Review by Frank Plowright
In 1997 Steve Darnall and Alex Ross felt there was a lot wrong with the USA, and DC’s superheroic personification of the symbolic Uncle Sam provided the ideal means to highlight their concerns. When introduced as the embodiment of patriotism during World War II Sam administering a good right to the chin solved most problems, but more complex issues have manifested since and they’ve taken their toll, the allegory being that as a symbol he’s weakened by a divided population.
We first meet Uncle Sam as a derelict being ejected back onto the streets, presumed by hospital staff to be just another bum. He’s rambling, remembering his presence at pivotal moments of American history, or at least post-colonial American history, and the assorted atrocities the country has witnessed and condoned. There’s a cultivated sense of disorientation as Sam moves between past and present, confronting the sins of the USA.
It’s sincere and heartfelt on the part of Darnall and co-plotter Ross, but they concentrate so much on highlighting injustice that they forget the principle of the sugared pill. For all the insight and liberal use of quotes from the good men of the past, their story rambles as much as Sam himself, lacking cohesion. The primary point is dropped two-thirds of the way through with the accusation that as set-up the United States was unbalanced from the beginning, but it comes amid so much static that it’s likely to pass people by.
What prevents Uncle Sam from abject failure is that co-writer Ross is working with Ross the artist, and Ross the artist is phenomenal. Using Uncle Sam himself, no matter how decrepit, provides an icon, and Ross works the hell out of him, the painted realism providing so many memorable images. Ross is also skilled enough to incorporate famous paintings without it seeming a conceit. However, given the tone of Uncle Sam as impressionistic, sometimes hallucinatory shards, Ross’ realism is at odds with what’s going on.
If Darnall and Ross were dissatisfied with the USA in 1997, you may wonder what creators 27 years older thought of the American divisions in 2024. Well it turns out some of what was exaggeration and hyperbole in 1997 is brazen and broadcast as political reality in 2024, especially a line about everything being the truth. The hardcover Special Election Edition gives the art a digital cleansing, adds an article about the origins of Uncle Sam as a national symbol, and supplies the thoughts of both creators along with some extra art. What it doesn’t do is make Uncle Sam anything more than a collection of scattered condemnations. And the sentimentality of the ending pretty well undermines everything. On the other hand Griel Marcus provides an introduction, and one of America’s greatest music writers loves Uncle Sam. So what is the truth?
