Could they be running out of ideas?
DC Comics is adding the “99 Percent” to a stable of classic superheores that includes Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman. The new comic book series showcases class struggle, a few alien interlopers and populist protagonists, described as “the super-powered disenfranchised, now the voice of the people!”
They’re out to share the world’s money. And naturally, their arch enemies are “The One Percent” who control it all.
There is much media anarchy and computer hacking involved in the plots.
“It’s a book about power. Who owns it, who uses it, who suffers from its abuse,” writer Gail Simone tells Wired magazine. “As we increasingly move to an age where information is currency, you get these situations where a single viral video can cost a previously unassailable corporation billions, or can upset the power balance of entire governments.”
Ah, but there’s irony involved with a comic themed around Occupy Wall Street, which rattled to life almost two years ago on the streets of Manhattan, the hippie-like occupiers intent on protesting everything from big money to big politics and the Republican Party.
“Eighteen months after the phrase first entered the collective public consciousness, the plight of the 99 percent is coming to mainstream superhero comics, via a new series from the second biggest publisher in the American comic industry, which just happens to be a subsidiary of a multi-national corporation that makes around $12 billion a year. Irony, anybody?” asks Wired correspondent Graeme McMillan.
The new series itself rattles to life on May 1.
