John Ostrander: No Man’s Land Redux
One of the interesting developments in the past few years in comics, for me, is that stuff you’ve done earlier in your career gets bundled together and re-packaged. That can be especially nice if you have some sort of royalty arrangement (or incentive or participation or whatever they’re calling it now) because you know that means that at some point the company will issue you a check. That’s like found money; any writing you did was done long ago and you were paid for it already.
That’s not to say the money is unearned. In my view, if the company is getting a second bite of that apple, so should the creators who did the work. Seems fair to me, although the companies have a history of not being fair. And they also usually give a copy or two or three of the volume for your own library. That’s good because I rarely can find my original copies of the work.
Recently, I got copies of the last two volumes of the gathered Batman epic No Man’s Land. Our resident legend here at ComicMix, Denny O’Neil, was editor on the books at that time and asked me to do the Catwoman issues tying into the saga. I really enjoyed working with the character and would’ve enjoyed playing with her more but the book was cancelled at the end of that series. Catwoman, however, has more than nine lives and has gotten her own title back at least twice since then.
I have to admit, however, that I wasn’t too crazy about the whole No Man’s Land concept at the time. The main idea was that Gotham City, following an earthquake and a virus outbreak just seemed in general to be too toxic to reclaim so the federal government declared it a … wait for it … No Man’s Land. The citizens were ordered to get out and those who chose to stay (or were unable to leave) were kept in when the bridges and tunnels to the city were blown up. Any attempt to escape (or get in, as I recall) was prohibited and that was enforced by the Army. Very Escape From New York (a really fun movie, by the way; is Batman the comics’ Snake Plisken?).
At the time I found the premise too far fetched for my tastes. Okay, the main character dresses up like a bat to run around to strike terror into villainous and cowardly criminals but, yes, I found the central premise of No Man’s Land a little over the top for me. Gotham City was a major city in DCU’s USA. No federal government, in my opinion, would just abandon it like that; there would be howls of outrage throughout the country. Every city, every state, would fear that the same would happen to them. It simply wouldn’t be allowed. No U.S. government would be that cruel. It wasn’t politically feasible in my view (and I come from Chicago and, believe me, I’ve seen lots of outlandish governmental behavior that turned out to be very politically feasible.).
And what’s happened since No Man’s Land first came out? Let’s start with Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans and poor people stuck in the city and the horror stories of living in the Superbowl and a federal government’s response that was inept and way too slow in responding. There were people then who argued that New Orleans should be abandoned. The devastation was too great and, besides, it was a wicked, sinful city and the hurricane was God’s punishment yadda yadda yadda. New Orleans still struggles in the aftermath.
Let’s look at Hurricane Sandy. Better federal response this time but, again, the devastation was so widespread and so pervasive that it will take years for the area to recover fully, if it ever does.
Let’s look at Washington, D.C. right now. A fiscal cliff looms, one that was created by government, and one that government should be able to solve. As I write this, the two sides have gotten entrenched in their respective positions and each side is waiting to see who blinks first. A quicker resolution would help the Christmas buying season and, oh, might also keep the U.S. credit rating from being lowered again, but I’m not betting they’re going to get it done by the January 1st deadline.
No Man’s Land no longer seems that farfetched to me. I may still have a quibble or two with certain plot elements but the central premise? No, that’s become all too believable Maestro O’Neil, I tender my apologies. “I was wrong and you was right,” as usual. I should never doubt you or underestimate just how perverse reality can get.
My, this crow is tasty!
MONDAY: Mindy Newell
Admittedly, “No Man’s Land” as it was set during the Clinton years certainly would be a pretty far-fetched concept. But, as you noted, Katrina. If “No Man’s Land” had happened during the Dubya years, then I certainly could see the Federal gov’t following through on such a scheme–especially if it didn’t seem that the Dubya cronies could make a fortune from it.
Now, as to Sandy, again, you had a DEMOCRAT in the White House–someone who genuinely believed that the Federal government is NOT the “enemy” while also realizing that “private enterprise” is NOT the answer to everything. Unlike all the GOPers who seem to believe that private enterprise and “local” government can take care of everything (while seeming to ignore the fact that private enterprise does very little without there being a price tag attached), Obama knew that FEMA–the Federal agency–was better able to coordinate all the necessary relief efforts. (Of course, Obama made sure that FEMA was restored to the efficiency levels it had been under Clinton.)
I can, however, envision what would’ve happened in a Bush-era “No Man’s Land.” After the Feds wrote it off, the Bushies would’ve allowed it to destabilize so badly that it would’ve been declared a “threat to national security.” The military would then be allowed to go in and destroy the city, levelling it to the ground. And, after rounding up all the “criminals” (pretty much a designation for anyone who hadn’t fled the City before the NML declaration) and declaring them “enemy combatants” to be sent off to Gitmo or some similar prison outpost, the gov’t would then sell off the remnants to the GOP big-pocket donors for mere pennies on the thousand-dollars (a whole city block could be sold for a few dollars; whole neighborhoods for a grand or two) which would then develop the City into a new community for the wealthy, full of bright, shiny new buildings and landscapes without all the pre-NML grime.
As for that “fiscal cliff,” it’s solely on the GOP. Obama laid out his plan; the GOP said “it’s not good enough” while pretending the election never happened (even pretending that the many GOP supporters back Obama’s calls for the wealthy to pay more don’t really exist).
“No Man’s Land” is still a ludicrous concept.
As to the examples you cite – “Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
I didn’t read the ‘No man Land’ comics but I read the paperback novel and LOVED it. Given the state of the US government today, I can see it happening.
Pity.
In addition to your objections to the underlying concept of “No Man’s Land” (I recall thinking, “Hmm, I guess the DCU version of Bill Clinton doesn’t want Al Gore to be President in 2001”), I thought it simply couldn’t work in a universe where there are super-heroes outside Gotham. The idea of the Justice League standing by while Batman said, essentially, “Back off, people, I’ve got this,” just didn’t make sense to me. Garth Ennis even had Tommy and Natt comment on it in “Hitman,” which was set in Gotham. One of the hazards of operating in a shared universe, I guess.
So, really, the JLA should–and would–have come in the day after the earthquake and started fixing things up whether Batman liked it or not.