The Perfect Medium For The UN: Marvel Comics

From the Financial Times:

In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the second world war, the UN is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1m US schoolchildren, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with UN agencies such as Unicef and the “blue hats”, the UN peacekeepers.

Brett D. Schaefer has some helpful suggestions at The National Review:

Considering this decidedly unheroic record, the U.N. could certainly use some super friends to clean up the messes it has made. Here are some suggestions for the first comic episodes:

1. “Cocooning Cruelty” — Spider-Man swings into a meeting of the Human Rights Council, webs up representatives from Cuba, China, and other rights-abusing nations, and introduces a motion to condemn rights violations in “some country, any country other than Israel.”

2. “Clobberin’ Time in the Congo” — Bored by the daily cocktail parties in the U.N.’s penthouse suite at Hotel Metropol, The Thing ventures to eastern Congo and smashes an arms-dealing ring run by U.N. peacekeepers.

3. “Nukes Not Yours” — While the Security Council debates just how strongly to word its next round of letters to Tehran and Pyongyang, The Avengers sneak out and forcefully dismantle the nuclear weapons programs in North Korea and Iran.

Of course, if superheroes were real and decided to pursue these worthy missions, the U.N. would hotly condemn them for acting “unilaterally.” The entire pantheon of Marvel heroes would have to twiddle their thumbs until the U.N. issued a comprehensive, “consensus” set of regulations to keep them from going “too far” in fighting injustice.

The very notion that today’s U.N. is eager to embark on heroic struggles against evildoers defies reality.

Apparently the UN thinks this is a way to make the UN more accessible to children--Will it work?

Well, it's worked so far for Hamas...

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