Jack Kirby and Joe Simon did some fine artwork in this story, and looked as if they enjoyed drawing the old clothing and hair styles, not to mention the armor and fighting men. But the story was used in a crime comic book, so they tweaked it to fit the usual crime comic book clichés. In real life Guy Fawkes, at the moment of his execution, probably did not give a sermon saying, in essence, “Crime does not pay.” History says he gave an apology to the king. He was also not hanged, as the story shows. He jumped off the scaffold and broke his neck, killing himself. It didn’t spare poor Guy’s corpse from being quartered. The public came to see a bloody and cruel execution and the public were not disappointed.
The religious component is left out, also. The Gunpowder plot was an attempt to murder the king and replace him with a Catholic sovereign. You may remember from your history books that James’ relative, Henry VIII, had a falling out with the Pope over his plans to divorce his wife. It has always struck me as backwards that they would leave religion out of a story like this, which sold itself as being historical, but I understand why they did not want to get complaints and letters from offended church members. Instead they did not spare the reader some brutal torture scenes. Like the bloodthirsty public of the 17th century, the 20th century public would be shown the violent stuff so they would not go away disappointed.
From Headline Comics #31 (1947):
*I am aware of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V For Vendetta, and the impact the Guy Fawkes mask has had. I am mentioning it, although it is outside the scope of this blog.
Leaving off the religious angle -- which was the entire reason for the plot -- is certainly strange. There's so much about this that isn't historical, but boy is the art nice. I always liked that heavy lined stuff you'd see from Kirby and Simon.
ReplyDeleteNow, I know the concept here is to make it look like crime doesn't pay, but even after being tortured Fawkes had the strength to charge off the scaffolding and break his own neck (therefore avoiding getting gutted/castrated/etc while alive.) Now THAT would make an exciting image -- but the nature of these comics wouldn't allow it, sadly.
Brian, "No cruel and unusual punishment" comes from the Magna Carta. You probably know that, but I checked to make sure it is contained in that document. Eviscerating a human being while alive, setting fire to his intestines, having him pulled apart by animals, sure fits under the category.
ReplyDelete(Hey, I was going to fix my dinner but suddenly lost my appetite!)
Even after banning "cruel and unusual punishments" there were so many crimes that carried the death penalty that at some point the English decided they were sick of it, and even when the statute might call for death, they would often waive it in favor of something else...like a lengthy stay in one of their terrible prisons!
The thing about those ghastly forms of punishment was that they were cruel but not unusual. Some of the constituent states of the US have or had constitutional provisions forbidding cruel or unusual punishment, exactly so as to prohibit cruel punishments that were not unusual. (Florida's constitution had a disjunction, but that was rolled back, so that cruel and usual punishment is again allowed there.) But there's an interesting fly in that ointment, when uncruel punishment becomes prohibited because it is unusual. Consider California, which has a disjunctive prohibition and grotesquely overcrowded prisons; uncruel punishment has become unusual for various crimes, and under the law is therefore prohibited. (Of course, all the lawyers look away from logic.) Since cruel punishment is also prohibited, all punishment is prohibited for those acts, and that means that all these acts are no longer crimes. (Again, all the lawyers look away from logic.)
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting to observe the struggles amongst those who truly hold that the Constitution is the constitution, but divide into three groups on the interpretation of that passage prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment”. Some insist that, if a punishment weren't regarded as such at the time of adoption, then it can never become such legally (barring an Amendment); some acknowledge that a punishment that was once not cruel and unusual can become such, but must be judged purely by domestic standards; and some hold that a punishment that becomes “cruel and unusual” by an international standard of some sort is then prohibited. Justice Kennedy fell into that last group, and was widely condemned by people from the first two groups; but I see him as having been quite reasonable. He wasn't seeking to impose foreign law; he was seeking to include foreign opinion to the objective question of what were unusually cruel, which question is logically prior to interpretation of a legal prohibition of unusual cruelty.
One reason that Fawkes is not a complete unsympathetic character is that, in his day, Roman Catholics weren't simply out of power but were subject to various forms of persecution. Part of what brought an effective end to struggles over the religion of the monarch was that, with the Glorious Revolution, the United Kingdom began moving towards a doctrine of religious tolerance. That goal hasn't been perfectly reached there nor here in the former British Colonies of North America, but now-a-days no one has a felt need for the head of state to be of his or her same religion unless that person feels entitled to be an oppressor.