Dark Reign: The Hood #1 - now with 75% more racism!
Ever since it was announced that Jeff Parker would be scribing the Dark Reign: The Hood mini I've been wondering -- wondering with a sense of terrorized fascination, I should add -- what it was going to be like. Would Parker be able to make the Dormammu!Hood actually seem like a worthy and viable contender to be the Sorcerer Supreme?
I now have my answer, and it's a resounding silence fraught with puzzlement and horror.
Because you know what I didn't expect from Jeff Parker's work on this mini?
Straight up racial stereotyping that slides down the slippery slope straight into the ditch of racist tropes.
Set up: we're in New York City. The Wrecker and Thunderball have been hired to take down a truck carrying a ton of cash belonging to a wealthy Arab from Brunei, that specifically being the nephew of the Sultan himself (it's like Parker wants us to count the stereotyping!). Meanwhile, the Sultan's nephew is preparing to go home, and his staff have thoughtfully stocked his limo with what appears to be a nubile young woman.
Four pages from Dark Reign: The Hood #1. Now with 75% more racefail!
No, your eyes do not deceive you. We actually get a heavyset, hairy, hook-nosed AND lecherous Arab with bad teeth.
Artfail on this page, because what is up with Thunderball's legs? It takes away from the good visual of T-Ball annihilating the truck.
...And apparently we're back to Thunderball, who has a goddamn Ph.D. in physics, talking like what Parker obviously thinks is a low-level street thug.
...Wow. You know what? Kyle Hotz's art only makes this worse.
I can't even believe that Parker wrote this. I love Parker's choice of characters for this; the liberal use of cracky B- and C-listers is very much appreciated. But I really do think that he's made some poor choices as a writer in this particular sequence.