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aberrantangelsAnd wow, they're doozies.
To live outside the law, you must be honest.
— Bob Dylan
One year ago today, one universe away, a New York Times editorial asked "Should Justice Wear a Mask?" The columnist's answer was a no,
He's all in favor of the good works done by Utopia and T2M on an international scale, but very much opposed to their taking the law of the land into their own hands, and inspiring baselines to do the same. "In our society, justice should not be allowed to wear a mask, much less expected to." He opines that without sixty years of comic books featuring characters with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal male and female people, humanity at large would never have been able to cope with N-Day and its sequelae.
If you're thinking of Hector Godfrey's "Honor is Like the Hawk: Sometimes It Must Go Hooded", you're not the only one. (If I'm the only one, my apologies for boring you like this.) In that article from the New Frontiersman (reprinted in our universe between Chapters VIII and IX of Moore and Gibbons' award-winning graphic novel Watchmen), editor Hector Godfrey paints the embattled costumed heroes of the America he lives in (Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach, both having major difficulties in the public eye) as heirs of the Boston Tea Party and the Lone Ranger.
It's almost certain that whoever wrote the Times editorial into our timeline for the Aberrant Players Guide was thinking of Godfrey's screed — Kraig Blackwelder cites Watchmen as an influence on Aberrant. For that matter, Godfrey and the Times writer are each right about something and wrong about something, just like most of us.
Splitting the difference on the things they're right about is Revenant, the Nightmare Detective, protagonist of "Peer Review", Michael Stackpole's contribution to the John-Varley edited anthology Superheroes. (No, really, this all ties together, I swear to Elvis.) Revenant, a fairly thin Batman pastiche, is standing before the "American Justice Commission" to answer for recent actions — exactly what he was doing, and why, you'll have to read the story to find out. Suffice it to say that his actions are motivated by the spirit, at least, of the Dylan quote with which I led off — when he steps outside the law, he's motivated by his sense of justice.
The problem is, not everyone's sense of justice is as highly developed as his, and not everyone gets an improved sense of justice to go with superhuman abilities. Or even with anonymity — hence Godfrey's ability to cite the KKK as misunderstood heroes. (Then again, Moore shows Godfrey as a cynic playing to an audience he views as cranks and loners.) So, on balance, Godfrey's right that there are times when doing what's moral and doing what's legal conflict, but the Times writer is right that, at those times, one should make awfully damn sure one's doing something moral. At least, that's where I come down.
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calamityjon made a similar point in his G&F review of Busiek & Ross' Marvels. I told etherlad that I'd want to live in a superhero universe if I could, but I'm not always so sure about that. At the very least, any further work on Doc Dashing will have to take his objections into account.
To live outside the law, you must be honest.
— Bob Dylan
One year ago today, one universe away, a New York Times editorial asked "Should Justice Wear a Mask?" The columnist's answer was a no,
because — although the comic book heroes have stepped into our world — we have not stepped into theirs. This is not the simple, colorful world where Our Hero figures everything out in 23 pages and the damage done to the city by his Arch-nemesis will be entirely gone by next month. It's not a world where the police commissioner of a major city can entrust law enforcement to a masked vigilante he knows nothing about.
He's all in favor of the good works done by Utopia and T2M on an international scale, but very much opposed to their taking the law of the land into their own hands, and inspiring baselines to do the same. "In our society, justice should not be allowed to wear a mask, much less expected to." He opines that without sixty years of comic books featuring characters with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal male and female people, humanity at large would never have been able to cope with N-Day and its sequelae.
If you're thinking of Hector Godfrey's "Honor is Like the Hawk: Sometimes It Must Go Hooded", you're not the only one. (If I'm the only one, my apologies for boring you like this.) In that article from the New Frontiersman (reprinted in our universe between Chapters VIII and IX of Moore and Gibbons' award-winning graphic novel Watchmen), editor Hector Godfrey paints the embattled costumed heroes of the America he lives in (Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach, both having major difficulties in the public eye) as heirs of the Boston Tea Party and the Lone Ranger.
It's almost certain that whoever wrote the Times editorial into our timeline for the Aberrant Players Guide was thinking of Godfrey's screed — Kraig Blackwelder cites Watchmen as an influence on Aberrant. For that matter, Godfrey and the Times writer are each right about something and wrong about something, just like most of us.
Splitting the difference on the things they're right about is Revenant, the Nightmare Detective, protagonist of "Peer Review", Michael Stackpole's contribution to the John-Varley edited anthology Superheroes. (No, really, this all ties together, I swear to Elvis.) Revenant, a fairly thin Batman pastiche, is standing before the "American Justice Commission" to answer for recent actions — exactly what he was doing, and why, you'll have to read the story to find out. Suffice it to say that his actions are motivated by the spirit, at least, of the Dylan quote with which I led off — when he steps outside the law, he's motivated by his sense of justice.
The problem is, not everyone's sense of justice is as highly developed as his, and not everyone gets an improved sense of justice to go with superhuman abilities. Or even with anonymity — hence Godfrey's ability to cite the KKK as misunderstood heroes. (Then again, Moore shows Godfrey as a cynic playing to an audience he views as cranks and loners.) So, on balance, Godfrey's right that there are times when doing what's moral and doing what's legal conflict, but the Times writer is right that, at those times, one should make awfully damn sure one's doing something moral. At least, that's where I come down.
calamityjon made a similar point in his G&F review of Busiek & Ross' Marvels. I told etherlad that I'd want to live in a superhero universe if I could, but I'm not always so sure about that. At the very least, any further work on Doc Dashing will have to take his objections into account.
