The Big Lie #1

I read this book a few days ago and I still am not sure how I feel about it. 

For one thing, this 9/11 conspiracy theory comic book is something that I am quite surprised was ever made by Image Comics. Most, if not all comic book publishers are considered to be quite liberal. And while some of the 9/11 theories do attack the Bush family for giving the family of Osama bin Laden a sort of free pass as well as the scuttlebutt on whether W's administration knew of the attack or not; generally those who believe in such a cover-up are considered firmly right wingers.

A big fan of the X-Files, my wife found me this 2011 book at a warehouse sale. Gotta love her. She thinks I come up with some weird, wild theories. And yet, she still indulges me.

See, a local comic shop was trying to clear out some inventory for a steal. I think I might have paid a quarter for it. The cover, which bears a very angry Uncle Sam over the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center is quite powerful. The story inside. Eh, not quite so much?

Instead of being a book that covers just the facts, writer/artist Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing) frames his argument for a 9/11 conspiracy around a sci-fi premise that is almost as old as science fiction itself. A time traveler arrives at the World Trade Center on the morning of the attack. Her plan is to convince her husband to leave, thus saving his life. 

The husband works for a movie production company. Being in league with Spielberg and Lucas, the producer and his cohorts are highly skeptical of the woman. When warnings don't seem to motivate anyone to leave, the time traveler starts spouting out facts about that fateful day along with arguments about a conspiracy. 

See, I think the woman went about it all wrong. She should have proved that she was from the future. I know that Rick Veitch wanted to try to convince us the readers of a conspiracy as being behind the 9/11 attacks. But I think he didn't connect via his storytelling method. 

What Veitch should have done was to actually set this up like an X-Files episode. Have a couple of folks in a smoky office going over the facts and all of the discrepancies and such. I don't think have fictional characters to move the narrative forward would have been a bad idea. I just think that using time travel and the amount of ridicule and mockery the traveler goes through cheapens the impact of both the possibility of conspiracy and reality of a national tragedy.

An interesting read about a subject that I didn't know as much as I thought i did. It just wasn't executed very well to make me into a believer.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.