T O D AY ' S   P O P U L A R   R E A D MANGA REVIEW: POKÉMON XY VOL .

2 

(http://www.facebook.com/NerdSpan)  (http://www.twitter.com/NerdSpan)  (http://www.instagram.com/NerdSpan) 

(http://nerdspan.tumblr.com)

NerdSpan (http://www.nerdspan.com)

BOOKS (HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/CATEGORY/BOOKS/)

COMICS (HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/CATEGORY/COMICS/)


GAMING (HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/CATEGORY/GAMING/)

MOVIES (HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/CATEGORY/MOVIES/)

MUSIC (HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/CATEGORY/MUSIC-2/)

TV (HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/CATEGORY/TV/)

COMICS U N C AT E G O R I Z E D

JUPITER’S CIRCLE V2 #2,

OR, MARK MILLAR 23 DEC

REALLY SCREWS UP
2015

B Y A D A M W I T T ( H T T P : // W W W. N E R D S PA N . C O M /A U T H O R /A D A M W I T T/ )
 0

SHARE

0

LOVE

In this issue of Jupiter's Circle, Mark Millar chooses to talk

about civil unrest. In a superhero comic. It's a bad idea.

T
his article contains spoilers for most of Jupiter’s Circle v2 #2. Read with caution.

The American consciousness, the American Dream, and the differences between
American and European thought have been topics of Mark Millar’s comics for a long
time. In the Jupiter’s Circle series, he has been exploring this a little more deeply. In this week’s
Jupiter’s Circle v2 #2, he goes full speed into a re ection of the current American landscape, as
seen through the mistakes of the past. It’s bad. It’s very bad.

Millar doesn’t bring Europolitics into this, which is a good thing. He chooses instead to take the
past and match it to the present, comparing the Watts Riots of 1965 to what Americans see
today. Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs of the Beat movement show up, to little effect;
they don’t really accomplish much, aside from establishing that, yes, this is the 1960s. They
watch the news and talk about the Watts Riots.

The superheroes are then drawn to a press conference that (surprise!) turns toward the Watts
riots and racial epithets. Millar tries to sink the immerse the story in the language of the times,
but won’t quite commit. Obviously, if he committed, there would be a lot of offended readers
and a lot more articles about this. Perhaps controversy isn’t what he’s looking for. When you’re
talking about 1965, speci cally about Watts, however, there’s no room for tip-toeing.

So, Jupiter’s Circle is lousy with half-steps into actually saying anything, where Millar’s almost
certainly trying to. Millar has come under re for his portrayal of women, rape, and jingoism,
among other things; he’s been compared to shock-horror lmmakers. In the last few years, he’s
tried to revamp his image. This stinks of an attempt at that.

It’s exactly the wrong time and the wrong way to do so.

Hesitation toward the content could’ve been the thing that saved this issue of Jupiter’s Circle
from going completely wrong. As the issue ends, Millar decides that he won’t hit the brakes as
he speeds toward the wall. Skyfox decides he has to do something. He’s going to jump into the
Watts Riots.

This is a bad decision. The ways in which this is a bad decision are close to innumerable.
Millar loves the idea of the superhero being able to do anything; the superhero existing as the
bastion of hope that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster envisioned. There’s nothing inherently wrong
with that. However, dropping a superhero into something like the Watts Riots, a pivotal
moment in American history, is a backwards idea. It’s the truism about time travel: if you change
anything, it changes everything. Maybe that’s the point. It’s only the rst problem with Jupiter’s
Circle.

Revisiting the image of Skyfox winking at the kid: here, Jupiter’s Circle gives us another story
where the white guys save the black guys. As if pushing into this part of history wasn’t bad
enough, we’re fed this month-old, moldy dish and told to eat up. Stories like this are exactly why
people are running away from Big Two comics: representation is improving, but still utterly
broken, often falling to the side of tokenization; the Great White Hope isn’t something that any
fan under the age of forty, and certainly something that any non-white fan, wants to see
anymore.

Jupiter’s Circle tells us what we already know: the mistakes of history are repeating
themselves. The present day is scary, as was the past. The treatment of non-white people in
America is disgusting. All agreeable items. Telling us this through the lens of the superhero, that
aforementioned light on the hill, is the wrong way. This is a white bread story by a white bread
guy told in a white bread way, about issues that are patently non-white. White people aren’t
inherently bad; white people aren’t banned from being allies. Seeing white guys saving black
people from white guys accomplishes nothing.

To state the obvious: superheroes don’t exist. One isn’t just going to drop out of the sky and
stop things like Ferguson (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-
missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html?_r=0), Chicago’s Homan Square
(http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-
disappeared-thousands), the death of Sandra Bland (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-
news/protesters-ask-feds-get-involved-sandra-bland-case-n484721), the shooting of Trayvon
Martin (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/trayvon-martin-and-the-irony-
of-american-justice/277782/), twelve-year-old Tamir Rice’s senseless death at the hands of
police of cers (http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/10/us/tamir-rice-shooting-reports/), and an
unstoppably-growing list of horrors from happening (http://blacklivesmatter.com/). This is only
the tip of the iceberg.

Superhero stories can’t x what’s wrong with America. Especially when they’re told like this.

Related posts:

Comic Review: So Cute It

Hurts!! Volume 1

(http://www.nerdspan.com/comic-review-cute-hurts-volume-1/)

DC Comics' Convergence
Lives On In Three Spin-Off
Titles This October

(http://www.nerdspan.com/dc-comics-convergence-lives-on-in-three-spin-off-titles-this-

october/)
Halloween ComicFest 2016
to Give Out Two Million
Comics

(http://www.nerdspan.com/halloween-comicfest-2016-give-two-million-comics/)

August 31st Archie

Previews: Afterlife with
Archie #10, Sonic Universe
#89, and More

(http://www.nerdspan.com/august-31st-archie-previews-afterlife-archie-10-sonic-universe-

89/)

Manga Review: Girls’ Last

Tour Volume 1 (Spoilers)

(http://www.nerdspan.com/girls-last-tour-volume-1-spoilers/)

IDW / Glénat Partnership to

Joint Release in
American/Franco-Belge
Markets
 (http://www.nerdspan.com/idw-glenat-partnership/)

TA G S COMICS IMAGE COMICS RACISM MARK MILLAR JUPITER'S CIRCLE

CIVIL UNREST

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

 4 MONTHS AGO  6 MONTHS AGO

EVENTS GAMING COMICS

REALMS CON 2017: CELEBRATING

POWER RANGERS, BLACK BUTLER, STAR U N C AT E G O R I Z E D

WARS AND MOR...

(HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.COM/REALMS-
COMIC REVIEW: BROBOTS V
CON-2017-POWER-RANGERS-STAR-
(HTTP://WWW.NERDSPAN.C
WARS-BLACK-BUTLER/) REVIEW-BROBOTS-VOLUME
 (http://contv.go2cloud.org/aff_c?

offer_id=22&aff_id=1087&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.contv.com%2Fcreep-
con%2F)

TWEET US! CONTACT US!

*NerdSpan (@NerdSpan)* *Dan Yun (Publisher/Editor-

(http://twitter.com/NerdSpan) In-Chief)*
Aaron Pruner (@AaronFlux) (mailto:admin@nerdspan.com)
(http://twitter.com/AaronFlux) Books – Ashley Darling
Adam Witt (@adamwitt) (Editor)
(http://twitter.com/adamwitt) (mailto:bookworms@nerdspan.com)
Adele A. Lugoia Comics – Keith Hendricks
(@TattoosAndBooks) (Editor)
(http://twitter.com/tattoosandbooks) (mailto:comics@nerdspan.com)
Alex Langley (@RocketLlama) Gaming – Alex Langley (Editor)
(http://twitter.com/RocketLlama) (mailto:gaming@nerdspan.com)
Arturo Garcia Movies – Dan Yun (Editor)
(@ABoyNamedArt) (mailto:movies@nerdspan.com)
(http://twitter.com/aboynamedart) Music – Garrett Steele (Editor)
(mailto:music@nerdspan.com)
Ashley Darling TV – Ian Carter (Editor)
(@ashleycdarling) (mailto:tv@nerdspan.com)
(http://twitter.com/ashleycdarling)
Benjamin Piñeros
COPYRIGHT
(@Iampineros)
(http://twitter.com/Iampineros) 2012-2018 © NerdSpan
Bill Ostroff (mailto:admin@nerdspan.com)
(@FirstGlanceFilm)
(http://twitter.com/FirstGlanceFilm)
Brad Tee (@NotThatBrad)
(http://twitter.com/notthatbrad)
(http://c
Carolyn Colburn
(@tweek_ona_leash)
(http://twitter.com/tweek_ona_leash) offer_id=22&aff_id=1087&url=http%3
Chris Perkins con%
(@misterchristor)
(http://twitter.com/misterchristor)
Dan Yun (@TurtleGuard)
(http://twitter.com/TurtleGuard)
(http://c
Dave Walker
(@Professor_Just)
(http://twitter.com/Professor_Just) offer_id=22&aff_id=1087&url=http%3
Dean Self (@CURNtheNERD) con%
(http://twitter.com/CURNtheNERD)
Deborah J. Brannon
(@geekdame)
(http://twitter.com/geekdame)
Iain McNally (@mcnastyprime)
(http://twitter.com/mcnastyprime)
Ian Carter (@IanRCarter)
(http://twitter.com/ianrcarter)
Ian Menard (@IanMenard)
(http://twitter.com/ianmenard)
Joe Grunenwald
(@JoeGrunenwald)
(http://twitter.com/joegrunenwald)
Joshua Conrad (@darcrider)
(http://www.twitter.com/@darcrider)
Keith Hendricks
(@K4ComicBook)
(http://twitter.com/K4ComicBook)
Leo Reyna (@LeoReynaJr)
(http://twitter.com/LeoReynaJr)
M. Morse (@M_Morse)
(http://twitter.com/M_Morse)
Michelle Ealey
(@michelleealey)
(http://twitter.com/michelleealey)
Phil Redbeard
(@PhilRedbeard)
(http://twitter.com/PhilRedbeard)
R. C. Schmidt (@rcschmidt1)
(http://twitter.com/rcschmidt1)
Robert Mackenzie
(@RobertRambles)
(http://twitter.com/RobertRambles)
Royal Lance Eustache
(@RoyalLanceE)
(http://twitter.com/RoyalLanceE)
Ryan Morrissey-Smith
(@TigersMS78)
(http://twitter.com/TigersMS78)
Scott Stewart
(@themindofscott)
(http://twitter.com/themindofscott)
Steve Harcourt (@slackwagon)
(http://twitter.com/slackwagon)