"But, at night to Mohammed, he confessed his doubts: It will not be as we dream, when those of us who survive finally get there. Corrupt politicians have already ensconced themselves. They are waiting for us—waiting for us not as brothers but as our masters. They will use us." 

– As told to John Berger, "Two Recumbent Male Figures Wrestling on a Sidewalk"

"For a moment, he actually feels he can’t go on, can’t function anymore, living two lives with enough stress for ten but less than enough sleep for one."

– Doug Moench, BATMAN #484

The United States is a broken empire. It just doesn't know it yet. 

The 1990s marked the full bloom of the international counterrevolution, whose mission to destroy the gains of the 20th century had just seen its first major victory in the destruction of the USSR. With no systemic power to oppose it, capitalism molted the old skin of social democracy, unveiling its truest form to hollow fanfare and a dead-eyed audience.

Bereft of an external enemy worth organizing against, unsatisfied with the empty calories of the video game war, confronted with the grim realities of vaunted liberal democratic values, Americans tried to make sense of life at the end of history. Whose triumph was this? 

Even superhero fans found themselves yearning for—but never quite finding—meaning in heroes whose integral, inflated violence now seemed both superfluous and insufficient to the moment. Despite having "won" the Cold War, maybe what American audiences needed to see was one more domino fall.

***

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Our episode art was by the great Kly, whom you can (and should) support on Patreon.