American Flagg!

AUTHOR: Badger, Mark; Chaykin, Howard; DeMatteis, J. M.; Grant, Steve

ARTIST: Mark Badger (illustrator); Howard Chaykin (illustrator); Joe Staton (illustrator, penciller); Mike Vosburg (penciller); Leslie Zahler (colorist); Ken Bruzenack (letterer)

PUBLISHER: First Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION:American Flagg!, 1983-1988; Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!, 1988-1989

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION:American Flagg!, 2008

Publication History

American Flagg! was published by First Comics starting in October, 1983, and was initially written, illustrated, and inked by Howard Chaykin. First Comics was a start-up based in Chicago that offered unprecedented opportunities for creators to own their own work. The initial series was designed to be an ongoing satire of both contemporary popular culture and corporate influences, and it soon ranked next to Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil and Batman as one of the most sophisticated and truly adult comics of the early 1980’s.

Chaykin was determined to parody what he saw as the obvious corruption of the Ronald Reagan era, but after the first twelve issues, the workload proved too much, and Chaykin began to relinquish the series’ art and eventually plot to other artists and writers.

The first run was incredibly influential at first, but gradually sales began to wane as Chaykin lost interest, essentially dropping out of plotting the stories and creating the art from issues 33 to 45. Chaykin returned for the final four issues, but the series was canceled by issue 50.

A year later, Chaykin resumed the comic as Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!, which ended after twelve issues in 1989. A paperback edition of several issues collected as American Flagg! State of the Union was released in 1989, but the subsequent reissues were delayed by almost two decades. In 2008, Image Comics issued two volumes of American Flagg, collecting issues 1-14.

Plot

American Flagg! was created by Chaykin in 1983 as a social satire of greed, rampant commercialism, and corporate control in the United States. In 2031, much of the United States has been destroyed, and the government has essentially fled to Mars, leaving large corporations in charge of most of the Earth, which includes a population living mostly in shopping malls.

In the first issue, Reuben Flagg, a former actor who has been replaced by a hologram in his hit show Mark Thrust: Sexus Ranger, arrives at the Chicago Mallplex where he is assigned to his first position in the rangers. His new superior, Hilton “Hammerhead” Krieger, quickly throws Reuben into the middle of a firefight with the local Gogangs, who seem to riot immediately after the popular program Bob Violence goes off the air.

Reuben is also introduced to Krieger’s daughter, Mandy Krieger; corrupt mayor C. K. Blitz; and Krieger’s assistant, Raul, a talking cat who quickly becomes Flagg’s guide to his new environment. Krieger has been running a pirate television station, competing against violent shows such as Bob Violence, which, unknown to him or anyone outside Raul and Flagg, contains subliminal messages that urge the Gogangs to go to war immediately after the program is over. Blitz is concerned about the gangs as his daughter, Medea Blitz, is dating Cyril Farid-Khan, leader of the Genetic Warlords.

When Krieger is murdered, Medea and Cyril are immediately seen as possible suspects and are hunted by Flagg. However, Krieger was really killed by secret Plexus agent John Scheiskopf, who was investigating the illegal pirate station’s blocking of the subliminal violent messages. After a fight, Scheiskopf is left for dead by Flagg, who resumes control of Q-USA.

Scheiskopf, who has not actually died, returns with new robotic legs and a plan to destroy all of Chicago with poison gas. Flagg thwarts his plan and Scheiskopf’s neo-Nazi allies, but the gas is still primed to destroy the mall. However, when the amnesiac Peggy Krieger regains her memory, she is able to defuse the Siphogene gas, which was about to destroy the mall.

After briefly fighting an ecoterrorist, Flagg journeys to Canada, where Canadian Plexus Rangers are shown to be just as corrupt as the other rangers he had encountered previously. In Kansas, Flagg defeats a “pornocrat” who has used subliminal messages to turn all of the state’s inhabitants into participants in a large orgy.

Flagg is able to defeat the pornocrat, but after deciding that the blame belongs to a higher authority, Flagg journeys to Mars, where he is able to defeat the U.S. government. He becomes president and separates Illinois from the rest of the country. Subsequently, Flagg loses control of Illinois, and after the destruction of the Plexmall, he is briefly imprisoned before moving to Russia to resume his career as a ranger.

Volumes

•American Flagg! Volume 1 (2008). Collects issues 1-6 plus a previously unpublished backstory by Chaykin. This volume details Flagg’s introduction to the Plexus Rangers and the corruption inherent in the Plexmall.

•American Flagg! Volume 2 (2008). Collects issues 7-14, plus a previously unpublished story “I Want My Empty V!” written and illustrated by Chaykin. This ends the original story arc, as the action begins to move outside the Plexmall.

Characters

•Reuben Flagg, the protagonist, is a tall, handsome, brown-haired man of average height and build. He is a former actor and star of the popular television show Mark Thrust: Sexus Ranger. After Flagg is replaced on his own show by a more pliable hologram version of himself, he joins the Plexus Rangers and is stationed at the Chicago Plexmall, where he turns against the political and social corruption of the corporate-run Plexmall and takes on the role of the traditional Western-film town marshal. While Flagg is a rampant womanizer, his main love interests are C. G. Markova and, especially, Mandy Krieger.

•Raul the Cat is a small, orange, talking cat that uses special gloves to allow him to manipulate tools to write on a computer, use weapons, and even drive a truck. Initially, Raul is also the only one other than Flagg who can see the subliminal violent messages programmed into the show Bob Violence. Raul is loyal to Flagg and considers himself the equal of any human, especially with his ability to drink under the table men ten times his size.

•Amanda (Mandy) Krieger is a medium-height, curvaceous woman with striking red hair, usually styled like a 1940’s femme fatale. She is the daughter of the ranger Hilton “Hammerhead” Krieger and is Flagg’s primary love interest throughout most of the series. While initially a bit of a schemer, she eventually joins Flagg in rooting out corruption in the Plex and the American government.

•Hilton “Hammerhead” Krieger is a stocky, middle-aged, balding man who is the chief ranger at the Chicago Plexmall. Although he is touchy and cynical, he is also protective of the Plex. Hilton is also the chief of the pirate broadcast station Q-USA. He is initially hostile to Flagg and tries to impede him. Hilton is eventually killed by Plex special agent John Scheiskopf and leaves his station to Flagg.

•Mayor C. K. Blitz is a squat, bald black man in his fifties. While nominally a corrupt politician, adept at taking bribes and well versed in local graft, Blitz actually has the best interests of the city at heart. Although he and Flagg clash during the course of the series, they usually work together to protect Chicago. Blitz also runs an illegal basketball team, the Skokie Skullcrushers.

•Medea Blitz is a tall, thin diabetic woman, usually with shockingly dyed hair. She is the daughter of Mayor C. K. Blitz. Medea is originally the girlfriend of Cyril Farid-Khan, the leader of the Genetic Warlords gang, and miscarries what she says was their child but was actually Hilton Krieger’s. Medea is eventually enrolled as a ranger, and despite her initial violent hostility to Flagg, they eventually work together.

•C. G. (Crystal Gayle) Markova is a tall, buxom woman with a 1920’s bob haircut. She is the commander pilot for Brasilia Airlines and one of Flagg’s many girlfriends.

•Jules “Deathwish” Folquet is an extremely tall, muscular, and intelligent black man who often wears glasses. He is a member of the Skokie Skullcrushers basketball team. He starts a group of deputy rangers and eventually becomes a key ally of Flagg.

•Sam Luis Obispo is a tall, thin, mustachioed con artist who works primarily in Havana. His many aliases and skills as a con artist come in handy when allied with Flagg.

•Luther Ironheart is a tall, muscular robot with a holographic cartoon head. Even though Luther means well and strives to uphold the law, his basic clumsiness often makes him a liability, especially in firefights, in which he tends to try to do too much.

•William Windsor-Jones is a medium-height, thin man with receding brown hair. He is also the heir to the throne of England, something he reveals only when drunk. He eventually helps Reuben run Q-USA.

•Cyril Farid-Khan is a tall Middle Eastern man with outrageous hair. He is the leader of the long-running Genetic Warlords gang, of which both Hilton Krieger and C. K. Blitz had been members, and former boyfriend of Medea Blitz. Although at first a public menace thanks to the subliminal messages in Bob Violence, Farid-Khan eventually begins to work with Flagg.

•Peggy Krieger is a vivacious, curvy woman in her mid-fifties with bright blond hair. Initially, she is known as Gretchen Holstrum, an amnesiac who does not know she is Peggy Krieger and mother to both Medea and Mandy. She later regains her memory and saves Chicago from destruction.

•John Scheiskopf is a tall, very thin man with a haircut reminiscent of the early era Beatles. While Scheiskopf introduces himself as a jewelry salesman, he is actually an agent from the Plex, investigating the pirate television station. He loses both his legs in an altercation with Flagg but later returns with bionic legs and superstrength, plotting with neo-Nazis to destroy Chicago. Scheiskopf is killed in another battle with Flagg.

Artistic Style

American Flagg! is characterized by the classic, almost neorealist look that Chaykin had pioneered in his work with DC Comics, particularly in his early work on Batman. Chaykin also used large blocks of text in his comics, sometimes surrounding the borders of the panels with commentary from either news broadcasts or interviews. Usually, this would be indicated by a character’s profile appearing either above or to the side of the text. Chaykin also used graphics and different fonts in order to indicate action, sometimes using large fonts to express imminent danger or a commotion going on outside the panel’s borders. In addition, Chaykin was instrumental in bringing back expressive sound effects, indicated by large blocks of garish, stylized lettering within the panels.

While Chaykin was the primary artist for almost half of the series, he began to use assistants such as a young Dean Haspiel to work on backgrounds. After issue 26, Chaykin relinquished the art to other artists, including Joe Staton, Mark Badger, and Mike Vosburg. However, as Chaykin’s control relaxed, the intricate art and design work that was such a crucial part of American Flagg! disappeared, leading to lower sales and the eventual cancellation of the series. Many artists consider Chaykin’s work on American Flagg! to be particularly influential in terms of design and composition, and his work of that period is often compared favorably to Jim Steranko’s work on “Nick Fury: Agent of Shield,” from Strange Tales.

Themes

Like many comics of the early 1980’s that pushed the boundaries of narrative and plot, American Flagg! implies that the United States had become irrevocably corrupt. Flagg, the somewhat cynical hero, is nonetheless the innocent, looking to a vision of the United States that has not been corrupted by corporate and political greed. In the dystopian future of American Flagg!, the government is an absentee landlord off on Mars, while corporate power runs amok on Earth.

Most of Flagg’s antagonists are not necessarily the large corporations themselves but neo-Nazis, drug-addled biker gangs, and innocents corrupted by power. In the dystopian future of American Flagg!, far closer to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) than to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), humans live in a literal shopping mall where television and drugs provide a quick escape from the pains of everyday life. Even the weapons used by the rangers, such as the Snowball 99, which launches a frozen globe of Somnabutol, are trademarked by the various corporations that sell the rangers new ways to keep order.

However, another recurring theme of American Flagg! is that redemption is possible, even for the most corrupt citizens of the Mallplex. In the course of the series, clearly corrupt individuals such as Medea Blitz, her father C. K. Blitz, and Mandy Krieger are all redeemed by their contact with Flagg and the basic decency that he promotes. American Flagg! was not only an attack on Reagan-era values but also in some ways a plea by the author to restore basic civility in an age when corporations were increasingly seeking power.

Impact

Although American Flagg! is somewhat forgotten and is often critiqued as having one of the greatest starts but weakest endings in a major ongoing series, it remains one of the most influential comic series of the 1980’s. In some ways, Chaykin illustrated the main theme later discussed in Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985): that malls, fast food, and relentless entertainment were increasingly numbing American culture. In a sense, people were more enamored of entertainment than serious issues and were therefore easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians.

While the initial critical reception of American Flagg! was positive thanks to Chaykin’s detailed plots and groundbreaking, almost photo-realistic artwork, Chaykin soon chafed under the pressure of creating as intricate a comic as American Flagg! The first half of American Flagg! is looked upon by most critics as equivalent to the contemporary work of Miller and Moore. Although some critics dismissed Chaykin as a crank, the series’ critique of corporate culture and celebrity seems almost prescient. In the twenty-first century, American Flagg! remains as timely as when it was released.

Further Reading

Azzarello, Brian, and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets (1999-2009).

Miller, Frank. Ronin (1983).

Moore, Alan, and David Gibbons. Watchmen (1986-1987).

Steranko, Jim. Nick Fury: Who Is Scorpio? (2001).

Bibliography

Chabon, Michael. Introduction to Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! Definitive Edition. Berkeley, Calif.: Image Comics, 2008.

De Blieck, Augie. “A Little Bit of Flagg! Waving.” Comic Book Resources, September 3, 2004.http://www.comicbookresources.com/?id=14766&page=article.

Fielder, Miles. “Howard Chaykin—American Flagg!” The List 630 (June 2, 2009). Available at http://www.list.co.uk/article/17881-howard-chaykin-american-flagg.

Fingeroth, Danny. Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. New York: Continuum, 2007.

Harvey, R.C. “Chaykin’s Crusade” in The Comics Journal March 23, 2010, Accessed at http://www.tcj.com/superhero/chaykin’s-crusade/

Irving, Christopher. Graphic NYC Presents: Dean Haspiel—The Early Years. New York: Idea and Design Works, 2010.

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show business. New York: Penguin Books 1985