Last year, Alex Ross finally fulfilled the promise of "Marvels" and "Kingdom Come" and used that wonderful painting style of his to illustrate a comic really worthy of his art. He and writer Steve Darnall co-plotted Uncle Sam, originally published as two 48-page comics (an absurd decision from an artistic point of view, but probably sensible for commercial reasons). Now, it has been collected into its true form, with an afterpiece by Darnall about the history of Uncle Sam and some promotional art by Ross, as a single hardback book.
This is far and away the best thing that Ross has ever done, removing from my mouth the frothy aftertaste of the very-pretty-but-oh-so-vacant "Peace on Earth." Although I usually reserve the term "graphic novel" for things of 200 or 300 pages, I think this one may well deserve it, even though its 112 pages only include 96 pages of story.
The page length is not as important as the time factor. Though one might quickly scan the text, glancing at the pictures, in a short time, you cannot really give this a proper reading in an hour or two. It demands to be read slowly.
The pictures alone deserve taking time with. By now most comics fans are familiar with Ross' photorealistic paintings. Here, they take on another dimension, dealing not with the fantasy world of superheroes, but with the absolutely real world we all live in, as well as the visions - dreams? hallucinations? memories? - of the main character as he stumbles through historical and allegorical landscapes in his quest for identity.
The story opens in a hospital ER room on a busy night. Bits and pieces of conversation are heard, leading up to a confrontation between two orderlies and an old man, dressed in red-and-white striped trousers, his red bow tie hanging loose around his neck. He looks quite a bit like the famous "I Want You" poster and every other image of America's icon that we've ever seen. Yes, this is Uncle Sam.
Or is it? Perhaps it's just a crazy old man. He mouths statements from famous politicians in a random incoherence, with no relation to what's going on around him. A doctor who comes by starts to say "There's nothing wrong wi--" but catches himself just in time. Of course there's something wrong with him. He's crazy.
"There's nothing we can do for you," says the doctor.
"But you can't put me out!" insists Sam.
"Why not?" asks the doctor. Sam looks up at him in anguish. "Sir?" the doctor prompts.
"There's a bear in the woods!"
You can, if you want to, read this entire book as the hallucinations of a raving madman, a crazy old coot who happens to have a long face and a lean jaw and has probably deliberately grown the sprout of beard from just his chin and wears these clothes because he's under the delusion that he's Uncle Sam.
You can also see him as the true spirit of America, who has been left a homeless bum because the way that spirit has been trampled on by the very people whose job it is to uphold and exemplify that spirit in their public lives, and by a populace which has forsaken its role as the backbone of the country in favor of leisure time and conspicuous consumption.
If you are drawn in at first by the teasing "Is he or isn't he?" of the first few pages, be warned that the question is never really answered. Either, both - it doesn't matter. What matters is his journey, a journey I would argue could only be taken by the one, true, genuine article, but which could in fact be all a dream.
That journey takes him down many dark corridors and twisted reflections of America's past and present. Early on, he sees through the eyes of Jack Kennedy in Dallas, riding in a limousine, turning to see Jackie and thinking "This is not my beautiful wife."
The irreverent tone and hip sensibility, mixing historical commentary with contemporary musical lyrics, is typical of how Darnell has written this book. The barrage of quotations never lets up, mostly from past presidents and other public figures, while the scenes shift back and forth between ordinary reality and the Twilight Zone. An alley becomes a Kansas farmfield, in the middle of which is a store called "All-American Antiques." Inside, a cigar store Indian comes to life, and the scene becomes the site of a massacre Sam has, if not participated in, at least failed to stop. The Indian speaks on behalf of all Native Americans, reminding Sam of four hundred broken treaties. "The only promise you kept was the promise to take away our land. That promise was no problem." As the Indian is about to be executed, he says one last thing "You ought to be careful who you call savages."
Then he is a wooden Indian again, silent and dead.
A lawn jockey shows Sam a lynching. A reform-minded politician who has given up and dropped out because elections are decided by who has the most money for TV ads morphs into Abraham Lincoln speaking of the corruping power of corporations and money on politics. A corrupt politician gives a speech to a cheering crowd, and only Sam can hear what he's really saying:
"But most of all, we couldn't have done it without you, the people of this great state! You cynical, apathetic, ignorant, beaten-down sheep!"
Allegory, fantasy, surrealistic history lesson, Uncle Sam is most of all an opportunity to confront the grim reality that we all betray our own ideals every day, and an object lesson on the need to fight with ourselves, to keep constant vigil on our base impulses, to be the kind of people we know we can be. Only then can we make this the kind of country we know it can be.
Until then, we'll continue to get the kind of government we deserve.
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