Ministry of Space (spoilers)
May. 14th, 2004 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalThis is the title of the recently completed Warren Ellis AU comic with the fascinating what if premise of England, rather than America, getting a hold of Werner Von Braun and taking the lead in manned spaceflight.
I'll admit this review is incomplete. I picked up the third and final issue recently, being attracted to the beautiful 50's/Collier style Mars ships on the cover. Nevertheless, I think I can safely say that the story is fascinating, even if it does seem to have the usual Ellis axes grinding loudly in the foreground.
Basically we have to swallow the idea that post-WWII England is willing to support a massive "Man Conquers Space" style program, intially funded as a black project with Jewish gold stolen from the Nazi's victims and in turn stolen by England (after murdering a few American soldiers along the way.) Needless to say Ellis takes a cynical spin on this, with England essentially shoring up it's Empire by moving out into space. The results, with a final panel that essentially pisses on all the previous triumphs shown, are predictable.
The problem is the Ellis is apparently assuming that a democratic nation like England can move forward technologically, and still stay horridly backward socially. Essentially the reader is asked to assume that we go from 1945 to the year 2001, without any of the post-war social upheaveals of the Sixties ever happening. No Vietnam, no Martin Luther King, no "Kitchen Sink" Dramas, no Angry Young Men, no ubiquitous TV cameras willing to show every flaw in the system that previous generations were able to ignore.
Sorry, I can't buy it. Call me an optimistic American, but the English Empire was tottering well before WWII. Trying to maintain it and all the idiot contradictions within it after all the body-blows England took during the war is unrealistic at best. To keep up the premise after showing a astronaut of African descent having *no* apparent effect on the social system, despite being prominent in the media, is silly.
But the pictures are pretty.
I'll admit this review is incomplete. I picked up the third and final issue recently, being attracted to the beautiful 50's/Collier style Mars ships on the cover. Nevertheless, I think I can safely say that the story is fascinating, even if it does seem to have the usual Ellis axes grinding loudly in the foreground.
Basically we have to swallow the idea that post-WWII England is willing to support a massive "Man Conquers Space" style program, intially funded as a black project with Jewish gold stolen from the Nazi's victims and in turn stolen by England (after murdering a few American soldiers along the way.) Needless to say Ellis takes a cynical spin on this, with England essentially shoring up it's Empire by moving out into space. The results, with a final panel that essentially pisses on all the previous triumphs shown, are predictable.
The problem is the Ellis is apparently assuming that a democratic nation like England can move forward technologically, and still stay horridly backward socially. Essentially the reader is asked to assume that we go from 1945 to the year 2001, without any of the post-war social upheaveals of the Sixties ever happening. No Vietnam, no Martin Luther King, no "Kitchen Sink" Dramas, no Angry Young Men, no ubiquitous TV cameras willing to show every flaw in the system that previous generations were able to ignore.
Sorry, I can't buy it. Call me an optimistic American, but the English Empire was tottering well before WWII. Trying to maintain it and all the idiot contradictions within it after all the body-blows England took during the war is unrealistic at best. To keep up the premise after showing a astronaut of African descent having *no* apparent effect on the social system, despite being prominent in the media, is silly.
But the pictures are pretty.
