The libertarian stain.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Briefly Noted - Battling Boy - Brief article - Book review - Children's review

The most recent graphic novel from the much-lauded cartoonist Paul Pope is Battling Boy (First Second), a modern take on a youthful hero sent from an Asgard-like land of gods to protect a city from ghouls and monsters. The Comics journal, a leading organ of comics criticism, likes the book. But because Pope has produced explicitly libertarian-themed comics in the past, reviewer Charles Hatfield complains that Pope's "broadsides against corrupt authority" are "acrid," adding: "Pope's libertarian streak reveals itself, again."

The authority in Battling Boy isn't really corrupt so much as it is striving to...