Reading Essays Reveals a Dark Side to Manifest Destiny. What Is That Dark Side?

This isn't the first time, nor, I doubtable, will it be the terminal, when in that location is blood on the scales in Manifest Destiny. One of the things that makes this comic so fascinating is how it allows truly dark, violent, disturbing impulses to occasionally rise to the surface through these archetype American hero characters. Lewis and Clark, in particular, have a witty repartee that summons the spirit of whatever number of glib American heroic types. Most of the fourth dimension, they and the soldiers and civilians under their charge in the Corps of Discovery discover creative solutions to their bizarre challenges and proceed the tone fairly lite, no matter how grotesque their surroundings. Just in this, the 18th effect, as they have before, the creators remind us that these were violent men who lived in a violent time, and they didn't share all of our modern values.

The issue at stake here is the Ferzon, although we tin be forgiven for thinking that the focus is on the Corps members and their battle against the monstrous "Vameter", recently crowned with the head of a deceased comrade. Certainly, the fight against the Vameter is every bit well-executed as anything we've yet seen in Manifest Destiny: an exciting activity sequence with creative stunts that would exist applauded in any film. It'south old-fashioned comic book stuff, and fun to read. But this issue doesn't end there, and events have a plough that, while they seem horrifyingly arbitrary, are actually completely consequent with the historical reality of the characters. Which, of course, makes them even more spooky.

It would be wrong to spoil that ending for those who wish to read the consequence, and so from here on, we must issue a coating SPOILER ALERT.

The problem in any modern discussion of Lewis and Clark is post-colonial guilt. We now tin come across, with our modern eyes, that the very notion of "manifest destiny" is morally problematic, especially with regards to indigenous people and cultures. Lewis, like Jefferson, regarded North America as open for the taking, with the small problem of a few scattered tribes littering the land. Jefferson was interested in Native American cultures to a caste, but the power human relationship was, for him, never in doubt. Whoever Lewis and Clark met "out there", they would be subject field to the authority of the U.s.a. and the President. Certainly, relations between their appointed leaders and the US government could be polite and friendly, and respect could still be shown both ways. Just the basic arrangement was always going to exist one of negotiating from a presumed position of defeat. "They're a proud people," Sam Shepard's graphic symbol in Thunderheart says of the Native Americans, "But they're a defeated people." That's certainly how the (mainly) white settlers saw the situation. The problem was that a few tribes didn't quite see it that style. When that was the example, Jefferson and his educatee Lewis had a elementary solution that they could very readily utilize: just impale them all.

The Ferzon are probably the well-nigh extreme grapheme nonetheless presented to united states of america in Manifest Destiny, a comic that has already shown us characters who really are Native Americans. But the Ferzon are an obvious metaphor for the people who occupied the land westward of the Mississippi before 1800. (I had at one point suspected that the Ferzon were literally "aliens", based on their historical pictography, only I suspect that just makes me the weird-haired guy from the History Channel documentaries.) When Lewis and Clark sit to a celebratory repast with the little bluish bird-bears later on the defeat of the Vameter, the imagery is fairly on-the-nose. They're feasting with the "natives" in a wild land, passing perhaps on some of the drink (not dissimilar South American explorers and the indigenous wines), but for the most office being cordial to their hosts. The Ferzon seemed at first blush smarter, or at least more aware, than the Corps of Discovery, playing the mod trope of the wisecracking Native American. (Such equally Gary Farmer'south character from Dead Man.) While this would accept been a well-worn path for writer Chris Dingess to accept, instead he turns the story slightly on its head and gives the states the rather unsettling realistic scenario, that not all Native Americans were wise sages shaking their heads at white settlers. Some of them actually believed what they were existence told, took information technology at face value, and left themselves vulnerable. That trust carried with it a terrible cost, as we run across in this upshot.

The slaughter of the Ferzon is probably ane of the near disturbing sequences I've recently seen in comics – equal to or better than anything in Nameless, a comic that specializes in being disturbing. The panels in which the newly-minted commissioned soldier Collins has to dispatch our showtime Ferzon friend, Dawhogg, is heartbreaking.

Imagine a movie scene involving massacring Muppets. It may be slightly agreeable for about 30 seconds, but imagine it went on for 2 or three minutes, growing more than and more violent. Past the end, no 1 would be laughing. And no 1, I doubtable, is laughing at the end of this issue. Lewis and Clark have betrayed a trust and broken a hope, simply it'due south no more (and no less) than America itself really did. They were sent to clear the state, equally Lewis puts it, and clear it they volition. Even though we often choose to forget, violence and genoncide are a office of manifest destiny.

Contained scholar Ian Dawe has been writing for Sequart since November 2013. Before that, he had a mixed background, initially in science (Molecular Biological science and Biochemistry), where he earned an MSc from Simon Fraser University and then an MA in Film from the University of Exeter in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. He spent a decade teaching at the college level, delivering courses in Genetics, Biochemistry, Jail cell Biology, Biological Anthropology and Film History. His academic work includes peer-reviewed papers on the work of Alan Moore, Harvey Pekar for Studies in Comics and a dissertation on Terry Gilliam for the University of Exeter. He has presented papers at several major academic conferences including Slayage 2014, Magus: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore in 2022 (in the wizard'due south hometown of Northampton), Comics Rock and the International Conference of the Humanities in 2012, and at the Southwest Pop Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2022 and 2015. He has contributed to several books, including a chapter about the Tv evidence Archer in "James Bail and Pop Culture" and two chapters on Breaking Bad for "Breaking Bad and Masculinity", both at present available from McFarland. At Sequart, he has authored a affiliate for New Life and New Civiliations: Exploring Star Trek Comics, A Long Time Ago and 2 more upcoming books on Star Wars comics. He has also contributed to books on Alan Moore and 1970s Horror Comics. He is currently planning a full-length book on Amend Phone call Saul. Ian currently lives in Vancouver, BC.

See more than, including complimentary online content, on Ian Dawe's author page.

Also past Ian Dawe: