It all started when I gave my son some old Green Arrow/ Green Lantern comic books to sell
which we figured could be worth hundreds of dollars. They were from the 1970’s and one
even had a cover with Green Arrow and Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s Vice President, on the cover
who had to step down due to corruption charges that somehow caught up to him from Maryland.

Now my son is giving to me a new Green Arrow which turns out to be the Son of Green Arrow
who lives in a world which is I guess the Watergate Legacy which led to the crucifixion of Green Lantern
                                                                                 over 35 years ago.

Now the son of Green Arrow lives in a world where the gangs rule Seattle City and the hero must go about rescuing
all those who would rather die than live in a world of Zombies who only want to eat you and turn you into one of
them. Green Arrow abandoned the city says the gansta villain and he’s not going to get it back from the gangs.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I got into a terrible argument with my Godson about would you believe it
Ukraine and the Malaysian jet shot down there. The far left had developed a theory that a Kiev government
jet fighter shot down the airliner not the E. Ukraine rebels with a BUK (Russian) missile and when I mention
this I get an explosive reaction since my Godson had been following events in Ukraine so closely that he said
he was watching the E. Ukraine web site as the story of the loss of the plane was breaking and saw them
bragging about shooting down a “bird” and then taking the whole thing down as quickly as possible when
it became known that it was a civilian plane that had been blown up.

So my son (who also Facebooks with my Godson’s old girl friend who is journalist working on the Ukraine story
from the point of view of W. Ukrainians who want to be allied with Western Europe) hands me with the Green
Arrow comic book that turns out to be the Son of Green Arrow a down loaded picture of WW II memorial
that shows a squad of Russian soldiers spray painted into superheroes or pop icons led by G.I. Joe and followed by
the Joker with Santa Claus bag open just behind and Superman in the center of the tableau and Captain America too.

Yes, indeedy. where are the superheroes (and villains, too, I guess who make such messes of their evil they always fail)
always living on to save another victim from the suicide culture that says if it wasn’t for all you peacenik appeasers we’d
have won the “war on terror” long ago? But what of those who still remember tens of millions of Russian dead           commemorated
by the assault squad who are the forms under the swatches of bright super hero color. What is that red, white and blue
but an insult to everything they hold dear that they never, ever will forget.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.