Uncle Sam # 1-2
Published by: DC/Vertigo – 1997
Written by: Steve Darnall
Painted by: Alex Ross
Uncle Sam is arguably the least well-known of Alex Ross’s generally high-profile comics projects. Ross—sometimes referred to as the “Norman Rockwell of comics”—may currently be best known for contributing cover art to numerous series, but it is a rare and celebrated occasion when he also paints a comic’s interior. Uncle Sam marks a major departure from Ross’s usual stomping grounds of superheroes, science fiction, the man on the street, and making real the fantastically unreal, into, instead, a surreal world of imagery and allegory with a social and political agenda.
The 1997, two-issue, DC/Vertigo comic book miniseries, Uncle Sam—written by Steve Darnall and painted by Alex Ross—followed Ross’s early success on Marvels—published in 1993 by Marvel Comics and written by Kurt Busiek—and Kingdom Come—published in 1996 by DC Comics and written by Mark Waid.
In Uncle Sam, the iconic spirit of the American democracy is portrayed as a homeless man in tattered red, white, and blue clothes plagued by hallucinations of the unflattering past and present of his country—ranging from slavery and the lynchings of supposedly “free” men in the antiquated south to the white man’s genocide of the natives of America and the wars the United States fought for its sovereignty and its identity, as well as more generally addressing racism, consumerism, and corruption—the fight for the soul of America.
Despite the many criticisms raised regarding modern and historical America, Uncle Sam is ultimately hopeful about the potential of men and women to continue improving upon the American experiment. Uncle Sam may not be as groundbreaking or seminal as its predecessors—Marvels and Kingdom Come—but it is a unique artifact in a largely apolitical medium. Uncle Sam makes a statement; it is the voice not necessarily of reason, but rather one of outrage at the perversions and atrocities carried out in the name of freedom, or religion, or under the guise of law, or as a product of governance.
Alex Ross’s art is, as always, impeccable. Ross uses gouache—an opaque type of watercolor—for his paintings, incorporating pencil, brushwork, and airbrushing. Supposedly, Ross prefers not to mix his paints to achieve a given color, but, rather, simply buys a tube of the appropriate color, as dozens if not hundreds of prefabricated colors are available. Comparisons have been made between Ross and Norman Rockwell. There are clearly differences, but they both incorporate an exaggerated version of photo-realism—based on actual photographic reference material—that, though more plastic and dynamic than possible in strict realism, portrays characters and events that never quite transcend realism into caricature.
Ross’s legendary attention to minute detail is not only present in the realism of his renderings, but also in his manner of telling stories and populating the world of the narrative with subtle background elements that add depth and dimension to the world of diegesis. This can manifest as background characters with brief arcs—such as a nameless character being mugged in the background of a series of panels which are focused on a foreground unaffected by the mugging—as well as manifesting in Ross’s propensity to hide “Easter Eggs”—obscure messages and references that award close scrutiny—in his art. This tendency apparently began with Marvels but may have reached its apex with Kingdom Come. The now-defunct Wizard magazine once even devoted a lengthy article to pointing out many of the subtle biblical and pop-culture references and inside-jokes in Ross’s work.
Uncle Sam is appropriate for only a mature audience, but there is little to take offense to; the disturbing visuals of wars, massacres, and lynchings are representations of true events and are intentionally disturbing in service of making a point about how we as a society view our nation’s rather ugly past through rose-tinted glasses. That having been said, politically-and-historically-aware teenagers might find the series both fascinating and enlightening—as would an older audience—and for these reasons the “maturity” of the reader is not merely synonymous with the age of that reader.
Any fan of Ross’s art—and good comics in general—would be remiss to not check out both Marvels and Kingdom Come, arguably Ross’s most famous, important, and groundbreaking works. In both Marvels and Kingdom Come the stories and characters are as fresh and remarkable as the art, each elevating the other to a realm of perfection rarely achieved in any medium.
If the messages of Uncle Sam resonate with you on the visceral level of righteous anger, a lesser known political activist comic that might prove captivating and worth a look is the single-volume Brought to Light—published by Eclipse in 1989—especially the Alan Moore (writer) and Bill Sienkiewicz (artist) story therein Shadowplay: The Secret Team. Shadowplay is a historical account of the many morally offensive activities—killings, drug smuggling, arms deals—done in the name of America’s interests in the last half of the twentieth century. Supposedly well-researched, if even one-tenth of the allegations therein are in fact true, the natural response should be outrage and distrust. If these outrageous violations of international, domestic, and moral law occurred in the seventies and eighties, what’s the likelihood they stopped in the nineties and two-thousands? The story is less narrative and more symbolically illustrated narration, with a focus on its damning claims rather than character or plot. Sienkiewicz’s painted art is a pleasure; though the inconsistent lettering can be a little distracting at times.
For fans of the critical, political, content of Uncle Sam, the politically aware 50-issue, DC/Wildstorm series Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan (writer) and Tony Harris (artist) is also worth a look. Ex Machina vacillates between the past and present. In the comic’s past, Mitchell Hundred is the world’s first and only superhero. In the comic’s present, Hundred has become mayor of New York City because he feels he can do more good within the system than as an outsider. The many plots and subplots that populate the series’ fifty issues revolve around themes such as civil rights, the “war on drugs,” the tenuous balance among freedom, privacy, and safety, as well as controversies concerning race, religion, xenophobia, and gay rights.
Besides comics, people interested in the ideas and events mentioned, and alluded to, in Uncle Sam might be similarly drawn to the works of liberal political activist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but also passionately advocates for transparency and responsibility in government, a more well-informed electorate, and a longer, deeper, more contextually complete memory and understanding of the nation’s recent and more distant past. His more scholarly work can be a bit difficult to parse, but shorter works such as Media Control, The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many, and Secrets Lies and Democracy are more accessible for a general audience.
Brian Bigelow
December 14, 2016
