Dittmer, Jason - The Tyranny of the Serial

The Tyranny of the Serial: PopularGeopolitics, the Nation, and Comic

Book Discourse

Jason DittmerDepartment of Geology and Geography,

Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA;[email protected]

Abstract: This paper seeks to theorize the structuring of geopolitical worldviews and attitudes by

the comic book medium and by serial popular culture more broadly. Evidence of the use of comic

books to promote specific discourses by geopolitical actors is presented, and the conventions that

govern the limits of comic book narration are outlined. Among the conventions of production

discussed are the role of “continuity” as a structuring force and the serial nature of most comic

books. The impact of these conventions is viewed through an examination of Watchmen and

Captain America comic books. Both series revolve around issues of political legitimacy and the

structuring of geopolitical space, but do so in different ways. This leads to insight connecting

seriality with the concept of the nation itself. Finally, a theorization of the limits to comic book

and other serialized discourse is outlined, and its ultimately conservative political outcome is

described as endemic to the genre.

Introduction

Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Everygolem1 in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina’s delectablegoat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel,was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring,recital, and kabbalistic chitchat—was, literally, talked into life. Kava-lier and Clay—whose golem was to be formed of black lines and thefour-color dots of the lithographer—lay down, lit the first of five dozencigarettes they were to consume that afternoon, and started to talk.(The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon 2001:119)

The recent focus in geography on the impact of popular culture ongeopolitical thought (Dodds 1998, 2003; Power and Crampton 2005;Sharp 1993, 1998) has been paralleled by the increasing attention ofpublic intellectuals (such as Medved 2003) and government officials tothe potential for comic books to convey favored geopolitical scripts tothe public, especially children. According to the Simmons Market Re-search Bureau’s Study of Kids and Teens (2002), the net youth audience(ages 6–17) of the two largest comic book publishers (Marvel and DC) inthe United States is almost 14 million. These corporate-produced comic

C© 2007 The AuthorJournal compilation C© 2007 Editorial Board of Antipode.

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books are generally not primarily intended as political texts, althoughthey do have political content. Awareness of the political potential ofthose texts for the distribution of favored messages among less literatepopulations has resulted in a wide variety of comics being produced ei-ther by the US government or by ideological allies of the US governmentfor distribution in areas of Cold War conflict. For instance, during thecivil war in Nicaragua, the CIA distributed comic books that outlinedhow to conduct guerilla war against so-called soft targets:

In 1983, it [the CIA] had paid to produce and distribute a comic bookentitled “Freedom Fighter’s Manual,” a self-described “practical guideto liberate Nicaragua from oppression and misery by paralyzing themilitary–industrial complex of the traitorous Marxist state without hav-ing to use special tools and with minimal risk for the combatant”.

The comic book urged readers to sabotage the Nicaraguan economyby calling in sick, goofing off on their jobs, throwing tools into sewers,leaving lights and water taps on, telephoning false hotel reservations,dropping typewriters, and stealing and hiding key documents . . . Thecomic book also included detailed instructions on making Molotovcocktails, which, it suggested, could be thrown at fuel depots andpolice offices (Bovard 2004).

Currently, comic books are still a tool used to influence geopoliticalimaginations, as evidenced by the planned distribution by the UnitedStates Special Operations Command of comic books “based on the se-curity forces, military and police, in the near future in the Middle East”to promote favored geopolitical scripts (US Government 2005). The pur-pose in creating these comic books, for which the Federal governmentwas soliciting contractors in April 2005, is to reach Arab adolescentswhen their sociospatial frameworks are being formulated (as per Dijkink1996):

In order to achieve long-term peace and stability in the Middle East,the youth need to be reached. One effective means of influencing youthis through the use of comic books. A series of comic books providesthe opportunity for youth to learn lessons, develop role models andimprove their education (US Government 2005).

Comic books are similarly being deployed by Egypt-based AKComics in an attempt to produce indigenous superheroes (National Pub-lic Radio 2005). AK comic books, featuring the “Middle East Heroes”,will be published both in English and Arabic. The heroes themselvesparticipate in a different, more independent geopolitical script than theheroes of the forthcoming American military’s comic books: they are“entrusted with keeping the region out of the hands of evil following55 years of war between two unnamed superpowers” (British Broad-casting Corporation [BBC] 2005). AK Comics intentionally projects a


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“moderate”, media-friendly image of the region, with female super-heroes who are the equals of their male counterparts (hence a dispro-portionate number of readers are female in comparison to Americansuperhero comic books) and a clear geopolitical position tied into cur-rent events:

Meanwhile many of the stories reflect events in the modern world in thiskey region. The heroes’ enemies include the United Liberation Forceand the Zios Army, who are “still clinging to their extreme views”.Both enemies want complete control of the City of All Faiths. Mr.Nashar [the creator of the comics] said that this was “not deliberate—but it’s hard not to be inspired by what is going on. It’s part of ourlife—art from life, and life from art,” he said (BBC 2005).

Another Arab foray into popular geopolitics can be found in the comicbook series called The 99. The 99 was created by a Kuwaiti businessman,Naif Al-Mutawa, to show the positive elements of Islam to Muslimchildren:

To shock investors into action, Al-Mutawa would pull from his pocketan article about a Hamas supporter in the Palestinian territories whowas making millions selling a children’s album with stick-on picturesof suicide bombers and other bloody scenes from the intifada. Some-thing more positive was needed . . . to save the children from embracinga culture of violence and death (Boustany 2006:A16).

For Al-Mutawa, the goal was not to create another line of “Middle EastHeroes” such as those created by AK comics. Rather,

Mr. Mutawa . . . said existing superheroes fell into two main genres:the Judeo-Christian archetype of individuals with enormous powerwho are often disguised or outcasts, like Superman, and the Japanesearchetype of small characters who rely on each other to become power-ful, like Pokemon. His superhero characters will be based on an Islamicarchetype: by combining individual Muslim virtues—everything fromwisdom to generosity—they build collective power that is ultimatelyan expression of the divine (Fattah 2006:8).

Thus, not only the plots of these comic books are being sculpted to fitpolitical agendas, but also the very contours of the genre.

With these deployments of comic books illustrating the intentionaluse of comic books for the projection of geopolitical scripts, it isapparent that further study of how geopolitical scripts are formulatedand distributed through comic books could be useful in filling this gapin the popular geopolitics literature. Lately there has been an explo-sion of interest in visual culture and power, both within and outside thediscipline of geography. Much of the visual culture analysis in geog-raphy and the social sciences has taken the form of discourse anal-ysis, particularly associated with the ideas of Foucault (Berg 2003;


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Carstens-Wickham 1998; Michelmore 2000) but with others harness-ing different perspectives, such as symbolic interactionism (Greenberg2002), political iconography (Brunn and Raento 2005; Kurtz 2005), andpolitical economy (McFarlane and Hay 2003; Tju 2000).

Particularly, we have seen efforts to engage theoretically with vi-sual culture within the realm of critical geopolitics. For example, Cos-grove and della Dora (2005) have illustrated how visual representationsof geopolitical arenas are rooted in particular contexts and structuredthereby. MacDonald (2006) has similarly worked towards uncoveringthe relationship between different forms of observant practice and theresulting geopolitical knowledge. While political cartoons initially dom-inated the study of the visual in popular culture, more recently work hasbeen done on the cinema as an “ideological battleground” (Power andCrampton 2005:195). For example, Dixon and Zonn (2005:292) remindus that efforts at portraying “reality” through film (another form of vi-sual popular culture) are doomed because of popular culture’s role inactively inscribing difference. Crampton and Power (2005), also dis-cussing film, illustrate the role of visual culture in constructing sub-jectivities and objectifying conflict areas. It is in this literature thatthis paper situates itself—the paper’s focus is on the role of comicbooks and other serial media in the construction of subjectivities andspatial frameworks. Geography is only lately joining sociology, litera-ture, and history in analysis of the comic book medium (Brooker 2001;Edwardson 2003; Klock 2002; Nyberg 1998) and the particular typesof knowledge it imparts with its hybridity of text/image. This hybrid-ity offers both the spatialization inherent to the cartoon frame and therich characterization inherent to the written word. These unique qual-ities make it a fruitful medium to explore in regards to the construc-tion of popular geographies and the power relations that accompanythem.

This paper will outline some of the ways in which comic book mediaand discourse foreclose some possibilities for geopolitical scripting andopen others. This discussion of comic books’ revolutionary potentialmay seem vaguely ridiculous to serious literary scholars or “applied”revolutionaries. Indeed, it is the banality of comic books that marks themas beyond the pale of serious literary and political consideration andironically therefore as also worthy of investment by the US military andthose trying to surreptitiously promote a new indigenous Middle Easterngeopolitical script. The riots throughout the Muslim world resultingfrom the publication in several European countries of Mohammedancaricatures in early 2006 serve to remind us of the tremendous politicalpower of “banal” cartoons and comics (Khan 2005). Gramsci arguesthat the exercise of coercive power by the proletariat or bourgeoisie overa large territory is an overly daunting project, best replaced with theexercise of hegemony over mind and motivation (Adamson 1980). It is



in the establishment of this hegemony that popular culture media suchas comic books become relevant:

Gramsci’s concept of hegemony posits a significant place for popularculture in any attempt to understand the workings of society becauseof the very everydayness and apparently nonconflictual nature of suchproductions. Any political analysis of the operation of dominance musttake full account of the role of institutions of popular culture in thecomplex milieu that ensures the reproduction of cultural (and thuspolitical) norms (Sharp 2000:31).

The paper will begin with a discussion of the comic book medium,including insights into the structures that produce an ultimately conser-vative comic book discourse and a rare example of the circumstancesin which those structures can be violated (the comic book Watchmen).By drawing on the work of Lefebvre the paper will describe how thediscursive structure of “continuity” and the serial nature of mainstreamcomic books combine to shape comic book production according to aphenomenon called the “tyranny of the serial”. Further, the paper willoutline a Lefebvrean Marxist perspective on the relationship betweenserialized popular culture like Captain America and nationalism withina modern capitalist framework. Finally, the paper will turn to a contentanalysis of several specific issues of Captain America to demonstratethe impact of the structures of comic book discourse on the comics’representation of nationalism and the international system of states.

The Tyranny of the Serial

Continuity and Superman/Super-manSuperhero comic books, like all popular culture, serve as political texts,shaping geopolitical (and other) identities and constructing geograph-ical imaginations. This is done through language, both visual and tex-tual, that connects representations of the “reality” as understood by thereader (such as American urban scenes of Batman’s Gotham City orSpiderman’s New York City) with the parallel, but vastly different, uni-verse of the superhero. The stories told through the “black lines and thefour-color dots of the lithographer” (Chabon 2001:119) are part of anongoing discourse that at once departs from the pretension of objectivereality with the first full-page image of Superman soaring impossiblythrough the air and yet claims the reader’s attention through its narrativeof his or her recognizable society imperiled. In the genre of science fic-tion/fantasy (which the superhero genre is closely related to or subsumedwithin), no matter how futuristic or unique the scenario, there must besome recognizable elements of the reader’s society if he or she is tobe able to relate to the protagonist(s). Indeed, the power of science fic-tion/fantasy is found in “exploring alternative geographies of power and


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social relations” (Morehouse 2002:84; see also Warf 2002) with the goalof implicitly critiquing contemporary geographies of power and socialrelations. However, in superhero comic books the disciplining forces ofthe genre forestall the potential for this kind of subversion. One of theselimitations is a discursive structure known as continuity.

Continuity can be defined as “the term used by fans and publish-ers to refer to the coherence of the internal history and workings ofsuper-hero universes including the ‘biographies’ of individual charac-ters” (Locke 2005:26). Reynolds (1992) outlines three types of conti-nuity within comic book discourse. The first, serial continuity, requiresthat events in a comic book cannot contradict events in a previous comicbook. The second, hierarchical continuity, requires that relative rela-tionships between heroes’ powers remain relatively constant (that is,Superman should not be able to lift an asteroid in one comic book andonly a truck in the next, at least not without explanation). The third formof continuity is structural, which refers to the overarching social eventsand linkages within the superhero universe (usually consisting of allof a company’s heroes—ie the Marvel Universe, or the DC Universe).The need for writers, artists, and editors to enforce continuity in theircreations is dictated by ardent readers who vociferously protect conti-nuity, as their knowledge of it is social capital and a source of their ownlegitimacy in the subculture of comic book fandom (Wolf-Meyer 2003).

The fans’ desire for coherence and a sense of personal “territorial-ity” over the relationships, characteristics, and history of their favoritecharacters are enforced through the use of letters to the editor publishedin columns at the end of every issue, in which readers often submit theflaws that they have found in recent issues’ continuity. Marvel Comics,one of the two largest producers of comic books, has famously given out“no-prizes” (non-material prizes, in the form of public recognition) toreaders who both point out continuity flaws and manage to explain themaway. Thus, a system emerges in which social legitimacy is transferredto fans who manage to maintain the illusion that continuity is intact andthe creative teams are faithfully interpreting/reporting the events in theparallel universe that superheroes inhabit. Violation of the “rules” set outby continuity endangers the hierarchical structures of power/knowledgeamongst comic fandom.

Given the market imperative of selling comics (and the subsequentneed to keep fans happy through the protection of continuity, as de-scribed above) as well as the need to keep storylines “real” enoughto resonate with readers’ fantasies, creative staff are limited in thepotential for portrayal of systemic revolution in the pages of their cre-ations. This feature, which I refer to as the tyranny of the serial, is dictatedby the nature of the medium, which involves monthly issues ad infinitumconnected to each other through the structures of continuity. Thus, whilethe storyline may seem utterly fantastic, with all the ridiculous dialogue



and plot twists that mainstream superhero comics feature, it must remainstaidly conservative, with the storyline ending virtually where it began,perhaps with some character development but with the economic baseand overarching political and social superstructure of the comic book’s“reality” intact as a result of superhero action (Wolf-Meyer 2003).

This fundamental conservatism is separate from potential changes inthe backdrop of “reality” against which the narrative is projected. In otherwords, over time change in the society in which comic book producersare embedded is reflected in the texts that they produce. Therefore, thereare two parallel processes: one which takes the events of the real worldand builds it into the events of the comic book serial (see, for example,Dittmer 2005), and another that prevents the narratives of the comicbook serial from fundamentally altering their own representation of thereal world.

The tyranny of the serial becomes useful as an explanatory tool whenone considers why the Superman of the comic books did not becomeNietzsche’s Super-man. In other words, why would a super-poweredhuman, emotionally tied to humanity yet with liberating potential con-cealed within, not attempt to revolutionize society? In the Nietzscheanperspective, the Ubermenschen are supposed to return to humanity andbring their knowledge and skills to bear on humanity’s condition. In-stead, in the comic book world superheroes are more like super-poweredpolicemen than anything else—their support for the status quo is whatdefines them, and any attempt to fundamentally alter the social system iswhat marks a character as a villain. It is in the absence of the super-manthat the tyranny of the serial can be perceived—for an example of a su-perhero attempting to revolutionize humanity we must turn to a limitedseries, the comic book industry version of a TV miniseries.

Who Watches the Watchmen?For Alan Moore and David Gibbons, creators of Watchmen, to explorethe Nietzschean ideas briefly outlined above they had to abandon thecontinuous narrative of the traditional comic book and instead take up thequestion within the already-closed horizon of a limited series (Watchmenran for a predetermined 12 issues in 1986–87). Freed from the bounds ofcontinuity and able to weave a discrete storyline from beginning to end,they deconstruct the superhero genre through an exploration of its taken-for-granted assumptions. For instance, in Watchmen, superheroes do notall take up their spandex and battle for the status quo solely because ofsome sense of responsibility they feel for humanity, but also for a varietyof more venal motivations, such as ego, parental expectations, and eventhe sexual thrill of inflicting (and receiving) pain (Klock 2002). WhileWatchmen may not be as familiar to the reader as Captain America,this is largely a product of its limited duration. It is widely regarded asperhaps the greatest graphic novel of all time (it was the only graphic


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novel to make it into Time magazine’s 2005 list “Top 100 novels of alltime”) and it is soon to be produced as a live-action movie.

Watchmen‘s more realistic, more humane exploration of the superherogenre also enables a discussion on the themes of power and politics. Acorollary of the Nietzschean dilemma mentioned above is the question ofhuman acceptance of Ubermenschen as legitimate sources of power anddiscipline. Is there anything less democratic than a group of super-menacting as vigilantes, enforcing morality as they see it and existing sepa-rate from the political system through which morality becomes encodedas law? This democratic aversion to superheroes is visible in Watch-men both through visual codes in the text (the Roman satirist Juvenal’sphrase “Who watches the watchmen?” is written in graffiti throughoutthe comic books’ landscape) and through the events of the plot. In eventspreceding the comics’ storyline, a police strike puts the superheroes onthe streets as the only force for order, but the population rebels at theirunilateral imposition of order. Following that moment of political over-reach by the heroes, they are banned by the government and forced intoretirement—a plot device later adopted by Pixar’s cartoon movie TheIncredibles (2004).

Beyond this exploration of superhero vigilantism, the overarchingplot of Watchmen underlines the contrast between this comic and main-stream comics by interrogating the ethics of order and revolution. Atthe beginning of Watchmen, someone is murdering or otherwise elimi-nating the superheroes now in retirement. At the same time, the worldcreeps closer to nuclear war as the Soviet Union seeks to take advan-tage of the sudden absence of the American superhero Dr Manhattanby seizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dr Manhattan, whose name inten-tionally recalls the Manhattan Project, had been used by the Americangovernment as a superhero version of Reagan’s SDI, and so his absenceprovides an opportunity for the Soviets. This plot point illustrates thetensions created by the co-existence of superheroes such as Superman(who famously protects “truth, justice, and the American way”) andgeopolitical conflicts such as World War II and the Cold War (whicha hero such as Superman could seemingly end on his own). If Super-man will protect the United States from criminal masterminds and alieninvasions, why not from the Soviets? And yet, if Superman were toend the Cold War, could the universe portrayed in the continuing comicbook still resemble the readers’ universe enough to have commercialappeal?

As the heroes investigate the murder of their comrades, they discoverthat one of their own, Ozymandias, is behind the murders. Ozyman-dias is a perfect representation of the Nietzschean Ubermensch. Self-taught both in knowledge and fighting skill, he has pulled himself upfrom the masses: “Veidt [Ozymandias] simply overcame humanity, hetranscended the bounds yoked upon him by culture and achieved his



genetic potential, thereby becoming the ‘world’s smartest man’” (Wolf-Meyer 2003:498). Ozymandias is eliminating those heroes that opposehis plan, which is to avert nuclear war by creating an elaborate alieninvasion hoax that would unite the nations of the world against theirnew common enemy. Using Leninist revolutionary logic, Ozymandiasdecides that he needs to kill three million New Yorkers in order to “sell”the alien invasion. After discovering this, the other heroes unite againsthim in very stereotypical hero fashion, but un-stereotypically the battleends inconclusively when Ozymandias announces that they are too lateand he has already killed the New Yorkers and launched the hoax. In theface of these developments, most of the heroes stop fighting and watchas the plot comes to fruition with the Soviets backing down and unitingwith the Americans against the mythical threat, fulfilling Ozymandias’spredictive claim that the three million deaths would save many hundredsof millions of other lives from a nuclear holocaust. They are forced torecognize the precariousness of their moral position as their “heroic”identities are exposed as conservators of a Cold War system that wasultimately less considerate of human life than the utopian system Ozy-mandias promises to impose (see Figure 1). This type of ending to acomic book plotline is rare precisely because it would be virtually im-possible to follow with another narrative, as the fundamental tension insociety has been resolved. Now that Ozymandias’s new utopian worldorder is constituted, what dramatic action can follow that still resonateswith the reader’s own reality? Hence, in mainstream comic books thatare bound by continuity, the tyranny of the serial privileges plots thatre-constitute the status quo.

Captain America as Space of LegitimationLefebvre ([1974] 1991) outlines the production of space as a set of in-terconnected processes: spatial practice, representations of space, andrepresentational spaces. While unified, this triad nevertheless incorpo-rates the arenas of the material, the imaginary, and the artistic. In thecontext of the production of geopolitical space, this triad can also be bro-ken down into individual moments, each of which has received attentionfrom political geographers in the past. The spatial practices of govern-ments (establishment of borders, embassies, etc) reflect the geographicimaginary of the international system in which space is represented asdivided into discrete territories each of which is occupied by a uniquenation imbued with political agency (for a critique of this concept asontological fact, see Agnew 1994; Anderson 1991). These territoriesare institutionally buttressed (Paasi 1991) by the use of representationalspaces that artistically comment on the international system. Mainstreamsuperhero comic books, due to the tyranny of the serial and their inabil-ity to portray systemic revolution, function as representational spacesof legitimation in that they reinforce the prevailing assumptions of the


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Figure 1: The heroes are confronted by Ozymandias’s success (Moore and Gibbons1987:20). Source: Artwork by Dave Gibbons; copyright DC Comics.

international system to the detriment of other, alternative, geographies.These alternative geographies could include everything from liberal one-worldism (as in the conclusion of Watchmen) to a futuristic reactionaryworld of transnational Huntingtonian civilizational blocs.

Captain America in particular serves as a space of legitimation for theinternational system as it is currently constituted. The character of Cap-tain America serves as a territorial symbol (Paasi 1991) for the UnitedStates. Indeed, as the meaning of America and the role of the state havechanged over the decades, so has the content of the comic book. However,Captain America is not just a fictional political actor in a fictional homeand abroad, but instead the creation of a political actor/corporation thatis actively (re)constructing the oppositional spaces of home and abroad.This is accomplished through the attribution of patriotic ideals to Cap-tain America, who is then admired/consumed by readers who internal-ize Captain America’s ideals as their own. Captain America’s ideals are



readily on display within the pages of the comic book, beginning withhis uniform. Adorned in red, white, and blue, Captain America clearlydraws on the imagery of the American flag, with a star on his chest and alarge “A” on his forehead. Tied to this symbolism of the nation, CaptainAmerica participates in what Renan (1990:17) has called the “cult ofthe flag”. The sacredness of the flag to the American civil religion putsit beyond discussion, and indeed despite the vaguely ridiculous natureof Captain America’s uniform (he has tiny Mercury-like wings on histemples and red pirate boots) only villains make fun of his costume.This, of course, is a marker of their villainhood and serves as an objectlesson for the reader in how not to behave. The silent obviousness ofCaptain America’s costume serves as an example of Billig’s unwavedflag phenomenon (1995)—the encroachment of national symbols intoeveryday life until they appear natural, thereby reifying the state (andlegitimizing the international system).

Captain America as Lefebvrean MomentA view of the nation from a Marxist perspective also highlights thefunction of serialized nationalist narratives in preserving the status quo.Lefebvre’s earlier work ([1947] 1991) extended Marx’s concept of alien-ation beyond its strictly economic roots. Lefebvre believed that moder-nity’s incredible banality has a deleterious effect on the quality of life ofeveryone involved in it. The emptying out of the subject’s soul is virtu-ally complete, with occasional moments of transcendence such as loveand struggle injecting meaning and significance into everyday existence.Beyond those occasional moments, subjects mistakenly try to achievea sense of fulfillment through the consumption of goods and services.Thus, the quotidian sense of boredom and insignificance created by cap-italism’s exploitative class relations leads to the “mystification” of theroot cause, to be found in modern capitalism. Lefebvre argues that themystification of the masses can only be relieved by the aforementionedmoments, which are not easily commodified. I would argue that indeedthose moments are regularly commodified and indeed, serialized.

A key example of this would be Captain America comics—which pro-vide an anthropomorphic embodiment of the American nation throughwhich readers can fantasize about embodying the American nationthemselves (see Dittmer forthcoming for more on this concept of therescaling icon; see also Rasmussen and Brown 2005]. This love of na-tion and feeling of connection to a larger, communal identity provides aLefebvrean moment of meaning and significance, giving animus to themodern subject. That this moment costs the consumer a small amountof money every month is surely a small, but significant, bonus for thecapitalist class. That this moment also redirects the consumers’ politicalawareness towards the divisions inherent to the state system rather thanon class relations is a more important bonus for the capitalist class. The


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serialization of these nationalist tales provides escape from the soul-crushing banality of modern existence and enables the working class(and their children) to return to work (or school) for another month untilthe next issue comes out.

The seriality of the nationalist comic book parallels the seriality ofthe nation itself. Indeed, it is useful to think of the nation not as a time-less essence, but instead as a continually shifting storyline in which thecharacters change, grow, and interact but certain plot elements remainthe same. For example, American history courses are essentially serial-ized doses of a nationalist plot continuing in today’s current events (evenwhen taught critically, the course’s focus on American history is innatelyconstitutive for the nation). Similarly, the nightly news can be seen as theserialization of national life. Much like Captain America comic books,American history unfolds with a changing cast of villains/Others (theBritish, Native Americans, Nazis, Communists, Red-baiters, etc) and arelatively unchanging protagonist, “America”. Also, just as the charac-ter of Captain America undergoes personal change and crises alongsidethe major conflicts in his comic book, America goes through periodicbouts of self-questioning and doubt. Isolationism or internationalism?Civil rights or enhanced law enforcement ability? These debates overAmerican identity and purpose keep citizens plugged into and partici-pating in national life from month to month just as Captain America’spersonal problems string readers along until the next issue. While itwould be a mistake to carry this parallelism too far, it is apparent thatthe experience of nationalism is serialized and drawn out temporally.Homi Bhabha described it this way:

Nations, like narrative, lose their origins in the myths of time andonly fully realize their horizons in the mind’s eye. Such an image ofthe nation—or narration—might seem impossibly romantic and exces-sively metaphorical, but it is from those traditions of political thoughtand literary language that the nation emerges as a powerful historicalidea in the west . . . To encounter the nation as it is written displaysa temporality of culture and social consciousness more in tune withthe partial, overdetermined process by which textual meaning is pro-duced . . . These approaches are valuable in drawing our attention tothose easily obscured, but highly significant, recesses of the nationalculture from which alternative constituencies of peoples and opposi-tional analytic capacities may emerge (quoted selectively from Bhaba1990:1–7).

The monthly release of Captain America serves as one of many Lefeb-vrean moments that seek to transcend the mundane, everyday existenceof the subject by focusing on something greater than the capitalist rou-tine and connecting to the ongoing narrativization of the nation. Thus,because of its role as a serialized capitalist artifact and because of its



very subject matter, Captain America serves as an implicit space of le-gitimation for the nation, and by extension the state and the internationalsystem.

Captain America and (Anti)NationalismWhile Captain America comic books serve as an implicit space of legit-imation for the international system, the character of Captain Americaalso serves as an explicit defender of that system. This occurs in manycontexts, but most notably in seven issues in which Captain America bat-tles an anti-nationalist character known as Flag-Smasher. It is in theseissues that the effects of the tyranny of the serial are most apparent intheir construction of a space for the legitimation of the nation, state, andinternational system.

Flag-Smasher’s origin constructs him as a caricature of an identitythat many Americans will recognize, that of the leftist elite “trust fundradical”. His father was a Swiss diplomat, committed to peace. WhenFlag-Smasher was growing up he traveled the world, learning languagesand spending time with many different nationalities. Wanting to fol-low in his father’s footsteps, he went to graduate school at ColumbiaUniversity. However, his academic career was cut short by his father’sdeath at a rally-turned-riot outside an embassy. Deciding that his fa-ther’s vision could never be imposed by peaceful protest, he adoptsthe persona of Flag-Smasher, and swears to impose his own geopo-litical vision on the world through force. He is dressed in black andwhite, emphasizing the Manichean worldview that he espouses. Hisbelt buckle is an image of the world without borders, illustrating hisgoal.

Because of the differences in the characters’ origins, the battles be-tween the two characters are more than just physical; they are ideolog-ical. As per comic book convention, the flow of combat parallels theflow of dialogue, with each combatant’s rhetorical points punctuated bythe infliction of damage to his opponent. Thus, the ultimate proof ofideological “truth” is the outcome of the melee. Indeed, these five sto-rylines (contained in seven issues—two of the stories are two-parters)are among the wordiest of Captain America’s adventures. Interestingly,the first storyline begins with Flag-Smasher tearing down the flags infront of the United Nations. While this may appear to be antitheticalto most mainstream leftist thought, it is critical to the narrative becauseit marks Flag-Smasher as beyond the pale of mainstream acceptablethought. His anti-nationalist ideology is such that the United Nations,as a meeting ground for nation-states, does not symbolize world gov-ernment, but instead a reification of the international system that hedespises. After another symbolic attack (the destruction of a flag fac-tory) Flag-Smasher plots to attack a bigger symbol, Captain America


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Figure 2: Flag-Smasher announces his manifesto to the media (Gruenwald and Neary1985:18). Source: Captain America (c) 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. Used withpermission

himself. When Captain America has a press conference, Flag-Smasherholds the entire pressroom hostage, using their video feed to broadcasthis message of world unity (Figure 2). Meanwhile, Captain Americaseeks to talk him out of his plans by appealing to American political



culture, which Flag-Smasher adamantly rejects (Gruenwald and Neary1985:17):

CA: Look, Flag Smasher, this is a free country. Everyone has the rightto express himself. But no one has the right to force others to listenif they don’t want to hear. So why don’t you give the people here achoice if they want to listen to you or not?

FS: Don’t quote the bill of rights to me! I do not acknowledge theauthority that grants it! Sometimes people must be forced to hear whatis good for them!

Predictably, in the end Captain America defeats Flag-Smasher in hand-to-hand combat, thereby enforcing, through conquest of arms, the geopo-litical validity of his views. Lest that subtext be lost on the reader, thestory closes with an exchange between a man in the crowd and CaptainAmerica. Notably, Captain America shifts the scale of Flag-Smasher’sanalysis from the international to the national, using his ideas to con-struct an American identity based on diversity instead of a global identitybased on that same principle (Gruenwald and Neary 1985:22):

Man: What did you think of all that junk that creep was saying, Cap?

CA: I believe my opponent was wrong. There is nothing harmful abouthaving a sense of national identity or ethnic heritage. America is madeup of a multitude of different ethnic groups, each of which has had itsown part to contribute to American culture. Be proud of your heritage,but never let that pride make you forget that beneath it all, we are allhuman beings who have the same wants and needs and deserve thesame respect and dignity. At least, that’s how I see it.

This, of course, is not the end of Flag-Smasher’s attempts to overthrowthe international system. Less than a year later he appears at the head ofa “terrorist” group known as ULTIMATUM. He and his agents hijack aplane and hold the passengers hostage, calling for Captain America tosurrender. It is important to note that Flag-Smasher himself buys into thecomic book discourse through which readers understand that physicalpower equals moral validity:

I am a man without a country. It is an act of choice. I believe thatthe idea of countries—imaginary boundaries dividing men from theirbrothers—is dangerous. My aim—ULTIMATUM’s aim—is to see allnational boundaries erased . . . all symbols of separatism destroyed.The passengers I hold are just plain people. I mean them no harm,but I will harm them if that’s what it takes to get my point across.My point now is to prove that Captain America, that champion ofseparatism and national vanity, beat me in our first encounter by sheerluck, not because his position was morally superior (Gruenwald andNeary 1986a:10).


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While in the last storyline Captain America had some respect for Flag-Smasher’s political position, in this storyline he has none, referring tohis political views as “fanatical” and “warped” (Gruenwald and Neary1986a:10). This is perhaps tied to the establishment of ULTIMATUMas a “terrorist” group, thereby engaging in a discourse of “terrorism”that had tremendous resonance in the United States of 1986. CaptainAmerica, through monologue, explores the difference between his tacticsand those of the terrorists: “I’m glad Holly and Ram [the head of theCaptain’s youth organization and his mother] aren’t here to see this.I’m not particularly proud of having to use these terrorists’ guerillatactics—but 110 lives are at stake!” (Gruenwald and Neary 1986a:18).This commentary and other dialogue like it reinforce the legitimacy ofstate-affiliated power (Captain America) over that of non-state power(ULTIMATUM).

This narrative constructs a space of legitimation through which polit-ical legitimacy is confirmed not through political ideology but throughthe methods in which power is utilized. As Captain America himselfputs it: “If ULTIMATUM had peacefully promoted their anti-nationalistphilosophy, I would have defended their right to express their point ofview. But instead they coerced people to listen to them and placed thelives of innocents in jeopardy,” (Gruenwald and Neary 1986b:4). How-ever, given the hierarchy of power in which state and non-state actors aresituated, this predisposes the system to the status quo. In other words,revolutionaries must resort to “terrorism” in order to achieve politicalchange.

The final storyline with Flag-Smasher in the pages of Captain Amer-ica uses the character to illustrate the changing geopolitical concerns of1999. Flag-Smasher is not the main villain of the story; instead he is astooge of Calvin Halderman, who is the CEO of Roxxon Oil, a largemultinational corporation. Halderman controls Flag-Smasher, who isnow a brain-damaged thug controlled via the administration of emotion-manipulating drugs. Flag-Smasher’s role in the narrative is minimal, andany other goon could seemingly replace him. However, his presenceenables the authors to make a statement about the changing geopoliti-cal circumstances of the world. Instead of Flag-Smasher’s progressiveanti-nationalism as the ideological foil to the “American exceptional-ism” of Captain America, the reach of multinational corporations servesas America’s “Other”. This is expressed by one of Halderman’s goons,who funnels information to Captain America and some reporters whoare chasing the story (Casey and Raimondi 1999:24): “Halderman isthe real villain here, manipulating oil prices, strong-arming the com-petition . . . it’s not the first time he’s done this. I may just be a hiredhand, but that’s just plain un-American, y’know?” This process of “oth-ering” reflects the changing perception of geopolitical power in 1999,which emphasized economic power over military power, and argued



Figure 3: Halderman describes his geopolitical world-view to a team of reporters (Caseyand Raimondi 1999:23). Source: Captain America (c) 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. Usedwith permission.

that states were becoming less important in the post-Cold War era(see for instance, Luttwak 1993; Mathews 1997; Rosecrance 1996).Flag-Smasher factors into this as the zombie-like dupe of Halderman,who plays up the similarity of Flag-Smasher’s one-world concept withhis own idea of a borderless economic space inhabited by hollowed-out states and powerful multinational states (Figure 3). These duelinganti-nationalist visions share common ground, but the narrative shiftfrom one to the other reflects the changing geopolitical concerns ofthe day.

ConclusionsThe role of popular culture in documenting and constructing geopoliti-cal worldviews and attitudes has become increasingly well documented.This paper has sought to engage with popular culture in a more intimatefashion in order to uncover the specific ways in which discourse is struc-tured through the medium of comic books. The nature of mainstreamcomic books as continuous serial narratives, combined with the comicbook discourse of “continuity” and the market imperative of publishers,creates a structural limitation on comic book discourse that has herebeen referred to as the tyranny of the serial. To find exceptions to therule, this paper presented The Watchmen, a limited series that showed


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the narrative potential of the medium if it were somehow freed in a largescale from the tyranny of the serial. In those comic books, the “villain”succeeded in his plan to erase national boundaries, and the world wassaved from immanent nuclear war.

As a contrast to Watchmen, this paper presented several storylinesfrom Captain America that explored the same issues, specifically, theprimacy of the state in geopolitical visions. While the texts of thesestories often clearly articulated the “alternative” conceptualization ofa world without borders, it did so within the framework of terrorism,hostage-taking, and corporate greed. Further, the narrative of the storyserved as a space of legitimation for the concept of the state. This wasaccomplished through the continual defeat of Flag-Smasher, the symbolof anti-nationalism in these stories. Besides leaving Captain America todominate the coda of the story with moralizing commentary, comic bookdiscourse inscribes the winning combatant with ideological legitimacy.Thus, an ultimately conservative tale is woven, and distributed withmany similar tales in competing titles to newsstands around the countryand the world. While it is possible to find counter-hegemonic readingsof these tales (eg Medved 2003), those readings are part of a Left/Rightdebate that is solidly within the boundaries of publicly acceptable, anti-revolutionary discourse.

It is hoped by the author that this paper will spark a further debate onthe topic of popular culture in geopolitics, and geography more broadly.While the topic has begun to receive attention, it is time to move fromthe now-answered question of whether popular culture impacts geogra-phy to how popular culture specifically shapes geographic imaginaries.This is a complex subject, with many forms of media to analyze. Muchwork remains to be done, with many opportunities for collaboration andtheorization. For example, the many different forms of media throughwhich geo-politicized popular culture are disseminated may each havea different set of structures influencing the type of discourse theypropagate.

Nevertheless, this paper provides some hypotheses regarding someof those media. In recent years there has been a shift towards serializedtelevision (such as the X-Files, Lost, and 24) and away from episodic tele-vision (although clearly the majority of television programming is stillepisodic). Further, other media such as book publishing are experiencinga resurgence of serial storylines—one must only think of the Harry Pot-ter phenomenon or the Left Behind series2 to see evidence. While few,if any, of these phenomena will last as long as Captain America, there isreason to believe that their producers will seek to keep the serial story-telling going on as long as possible. Further, the fandom of these showsand books are every bit as territorial about continuity as comic bookfans. While these shows’ and books’ content may be less overtly nation-alist than Captain America, it can be hypothesized that they are equally



incapable of representing systemic change. Comic books, a mediumthat many forecast is doomed as a major source of entertainment, maynevertheless provide insight into the political structuring inherent to newtrends in media.

Given the parallels between the seriality of media and the seriality ofthe national narrative (described above), is it possible that the field ofpopular geopolitics has more to say about political events and discoursesthan has yet been theorized? What other parallels can be identified? Oncenational identity is stripped of its sacred mantle and exposed as a formof popular culture itself, what further insights can be gained? At thevery least, it would appear that some conceptual boundaries could beannihilated, so that instead of trying to simply link concepts such asnationalism and media studies, we could realize that they are in manyways one and the same.

There are many avenues of research to be followed in regards tohow these texts are consumed. Texts are always in the process of beingunderstood, and that understanding is contingent on several differentfactors, most obviously the social and cultural milieus in which they areconsumed (Gadamer 1979). Thus, a text read in different geohistoricalmoments, by different individuals or cultural groups, must have newmeanings produced, rather than having the author’s intentions mirrored.This is not to imply that any reading is equal to any other; indeed, whilethere are an infinite number of understandings possible, that is only be-cause of the infinite number of milieus in which the materiality of thetext can be understood and not because of the infinite pliability of theactual text itself. Therefore, the meaning of the text cannot be studiedoutside of the reading process: “meaning is [not] an object to be defined,but is an effect to be experienced” (Iser 1978:10). Therefore, a criticalpart of any study of popular culture and geopolitics must be focused onthe consumption of texts—for it is in the act of consumption that “thetext begins to unfold its potential; it is in the reader that the text comesto life” (Iser 1978:19). Therefore, future studies must seek to combinethe processes of production and consumption through both textual andhistorical analysis and also the use of focus groups and interviews withconsumers of the texts under analysis (eg Rose 2004). These studies oftexts’ reception will allow hypotheses to be constructed regarding theactual impact of popular culture on the worldview of consumers. A morefull understanding of the role of popular culture in constructing imagi-nary geographies is within our grasp, should geography as a disciplinechoose to engage with this material.

AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank Soren Larsen as well as the editor andreviewers for their help with earlier drafts.


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Endnotes1 A golem is a legendary Jewish man made from mud and animated by a rabbi’s incanta-tion, often to protect the community from anti-Semitism. It is often seen as a predecessorto comic books’ superheroes.2 If ever there were a storyline intended to be closed-ended, it would have to be LeftBehind‘s narrative of the End of Days. Not unexpectedly, the publishers have turned toprequels to keep the serialized narrative going and the money forthcoming.

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Dittmer, Jason - The Tyranny of the Serial