Uncle Sam (Vertigo) - Story

Story

The story centers around Sam, an obviously distressed homeless man, who wanders the streets of an unnamed city speaking mostly in odd quotes and sound bites. As he wanders, he has disturbing visions of events of injustice in American history (dealing with Indian Wars, slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and others). Throughout his wanderings, he occasionally encounters a woman named Bea, and has conversations with Britannia. Eventually, Sam has a profoundly disillusioning vision of him participating in the bloody crushing of Shays' Rebellion.

Eventually, he comes to the remains of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, where he sees Bea once more, now recognizing her as Columbia. She helps Sam gain a more nuanced perspective of his visions of America's negative moments of its history, such as how Shay's Rebellion prompted the writing of the Constitution of the United States to help create a more stable government. He has further encounters with Britannia, Marianne and the Russian Bear, before he confronts a dark, corrupt, overtly capitalist shadow version of himself. He eventually defeats this figure by accepting all its blows, recognizing and accepting his mistakes, and learning from them.

Towards the end of the tale he thinks to himself: "It's a strange and frightening thing — to see yourself at your worst."

In the end we see him again as a homeless man, but instead of wildly hallucinating, he's now chipper and optimistic with his traditional hat, ready to face the future.