This is the obvious question that keeps reverberating—what is America’s end point for this war? It wasn’t very long ago that we pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving a mess behind after 20 some-odd years there. The end results of Bush’s War on Terror seem to be pretty dismal. Iraq and Afghanistan don’t appear to be any better off, and back home we’ve been saddled with The Patriot Act, expanded powers vested in the Executive through the Homeland Security Act. Massive migration due to the further destabilization of the Middle East adds another layer of trouble.

With that in mind I think it’s a very reasonable concern to want to know what exactly are the Administration’s aims here. Because very recent history tells us that doing regime change in the region does not end well for anybody.

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Initially this was made before the USA had dropped bombs on Iran, marking the start of the war. Obviously I had to make some adjustments to the text, and added Trump to highlight that it was ultimately his decision to launch the USA into this war.

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It’s always been the thing that I couldn’t swallow with superhero stories, the catch and release nature of them, the bulk of a rogues gallery are mass murderers and constant menaces who can’t be contained. For some bizarre reason it seems the only violence allowed against evil in fiction must also be state sanctioned. It’s perfectly ok for Bond to kill his villains—people only give him guff for sleeping around too much, being licensed allows you to kill apparently.

This brings us to the why and the why is obviously The Punisher. An “anti-hero” who was the instrument of state-sanctioned violence who is failed by the same state he served (criminals gun down his family—criminals who, the state should have imprisoned) and then when he decides to go out and rectify the problem—suddenly he’s the issue. People yell that the Punisher is bad because “oh cops and military and right-wingers love the skull” well—guess what they all have—they have the exclusive authority to use force and violence. They are, like Bond, licensed to kill. The Punisher in all his stories is a far better judge of guilt than the state is. Frank Castle doesn’t run around murdering and jailing innocents. Castle doesn’t allow people who murder innocent people to walk free only to kill someone else days after they are released.

It’s wild to me that our fiction no longer is allowed to have a character that represents the rage at injustice and indiscriminate evil who isn’t also a representative of state force.

I read the stories about those grooming gangs in the UK and the mix of corruption and failure rampant there, and that, to me, is precisely the story that is begging for a Punisher character to exist in. It’s a story that is begging for some righteous anger to be channeled at it through fiction. Because ultimately the state is incapable of fixing the problems that they create and allow to fester.

Anyway, I apologize for my screed, I have been reading some books that are radicalizing me in some ways. Hope the comic works.

*Author’s Note: This was initially written when I thought I’d try to avoid the Punisher-ness of it all but, fuck it, I’m just going to make it a Punisher bootleg. Enjoy the freebie. New pages as I can make them. The whole story’s laid out just gotta ink it up.

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Watch Off the Grid with Thomas Mass | Director’s Cut.

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Watch The Free Life: Portrait of an Artist.

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Watch The Free Life: Portrait of an Artist.

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Godzilla follows in the footsteps of the original film in that it brings the monster back to his origins as a primal force of nature—a thing to be feared, not a semi-heroic protector fighting other monsters. This Godzilla should not be sold as a plushie. Instead, his first appearance is played more similarly to a horror film—a scene that is frighteningly effective in the stark black and white.

Like the original, the new movie is set in post-war Japan. Unlike the original, where Godzilla is used primarily as a reflection on the horrors of the nuclear bomb, this one is a direct critique of the Japanese government and their total disregard for the lives of their citizens. The anti-war, anti-government message is particularly salient now (and I suppose it’s eternally relevant, unfortunately). The critique is baked into the situations the characters find themselves in.

Shikishima (the main protagonist) is a “failed” kamikaze pilot. After surviving Godzilla’s initial attack and facing survivor’s guilt, Shikishima returns to a bombed out Tokyo to find that his parents died and his neighbor lost her children. It’s a gut-wrenching portrayal of the ravages of war and the resiliency of the survivors. Shikishima has a chance encounter with Noriko and the orphan baby Akiko who she is caring for, and the three form a family. These relationships and the friendships Shikishima finds with his fellow minesweepers form the backbone of the movie.

Following these characters through Japan’s rebuilding, all while Shikishima continues to wrestle with his guilt and terror over his encounter with Godzilla, lends this movie an emotional heft that is by and large missing from “spectacle filmmaking.” Unlike the legendary Godzilla movies where you are bored to tears waiting between monster appearances, the characters in this movie are so well-played and treated that you actually care about their lives and their fates. It’s a breath of fresh air in the current blockbuster movie landscape where films tend to be utterly devoid of humanity.

The other big comparison point with Godzilla Minus One and its legendary counterparts is that the characters who are left to fight off Godzilla are, in their words, private citizens. Compared to the American films where everyone must be special forces or in some kind of shadowy government or extra-government branch, Godzilla Minus One dispels the notion that the government will save the people. Instead the people of Tokyo band together and use their resources and know-how to fight the monster.

It’s a wonderfully made film that everyone should go see. To me, this level of emotional quality and meaning is what we should be demanding in our cinema, instead of the soulless dreck that passes for wide-appeal entertainment. I never would have thought that a Godzilla movie would be this good, but I’m happy to have been proven wrong.

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Watch The Free Life: Portrait of an Artist.

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Watch The Free Life: Portrait of an Artist.

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