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dewlineAbout five or six years back, DC Comics did something Really Big centred on the Batman-related titles called "No Man's Land"(or "NML" in abbreviation). If you haven't seen the comic books themselves, or the collected editions at either bookstores or public libraries, you might have seen Greg Rucka's novelisation of that story arc.
It lasted a year, in real-time and in the affected characters' lives, and detailed what happened when governments at all levels -- from civic to federal -- simply gave up on a Major American City, specifically Gotham, and let it fall apart. Worse than that, they talked themselves into aggravating the situation as much as possible in defiance of human decency, and various levels of federal and international law by declaring Gotham off-limits to anyone living outside the city, and the outside world off-limits to anyone still inside. Thus, "NML".
At the time, tons of comics readers simply could not wrap their brains around the idea, especially given that it was being executed inside the dramatic framework of the DC Universe, the world of Superman, the Batman, Wonder Woman and a literal ton of other heroic personages to set the political tone in opposition to any such move. They could not believe such a thing to be politically possible, at least not there. Not even with five years of what effectively became the build-up to the start of "NML": two plague outbreaks, several outbreaks of organized crime violence, and an earthquake all serving as part of the prelude.
Of course, this was pre-Hurricane Katrina out in the real world.
Now I look at New Orleans and the surrounding parishes in Louisiana, and I keep looking in on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
interdictor's weblog, and I'm starting to wonder about a few things.
Granted, no one's looked seriously at Dennis Hastert's suggestion during the early days of the Katrina Effect to simply write that city off. But for those who paid attention to "NML" -- whether they bought the premise it was based on or not, let along the actual comics and trade editions -- that suggestion, once publicly made, unnerved more than a few of my acquaintances on Usenet and more than a few privately-operated message boards.
One thing I am sure of now from a dramatic standpoint: even allowing for the more advanced technologies available to the DC Universe version of the United States, I am increasingly sure that the recovery process, for fictional Gotham as for the real New Orleans, is going to take a fair bit longer than expected.
And it probably is.
Between the panels.
Interesting (but confirmed as accidental due to long publication lead times) coincidence: In the pages of the Batbooks' brother series, Hawkman, the title character's current home town of St. Roch is located right next door to New Orleans in the eastern half of the DCU version of Orleans Parish. And they just had their own hurricane issues in # 45.
It lasted a year, in real-time and in the affected characters' lives, and detailed what happened when governments at all levels -- from civic to federal -- simply gave up on a Major American City, specifically Gotham, and let it fall apart. Worse than that, they talked themselves into aggravating the situation as much as possible in defiance of human decency, and various levels of federal and international law by declaring Gotham off-limits to anyone living outside the city, and the outside world off-limits to anyone still inside. Thus, "NML".
At the time, tons of comics readers simply could not wrap their brains around the idea, especially given that it was being executed inside the dramatic framework of the DC Universe, the world of Superman, the Batman, Wonder Woman and a literal ton of other heroic personages to set the political tone in opposition to any such move. They could not believe such a thing to be politically possible, at least not there. Not even with five years of what effectively became the build-up to the start of "NML": two plague outbreaks, several outbreaks of organized crime violence, and an earthquake all serving as part of the prelude.
Of course, this was pre-Hurricane Katrina out in the real world.
Now I look at New Orleans and the surrounding parishes in Louisiana, and I keep looking in on
interdictor's weblog, and I'm starting to wonder about a few things.Granted, no one's looked seriously at Dennis Hastert's suggestion during the early days of the Katrina Effect to simply write that city off. But for those who paid attention to "NML" -- whether they bought the premise it was based on or not, let along the actual comics and trade editions -- that suggestion, once publicly made, unnerved more than a few of my acquaintances on Usenet and more than a few privately-operated message boards.
One thing I am sure of now from a dramatic standpoint: even allowing for the more advanced technologies available to the DC Universe version of the United States, I am increasingly sure that the recovery process, for fictional Gotham as for the real New Orleans, is going to take a fair bit longer than expected.
And it probably is.
Between the panels.
Interesting (but confirmed as accidental due to long publication lead times) coincidence: In the pages of the Batbooks' brother series, Hawkman, the title character's current home town of St. Roch is located right next door to New Orleans in the eastern half of the DCU version of Orleans Parish. And they just had their own hurricane issues in # 45.
