Nightly News #3

by Scott Cederlund

If you can’t believe the news, who can you trust?

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In V for Vendetta, Alan Moore and David Lloyd used body parts to identify the various sections of a secret cabal.  The Mouth, the Finger, the Nose and others each had their own functions and roles, parts of a much larger whole.  With Nightly News, Jonathan Hickman has organized his secret organization along similar lines with the Voice and the Hand.  The mysterious Voice gives needed direction and guidance to the Hand and the Hand obeys without question or hesitance, though the two have never met.  In both books, the leaders stand above and apart from the everyday soldiers.  The difference is V’s secret cabal was the government, the rules of Britain who had established a totalitarian rule.  In Nightly News, the organization is a homegrown American terrorist sect, striking out at the media organizations and personnel that lead the public astray and open the way up for a totalitarian and secretive government.

In the 21st century, there is no one to look up to, no heroes like V, rising up to lead the rebellion.  Instead, there are terrorists like the Hand, leading a sect on suicide missions, assassinations and murder.  Actually, the two stories are kind of similar but Moore and Lloyd filled V for Vendetta with romanticism and righteousness.  The battles of Evey and V were against an unjust government that was the cause of Britain’s ills and problems.  V viewed himself as a hero, a swashbuckler and transferred that romanticism to the reading audience.  The Voice, the Hand and the sect in Nightly News have no such ideal view of themselves or their mission.  They’re much more cold blooded and realistic about their actions.  They don’t paint over their acts, trying to make them appear better than they are.  The execute their plan with cold, mercenary brutality because they know they are brutal people.

Last issue ended with a new recruit joining their ranks as well as the sect blowing up bar full of reporters.  Showing little care or remorse, the sect picks up where they left off, analyzing the ways that the media manipulates their audience (including theories about Katie Couric’s wardrobe being influenced by S&M fashion?) indoctrinating their newest member and planning their next target.  Those last two end up being the same thing.

The story in Nightly News is fascinating, horrifying and so far, rather nihilistic.  Everyone in it has in some way contributed to the destruction of society.  Whether the media is as calculating as Hickman portrays in this book, it’s frightening to see how far people may go to battle the media.  And in this day and age, the terrorism tactics of the sect doesn’t seem too wild or unlikely.  In fact, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before citizens take up arms and that Nightly News is more foretelling the future than only speculating on it.

Nightly News #3
“We Don’t Need No Education”
Written and Illustrated by: Jonathan Hickman