Dwayne McDuffie's Web Column Archives

Here Comes The Judge!

My writer's block was back again and I blame the courts. I usually write all day with CNN playing in the background. That means I've been continually assaulted this week by the audio tapes of the Supreme Court hearing on our Presidential Election. You may have heard something about this. Anyway, thinking about the Supreme Court reminded me of Justice Clarence Thomas and my eerie, undue influence on him. Seriously, he's putty in my hands.

Back in 1993, my company Milestone Media had just launched its new line of comic books. From our cramped, dingy and yet incredibly high-rent Manhattan offices, we labored to turn out four comics a month. But it wasn't all hard work. Sometimes for instance, we got cranked. Our office Manager Christine Gilliam buzzed my partner, Derek Dingle.

Christine took the message. Several hours later, intern Jason Scott Jones, who surely should have been doing something better with his time, took a look at the phone number on the message: Washington area code. Could this possibly be for real? Derek decided to call and see. I decided to watch, as did everyone else in the office. The line rang once, and was instantly picked up.

Instants later, Derek is chatting away with a Supreme Court Justice who, it turns out, was a big comic book fan in his younger days, collecting, among other favorites, almost a complete set of Marvel's Rawhide Kid. Then came the jaw-dropper. Justice Thomas had just called to let us know he was a big Milestone fan. He really liked Hardware, he said, but his favorite was Icon, a title that featured a character who is, like himself, a black conservative. There was more to the conversation but I missed most of it due to the small stroke I'd just had. The thing is, while Clarence Thomas likes my stuff, I most decidedly don't like his stuff. Look, I'm politically to the left of… well, everybody, actually. On the other hand, Justice Thomas is a truly uncommon creature, a black political conservative. Now, if you only see black men on cable news talk shows, where all black men are conservatives (Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Alan Keyes, Armstrong Williams) you probably don't think this is unusual. Well trust me, it is. It's really quite difficult to find an African-American who (like Justice Thomas) was alive during Jim Crow, who actually saw the Voting Rights Act end legal discrimination at the polls, and who is the successful beneficiary of Affirmative Action (but now says that he's against it). It was easier to justify my character Icon having those beliefs; he's also a space alien who can fly. Back here on Earth, the genuine article is a bit more of a rarity, mostly they're children of financial means who haven't been smacked in the face with the reality of their situation quite yet. Trust me, in 20 years they're going to grow into a bumper crop of scary radicals. Hell hath no fury like a neocon scorned.
In addition to the differences in opinion listed above, Justice Thomas was also on my bad side for another reason. He was the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a personal hero of mine. Marshall was the man who successfully argued Brown v. The Board of Education and later became the first black Supreme Court Justice. In my opinion, given his way, Justice Thomas would cheerfully undo everything Marshall had helped to accomplish. I had only recently stopped referring to him as "Uncle Thomas" (true, I had replaced it with the epithet, "Scalia's Lapdog" but it was an improvement). And this was the man who liked my stuff. I remember consoling myself thinking, "At least things can't get any worse." That was foreshadowing, folks.
Justice Thomas was so charmed by Derek, he invited him to come visit him in Washington. No way a political junkie like Derek was going to pass on an opportunity like that. A few weeks later, bearing as gifts several rare issues of Rawhide Kid to fill in the Justice's collection, Derek made the trip. He got a full tour and traded stories with Justice Thomas, who, it turned out, has a good sense of humor. When Derek thanked him for taking time out of what must be a very busy schedule, Justice Thomas replied dryly "You'd be surprised how much free time I have." He also jokingly (but accurately) referred to himself as "the only black man in America with job security." When he got back to New York, Derek told us all about the hour or so he spent with the man. Then Derek turned to me with his special, scary, smile, the one he only uses when he beats somebody particularly badly in a contract negotiation.

"I was in his chambers. It's just like you'd think: dusty law books from floor to ceiling, clerks working industriously on serious legal matters." "Uh, huh."

"He also has a complete set of Icon there. He showed me the leather binder he keeps them in."

"He has them go through and pull out quotes of things Icon says that he agrees with. They mark them with Post-it notes. That way when he wants to use them in his speeches…"

"He quotes Icon in papers and speeches. Rather, since you write those lines, he quotes you."

As it turned out, Derek wasn't pulling my leg (although he was enjoying my discomfort unduly). I shook my head and walked away, the hysterical laughter of my partners ringing in my ears. It all died down pretty quickly, although my brother took to calling me "Peggy Noonan" (after Ronald Reagan's speechwriter) for several months after he heard the story. The real problem didn't come to light until I sat down to write the next script for Icon.

Every time I started to write dialog for Icon, I froze. "What will Clarence Thomas make of this?" I'd think, "Am I unwittingly aiding the black neocon movement?" Fortunately, I was able to get back into the game in a few weeks (and fill-ins by Kurt Busiek and Jackie Ching kept the book on schedule until I got my chops back).

So the current Supreme Court battle for the future of our country threatened to block me again (okay, the next two years. Whatever the outcome, we're going to clean house -and Senate- at the midterms). The pressure is tremendous, after all: I've got a Supreme Court Justice in my pocket. How many comic book writers can say that? But I've decided I have to step up to the plate because, as that great American Peter Parker often said, "with great power comes great responsibility." So, at the risk of alienating exactly 49% of my audience, I offer the following scene from an upcoming issue of Icon:
***
Panel 1
Icon strides to the lecturn, frowning as he reads the script Dwayne just handed him.

Icon:
I'm not going to read this.

Dwayne (off-panel):
You will if you still want to be in that graphic novel next year.

Icon:
Tarnation.

Panel 2
Icon composes himself and smiles insincerely as he speaks into the microphone.

Icon:
"I come from a ethically superior alien society. Even our youngest children would realize that the only fair solution would be to perform a complete manual recount."

Off-panel speaker:
And to count all chads and dimples!

Icon:
You stay out of this, Rocket.
***

Justice Thomas? I hope you're still taking notes. Icon has spoken.