Occupy Comics: Archer & Armstrong #1 Review

Archer & Armstrong #1 is a book you’ll probably like if you spent a lot of time camping out during the Occupy protests, or if you’re an active commenter on Pharyngula, because it tells a story that reinforces everything you already “know”: Evangelical Creationist Christians are obese, easily duped tools of the wealthy who are actively conspiring to become even wealthier, even if it means destroying everything and everyone to do it.

It’s gonna be likable to that particular demographic the same way that hardcore American conservatives like Atlas Shrugged – it tells you what you want to hear… but like those Ayn Rand books, just because it gives you a warm, affirming fuzzy feeling about your personal life choices doesn’t mean it’s a good fucking story.

I’ve been sitting here alternating between staring at this empty page and flipping back through the book, trying to figure out how to summarize the story, and I’m finding it really difficult, which is not a good sign. What we’ve got here is some kind of device that blew up Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago, that the Freemasons and the wealthy and villainous One Percent (and that’s not any kind of political judgment on my part; writer Fred Van Lente actually calls them that, which is a pretty decent indicator that this story is about as subtle as a prison rape) are trying to get their hands on so they can stabilize the Euro by blowing up Greece. So The One Percent (ugh) have their pet Evangelical Reverend and his Congressperson wife send their son Archer, who was trained to be a martial arts master in their Creation Museum / Amusement Park home, to distract Armstrong, an immortal Mesopotamian working as a bouncer in a New York City bar, from interfering with their master plan. And hilarity ensues, provided that by “hilarity” you mean “bafflement.”

Look, I’ve read this comic about six times now, and frankly, there are huge parts of this story that just don’t make any fucking sense at all. Let’s start with the One Percent’s master plan to build this exotic device to destroy Greece. Supposedly the One Percent has their hooks into the United States Government (at least they own a member of Congress), and if that’s the case: why go on a quest to build some exotic, weird-assed device to take out Greece when you have access to nuclear weapons right fucking now? And why send Archer, Jesus’s Favorite Aryan Ninja, to subdue Armstrong when it’s clearly pretty common knowledge that he can be taken down with knockout gas? And would any self-respecting right-winger train their child in a variety of Eastern martial arts when the local Wal-Mart has AR-15s for sale? And even assuming that the One-Percent conspired to get Archer sent out just so they could get their hands on his piece of the Giant Glowstick of Doom, why allow him to be trained as a killing machine in the first place? Wouldn’t it be easier to tell them that their master plan requires the breeding of fat, sedentary young boys?

Part of the problem here is that it’s hard to dig into the story at all past all the left-wing dogwhistling going on here. We’ve got fat people on L’il Rascal scooters riding past the Creationist Museum’s “Cavemen on dinosaurs” exhibit on their way to “second lunch,” like the trollish hobbits they’re presented as. We have Archer proudly talking about being homeschooled, and parroting the kind of right wing rhetoric that appears in three out of four emails forwarded to me by my dad. None of which is horrible in and of itself; it is possible to use those kinds of viewpoints and political beliefs to demonstrate character. However, here it’s presented largely and broadly and clearly as a point of mockery on Van Lente’s part. Showing fat rubes being duped out of their cash at a Creationist Museum doesn’t do anything to advance the story, and calling the villains the One Percent isn’t even fucking clever; it’s Van Lente using his comic to say, “Aren’t these people stupid? Look at these morons!” Which a certain percentage of left-leaning readers will probably find awesome, but they get in the way of the story, and that is never good. It’s the equivalent of shouting, “Hello, Cleveland!” to get a cheap applause break; it might work in small doses, but if the whole set is pandering for applause, it’s not a good show.

The art by Clayton Henry is pretty solid here. The guy uses a thin line and does pretty detailed and realistic figures, from the jacked and bigger than life Armstrong to the morbidly obese Jesus Rides a Dinosaur crowd. Where Henry really excels in in his facial expressions – you can tell exactly what these characters are thinking and feeling, and he doesn’t fall into the trap that many artists do by trying to do it with a million extra detail lines. Then again, you’d expect that kind of expressive detail from the guy who drew The Incredible Hercules #122, which contains the image upon which the “Cool Story, Bro!” image macro you’ve seen on the Internet while searching for brony porn, you sick and silly bastard, but that’s not the point. The point is that the art here is pretty solid and well-paced, with good action sequences that match the story well.

Things aren’t all dire here. I did enjoy the Armstrong character; presenting an immortal character who’s an indestructible unrepentant alcoholic with a penchant for poetry and vomiting on strangers is clever, even if only because I kinda identify with him. And clearly Van Lente is going to use the tension between Armstrong and Archer, a Jesus-spouting true believer, to set up a classic 80s-style buddy cop relationship between the two, which could lead to some entertaining characterization and dialogue – even here, the line “Her track marks had stretch marks” is almost worth the price of admission. But on the whole, we’re looking at a story with some giant holes, and that is far too self-satisfied in its political viewpoints. If you’re the kind of person who gets off being told you’re right about your political beliefs, particularly your beliefs about the people you don’t agree with, you’ll really dig this book. If you just want good story? Not the right place.