17 thoughts on “Captain America”

  1. Captain America got his powers with US tax dollars, through that top-secret military project. Spiderman didn’t need a government subsidy for his powers. Tony Stark built the Iron Man suit using his own money. Batman doesn’t need any stinking powers. Superman was born with his (but there’s that testy issue about his birth certificate…) No more superhero socialism!

  2. I’m waiting for some Tea Party leader or maybe a hot, leggy, eye-glasses-wearing former governor who says “You betcha!” to be the murderer on either a LAW AND ORDER or a CSI; like the way CSI did a show where the villain was a character clearly modelled after John Mackey of Whole Foods (I think the character’s surname was even “Mackey,” in case you didn’t get the point), after he came out of the closet as a libertarian. It’s like Ellsworth Toohey is alive and well and making sure Big Media pushes the part line at every opportunity. And now Tooheyism has invaded comic books, too! What next? The little comics in Bazooka Joe bubble gum?
    “Bazooka Joe wouldn’t need his eyepatch if Congress passed ObamaCare and he could afford good eye surgery!”

  3. It’s probably a mistake to paint this as a result of some kind of across-the-board editorial policy at Marvel.

    Blame the writer of the book, and maybe his/her editor for letting it pass muster.

  4. The thing is, comic book people are by and large pretty rigidly left-wing. They’re terribly sexist, miserable man-children who don’t really understand capitalism. Remember the great comic-book investment bubble of the late Eighties and early Nineties? Remember how that blew out around ’93-’94? The guys who stuck around afterwards? Those are the chunks who still collect pamphlet comics and actually buy crap Marvel comics like Captain America. Sometimes I think the comic book Direct Market is sort of a standing-wave equivalent of the impossible Grateful Dead/Phish economy, in which the fans follow the band around the country, making their living by selling pot and memorabilia to other fans, who make their living by selling memorabilia and pot to other fans, who wholesale it right back to the first set of fans.

    The most leftist guy on my bloglist is the comic-book-shop-guy. He’ll probably love this one.

  5. “I don’t exactly see a black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry white folks…”

    I’ve always figured Olbermann’s audience to be mainly composed of Marvel comics readers.

  6. Supposedly, Marvel is transitioning to a more utopian “heroic age” in May. I guess The One is going to whup evil (at least of the mundane sort) and everyone will feel better or something.

  7. Ah, another reason why Batman rules. A rich Lawful Good engineer with a dex off the scale and more hit points than Attila the Hun.

  8. Mitch H. is correct, unfortunately, about the politics of most comic store sellers. On my last consulting contract, there were several comic book dealers who also sold fantasy miniatures(GW, Reaper, etc.) and every single one of them displayed posters for the One before the election. It was distinctly unpleasant going into these places to buy the figures, and have to walk thru what amounted to a gauntlet of political ads, and listen to the lame comments about our glorious leader to be.

    The level of discourse reminded me of the good old days when I had to listen to either moonies or LaRouche(sp?) cultists at the airports.

    It’s funny in one sense because most of the miniatures collectors and manufacturers are either libertarian or hard core conservative. The dealers are the odd ones out, which I suspect is a factor in the growth of online figure dealers.
    Yes, there are a few conservative comics out there, but Space Ghost was the last one that I’ve seen, and DC never published the promised sequel.

    BTW, as a long time collector of both fantasy and historical miniatures, and plastic models, I suspect that a new space display at a convention such as MFCA, Historicon or an IPMS show would be well received, especially if they coordinate with some of the manufacturers to offer a selection of kits.

  9. Actually, I was always a Marvel guy; I can’t get past Superman, as a product of the 1930’s, literally translating as ubermensch and the weird totalitarian overtones of that. I shrugged of Obama’s appearance in Marvel last year or during the campaign as a product of the times, but this appalled me.

  10. Let’s not throw Marvel under the bus just yet. I have a counter-example, although I can’t quote issue and page number. I picked up a Spiderman mag a few months ago on a trip to the library. First one I’ve read in decades. I was very amused to come across what I interpreted as conservative-leaning humor in one of Spidey’s thought balloons. He was wondering how the bad guys could have managed to build such an impressive underground military-base / science lab / launch center while the city can’t even fix a (I forget the exact example, but something like the sewer system.) Then it him — the bad guys must use non-union labor. I laughed out loud. Not exactly a pro-lib point of view, is it?

  11. The only people that don’t make jokes about union labor are union laborers themselves and member of their immediate family. I would expect your friendly neighborhood wise-cracking webslinger would have quite the repertoire on this topic alone…

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