Wave the Flag part duce

Hey,anyone out there remember when I got up on my high horse about how the U.S. flag was hung wrong back in The Ultimates 2 #13? Well, it looks like they’ve done it again. That is to say, hung the flag backwards!

To recap, in the first instance, the two wrongly-hung flags were strung up on the White House during a Russian invasion of the U.S. — so an argument can be made that it was done by the invading forces as a sign of disrespect. However in this new instance (Avengers, the Initiative #6) there is no excuse.

This time, the “flag” is actually an apron worn by the wife of Sgt. Joseph (“Gauntlet”) Green. (Needless to say, why the wife of a military man would wear a flag apron, that ostensibly is going to get food and stains on it while cooking is the subject for another discussion.) Gauntlet, as we all know is the drill Sergeant over at Camp Hammond, in Stamford, CT where the new Initiative recruits are being trained. As you can see by the image, the flag is being hung backwards (vertically with the blue field in the upper right — rather than in the upper left position).

Now again, you could (possibly) argue that the Sarge’s wife knows the proper way to hang a flag, and that’s why she is wearing this flag replica as an apron. I’m telling you that while I’m not in the military, I am a Boy Scout leader (and I’ve watched a couple seasons of The Unit) so I’m telling you that the Sarge simply wouldn’t allow that wrongly-hung flag replica in his house.

What I’m saying is that the artists (Steve Uy in this case and Bryan Hitch and inked by Paul Neary — a couple of Brits in the case of The Ultimates), as well as their editors (Tom Bervoort and Ralph Macchio) are simply unaware that there are rules for hanging flags, and never bothered to check out to see if the flags were hung correctly.

By contrast, a buddy of mine, John Wilcox, spent quite a bit of his time working as a colorist for numerous comicbook publishers over the years. Once, when a specific restaurant in NYC was cited in a comic he was coloring, he called up the restaurant to find out what color the awning outside the resturant was, simply because he wanted to get it right. But then again, not everyone is as professional as John.

Wave it High

I just picked up a copy of Marvel’s The Ultimates 2 #13 (yeah, I think it’s a stupid title for a comicbook as well, but no one asked me either). Well, the comic is the final issue in the series (big storyline, major conflict), and well, it’s a year late. But that’s not my problem.

I picked up the comic because I had heard that Ultimate Spider-Man was going to appear. He did for one panel, and not only did he only appear in one panel, but the artist screwed up his uniform by not including the Spider image on it. (The artist also didn't include Mr. Fantastic’s “4” on his uniform, so I guess that I shouldn’t complain too much.)

Only that’s just the beginning.

On what is ostensibly page 30 (not counting the eleven-teen page foldout), we have the image that is bothering me. Penciled by Bryan Hitch and inked by Paul Neary (a couple of Brits — and this is important to know) we see a pair of American flags that are hung (vertically rather than horizontally) off the U.S. Capital Building.



Both are hung wrong.

One is hung seriously wrong.

U.S. Flags (like — I would suspect — the flags of most sovereign countries have very specific rules about how they are to be displayed. For the U.S. Flag, that way is (among other rules) the blue field is always (always) in the upper left of the flag. Whether hung horizontally, or vertically. Only these yahbos have it both backwards and upside down.

No I honestly don’t expect them to know the difference, but their U.S. editor, Ralph Macchio should have known. Even if no one knew, they should have had the common sense (professionalism) to look it up! Yes, professionalism! As artists, they had to take life model classes, to learn how to get anatomy right. Since they are drawing specific, real-world monuments (the White House, the Capital building, Washington, NY, et. al.) they had to look at visual references of those. Heck, they have to look at visual references of the heroes to get their costumes correct.

Now I just know that someone out there is going to point out that the Ultimates storyline has the U.S. under attack by Rogue Russian elements, but I honestly don't believe that the wrongly-hung flags is a story element. I believe that it is the mistake of two artists and their editor who simply didn’t know any better.

If it is shown to me that I’m wrong about this, I’ll be happy to apologize. I just don’t think that I am.