, because Hollywood would rather fight Russia than talk about Jihadis. It's the only way I can explain the last Jack Ryan film even existing. Hollywood would rather perform icky sex acts upon Vladimir Putin than do a film where Jihadis are the bad guys. And EVEN THEN, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit made certain that the antagonist was a little sympathetic, and not part of the Russian government, but a billionaire.

How does one explain all of this?

To some extent, Hollywood was firmly in the pocket of the Soviet Union. If I recall correctly, the Soviet Union had cut them some checks, especially to penetrate the Screen Actors Guild. And you don't offend the guys sending you cash.

But there is of course, always one constant -- Hollywood's initial reflex is always, "America is evil, and we don't want it's enemies to be angry with us and kill us." During the Cold War, it started as "There are no enemies on the left -- Soviets are our friends," and there was an actual public stance where they stated "We don't want the Soviets to be angry with us and nuke us."

Oh look -- Islamofascists go insane over political cartoons and comic strips of "Hagar the Horrible." Mustn't offend them, lest they cut heads off of some Hollywood execs. Or Allahu Akbar a movie studio with a suicide vest.

Hollywood always needs an enemy for the movies. When they can't come up with the standard religious nut / crazy General / White Supremicist Militia / big business (what they see as Conservatives, basically), they seem obligated to utilize some variation of Nazis.

"But Declan," I hear you say, "what about books made into films?"

What about them? They come with their own villains. As most of them are sci-fi / fantasy, there is little connection to the real world.

But if you wantto think about them in a political fashion?

The Hunger Games? Fascist dictatorship.

Harry Potter? Villains stressing racial purity, and idiots looking like Neville Chamberlain.

Lord of the Rings? Evil armies trying to take over the world, based off of Tolkien in World War I, published after WW2.

Marvel films? Hail Hydra.

I'm sure if it ever comes up, there's someone around to say, "Hey! Nazis did this!"

But, on the question of fighting Jihadis? Sure, there are always some ways around this.  300, for example, could be seen as allegorical for going against the villains of the Middle East in the Persian Empire.  Though you're never going to get away with having James Bond go after Osama bin Laden. Or anyone who even looks like Osama.

As John Ringo once wrote in his book Live Free or Die, as someone tries to explain to an alien why reporters hate his guts...

"I'm what her culture, her tribe, has long seen as the bad guy. Wealthy, self-made, conservative. White. Male. I'm a more comprehensible evil—and it is viewed as evil—than the Horvath. ... The difference is, I try to understand them. They don't even try to understand me. They see my motivations as being theirs. I'm rich because I'm greedy. I have power so I must be ambitious for domination.”

Also, he continues, at the end of the day, this conservative (okay, really a libertarian) concludes that the good liberal reporters know that the conservative and the Christians behind him, aren't really going to kill them. The aliens? They will.

Conservatives and Christians are not going to cut off the heads of Hollywood people who hurl names at them, nor will we start shouting Gloria in excelsis Deo before detonating a suicide vest.

So at the end of the day, the endless use of the Nazi is the endless, desperate search for any villain that won't get them killed. It is the search for the "correct" enemy, so the film has the "right" message. It is a search for a cartoon character villain who seems somewhat real. Because Nazis don't need depth. They don't need motivation. They're Nazis, they're evil.  And most importantly, Nazis are completely irrelevant in regards to any major world event, or any real contemporary evil.

After all, not all villains can be evil conservative religious billionaires. Though you'd know they'd try to get away with it if they could.

Taking a stand, for the last time.

Last week, I said that A Pius Stand is coming.

It's finally going to be over.

If you've been with this blog since the beginning -- or if you've read "Pius Origins" link on the sidebar -- you know that this started out as a history paper gone amuck. It was a graduate paper in which I examined the truth behind Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust.

SPOILERS FOR A PIUS MAN, but, what I learned from my research was simple. Pius XII did more than any one person to save people in Europe during World War II.  More POWs. More Jews. More refugees. Because life was precious, and if they didn't like it, they could just come and get him.

But if you read any media around Pope Pius XII, you get Hitler's Pope. And Susan Zuccotti. And John Cornwell. And Gary Wills and Michael Phayer. The Wiki page on it has become more balanced, but still incomplete. You don't even want to know what it looked like when I started writing.  All of these great big names trying to spin a story I know to be false, and I spent a whole four months looking at primary documents as a grad student in America. They were journalists and historians. They should have known better.

I don't like liars.

The Pius Trilogy started out as a devotion. One that I tried to make readable for everyone. I wanted the opening to be dark and ominous to trap anti-Catholic to reading on, until they are so hip deep in the book that by the time that the revelation is given, the trap springs shut.

END SPOILERS.

The short version is, this was a devotion.  This was to sing the praises of God and His followers. This was a devotion to the truth, and a war on lies. At the same time, I was making it readable for other people. Heck, one of my friends on Facebook became a friend of mine BECAUSE of A Pius Man, and she's Jewish, I can't make it too much more open and readable than that.

The reason my cast was so big was simple -- I wanted to make it clear that the truth was not some subjective moving target. I needed a doubter, a neutral party, two red herrings, confirmation of the mystery ... well, you'll just have to read it to perform that matching column.

But my premise was that of philosopher Peter Kreeft -- this was an ecumenical jihad, a war against one very specific force of darkness, and one that the religions in A Pius Man could get behind. Because the liars I've been fighting since the beginning all have one thing in common.  What is that thing? Read A Pius Legacy.

But then I couldn't get the Catholic Writer's Guild Seal of Approval for APM. Why? Because the book was too violent, and some poor little dear was squeamish. I know this happened because I had officers of the Guild come up to me and suggested that there needed to be changes in the was the Seal of Approval was handled. Devotion to truth? Devotion to God? Who needs it? I've got a gun-toting Catholic! Run!

Then I had one or two of those officers write positive reviews. I'll take it.

The reason I kept going was that some things needed to be said. Some things needed to be put out there and thrown at people's heads until they either take notice or are bludgeoned to death.  Because the truth is not a game, or a weapon, except against lies. Truth is what happened, and maybe we can speculate about reasons, or about the why of things, and sometimes people will leave a diary detailing what and why they did. Then we hope the poor schmuck isn't a schizophrenic or a pathological liar.

And I kept going because I had to. Because writing is all I have.

This trilogy has been my life for ten years. And now it's time for me to say goodbye.

Book tour special: "Greater Treasures" Interview with Karina Fabian

Before we begin today's blog properly, there's a little announcement.  A Pius Man can be found on Kindle for Free every Friday this month. Why every Friday? Because I'd like to encourage people to get hooked, and then buy the novel, rather than wait a week for another freebie. The first taste is free, then you have to pay. It works in other marketing environments.

Now, on with the rest of the blog.

Longtime readers will remember Karina Fabian, author of Live and Let Fly, and co-editor of Infinite Space, Infinite God II.

Greater Treasures is a novella set in the Live and Let Fly universe.

The story? Well, it's as follows:

Being a private detective in the border town of the Faerie and Mundane worlds isn’t easy, even for a dragon like Vern. Still, finding the wayward brother of a teary damsel in distress shouldn’t have gotten so dangerous. When his partner, Sister Grace, gets poisoned by a dart meant for him, Vern offers to find an artifact in exchange for a cure. However, this is no ordinary trinket—with a little magic power, it could control all of mankind. Can Vern find the artifact, and will he sacrifice the fate of two worlds for the life of his best friend?

And with that established, let's begin.

Your previous DragonEye books were full novels with small press publishers, and now you're going a different route with a short story. Why the change? 
KF: I have two DragonEye novels—Magic, Mensa, and Mayhem, published by Swimming Kangaroo; and Live and Let Fly by MuseItUp books. I also have numerous DragonEye stories in various anthologies and magazines. I have a few larger stories, however, that are too small for novels but too big for anthologies or magazines. So I’m self-publishing those. It’s not a change, so much as an expansion—another arrow in my publishing quiver.

I love the publishers I’ve worked with and have great respect for them, and I am still submitting to small and big traditional presses.



You've got a lot of different and disparate elements scattered throughout the book. Heavy on religious elements, scattered with scifi tv references, in an atmosphere that's very much The Maltese Falcon. With all that in mind, one must ask: who is your target audience? 

Geeks? How about well-rounded readers of fantasy who enjoy a different approach. I don’t expect everyone to get or appreciate every reference in a story. I know when I read, I don’t, and one of the joys of reading is to discover something new.

I have to ask – how many times did you see The Maltese Falcon before you wrote the story? 
Once while taking notes.

Your world is an alternate world where two worlds – Mundane and Faerie – are connected. Yet you still have real-world events like 9-11 mentioned. What does the history of your universe look like? 
The Mundane world’s history and culture is very similar to our own, and where the Faerie world has changed it, I’ve mostly explored the local level. There’s a nice little nastiness about the Faerie in that they cannot be too far from the Gap for too long or they lose their connection to the magic. It’s fine for the humans, but any magical creatures get ill. (I explored this some in Live and Let Fly.)

The Faerie world has a lot of parallels to ours, but with some major exceptions. Satan and his minions prowl about the world in a very visible way, and the Catholic Church has remained united against them. It’s the only human religion, with the pagan gods (who are actual creatures) having been put in their proper place by the True God. Many of the problems leading to the Protestant Revolution either not happening or solved in-house in light of the fact that there’s an obvious bigger threat we need to stand against. Politically and technologically, they are behind us historically. The Gap connects to an area in England that is a duchy complete with a Duke who, as Vern will tell you, likes to have fun with his authority.


You made a point in the short story to say that dragon's don't have souls “like humans,” and therefore couldn't be converted. How does that work, considering that Vern is quite religious?

Christ died for humans, but that doesn't mean the other Faerie races don’t have souls or religion. They worship differently. In dragon’s case, it’s more of a great appreciation for their creation. They believe that while Man was made in God’s image, Dragon was made from God’s great imaginings. (It also accounts for their superiority complex.) They also have a different morality; for example, eating a lesser being does not count as murder—and all non-dragons are lesser.

Vern is a special case, however. St. George, convinced that the Church needed a dragon on its side, “recruited” Vern, but he did not go willingly. In the end, God through George had taken away just about everything from him—from size to magic—and told him to earn back his former glory, he would have to serve God’s creatures through the direction of the Church. Everything he does toward that end gives him something back; every backslide morally means a backslide physically. After 850 or so years working in the human religious institution, he’s picked up some human habits.

Why use the Lance of Longinus for the plot device? 

The Lance of Longinus is the spear used by the centurion to pierce Christ’s side, and has been sought after as a source of supernatural power in our world for millennia. I needed something with more punch than a bird statue. I don’t remember now why the Lance came to mind, but as I read all the conspiracy theories around it, I loved how it fit into the story.


In the Gap, God seems to take a direct hand in things more often than He does indirect– including an angelic security system. How do you manage the theology of Vern's world?

Carefully. They are more open to miracles and visions there than in the Mundane, but even so, God seldom comes from On High to hurl a lightning bolt. That’s more Zeus’ style.

What's your next project? 

I’m finishing the last book in the Mind Over Trilogy—Mind Over All. The second book, Mind Over Psyche, comes out in September. It’s a fantasy about a young man who claws his way back to sanity after suddenly acquiring psychic abilities. In the second novel, he escapes the mental asylum to another world, where he meets the woman who had been contacting him through visions. He (and his friend and intern who got caught up in the teleport) discover that she, too, is facing visions she cannot handle, and if they want to live, they need to help her understand the visions before they drive her insane.

What are you reading right now? 

I just finished Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman. One of the best books I’ve ever read in my life—edgy, griping, and very believable. As you can tell from the title, it’s a modern-day play off the Rapunzel story, but as told by the Brothers Grim. I highly recommend it.

Next, I need to read a biography on a saint for a writing assignment. Haven’t decided who is next; I just finished St. Ignatius of Antioch.


What question would you like me to have asked? 

None come to mind. Actually, it’s refreshing to have some unique questions. Thanks!

Come back tomorrow for the review.

Karina Fabian

Winner of the 2010 INDIE for best Fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), Karina Fabian has imagination that takes quirky twists that keep her--and her fans--amused. Nuns working in space, a down-and-out Faerie dragon working off a geas from St. George, zombie exterminators—there’s always a surprise in Fabian’s worlds. Mrs. Fabian teaches writing and book marketing seminars, but mostly is concerned with supporting her husband, Rob Fabian as he makes the exciting leap from military officer to civilian executive, getting her kids through high school and college, and surviving daily circuit torture…er, circuit training. Read about her adventures at http://fabianspace.com.