Superman comics showing victim of ‘Russian puppet Assad’ honors long tradition of propaganda

The latest issue of a DC Comics series hit close to real-life politics, showing a child refugee, whose family was ‘gassed’ by the Syrian president. But it’s hardly new for the medium intended for teen audiences.

Doomsday Clock is an ongoing limited edition series, in which a universe of Batman and Superman gets intruded by characters (and themes) of the dark world of ‘Watchmen’ by Alan Moore – which is itself a deconstruction of the superhero comics. In the freshly-published issue #8, Superman visits a fictional Middle-Eastern nation ruled by supervillain/antihero Black Adam and sees scores of refugees sheltered there.

Black Adam introduces one of them, a child from Syria’s Douma, saying that “his younger sister [was] gassed by Assad, the Russians' puppet.” Some would say it’s no big deal, considering it all happens in a world where a guy dressed in blue and red flies and shoots beams from his eyes, but can easily hide his identity by putting glasses on. By the end of the issue the US and Russia go to war, by the way.

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