Flame On!

Did anyone else notice the subversive film that creeped into theaters this weekend? The makers of this movie were clever to disguise it as a blockbuster so that no one would notice the liberal wonking going on inside of it. "The Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer" not only made fifty-seven million dollars at the box office this weekend, but it also slipped left-wing political commentary into the minds of comic-book loving audiences across the globe.
Tucked neatly inside this action-packed summer popcorn movie is the story of Norrin Radd is it coincidence that he has the exact same number of letters in his first and last name as George Bush?), The Silver Surfer. He is the reluctant ally (a slave, really) of a world-eating entity (one of our "pet names" for Dick Cheney) that has targeted Earth, and his arrival announces our doom. Pretty standard device for your average "Star Trek" episode or film, but in a world that already has a taste of Inconvenient Truth, why not go ahead and swallow the global warming paranoia in a convenient, candy-coated pill? Interestingly enough, near the beginning of the film, a straight-faced anchor-type appears on television (along with the Fox News logo) to reassure all of us in comic book land that the unexplained phenomena are in no way connected to global warming. The report, we deride.
But the real kicker comes near the end, when the Invisible Girl - er - Woman tells Norrin that he doesn't have to be the slave of Galactus, the world-eating entity, but he has a choice. His final words before he implodes and sends all that badness off into the ether: "There is always a choice." I wonder if Sean Hannity has seen this one.