Batman and the Rightwingers

The American Right is really weird when it comes to comic books.  The Right is inclined think that since comic books and their respective characters are intrinsically American icons (a sentiment I'm inclined to agree with), and since the Right as a whole sees itself as the "Heartbeat of America" (a sentiment I'm inclined to laugh at), that therefore comic books and characters should be reflective of all things Rightwing.



Pants-wearing Commie!

 This is ridiculous, but it has been a reoccurring theme over the past year.  For instance, there was the minor furor raised when Tea Party protesters were depicted in an unflattering manner (and by that I mean 'realistic') in the pages of Captain America.  And then there was the outrage led by Fox News when Wonderwoman got a newer, supposedly less patriotic costume. 

Now I'll be the first to admit that a good portion of the hooplaw probably had to do with slow news days and Fox's 24-hour news cycle.  When you've gotta generate content nonstop, you can't stop for little things along the way like common sense.  But even taking hyperbolic marketing tactics into consideration, the small portion of the Right that pays attention to comics tends to get very, very upset when a comic book or character does something contrary to its political ideal.

Take the latest stink raised by the Batman/Nightrunner fiasco.  While the details are a bit complex, I'll try to keep it simple for you non-comic book readers.  Basically controversy stems from the ongoing "Batman, Inc." storyline, in which Bruce Wayne decides to take the idea of Batman to a global audience, in an effort to better fight the idea of crime.  Basically this means that there will be more Batmen, or Batman-esque characters around the world, holding down their respective forts in the ongoing battle against crime.  This is still a relatively new phase in the Batman mythos, and thus far there have only been a handful of initiates, but one of the recent additions is the French Batman, a newly-created character by the name of Nightrunner.  Nightrunner is a French Muslim, of Algerian decent.

Cue angry Rightwing response.

I've been thinking about putting something together in an attempt to highlight the ridiculousness of the Right's newfound rage against Batman and Muslims, but web Comic Shortpacked! beat me to it.  This pretty much encapsulates all my feelings (and more) about the issue I've just decided to dub "Bat-hammad-gate."