Who IS the Munson?

Welcome to the now exclusive home to Milestone Mondays! Bahlactus has told me to get off my duff and post these on my own blog so today we begin the weekly madness by covering the conclusion of the Commando X storyline in Static # 7! This issue finishes off the racially charged three-part storyline with a bang! When we last left Static, he had successfully deduced Commando X’s secret ID via an old public access TV show (Malcolm’s 10) he remembered seeing once. His plan is simple: go to X’s “headquarters” (his apartment) as Virgil Hawkins…. eager young apprentice to X’s “cause”, gain his trust, and learn all his plans so that he can save the day. However, unbeknownst to Static, X’s plans are set so far in motion that he has a half-hour to stop his latest bomb threat- City Hall.

Static does manage to stop the City Hall bombing, using the electrical current entering the building to draw extra power to shove the bomb high above the city where it can detonate with no damage to Dakota. He arrives home to find his parents waiting for him. He is confronted by them about the “Malcolm’s 10” TV program he was doing research on. They want to talk to him about the racist messages that X is preaching in the show, and what Virgil thinks about them.

Here is where the true thrust of this storyline lies, as for the past three issues, while X has been bombing the hell out of Dakota, Virgil and his friends have engaged in a debate about the nature of racism and whether Commando X was right to use terrorism as a way to get his point across. Robert Washington III and J.P. Leon craft an excellent 5 page sequence here that show Virgil and his parents and his best friend Frieda and her parents (who are Jewish) discussing racism and it’s effects on both Jewish people, and African Americans. This frank discussion about race brings all the other character debates from the previous issues to a head, and Washington does an excellent job showing the characters working through a very controversial subject. It’s a subject that you know has been discussed before in many a household in America, but not one that has taken place in a Comic Book before. They both convince their children that yes, there are oppressed people in the world and that this is due to many things that are beyond their control. The only thing they can do is not buy into the racism, and cause others to be hurt. They also tell the kids that even the oppressed can become part of the problem if they choose to use terror and violence as a means to an end. The one important thing that both sets of parents impart to their children is that “Am I doing the right thing” in regards to racism and oppression is a question that they hope they ask themselves over and over again.

Realizing that they are in the same boat, Frieda and Virgil call each other to talk about what they have learned and through this discussion they realize where Commando X may strike next. There is a local morning talk show that is hosted by a white female and black male called Ebony / Ice and Virgil has another hunch that the next morning’s show may be their last. He goes to the TV station where sure enough X is hard at work planting a bomb. He puts his plan into action and takes off to fight X, guiding a kite with one hand and a spool of wire in another. The kite contains a Camcorder strapped to it that has been recording his fight with X and the banter about his crimes that took place during it. The wire is guided by Static’s electric power to tie up X with his hands behind his back so that he cannot free himself. Static adds the tapes of “Malcolm’s 10”, copies of the letters to the media X has sent that he gathered earlier in the issue, and the fight tape to a packet that he leaves along with X for the cops so that he will pay for his crimes against the people of Dakota.

Static ends the issue a little wiser then he began it, he was triumphant over Commando X in two ways. He physically stopped his bombing of the city of Dakota, and he refused to accept that the racially charged rhetoric of X as being a valid point of view. Both victories are ones that Static should take pride in. Join me here next week for a look at Icon #8!

Posted on August 6th, 2007 by Munson
Filed under: Milestone Mondays