Beijing Boom and Warren Ellis

Recently I worked on a new G.I. Joe series written by one of my favorite scribes and futurist visionaries Warren Ellis. During a conference call with Hasbro, some execs informed Warren that the scene in which he vaporized Beijing should be excised from the storyline (he details the scenario here in his blog) and the exchange went something like according to aforementioned blog:

HASBRO: No, Warren, you cannot wipe Beijing from the face of the earth.

WARREN: Shit. (pause) What about Moscow?

HASBRO: Wiping Moscow from the face of the earth would be fine.

The logic was that Beijing was host to the Olympics this year, so best not to vaporize it. Fair enough? Maybe...except that Beijing could use a fictional catastrophe to set them straight after taking actions like this:

Beijing police have been visiting bar owners in the popular Sanlitun area and asking them to sign pledges agreeing to not serve black people or Mongolians and ban activities including dancing. [The Age]

If oppressing Tibet wasn't bad enough, may as well throw a few other peoples under the old boot heel, eh? This action is actually in preparation for the Olympics. I didn't realize Beijing was trapped in the 5th Century...makes you wonder how they produce so much computer hardware. The Minister of Culture (Orwell anyone?) was also infuriated with Bjork after she cried for Tibetian freedom after a concert in China.

Ellis once again proved his ahead of the curve as this tip-of-the-iceberg move by Beijing's Brother Eye would probably have made the city's animated destruction a popular YouTube clip.