We don’t need another hero: Nearly 25 years later, Alan Moore’s Watchmen remains a stirring warning against absolute power

NOTE: I wrote this, according to the time stamp on the file, back in 2009. It was published by a libertarian student organization called Young Americans for Liberty. It doesn't seem to be otherwise webbed anymore, so here it is again:

You can tell a work of fiction is influential when other writers are still grappling with its implications nearly a quarter of a century later — usually with limited success.

Since its publication in the mid-1980s, Watchmen has been the poster child for pop art that transcends its origins. Having garnered accolades usually reserved for highbrow literary fiction, Watchmen is the reason we now refer to comic books as graphic novels. It birthed countless newspaper stories with unfortunate headlines like “Bam! Pow! Comic books aren’t just for kids anymore.” It changed the aesthetics of superhero comics, both for better and for worse. And this year, of course, it inspired a major motion picture that, if nothing else, perplexed audiences expecting the next The Dark Knight or Iron Man.

While Iron Man and The Dark Knight both deal with issues of power and corruption, they ultimately side with their vigilante protagonists. Superheroes, those movies tell us, are a good thing. Watchmen, however, remains admirably faithful to its source material and comes to a different conclusion. Its costumed crusaders are, at best, powerless when it comes to doing good and, at worst, make the world a far more dangerous place. If, as Lord Acton said, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then unaccountable superhumans with near God-like powers are not necessarily a good thing to have around. Like a powerful central government that is able to dominate local governments or an imperial presidency that co-opts powers properly belonging to Congress, superheroes upset existing power structures, and not always in a good way. “Who watches the Watchmen?” It’s a question with no obvious answer.

It is little surprise, then, that libertarians have latched onto Watchmen, claiming it, along with the works of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein, and the 1960s cult-favorite television series The Prisoner, as part of libertarianism’s artistic canon.

The graphic novel, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, is set in an alternate 1985, in which the existence of superheroes has turned the United States into a virtual dictatorship. President Richard Nixon, having engineered the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, is in his fifth term, and corruption and chaos are rampant. As gangs terrorize the streets, the U.S. and the Soviet Union plunge toward seemingly inevitable nuclear annihilation.

The main point of divergence between our 1985, which turned out comparatively well, and the 1985 of Watchmen is the existence of Dr. Manhattan, the one costumed hero in Watchmen who possesses superhuman abilities. With Dr. Manhattan’s help, the U.S. wins the Vietnam War, a victory that Nixon uses to become all but president for life. The Soviets, meanwhile, regard Dr. Manhattan as such a threat that they’re willing to risk nuclear war to avoid U.S. domination. In Watchmen, the old adage “Better dead than Red” might as well be “Better Armageddon than American.”

Dr. Manhattan, in short, changes everything. As one character in the graphic novel observes, “It is as if — with a real live Deity on their side — our leaders have become intoxicated with a heady draught of Omnipotence-by-Association, without realizing just how his very existence has deformed the lives of every living creature on the face of this planet.”

Dr. Manhattan is the literal embodiment of amoral power. Following the accident that gives him his superhuman abilities, Dr. Manhattan gradually becomes more and more removed from his humanity. Time, for him, has no real meaning because he can see past, present, and future simultaneously. As a result, death has no meaning for him, either. As such, he is the perfect tool for the politicians who would seek to exploit him.

It’s also no surprise that the U.S. government in Watchmen maintains a monopoly on superheroes. A law bans costumed adventurers except for those who work for the state, namely Dr. Manhattan and the equally but more aggressively amoral Comedian. The only masked crimefighter working, illegally, outside of the system is Rorschach.

Of the characters in Watchmen, Rorschach comes closest to being a real libertarian, although Moore’s portrait of libertarianism isn’t exactly flattering. Rorschach is brutal, smelly, and, most importantly, psychotic. Moore bases him on The Question and Mr. A, two characters created by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, an adherent of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. Despite his antiauthoritarianism, Moore is still a man of the political left, and his Rorschach is a not-at-all-subtle critique of Ditko’s “right-wing” libertarianism.

Libertarians, however, tend to focus on the positive character traits hidden beneath Rorschach’s psychosis. Rorschach believes in truth and justice, and he is uncompromising in his pursuit of them, which is why he continues to work outside of the government even after the government criminalizes costumed vigilantism. He is, whether Moore likes it or not, the moral center of Watchmen, and readers — not just libertarians — gravitate toward him. Rorschach remains the book’s most popular character. Rorschach may be insane, but at least he sticks to his principles, even in the face of death.

Even as Moore’s Rorschach was capturing readers’ imaginations, Frank Miller’s daring interpretation of an old mainstay was doing the same, and for the same reasons.

Published at about the same time as Watchmen, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns covers many of the same themes and is no less influential. It casts a middle-aged Batman in the Rorschach role of uncompromising individualist and Superman in the Dr. Manhattan role of government stooge. Yet despite the shared dark tone of both works, the similarities between Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns end there. Moore’s only solution to the problem of Dr. Manhattan is for Dr. Manhattan to leave Earth, leaving humanity to its own fate. Miller, however, has faith in superheroes, so long as it is the right superhero.

Miller’s Batman is a quasi-libertarian anarchist, a genius hero who, like the characters in Rand’s novels, uses his brain to thwart the brute, physical power of Superman and the state. And like the image of the student standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, Miller’s version of Batman as an ordinary man prepared to stand up to seemingly omnipotent power has endured, inspiring everyone from libertarians to politically apathetic fanboys to subsequent Batman writers.

The libertarian/Randian themes are even more explicit in Miller’s follow-up, The Dark Knight Strikes Again. In the sequel, Miller brings in Ditko’s The Question as a mouthpiece for Objectivism, of sorts. The difference here is that Miller’s version says, “I’m no Ayn Rander! She didn’t go nearly far enough!”

But can libertarians put their faith in even a libertarian superhero? The treatment of Batman post-Miller raises lots of red flags. Just as Miller’s Batman developed a contingency plan to take down Superman, Batman, as portrayed in more recent comics, has formulated plans to deal with just about any superhero who, for whatever reason, might go bad. Unfortunately, time and again, Batman’s plans have fallen into the wrong hands, with disastrous results. For example, in the recent series Countdown, Batman creates Brother Eye, an artificial intelligence to watch over all of Earth’s superpowered heroes and villains. Yet, as one might guess from Brother Eye’s Orwellian name, this ends badly when a covert government agency takes control of the A.I. for its own purposes.

As a new generation of comic-book writers picks up and runs with the ideas Moore and Miller first explored, it seems there is need for a libertarian critique of even “libertarian” superheroes. Ultimately, even superheroes who operate without government sanction, so as to preserve their independence and integrity, run into problems because they still serve a law-enforcement function. They’re still appendages of the state, if only unofficially.

Marvel Comics’ recent Civil War story arc illustrates the point. After a botched operation in which a team of young superheroes accidentally kills 600 civilians, the political leaders in Marvel’s fictional universe take a page from Watchmen. They pass a law outlawing all costumed superheroes except for those who agree to register with and work for the federal government. The Superhuman Registration Act splits the superhero community, with pro-registration heroes lining up behind Iron Man and anti-registration heroes backing Captain America.

Although it is never spelled out so explicitly in Civil War, the pro-registration side has a point. What are superheroes, anyway, except unauthorized, unaccountable law enforcement agents? Superheroes don’t obtain search warrants. They don’t read suspects their Miranda rights. If they screw up, they don’t face disciplinary action. And it’s almost impossible for a wronged party to sue them for misconduct. Just try serving a court summons to the Hulk. In short, all of the real-world problems associated with police misconduct are potentially worse when it comes to superheroes. They exist outside the rule of law.

Against that possibility, the Superhuman Registration Act seems, in libertarian terms, to be the lesser of two evils. Of course, as libertarians are fond of pointing out, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Any law that can be abused eventually will be abused. In our world, Republicans constantly pass laws they would never trust Democrats to enforce and vice versa. Each side, when out of power, complains that the other is abusing the powers of government. Yet when the sides swap places, the incoming party never repeals the laws that the other side abused.

In the Marvel Universe, Iron Man currently finds himself on the outside, on the run and wanted for crimes he didn’t commit. Meanwhile, the villainous Green Goblin, in his civilian identity of Norman Osborn, has become leader of the government’s registration effort. If there is any consolation, it’s that Iron Man may have learned his lesson. After all, he is one of the smartest characters in the Marvel Universe, which puts him leagues ahead of our real-world politicians.

For all their efforts, no one writing superhero comics has yet come up with an answer to Moore’s critique of superhero power. Moore’s own solution isn’t really conducive to writing ongoing superhero comics. He sends Dr. Manhattan packing. Dr. Manhattan decides to leave our galaxy — end of story. When all else failed, Moore opts for abolition, which is, of course, what one would expect of any anarchist, of either the left-wing or the libertarian, anarcho-capitalist variety.

Perhaps that is why Watchmen maintains its resonance with libertarians, despite Moore’s antipathy toward much of libertarian thought. Unlike Miller, Rand, Ditko, and others who gave us idealized libertarian supermen who could fly in and save the day, Moore takes a more radical, yet more realistic approach. His hero-turned-villain, Ozymandias, is named so as to evoke the image of the broken idol in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem of the same name. Essentially, Moore is telling us to put not our faith in idols, even if they’re wearing a smile and spandex.

The Watchmen movie and the renewed interest in the graphic novel couldn’t have been better timed. Several comic-book artists have taken to depicting President Barack Obama in superheroic terms. Alex Ross’ painting of the president striking a Superman pose emblazons posters and T-shirts. Spider-Man and Obama do the fist bump in a recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man. And for his part, the new president seems happy to play up his heroic image, as when he posed with the statue of Superman in Metropolis, Ill.

Whatever your politics, if you’ve grasped the message of Watchman, images like that ought to have you at least a little worried.

Culture Shock 01.09.14: With great power comes great irresponsibility

Spider-Man's defining moment isn't one of heroism. Rather it's when he fails to do the right thing.

In an online discussion last week about remakes that miss the point of the original, io9.com's Charlie Jane Anders singled out 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man" starring Andrew Garfield. Anders wrote, "Amazing Spider-Man was pretty great, but lost the whole 'Spidey tries to make money off his powers' element of the (Sam) Raimi film and the original comics."

Without that element, "The Amazing Spider-Man" resorts to giving Spider-Man the Batman motivation: the not-so-accidental deaths of his parents. That misses the point even more than Anders lets on. It's Spider-Man's moral failing and his reaction to it that make him who he is.

In the origin story Stan Lee and Steve Ditko crafted, Peter Parker, recently bitten by a radioactive spider, uses his new powers the way most of us would. He uses them to make money.

As he leaves a TV studio with his earnings in hand, he refuses to stop a robber, although he could have done so easily. What business is it of his, anyway?

Then his Uncle Ben is killed, and Peter dons his Spider-Man costume to track down the killer, who turns out to be the robber he failed to apprehend when he had the chance.

That's the moment he learns his lesson: "With great power comes great responsibility." He stops trying to profit from his powers and instead uses them to protect the weak and innocent. That's what makes Spider-Man the hero he is. He's brave and selfless — and a sap.

Yes, a sap. Because he has learned the wrong lesson. Sure it's great that he has learned not to be a self-centered jerk, and it's great that he helps people, even at great risk to his own life and limb. But none of that should stop him from making a few bucks off his abilities, too.

It's not as if he doesn't need the money, and he does have responsibilities he can't fulfill with a punch and a wisecrack. Not a month goes by that he couldn't use some money to pay for his elderly Aunt May's rent or medicine. With a sickly parental figure comes everyday responsibilities.

But no. Peter Parker gives up profiting from his powers because he thinks that is what got Uncle Ben killed, when really it was just being a jerk.

That this is Spider-Man's origin story is ironic given that Ditko was one of his co-creators.

It was during his run as Spider-Man's artist and co-plotter that Ditko became a devotee of Ayn Rand's philosophy, which she dubbed "Objectivism."

Objectivism promotes the virtue of selfishness, in the sense of enlightened self interest. It doesn't rule out helping others, but it certainly doesn't put it at the top of its ethical hierarchy. In her novel "Atlas Shrugged," Rand even has a character explain the virtue of making money.

Money isn't everything in Objectivism. Ditko would go on to pass up more lucrative opportunities in comics in exchange for the freedom to make the comics he wanted to make. But money isn't evil, either. If Ditko were a more subtle storyteller — and I don't think anyone has ever accused him of that — I might think he deliberately intended Spider-Man as a bad example.

Spider-Man is always selfless, and what does that get him? A sick aunt, overdue bills, a dead-end job, a rogues gallery of villains who exist just to kill him and a tabloid newspaper publisher bent on making him New York City's public enemy No. 1.

Maybe if he weren't so selfless, his life wouldn't suck so much. In Ditko's world, Spider-Man is a tragic hero, sacrificing himself for no good reason.

Yet as it happens, Peter does make a little money off being Spider-Man. He takes photos of himself in costume and sells them to The Daily Bugle, passing them off as news. So, when Spider-Man does profit from his powers, he does so under false pretenses and makes the least amount of money possible. How ethical is that?

Maybe the real lesson is with great power comes great stupidity.

Culture Shock 10.18.12: 'Atlas Shrugged: Part II' and so will you

"Atlas Shrugged: Part II" is a success on at least one level. It's a marked improvement on "Part I."

With a stronger cast, a more experienced director and a larger budget, it almost couldn't help but be a step up from the first attempt to bring Ayn Rand's epic, 1100-page novel to the screen. Unfortunately, "Atlas Shrugged: Part I" set a low standard to surpass. So while "Part II" is better, that's like saying a SyFy original movie is better than a Lifetime original movie. They're both bad made-for-TV movies, and that's what "Part II" looks like, too.

We're left still waiting for an adaptation that can do justice to the sweep of Rand's tale.

Picking up where the second third of Rand's novel starts, our heroes, Dagny Taggart and Henry Rearden — now played by Samantha Mathis and Jason Beghe — have thwarted both the government and their jealous, bailout-seeking competitors. Together, Dagny and Henry have opened the John Galt Line, the latest addition to the Taggart rail service, made with rails of light, durable Rearden Metal. They've also discovered, in an abandoned auto plant, an engine that promises access to near limitless energy, if they can find anyone who can figure out how it works.

That's the hard part, because the very sort of talented, creative people who might be able to unlock the secrets of the mystery motor are disappearing one by one, abandoning everything they worked years to build.

This is the second of three acts, and the situation is about to deteriorate, and fast.

Energy prices are soaring, making travel by car and plane too expensive for all but the very rich, which is why trains have re-emerged as a vital mode of transport. And as the economy crumbles, businesses rush to the government seeking favors, while the government, led by Head of State Thompson (Ray Wise), passes more edicts and restrictions each day. The same government science board that once said Rearden's metal was dangerous now says it's a vital resource that must be shared equally among all who want it.

It's an America where getting ahead in business, in art, in anything has become more a matter of political pull than achievement.

One thing "Atlas Shrugged: Part II" does surprisingly well is bring viewers up to speed with a minimum of plot exposition. You don't need to have seen "Part I" to know what's going on. But Rand's own exposition — especially her characters' lengthy speeches — is the film's undoing. Everything stops cold during the repetitive scenes where characters complain about the government or taxes or their spineless rivals. We get the point.

I'm a fan of the book, but even I admit its speech-making can go too far. And what barely works in the novel is a disaster in the movie. Only Esai Morales as the underused Francisco d'Anconia comes close to pulling it off.

Samantha Mathis as Dagny Taggart appears in a

scene from "Atlas Shrugged: Part II," the second

film in a planned trilogy adapting Ayn Rand's novel.

An airplane chase that opens and closes the film is its most thrilling set piece, despite the shoddy special effects. It's the one time the film truly embraces the pulp-fiction sensibility that runs through and ultimately drives Rand's book.

The way to approach "Atlas Shrugged" the novel is to recognize that it's essentially a pulp-magazine sci-fi story — complete with sci-fi tropes like a cloaking device and a motor that runs on ambient static electricity — presented as a talky, philosophical Russian epic. Films are primarily a visual medium, so to make "Atlas Shrugged" work as a movie, it has to be more pulp and less talk.

If the producers make "Part III," maybe they'll finally get the formula right. But with two box-office duds in a row, "Part III" seems unlikely. So far, the only ones doing much shrugging are the audience.

Culture Shock 02.24.11: Catching up with the in-box — Rand, X-Men, notable deaths

I'm going to catch up this week with some odds and ends from my in-box.

First, the trailer for "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1," adapting the first third of Ayn Rand's best-selling novel, hit the Internet a couple of weeks ago. That was a surprise to those of us who thought the movie might never be released.

With a budget of just $5 million and a cast of TV actors — some very good, but none household names — "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1" looked like a movie rushed into production just so the producer could retain the film rights, which were to expire the week cameras rolled.

Whether or not that was entirely the case, we now have a movie, and it's not going straight into a vault to gather dust.

Based on the preview trailer, "Atlas Shrugged" doesn't look as cheap as I'd feared, but it still looks more like a TV movie than a big-screen epic. And by focusing on scenes in which characters talk about steel mills and railroads, the trailer is not going to appeal to anyone who isn't familiar with Rand's story, which pits heroic entrepreneurs against big government.

You can see the trailer for yourself at www.atlasshruggedpart1 .com.

The movie is scheduled for limited release on, appropriately, April 15.

Another trailer that has defied my expectations is the one for "X-Men: First Class," the prequel to the movie series based on Marvel Comics' "Uncanny X-Men."

Marvel Studios has two movies of its own due out this summer, "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger." But so far, "X-Men: First Class" — produced by 20th Century Fox under a deal that predates Marvel making its own films — looks more interesting than either of them.

Many longtime fans are not going to be happy. "X-Men: First Class" plays loose with established "X-Men" lore. And despite being a prequel to the three previous "X-Men" films, it doesn't really maintain continuity with them, either.

But I'm prepared to let "X-Men: First Class" be its own thing. And it looks like a groovy, 1960s period piece with lots of mod fashions. Now that's something you don't get out of most superhero movies.

The past two weeks have also brought three deaths of note.

Staying in the world of superheroes, writer Dwayne McDuffie died unexpectedly Monday. He was just 49.

McDuffie was the founder of Milestone Comics, an African-American-owned comic-book publisher, distributed and later absorbed by DC Comics. Later, he went to work for Cartoon Network, writing and producing shows like "Justice League Unlimited" — my pick for greatest superhero cartoon ever — and "Ben 10: Alien Force."

David F. Friedman died on Valentine's Day at age 87. A native of Birmingham who had retired to Anniston, Friedman was a groundbreaking low-budget movie producer. He is often credited with producing the first "gore" film, 1963's "Blood Feast," which earned $4 million on a budget of about $25,000.

He produced nearly 50 films, from "Two Thousand Maniacs" to "Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS" (under a pseudonym) to, finally, 2010's "2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams."

Finally, British actor Nicholas Courtney died Tuesday at 81.

In a career that included playing many authority figures, none was more authoritative than Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, commanding officer of UNIT during the original 1963-1989 run of "Doctor Who."

Although he didn't travel with The Doctor through space and time, he spent more time with The Doctor than any other of the Time Lord's many companions. Through most of the 1970s, he was as much a part of the show as The Doctor himself, and he returned to the role of the Brigadier one last time in 2008, on an episode of the "Doctor Who" spin-off "The Sarah Jane Adventures."

All three will be missed.

Culture Shock 06.17.10: 'Atlas Shrugged' film is not what anyone expected

The saying in Hollywood is no one sets out to make a bad movie. But sometimes, that's exactly what happens.

Take "Atlas Shrugged," the long-awaited film adaptation of Ayn Rand's best-selling, 1,300-page novel, first published in 1957. Rand's fans have waited 50 years for the book's leap to the big screen, and plans for a movie version have circulated for three decades.

Now the movie is finally happening, but it's likely to leave even Rand's most ardent admirers shrugging.

The adaptation that started production this week is like nothing anyone had expected, or wanted. Instead of a star-studded epic befitting a novel of "Atlas Shrugged's" size and scope, this "Atlas" looks like it'll be something you might one day stumble upon on Lifetime Movie Network, late at night, when no one else is watching.

Paul Johansson, best known for his role in The CW's "One Tree Hill," is both directing and playing the pivotal role of John Galt, who leads a "strike of the mind" against the twin forces of big government and the unproductive businessmen who run to the government in search of bailouts and subsidies.

You could say the story is topical.

I don't know about you, but when I think of Rand's personification of the heroic ideal, I don't think of "One Tree Hill's" Dan Scott. Actually, I never think of "One Tree Hill," period.

Starring opposite Johansson is Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, around whom most of "Atlas" revolves.

Schilling's resume is thin. She is fresh from playing the lead on NBC's critically panned — and canceled — medical drama "Mercy." But according to the Internet Movie Database, her only previous role was in the 2007 film "Dark Matter."

Helping round out the cast of virtual unknowns is Grant Bowler ("Ugly Betty") as steel magnate Hank Rearden.

Not to slight any of these actors, but we are talking about a project that has, over the years, drawn interest from A-list talent like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and, most recently, Charlize Theron.

Proposals to adapt "Atlas Shrugged" for the screen have ranged from film adaptations, sometimes breaking the novel into multiple movies, to a TV miniseries. Suggested budgets have gone as high as $40 million, no doubt with the hope that top talent would take pay cuts in exchange for coveted roles.

Instead, we're getting a rush job with a no-name cast, a budget of just $5 million and the promise — or is it a threat? — that at least one more movie will pick up the story where "Atlas Shrugged Part One" leaves off.

How did it come to this?

John Aglialoro, CEO of exercise equipment manufacturer Cybex International, paid $1 million for the movie rights to "Atlas" in 1992. Yet, despite years of false hopes and false starts, he failed to get the movie going, and his time was running out. If "Atlas" had not gone into production this week, Aglialoro's option would have run out.

So, Aglialoro is pressing on with what he has, which isn't much. That's why his "Atlas Shrugged" looks like more of a scheme to hold onto the film rights than a proper movie.

This wouldn't be the first time someone has rushed a low-budget movie into production just to retain the right to make a better version later on.

In the early 1990s, a German company held the rights to make a movie based on Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four. With their option running out, the German producers brought in American B-movie king Roger Corman to make a quickie FF movie so they could keep their option alive.

With a reported budget of $1.4 million — would that even cover the catering on most films? — and featuring a no-star cast, Corman's "The Fantastic Four" became the stuff of legend. It was never commercially released, and it exists today only as bootleg DVDs you can sometimes find at comic book conventions. It's the "Star Wars Holiday Special" of superhero movies.

Eventually, 20th Century Fox would release two big-budget Fantastic Four movies. But they aren't particularly good, either, come to think of it.

Will this B-grade "Atlas Shrugged" movie ever see daylight, or is it destined to follow Corman's FF into obscurity? Who knows?

Who is John Galt, anyway?

Culture Shock 04.02.09: 'Atlas' shrugs up sales charts as economy falls

More than 50 years after its publication, Ayn Rand's bestseller "Atlas Shrugged" is again moving up the sales charts.

According to The Economist, "Atlas Shrugged" has reached as high as No. 33 on
Amazon.com's best-seller list, briefly topping President Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope."

Renewed interest in the novel began with the economic downturn, starting with the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts last year. Sales spikes then coincided with the mortgage and bank bailouts, and the passage of the president's economic stimulus package.

Every time the economy takes a hit or the federal government grows larger, new readers flock to Rand's novel. But why, after all this time, is Atlas still shrugging?

Although set in the 1950s and somewhat dated by its focus on the railroad industry, "Atlas Shrugged" still reads like dystopian science fiction, describing a near-future world on the brink of economic collapse as governments restrict, regulate and expropriate private businesses in a failed attempt to keep the system going. To a lot of people, apparently, that near future seems a lot like now.

In the novel, the few businessmen, artists, thinkers and other producers who have not compromised their principles or been co-opted by the government go on a "strike of the mind." Tired of being taxed and regulated, they abandon their companies and other projects. They deprive the world of their creative talents. And, eventually, they join the book's mysterious hero, John Galt, in a secret hideaway. There, they watch as the world crumbles and plan their return, when they will rebuild along lines that respect the individual, creativity and, by implication, laissez-faire capitalism.

Over the years, Rand has taken a beating both for her literary talents and her philosophy of rational self-interest, which she called Objectivism. A small number of academic philosophers treat Rand's ideas seriously, and I was a student of one of them at Auburn University in the early 1990s. But the official Objectivist movement, led by the Ayn Rand Institute, hasn't served Objectivism well, instead treating Rand's novels and essays as holy writ.

Yet, as a literary figure, Rand endures, to the consternation of the literary establishment. She was born in Russia, and her novels, especially "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead," combine the scope of Russian epics with a distinctly American pulp style. They are an odd mix of both highbrow and lowbrow sensibilities that continue to enthrall and inspire readers. Rand even weaves science fiction into her works, especially "Atlas" and her novella "Anthem," which was reprinted in a 1953 pulp sci-fi magazine.

Rand's sometimes unlikely admirers include Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Jolie is among the contenders to star in a movie version of "Atlas Shrugged," which is in development at Lionsgate for a tentative 2011 release. Perhaps the novel's newfound popularity will finally get the long-delayed project in front of the camera.

Meanwhile, conservative pundits, particularly Michelle Malkin, are citing anecdotal cases of people "going Galt" — voluntarily reducing their income to avoid paying higher taxes. Of course, one wonders where these would-be John Galts were when President George W. Bush was increasing federal discretionary spending by nearly 50 percent.

There is a bitter irony to Rand's resurgence. Most if not all of the blame for the U.S. economy's woes lies with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a former acolyte of Rand's. Many of Rand's other followers — and economists sympathetic to Rand's pro-capitalist politics — have denounced Greenspan as a sellout, some warning beforehand that his policies would lead to trouble. Certainly, the Greenspan who wrote in favor of the gold standard and against the Fed in the 1960s, when he was part of Rand's inner circle, is hard to square with Greenspan the Fed chairman.

It makes you wonder if Greenspan ever imagined himself as one of Rand's villains, because he makes for a pretty convincing one.

Spider-Man co-creator has own secret identity

A "Doctor Strange" panel with art by Steve Ditko.

It’s all in the hands.

Well, maybe not. But Steve Ditko’s hands are distinctive — both his own and the ones he draws.

The hands Ditko illustrates on the printed page are weird, contorted and as expressive as eyes in their ability to convey emotion and mood. The hands at the ends of Ditko’s arms, however, are no less distinguished.

They’re the hands that gave birth in 1962 to Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man.

Even people who don’t read comic books have heard of Spider-Man’s other parent, Stan Lee. Lee makes sure of that. So, it’s odd that most people have never heard of Ditko. Odd, that is, until you know a little something about him.

Ditko’s reclusiveness makes J.D. Salinger seem like Paris Hilton. Only four photographs of Ditko are known to exist, and he doesn’t grant interviews. From his studio in New York City, the 79-year-old artist still toils away on comics few will ever see.

He has turned down any share of the profits generated by the three “Spider-Man” movies. His life is one of self-imposed obscurity.

That made things somewhat difficult for British TV presenter Jonathan Ross when he decided to make a documentary about Spider-Man’s co-creator. The one-hour program “In Search of Steve Ditko” aired on BBC Four last month and appeared on YouTube briefly before the BBC’s copyright police intervened.

Eventually, Ross and writer/Ditko fan Neil Gaiman, best known for his “Sandman” graphic novels, got in to see the intensely private artist, but Ditko declined to appear on camera. Instead, he spoke to the two for half an hour before sending them on their way with a stack of Ditko’s more recent works.

Apart from designing Spider-Man and plotting many of the character’s early stories (Lee provided the cornball dialogue), Ditko created another Marvel superhero, Dr. Strange.

While never as popular as Spidey, Dr. Strange was a hit on college campuses and became, probably to Ditko’s horror, something of a drug-culture icon.

Dr. Strange, a master of the mystic arts, regularly visited otherworldly landscapes, and for some readers, that was the ultimate trip. An allusion to Dr. Strange appears in Tom Wolfe’s 1968 counterculture book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”

For his part, Ditko in the 1960s was attracted to the novels of Ayn Rand, and soon he adopted her radically individualist philosophy of rational self-interest, Objectivism.

To this day, no one is sure why Ditko left Marvel. The prevailing theory is that the last straw was a dispute with Lee over the identity of Spider-Man’s nemesis, the Green Goblin. Lee wanted the Goblin to be an established character, but Ditko wanted the Goblin to be a nobody — symbolizing the Objectivist view of evil.

Oddly, Spider-Man is, in a way, an anti-Objectivist. He always makes sacrifices for the good of others. But perhaps Ditko intended a lesson of sorts in that. What does Spider-Man get for his selfless ways? A life of misery, mostly. His alter ego, Peter Parker, is always broke. He never has money to help his poor Aunt May whenever she gets sick or faces losing her home — both of which happen a lot.

No issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man” during the Lee/Ditko era ended without Peter wallowing in self-pity.

After Marvel, Ditko worked for poverty-row publisher Charlton Comics. The pay wasn’t great, but he had more creative freedom, working on characters like Captain Atom, the Blue Beetle, and, most importantly, The Question.

A brief stint at DC Comics followed, and along the way, Ditko turned out explicitly philosophical comics for smaller publishers. One character to emerge from that, Mr. A, served as Ditko’s mouthpiece: There is black, and there is white, and there is nothing in between.

For Ditko, the principle of the thing is the principle of the thing. So, whatever his reasons, he remains in the shadows, letting his work speak for itself.

Culture Shock 03.22.07: Commie zombies haunt the world

When Karl Marx told the workers of the world to unite because they had nothing to lose but their chains, I don't think he had zombies in mind.

But given the fall of the Soviet Union and the fact that the world's only practicing Marxists run Venezuela, Cuba and the workers' paradise of North Korea, it's clear that prediction wasn't Marx's strength.

To get back to the issue at hand, however, what do zombies have to do with the man who co-authored "The Communist Manifesto"?

Answer: everything.

Marxist class analysis, in one form or another, has been part of zombie movies since there was such a thing as zombie movies. It's evident as early as the low-budget 1932 shocker "White Zombie," starring Bela Lugosi as one of the most memorably named characters in cinema, "Murder" Legendre, who uses zombies as workers in his mill.

According to Marx, class struggle is history's defining characteristic.

In the 1800s, with capitalism on the rise, Marx saw the upper class, the bourgeoisie (owners of capital and businesses), as being in conflict with the wage-earning masses, or proletariat. Eventually, as Marxist dogma would have it, the proletariat would rise up to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

Marx died in 1883, and 124 years later, the only communist revolutions that have occurred have taken place in poor countries with little or no capitalist class at all. But that Marx has been proven wrong doesn't mean his ideas have died. Like zombies, they keep shambling along.

Which again brings us back to zombie movies.

In zombie movies, we are the bourgeoisie and the zombies, which have nothing but numbers on their side, are the proletariat.

When people think of zombie movies, they usually think of George Romero's black-and-white classic "Night of the Living Dead," released in 1968. But before Romero began his franchise, Hammer Films, the British studio behind the Christopher Lee "Dracula" series, unleashed "The Plague of the Zombies."

"Plague" takes the political undercurrent of "White Zombie" a step further while dispensing with the Lugosi film's damsel-in-distress plot. In "Plague" British mine workers, a symbol of labor if ever there was one, turn into zombies and create havoc for the upper classes.

By the time Romero got around to his fourth "Dead" film, "Land of the Dead," in 2005, the political message had graduated from subtext to the whole point of the exercise. Dennis Hopper plays the upper-class ruler of an upscale residential development where the idle rich live in relative splendor amid the ruins of zombie-infested America. It all comes crashing down when the zombies break in and eat the rich.

Other zombie films are variations on the theme. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" takes place in a shopping mall and casts the zombies as mindless consumers. His subsequent "Day of the Dead" and director Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" pit zombies against the military, standing in for the military-industrial complex.

Of course, none of these films paints a flattering picture of the proletariat, which is portrayed as mindless zombies. But in "Land of the Dead," Romero tried to make his zombies smarter and more sympathetic, with mixed results.

The irony of most zombie films is that their political slant favors subhuman monsters that feed on the brains of the living. Filmmakers compensate by making most of their living characters so nasty or stupid they deserve to be eaten.

If Ayn Rand had written zombie movies instead of 1,000-page novels, she would have had an easier time of it — heroic capitalists vs. mindless zombie hordes hungering for the brains of the creative class.

That script writes itself: Capitalists of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your brains.