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Public Square 19 - Confusion in Relevance-Town (Nov 2001)
Sometimes the befuddled delivery of a moral, ethical or political work betrays a conceptual confusion that precludes letting the reader weigh ideas by their merits because he can't even find them.

Public Square 18 - JLA: Superpower and the Notion of Hubris (Nov 2001)
The ethical message that defined much of Classical tragedy - particularly its injunctions against destructive pride - can inform superhero comics, as demonstrated in JLA: Superpower.

Columns from 2001

Public Square 17 - The Moral Compass of Watchmen (Oct 2001)
Watchmen provides a rare piece of work in its presentation of contending moral philosophies, their connection to character, and the consequences of each.

Public Square 16 - The Vision of 'Hard-Traveling Heroes' (Oct 2001)
The humane vision of the canonical O'Neil / Adams run in Green Lantern/Green Arrow could provide a model for explorations of self-criticism of a people.

Public Square 15 - The Harsh Way of the Hero (Oct 2001)
The rise of the vigilante hero in the 1970s represented not a return to an older theory of crimefighting, but a new reactive strain against perceived loss of control of the streets.

Public Square 14 - X-Force and the Refugee (Oct 2001)
Sometimes a political comic requires a precise moment, with such a window of opportunity ultimately closing behind the events that made it relevant.

Public Square 13 - None Dare Call It Reason: The Ditko Heroes (Jul 2001)
Steve Ditko, through a series of proxy heroes, explores the notion of Evil, virtue, and the Rational Man.

Public Square 12 - Carville and Liberal Man (Jul 2001)
Politics provides an endless set of themes and players for both tragedy and comedy, as James Carville discovered through his starring role in the feature Liberal Man.

Public Square 11 - Jesus among the Bobos (Jun 2001)
Sometimes one finds a biting piece of political commentary in precisely the last place one would expect, as in the blistering take on the bohemian bourgeoisie that appeared in one classic story from Adventures of Jesus.

Public Square 10 - The Libertarian Message of Squadron Supreme (Mar 2001)
Purportedly an exploration of the Justice League concept unfettered by the editorial need to allow nothing to change, Squadron Supreme actually contained a four-color morality play about actions and their consequences as seen through a libertarian lens.

Public Square 09 - The Ethos of Popeye (Feb 2001)
While many comic strip heroes express little more in their definition than a vehicle for the expression of power fantasies, Elzie Segar created in Popeye a model for the Gallant Man.

Public Square 08 - Razzing the Dictators (Jan 2001)
Cartoonists of the Golden Age occasionally saw their medium as a bully pulpit for planting an occasional metaphorical and richly-deserved slap across the cheeks of the butcher-dictators of the twentieth century.

Columns from 2000

Public Square 07 - Superheroes in the Age of Agnew (Nov 2000)
In their first appearance, Marvel's Squadron Supreme - their answer to DC's Justice League - appeared as a political straw man impugning DC fans, DC talent, and a period of history we might call the Age of Agnew.

Public Square 06 - Anticommunism as Schtick in 1963 (Nov 2000)
Image Comics released in its 1963 books a piece of work that improbably found anticommunism as a source of black humor throughout.

Public Square 05 - Goading the Gadfly (Nov 2000)
One sees the essence of controversy with the caricature of Rush Limbaugh DC Comics inserted into Superman titles - the variations of portrayal reflect likely differences of opinion about the prototype.

Public Square 04 - Luthor as Capitalist Bogeyman (Nov 2000)
On many levels, the current incarnation of Lex Luthor personifies exactly those traits that define typical hostile criticisms of capitalism.

Public Square 03 - Flogging the Clintons in Supreme (Sep 2000)
Alan Moore sees the Clintons as a source of slapstick comedy, even if his parody of the First Couple stays away from political hot spots.

Public Square 02 - Starlin's Warlock Manifesto (Sep 2000)
Jim Starlin created, in his Warlock books of the seventies, a classic piece of storytelling that frames a miniature political and ethical manifesto.

Public Square 01 - Judging Political Comics (Sep 2000)
How can we tell good political comics from bad ones in a way that transcends simple agreement with their statement?

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