Give Me Liberty
Encyclopedia
Give Me Liberty is a four-issue comic book
mini-series
published by Dark Horse Comics
in 1990. It was created and written by Frank Miller
and drawn by Dave Gibbons
. The title of the series comes from a famous quotation by Patrick Henry
: "I know not what course others may take but — as for me — give me liberty or give me death."
two creator-owned (the other was Hard Boiled
) titles he took to Dark Horse after deciding to stop working for DC Comics
after a dispute over a proposed ratings system.
The story is set in a dystopian near-future where the United States have split into several extremist factions, and tells the story of Martha Washington
, a young American girl from a public housing project called "The Green" (see Chicago's Cabrini–Green). The series starts with Martha's birth and sees her slowly grow up from someone struggling to break free of the public housing project, to being a war hero and major figure in deciding the fate of the United States.
The series was a mix of Miller's
typical action sequences as well as being a political satire
of the United States and its major corporations. The series proved to be a huge success for Dark Horse and was one of the biggest selling independent comics of the time. A trade paperback was later released and Miller followed up Give Me Liberty with several sequels continuing the story. All of these sequels were drawn by Dave Gibbons and published by Dark Horse.
The titles of the original four issues of Give Me Liberty were:
and that same year, Martha’s father is killed while protesting the urban housing situation thousands of Chicago African-Americans have been forced into: Cabrini–Green, one of Chicago’s poorest and most crime-ridden housing projects, has been enclosed in a giant structure, effectively turning it into a prison.
Martha grows up with her mother and two brothers in abject poverty brought on by the economic policies of the Rexall presidency. Martha is an average student who displays a gift for computer programming
(and hacking). Her tests largely consist of questions about President Rexall, one of which reveals that Rexall was effective in repealing the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing him to serve more than two terms
as president.
Her teacher, Donald, encourages her to be a better student and, because he lives outside the Green, brings her contraband
items, such as a sandwich. One night Martha shows up at Donald’s classroom and finds that he’s been murdered by the Ice Man, a large thug who works for a local gangster, the Pope. Donald has stabbed the Ice Man in the wrist. While he is distracted with the knife in his arm, Martha seizes his weapon, a longshoreman’s hook
, and plunges it into his shoulder. He chases her through the school to a locker room, but bleeds to death before he can kill her. Martha is remanded to a psychiatric hospital
.
In the institution living conditions are substandard. Martha discovers that experiments are being secretly performed on children to genetically
alter their minds, effectively turning them into human computers. Their heads are covered with wires plugged into their brains. Martha believes one of them resembles the Raggedy Ann
doll she played with as a child.
A single page from a news periodical, Thisweek, informs us of several intervening events. A U.S. satellite laser cannon has caused serious damage to oil fields in the Saudi Arabian desert, dissolving already strained relations between the U.S. and that country; Rexall’s presidency is wracked by scandal and his economic policies of the previous 13 years are widely unpopular; U.S. government relations with Native Americans
of the southwest are also strained; and national budget cuts have forced the closing of prisons and mental institutions, including Martha’s, who is left homeless on the streets of Chicago. Medical workers dispatched to round up the patients try to subdue Martha but she fights them, killing one and taking his wallet. She is able to steal money from an ATM
using his account card.
In May, 2009, Rexall is critically injured when the White House
is bombed by Saudi Arabian terrorists, and lies coma
tose, unable to continue his term. Nearly every successor in the hierarchy to the presidency
is also killed in the attack, leaving only the liberal
Secretary of Agriculture
, Democrat
Howard Nissen, alive to take the post of president. Nissen proves to be an effective leader: among other actions, he ends years of scattered global wars being fought by the PAX Peace Force (the new U.S. Army founded by Rexall) and sends the troops to South America to fight the destruction of the rainforest
s by renegade cattle industrialists (beef having been declared a health hazard and made illegal.) Martha decides to join PAX and is sent to fight in this war. She experiences the horrors of combat, in particular chemical weapons used by the enemy (one such chemical gets into her hair, permanently turning it blonde). She also discovers a plot by her commanding officer, Lieutenant Moretti, to destroy large patches of the rainforest for the enemy. He shoots her and leaves her for dead. Martha survives, stalks Moretti’s unit and kills all of them but Moretti, whom she severely wounds. While both recover in a hospital, Moretti blackmails Martha into becoming his unwitting servant.
In 2011, Martha is charged with a mission to stop the terrorist group Aryan
Thrust (a white supremacist organization of gay men) from destroying the White House with a huge orbiting laser cannon stationed in Earth’s outer atmosphere. Martha kills all the men in the control room using her PAX-issue sabre (eschewing the use firearms due to the danger of puncturing the station's outer hull), but not before the leader is able to voice the command to fire the pre-targeted cannon, which begins a short countdown. Several Aryan Thrust soldiers fire at Martha with machine guns, ripping a large hole in the outer hull, causing a chain reaction that will destroy the station in minutes. Martha races to the central computer room and finds the same wired child she’d seen in the mental institution. Martha convinces her to stop the firing sequence, and they both escape in Martha's shuttle before the station explodes.
Martha’s shuttle is damaged in the explosion and crash lands in the desert southwest, within the territorial boundary of the Apache
Nation, a sovereign nation that is hostile to the U.S. government. A few years before, the Apaches had seized control of a large oil refinery within their territory; in a surprising domestic policy move, Nissen offered ownership of the refinery to the Apaches as a gesture of good will. However, health conditions at the refinery are poor; the air is toxic and many natives are stricken with skin and lung ailments. Martha and her child companion, known as Raggy Ann (due to her resemblance to a Raggedy Ann
doll), are taken as captives. Martha forms a tense friendship with one of the Apaches, Wasserstein; he tells her that the Apaches are hostile mainly because of the poor treatment they’ve received in recent years as well as throughout America’s history.
Meanwhile, Colonel Moretti has been working behind the scenes as a treacherous adviser to the President. Nissen has also become an alcoholic, perhaps because of the state of the Apache people and his separation from his own wife (who plans to run against him for the White House) but mostly due to Moretti’s influence. In a drunken rage he murders his Vice President and signs an official document without reading it. The document, drafted by Moretti himself, orders the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
to use the space laser cannon to incinerate the Apache Nation. The attack will also kill Martha, a plan Moretti has been working toward for years.
fire because Raggy Ann is telepathic
and voices Moretti’s thoughts. She steals a Jeep
and heads out into the desert; Wasserstein catches up to her vehicle and tries to stop her escape. At that moment, the laser cannon fires and destroys the refinery and the Apache territory. Martha looks directly at the blast and is blinded
.
She is captured by the Surgeon General’s army. The Surgeon General
, who hides behind a surgical mask and appears mentally insane, is a separatist with his own territory in the Pacific Northwest
. He is also a religious fanatic who opposes pornography
, rock music
, birth control
, and especially unclean environmental conditions. He uses a technique based on music to brainwash
Martha and transform her into a perfect soldier. He also replaces her blinded eyes and renames her "Margaret Snowden."
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Lucius Spank, checks into a hotel room. Moretti, hiding in the closet, lunges at the man and shoots him in the head. He places an official document in Spank’s hand and the gun in the other hand, making it appear the general committed suicide. The document is the same one the president signed after killing his Vice President. The letter quickly makes the news and is devastating to Nissen’s administration. He calls a White House meeting of his closest advisers and tells them that the only solution to his failing presidency is declaring another war. As he stumbles over the logic of such a policy he is stabbed to death, the first blow being delivered by Moretti himself, then by the new vice president and the remainder of his Cabinet
. Moretti leaves the room and locks the doors, preventing the escape of the conspirators. As he starts to leave the grounds of the White House in a limousine, the building explodes behind him killing everyone inside. Moretti’s limo is flipped over but he is only mildly injured. Moretti declares himself interim leader of the nation until elections can be properly organized. Moretti orders the destruction of the Surgeon General's stronghold, Fortress Health, by laser cannon. The Surgeon General counters with his own plan to launch hundreds of nuclear missiles at the cannon. He also reveals that he possesses President Rexall’s brain, for which he will clone
a new body and reinstate as president.
Wasserstein, the only survivor of the destruction of the Apache Nation, has formulated a plan to infiltrate Fortress Health and rescue Martha. Raggy Ann joins him, her telepathic abilities a useful asset. “Margaret” is dispatched to deal with the intruder. She encounters Wasserstein at a computer bank and shoots him. She turns him and Raggy Ann over to Fortress Health authorities. Moments before, Raggy Ann had “uploaded” the memories that Martha lost during her brainwashing. She walks outside to the grounds of the fortress just as the Surgeon General orders the launch of his missiles.
. Moretti's attempts to negotiate with these factions
fail rapidly and his obsessive pre-occupation with the Surgeon General is heavily criticized by his military advisers.
Martha reports to the Surgeon General’s command center and he updates her on the situation. If the fortress is attacked, she will take Rexall’s brain, housed in small, mobile container, and evacuate the area with it. Martha unexpectedly shoots the Surgeon General several times, revealing that he is actually a sophisticated robot. At the same time, Wasserstein, still alive, escapes confinement with Raggy Ann. They find the control room and Martha has Raggy Ann detonate one of the missiles, destroying them all. The cannon and its command crew are safe.
Moretti sends all air forces to bomb Fortress Health. Martha takes Wasserstein, Raggy Ann, Rexall’s encased brain, and Rexall’s wife and escapes the bombing in a plane, with the still-functioning Surgeon General clinging to the plane’s exterior. Moretti is informed by his troops that Fortress Health has fallen but there is no sign of Martha or Rexall. Martha’s plane streaks away, pursued by Moretti himself. Moretti’s pilot fires missiles at Martha’s jet, but they hit the Surgeon General instead after he is blasted off the plane by the shotgun-wielding Martha.
Martha and her weary fugitive group fly south to the Brazilian rainforest
. They will be safe there since an executive order from the Nissen administration protects it from destruction by orbiting laser cannons. Moretti gathers a PAX unit of former criminals, some of whom have personal grudges with Martha. They hunt the fugitives in the rainforest. Martha and Wasserstein fight together using a box of surgical tools they find on the plane, killing nearly all of Moretti's unit. Moretti finds Rexall’s brain with his wife, whom he brutally murders. Martha finds Moretti and they engage in hand-to-hand combat. She overpowers and arrests him.
The story closes in the year 2012. Rexall has been given a new robotic body and is easily voted back into office in a special election. Moretti stands trial for murder
and treason
and is sentenced to death by firing squad. Martha visits him the day he is to be executed and they talk for a while. Martha gives him her belt and he hangs himself from a pipe in his cell.
There is an additional Martha Washington story "Logistics", which was published exclusively as part of a comic distributed with the Martha Washington action figure
.
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
mini-series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
published by Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
in 1990. It was created and written by Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
and drawn by Dave Gibbons
Dave Gibbons
Dave Gibbons is an English comic book artist, writer and sometime letterer. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, which include the miniseries Watchmen and the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything"...
. The title of the series comes from a famous quotation by Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry was an orator and politician who led the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779 and subsequently, from 1784 to 1786...
: "I know not what course others may take but — as for me — give me liberty or give me death."
Overview
Give Me Liberty was one of Frank Miller'sFrank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
two creator-owned (the other was Hard Boiled
Hard Boiled (comic)
Hard Boiled is a three-issue comic book mini-series written by Frank Miller and drawn by Geof Darrow. Its first issue was published by Dark Horse Comics in 1990...
) titles he took to Dark Horse after deciding to stop working for DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
after a dispute over a proposed ratings system.
The story is set in a dystopian near-future where the United States have split into several extremist factions, and tells the story of Martha Washington
Martha Washington (comics)
Martha Washington is a fictional character created by Frank Miller, first appearing in the four-issue comic book series Give Me Liberty, published in 1990 by Dark Horse Comics.-Fictional character biography:...
, a young American girl from a public housing project called "The Green" (see Chicago's Cabrini–Green). The series starts with Martha's birth and sees her slowly grow up from someone struggling to break free of the public housing project, to being a war hero and major figure in deciding the fate of the United States.
The series was a mix of Miller's
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
typical action sequences as well as being a political satire
Political satire
Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...
of the United States and its major corporations. The series proved to be a huge success for Dark Horse and was one of the biggest selling independent comics of the time. A trade paperback was later released and Miller followed up Give Me Liberty with several sequels continuing the story. All of these sequels were drawn by Dave Gibbons and published by Dark Horse.
The titles of the original four issues of Give Me Liberty were:
- Homes & Gardens
- Travel & Entertainment
- Health & Welfare
- Death & Taxes
Part 1: Homes & Gardens
In 1995 the story’s protagonist, Martha Washington, is born in a Chicago hospital. In 1996, Erwin Rexall is elected President of the United StatesPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and that same year, Martha’s father is killed while protesting the urban housing situation thousands of Chicago African-Americans have been forced into: Cabrini–Green, one of Chicago’s poorest and most crime-ridden housing projects, has been enclosed in a giant structure, effectively turning it into a prison.
Martha grows up with her mother and two brothers in abject poverty brought on by the economic policies of the Rexall presidency. Martha is an average student who displays a gift for computer programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
(and hacking). Her tests largely consist of questions about President Rexall, one of which reveals that Rexall was effective in repealing the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing him to serve more than two terms
Term limit
A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method to curb the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...
as president.
Her teacher, Donald, encourages her to be a better student and, because he lives outside the Green, brings her contraband
Contraband
The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold....
items, such as a sandwich. One night Martha shows up at Donald’s classroom and finds that he’s been murdered by the Ice Man, a large thug who works for a local gangster, the Pope. Donald has stabbed the Ice Man in the wrist. While he is distracted with the knife in his arm, Martha seizes his weapon, a longshoreman’s hook
Longshoreman’s hook
A Longshoreman's hook, also known as a box hook, cargo hook, loading hook, or docker's hook is a tool historically used by longshoremen . The tool consists of a round wooden handle with a strong metal hook about 8" long projecting at a right angle from the center of the handle...
, and plunges it into his shoulder. He chases her through the school to a locker room, but bleeds to death before he can kill her. Martha is remanded to a psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
.
In the institution living conditions are substandard. Martha discovers that experiments are being secretly performed on children to genetically
Human genetic engineering
Human genetic engineering is the alteration of an individual's genotype with the aim of choosing the phenotype of a newborn or changing the existing phenotype of a child or adult....
alter their minds, effectively turning them into human computers. Their heads are covered with wires plugged into their brains. Martha believes one of them resembles the Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann is a fictional character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and has a triangle nose...
doll she played with as a child.
A single page from a news periodical, Thisweek, informs us of several intervening events. A U.S. satellite laser cannon has caused serious damage to oil fields in the Saudi Arabian desert, dissolving already strained relations between the U.S. and that country; Rexall’s presidency is wracked by scandal and his economic policies of the previous 13 years are widely unpopular; U.S. government relations with Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
of the southwest are also strained; and national budget cuts have forced the closing of prisons and mental institutions, including Martha’s, who is left homeless on the streets of Chicago. Medical workers dispatched to round up the patients try to subdue Martha but she fights them, killing one and taking his wallet. She is able to steal money from an ATM
Automated teller machine
An automated teller machine or automatic teller machine, also known as a Cashpoint , cash machine or sometimes a hole in the wall in British English, is a computerised telecommunications device that provides the clients of a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a public...
using his account card.
In May, 2009, Rexall is critically injured when the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
is bombed by Saudi Arabian terrorists, and lies coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
tose, unable to continue his term. Nearly every successor in the hierarchy to the presidency
United States presidential line of succession
The United States presidential line of succession defines who may become or act as President of the United States upon the incapacity, death, resignation, or removal from office of a sitting president or a president-elect.- Current order :This is a list of the current presidential line of...
is also killed in the attack, leaving only the liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
, Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Howard Nissen, alive to take the post of president. Nissen proves to be an effective leader: among other actions, he ends years of scattered global wars being fought by the PAX Peace Force (the new U.S. Army founded by Rexall) and sends the troops to South America to fight the destruction of the rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
s by renegade cattle industrialists (beef having been declared a health hazard and made illegal.) Martha decides to join PAX and is sent to fight in this war. She experiences the horrors of combat, in particular chemical weapons used by the enemy (one such chemical gets into her hair, permanently turning it blonde). She also discovers a plot by her commanding officer, Lieutenant Moretti, to destroy large patches of the rainforest for the enemy. He shoots her and leaves her for dead. Martha survives, stalks Moretti’s unit and kills all of them but Moretti, whom she severely wounds. While both recover in a hospital, Moretti blackmails Martha into becoming his unwitting servant.
Part 2: Travel & Entertainment
Martha becomes a war hero, helping PAX win several decisive battles. Her actions also benefit Moretti, who takes nearly all the credit for Martha’s heroics. The war finally ends with PAX victorious. During a ceremony where she is decorated for bravery in combat (and Moretti is promoted to colonel), Martha talks to President Nissen and tells him about Cabrini–Green and its horrid squalor. Nissen promises to destroy the enclosing structure, sending PAX to aid in the effort. Martha is reunited with her mother.In 2011, Martha is charged with a mission to stop the terrorist group Aryan
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
Thrust (a white supremacist organization of gay men) from destroying the White House with a huge orbiting laser cannon stationed in Earth’s outer atmosphere. Martha kills all the men in the control room using her PAX-issue sabre (eschewing the use firearms due to the danger of puncturing the station's outer hull), but not before the leader is able to voice the command to fire the pre-targeted cannon, which begins a short countdown. Several Aryan Thrust soldiers fire at Martha with machine guns, ripping a large hole in the outer hull, causing a chain reaction that will destroy the station in minutes. Martha races to the central computer room and finds the same wired child she’d seen in the mental institution. Martha convinces her to stop the firing sequence, and they both escape in Martha's shuttle before the station explodes.
Martha’s shuttle is damaged in the explosion and crash lands in the desert southwest, within the territorial boundary of the Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
Nation, a sovereign nation that is hostile to the U.S. government. A few years before, the Apaches had seized control of a large oil refinery within their territory; in a surprising domestic policy move, Nissen offered ownership of the refinery to the Apaches as a gesture of good will. However, health conditions at the refinery are poor; the air is toxic and many natives are stricken with skin and lung ailments. Martha and her child companion, known as Raggy Ann (due to her resemblance to a Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann is a fictional character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and has a triangle nose...
doll), are taken as captives. Martha forms a tense friendship with one of the Apaches, Wasserstein; he tells her that the Apaches are hostile mainly because of the poor treatment they’ve received in recent years as well as throughout America’s history.
Meanwhile, Colonel Moretti has been working behind the scenes as a treacherous adviser to the President. Nissen has also become an alcoholic, perhaps because of the state of the Apache people and his separation from his own wife (who plans to run against him for the White House) but mostly due to Moretti’s influence. In a drunken rage he murders his Vice President and signs an official document without reading it. The document, drafted by Moretti himself, orders the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, and is the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Defense...
to use the space laser cannon to incinerate the Apache Nation. The attack will also kill Martha, a plan Moretti has been working toward for years.
Part 3: Health & Welfare
Martha attempts a daring escape from the Apache Nation. She has first hand knowledge of Moretti’s plan to destroy the region with laserLaser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
fire because Raggy Ann is telepathic
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
and voices Moretti’s thoughts. She steals a Jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...
and heads out into the desert; Wasserstein catches up to her vehicle and tries to stop her escape. At that moment, the laser cannon fires and destroys the refinery and the Apache territory. Martha looks directly at the blast and is blinded
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
.
She is captured by the Surgeon General’s army. The Surgeon General
Surgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
, who hides behind a surgical mask and appears mentally insane, is a separatist with his own territory in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
. He is also a religious fanatic who opposes pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
, and especially unclean environmental conditions. He uses a technique based on music to brainwash
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
Martha and transform her into a perfect soldier. He also replaces her blinded eyes and renames her "Margaret Snowden."
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Lucius Spank, checks into a hotel room. Moretti, hiding in the closet, lunges at the man and shoots him in the head. He places an official document in Spank’s hand and the gun in the other hand, making it appear the general committed suicide. The document is the same one the president signed after killing his Vice President. The letter quickly makes the news and is devastating to Nissen’s administration. He calls a White House meeting of his closest advisers and tells them that the only solution to his failing presidency is declaring another war. As he stumbles over the logic of such a policy he is stabbed to death, the first blow being delivered by Moretti himself, then by the new vice president and the remainder of his Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
. Moretti leaves the room and locks the doors, preventing the escape of the conspirators. As he starts to leave the grounds of the White House in a limousine, the building explodes behind him killing everyone inside. Moretti’s limo is flipped over but he is only mildly injured. Moretti declares himself interim leader of the nation until elections can be properly organized. Moretti orders the destruction of the Surgeon General's stronghold, Fortress Health, by laser cannon. The Surgeon General counters with his own plan to launch hundreds of nuclear missiles at the cannon. He also reveals that he possesses President Rexall’s brain, for which he will clone
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
a new body and reinstate as president.
Wasserstein, the only survivor of the destruction of the Apache Nation, has formulated a plan to infiltrate Fortress Health and rescue Martha. Raggy Ann joins him, her telepathic abilities a useful asset. “Margaret” is dispatched to deal with the intruder. She encounters Wasserstein at a computer bank and shoots him. She turns him and Raggy Ann over to Fortress Health authorities. Moments before, Raggy Ann had “uploaded” the memories that Martha lost during her brainwashing. She walks outside to the grounds of the fortress just as the Surgeon General orders the launch of his missiles.
Part 4: Death & Taxes
Moretti assumes command of all of America’s military forces and is sequestered aboard a huge plane that he uses as a mobile command center. However, Moretti lacks the experience of a true national leader and the splintering of the United States grows worse as areas like Brooklyn, Manhattan, Florida and Texas declare independence and seem poised on the brink of civil warCivil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
. Moretti's attempts to negotiate with these factions
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
fail rapidly and his obsessive pre-occupation with the Surgeon General is heavily criticized by his military advisers.
Martha reports to the Surgeon General’s command center and he updates her on the situation. If the fortress is attacked, she will take Rexall’s brain, housed in small, mobile container, and evacuate the area with it. Martha unexpectedly shoots the Surgeon General several times, revealing that he is actually a sophisticated robot. At the same time, Wasserstein, still alive, escapes confinement with Raggy Ann. They find the control room and Martha has Raggy Ann detonate one of the missiles, destroying them all. The cannon and its command crew are safe.
Moretti sends all air forces to bomb Fortress Health. Martha takes Wasserstein, Raggy Ann, Rexall’s encased brain, and Rexall’s wife and escapes the bombing in a plane, with the still-functioning Surgeon General clinging to the plane’s exterior. Moretti is informed by his troops that Fortress Health has fallen but there is no sign of Martha or Rexall. Martha’s plane streaks away, pursued by Moretti himself. Moretti’s pilot fires missiles at Martha’s jet, but they hit the Surgeon General instead after he is blasted off the plane by the shotgun-wielding Martha.
Martha and her weary fugitive group fly south to the Brazilian rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
. They will be safe there since an executive order from the Nissen administration protects it from destruction by orbiting laser cannons. Moretti gathers a PAX unit of former criminals, some of whom have personal grudges with Martha. They hunt the fugitives in the rainforest. Martha and Wasserstein fight together using a box of surgical tools they find on the plane, killing nearly all of Moretti's unit. Moretti finds Rexall’s brain with his wife, whom he brutally murders. Martha finds Moretti and they engage in hand-to-hand combat. She overpowers and arrests him.
The story closes in the year 2012. Rexall has been given a new robotic body and is easily voted back into office in a special election. Moretti stands trial for murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and is sentenced to death by firing squad. Martha visits him the day he is to be executed and they talk for a while. Martha gives him her belt and he hangs himself from a pipe in his cell.
Sequels
Give Me Liberty was followed by:- the five-issue series Martha Washington Goes to War in 1994, which was closely based on Ayn RandAyn RandAyn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
's Atlas ShruggedAtlas ShruggedAtlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...
. In this series, Rexall's increasingly corrupt government is subverted by the Surgeon General, who attempts a coup. Meanwhile, Martha is on the trail of the "Ghosts", a seditionist faction with an artificially-intelligent supercomputer. Joining up with the seditionists, Martha is instrumental in bringing down the corrupt government. - the one-shot issue Happy Birthday Martha Washington in March 1995, featuring:
- "Collateral Damage", originally published in black and white under the title Martha Washington’s War Diary in the Dark Horse PresentsDark Horse PresentsDark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
Fifth Anniversary Special (1991) - "State of the Art", originally published in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (1993)
- "Insubordination"
- "Collateral Damage", originally published in black and white under the title Martha Washington’s War Diary in the Dark Horse Presents
- the one-shot issue Martha Washington Stranded in Space in November 1995, featuring:
- "Crossover", guest-starring The Big GuyBig Guy and Rusty the Boy RobotThe Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot is a 1995 comic book written by Frank Miller, drawn by Geof Darrow and published by Dark Horse Comics...
. Martha investigates a space anomaly that temporarily sends her to Big Guy's reality. - "Attack of the Flesh Eating Monsters", originally published in black and white in Dark Horse Presents #100-4. Martha fights off an attack by monsters conforming to 1950s pulp-SF stereotypes; she discovers that this is merely a psychological study conducted by the world-controlling AI.
- "Crossover", guest-starring The Big Guy
- the three-issue series Martha Washington Saves the World in 1997. An actual alien spaceship arrives, and Martha uses its superior technology to defeat the megalomaniacal AI.
- the one-shot issue Martha Washington Dies in 2007
There is an additional Martha Washington story "Logistics", which was published exclusively as part of a comic distributed with the Martha Washington action figure
Action figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...
.