What stands out to me is that the last time something like this hit the Marvel Universe was the Mutant Registration Act back in the 80s.
The Superhero Registration Act. The Mutant Registration Act. Both are concepts that tackle fear and what it means to be free. Both are ideas that gained prominence under long running Republican regimes.
“
Civil War” provides problems in spades. The story opens with a reckless fight between a novice group of heroes (filming a reality television show) and a cadre of villains. The battle becomes quite literally explosive, killing some of the superheroes and many innocent bystanders. That crystallizes a government movement to register all super-powered beings as living weapons of mass destruction. The subsequent Registration Act will divide the heroes into two camps, one led by Captain America, the other by Iron Man. Along the way, Marvel will unveil its version of Guantánamo Bay, enemy combatants, embedded reporters and more. The question at the heart of the series is a fundamental one: “
Would you give up your civil liberties to feel safer in the world?”
Comic books have a long history of reacting to or depicting the news. In 1940’s comics, Hitler and Nazi soldiers often battled Marvel’s Captain America and DC’s Superman and the Justice Society. More recently, superheroes have wrestled with poverty in Africa and reacted to losses on Sept. 11. A forthcoming graphic novel will pit Batman against an Al Qaeda threat.
As deeply entangled in current United States politics as the new Marvel series seem, “Civil War” and the accompanying “Front Line” series won’t be written by Americans. Mark Millar, a popular comics writer who is Scottish and lives in Glasgow is writing “Civil War”; Paul Jenkins, a British writer who lives in Atlanta and had a lengthy run on “Spider-Man,” is writing “Front Line.”
(via new york times)
Why didn’t comics of the 1950s reflect more of the political ideas of that time? In the 50s, comics were under attack by a silly man with an even sillier notion that comics, not video games mind you, were harmful to every child’s state of mind. Back then comics were the GTAs, the Medal of Honors, the Resident Evils of the world.
A rating system called the Comics Code Authority was created. This was a completely reactionary tactic by the comics publishers to stay in business. They would censor their own content. The MPAA of the literary world.
Many of their efforts only served to make some scenes even more suggestive. Check out some of Jim Steranko‘s turn on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for more on that.
Then in 1971 this happened:
Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Stan Lee was approached by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to do a comic book story about drug abuse. Lee agreed and wrote a Spider-Man story which portrayed drug use as dangerous and harmful. The CCA refused to approve the story because of the presence of narcotics, deeming the context of the story irrelevant. Lee, with the approval of his boss Martin Goodman, published the story anyway in Amazing Spider-Man #96, without CCA approval.
The story was well received and the CCA’s argument for denying its approval was criticized as counterproductive. So we go from Captain America shield slapping the Third Reich all to hell. We progress to ole Cap being censored. Now in today’s climate, even a comic universe is scrutinized, severely criticized, and sometimes reacted to violently.
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