The Timely Planet

In 2024, DC Comics released a four-issue storyline called “Absolute Power,” which chronicles Amanda Waller’s rise to power as she wages war against the superhero community. In this story, Waller shifts public perception against superheroes by controlling the media. The story opens with Buddy Baker (Animal Man) and his daughter, Maxine Baker (Animal Girl), assaulted by a fearful mob. The attack is later revealed as the result of Waller’s media attacks on superheroes. The incident with Animal Man was later repackaged as a group of innocent civilians defending themselves against a superhero attack. The story continues with videos of other superheroes supposedly attacking civilians, with each of the superheroes claiming the videos as fake, all with corroborating alibi at their whereabouts and actions at the times of when those supposed incidents took place. Waller goes so far as to hijack the Daily Planet news site to broadcast her anti-superhero propaganda across the world. As Waller puts it “Calling it “disinformation” isn’t really fair. I’ve said it for years. “Superheroes” are anything but. They create more trouble than they avert. I call that information. We’re simply reminding people of that fact. All you have to do is refine your message to a memorable catchphrase “superheroes are coming for you” and repeat it fifty thousand times.” Eventually, Waller seizes power and public approval, allowing her to wage an all-out war on superheroes.

In 2018, Marvel Comics released an eleven-issue miniseries called “X-Men: Red,” which chronicled a resurrected Jean Grey’s attempt to gain acceptance for mutantkind. In this story, Professor Charles Xavier’s evil twin sister Casandra Nova, implants a virus in the minds of regular people to propagate mutant hate. Part of Nova’s plan was to control the media to sway the already-negative views of humans against mutants to sink further below. Nova’s plan caused public shootings, lynchings, and unlawful detainment of mutants. X-Men: Red finds Jean Grey’s team as they rescue a girl named Trinary who was given up by her parents to the government as a prisoner without due process. Trinary later describes the anti-mutant propaganda as “half truths taken out of context or outright lies. The algorithms targeting people with known biases and concerns. Stoking this into fear and this fear into anger. And a little hit of dopamine every time someone likes a post filled with intolerance.” However, this is not new in the X-Men universe. Since its inception, the X-Men have always been a sandbox for writers and artists to tackle the social injustices of the day through the lens of uncanny heroes and their extraordinary powers; saving the world that continues to shun them.

Our own world is full of these half truths and outright lies being peddled as information; often to stoke fear against powerless individuals. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States pushed for racial segregation, referring to Black and White individuals as being “seperate but equal” in the law, despite Black individuals being killed, having less opportunities, and treated as the lesser. In 1940s Germany, the Third Reich stoked fear and hate against the Jewish people, people who aren’t of the Aryan race, disabled people, queer people, and many others. In 1970s Philippines, the Marcos dictatorship created propaganda against dissenters of the regime. Claiming that those against the Government are “subversive” or “Communists.” This act led to the deaths, rape, and disappearances of many individuals. In 1980s United States, the AIDS epidemic caused an untold amount of deaths in the queer community. However, the Government’s response was to refer to the epidemic as the “Gay Plague,” causing queer people to be seen as carriers of a contagion, stoking homophobia across the country. After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States government used the raising fear and hate against the Muslim community to justify its invasion of the Middle East. In 2016, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte enacts his gruesome drug war called “Oplan Tokhang.” This drug war claimed the lives of so many individuals, often killed through vigilante justice or by cops without due process. All propagated through his unsubstantiated claims of drugs being rampant in the country, all supposedly ran by a shadow organization of “Narco Politicians.” Also in 2016, United States President Donald Trump stokes hate against immigrants, specifically Hispanics and Latin Americans. President Trump urges the country to build a wall around Mexico, and disinforms the country that many immigrants come into the country undocumented, bringing drugs and crimes with them. In 2019, during the global COVID-19 pandemic, Asian hate grows all over the world due to disinformation that COVID-19 was supposedly from a man eating a bat in Wuhan, China or that it was propagated in a Chinese laboratory for chemical warfare. Now, Israel continues its genocide of the Palestinian people, with some global news outlets changing the narrative as Israel merely reclaiming its land or fighting against terrorists in the name of liberating Palestine.

Information is a powerful thing, and the way it is presented can have real impact. It’s no secret that around 2016, the term “Fake News” breached the mainstream and became a permanent fixture of the public lexicon. “Fake News” itself mean that information presented is not true. However, it can be used by the media or those in government to discredit credible facts that do not align with their agenda. “Fake News” has reached a point where it no longer means what it used to mean and is now reduced to a sound bite peddled to easily handwave any genuine concerns against disinformation or harmful policymaking. Another word often used to discredit any dissent against propaganda is “woke.” “Woke” was an African-American slang that referred to awareness of systematic racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Now it’s used as a catch-all term by the propaganda breeding centers and think tanks to discredit anything that misaligns with the oppressive status quo. “Woke” now replaces “Commie” or “Gays” or “Jews” or “Blacks” or any name, race, or group that were used as a scapegoat to stoke hate. In the Philippines, this act is called “Red Tagging.” “Red Tagging” as a term reached the zeitgeist in 2016 at the height of the Duterte presidency and continues today with the Marcos Jr. administration. During Duterte’s drug war, “red tagged” individuals are often taken from their own homes or shot on sight by police officers without due process. The reason are always because those individuals were suspected drug lords, pushers, or users, who dare fought against the police. Often with fantastical stories of the individuals pulling out guns and shooting at officers, but the officers miraculously never getting hurt and landing a killing blow at the red tagged. As shown above, this isn’t a Filipino exclusive act. Many people across the globe are red tagged by their local media and government. People of Color in the United States continued to be red tagged by the media and the Government. This has led to the deaths of many People of Color, often through acts of police brutality such in the case of George Floyd. People in Palestine are given a blanket red tagging, where they are presented by the Israeli Government and media as religiously unclean, savages, and aligned with terrorists. Muslims in places like China and India are treated as a lesser caste than their fellow citizens. Red tagging is the tool of oppressors in an attempt to point the blame on one or more group of people, stoking the country’s fear of the “other,” and using it to justify oppressive policies which often disadvantages the entire country save for the ruling class.

In comic books, red tagging is used to attack those with literal power, such as mutants in the X-Men or superheroes during Absolute Power. However, in real life, victims of red tagging are often disenfranchised communities with no actual power to fight back. This act of tagging one group as the enemy propagates social division, which blinds people from the truth that, together, they stand stronger than any government. This is also why red tagging thrives in lack of education. By its very nature, red tagging is a form of disinformation, falsity disguised as the truth, and it only works if its targets are ignorant. Ignorance comes in many forms, often, the ignorant masses targeted by red tagging propaganda are those with their own already-formed biases against a certain group. This is why oppressive regimes target the People’s access to education and information to continue to breed hate. It’s why it’s a red flag when a government defunds, disrupt or outright dismantle its country’s department of education. It’s why it’s a red flag when a government shuts down its country’s major news network. It’s why it’s a red flag when the government clearly favors only one news network. It’s why it’s a red flag when government-owned social media accounts or media broadcasting company peddles disinformation. In the age of social media and generative artificial intelligence, it has become increasingly easier to peddle propaganda and disinformation. Far more dangerous is how social media has been found to have an addictive effect on users, and like Trinary said in X-Men: Red “a little hit of dopamine every time someone likes a post filled with intolerance.”

In our world, we don’t have the X-Men or the Justice League to save us. We only have each other. And each other is exactly the way to beat disinformation. It took the combined efforts of the Justice League to beat Waller, and it took telepathically implanted empathy for the X-Men to beat Nova. Disinformation, meant to peddle hate, may thrive in ignorance, but it dies in community, it dies in empathy, it dies in information. We, as people, need to stay informed, stay open, and be more accepting of one another. In these times that continue to propagate social division in order to hoard power in the very few, we need each other more and more.