Pride of Baghdad

Saddam Hussein: The Power is down Pride of Baghdad, drawn by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon, tells a story of group of lions escaping from the zoo after the U.S. army starts invading Baghdad. In order to show how cruel consequences that the war brings, the authors try to portray humans by drawing the lions, the bear, and other animals. Due to its gorgeous drawing style and its concise dialogues, the novel only has 100 pages but contains various meanings. In 2003, the Iraq war was triggered because of Hussein's violent suppression on the people, who have their own political views, but also his possession of the large amount of illegal weapons. The novel not only presents the consequence of dictatorship, but also satirizes the interference of U.S. army because the public opinion says that the reason of U.S. involving the war is impure since no evidence has been found to prove that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The main purpose of U.S. army invading is the oil resources in Iraq; however, by coincidence, Hussein is on the reign, which causes the U.S.’s excuse to invade. In this book, the authors stand at Bagdad’s civilians’ point of view to tell the story until they get shot by the U.S. army. More specifically, a fighting scene between the lions and the bear is not interpreted as the surface meaning but is created because the authors want to embody that even though the civilians overthrown the power of Hussein, the U.S. army is the one who eventually takes over their government power and causes the war. The lions and the bear both represent the civilians and Saddam Hussein. Towards almost the end of the story, referring to a specific page, a bear who shows up trying to block the lions’ way to freedom says “Don’t get up”(where the page’s background is the huge bear standing up with Noor and Safa looking up). The authors purposely creates a giant black bear when the story almost reaches the end to show the power that Hussein holds during the his