The Four Color Media Monitor

Ashland Tidings spoke about a Zoom conference held by a professor at the south Oregon university, which was attended by a IDW co-founder, Ted Adams, who had the following to say about how Captain America was created during the 2nd World War:

Recently, the class also got a taste of the medium’s business side. Ted Adams, an SOU alumnus and co-founder of IDW Comics, which prints titles that include “Transformers” and popular horror series such as “30 Days of Night” and “Locke & Key,” joined the class for a Zoom chat March 2. Adams also spoke about the longtime relationship between comics and politics, using the example of a famous Captain America issue cover that shows the Marvel hero punching Adolf Hitler. The first book to ever feature the hero, it was published months before the U.S. entered World War II.

“The idea that a comic book publisher would take this fairly strong political stance and have his character be launched by punching Hitler it’s not what we think of today as such a sure thing,” Adams said. “Really, from the very beginning, (comics and politics) have intersected.”

He continued with additional early examples of other popular superheroes depicted in ads for war bonds. Adams also touched on racist stereotypes depicted in some early issues and the lesser-known genre of comics that were explicitly anti-war stories.

I've thought about this, and have to ask: is taking a stand against a tyrant, real or fictional, truly political? Notice how Adams doesn't actually say "against a fascist figure"; that's also pretty fishy, considering there's only so many leftists out there who'd gladly apply the term to Donald Trump. When leftists defend mixing politics with entertainment today, it's usually to favor their positions, not those of right-wingers.

But when Adams says it's "not a sure thing" to have a hero launched by depicting him punching a real life villain figure that sick in the jaw, there's a point to that - by today's standards, the left doesn't want to depict heroes like Cap punching jihadist figures like Osama bin Laden, Yasir Arafat, Ruhollah Khomeini, all because, in contrast to past generations who confronted National Socialism, they don't have the courage to confront serious issues like Islam, and as this item about Conan O'Brien's response to the Paris bloodbath in 2015 shows, the atmosphere has become tragically different in how we respond to such issues, along with censorship problems, in just a few years. One of the main problems today is PC "business decisions" driving the marketing, not to mention "cultural sensitivity" based on Orwellian viewpoints. That's but one of the reasons why something so bold in its time as Kirby/Simon's premiere cover for Capt. America Comics is almost entirely impossible to find practiced in modern comicdom today, an era where stories about battling Islamic terrorism are almost entirely banned, along with any critical view of the Religion of Peace.

And then, when the article references anti-war stories, one can only wonder where Adams stands on that? It all depends largely on what the war is about, the ideologies held by the sides, and whether the war itself is just or not. Alas, I've got a feeling Adams' stance is one of the most extreme left-wing forms, and no less could be expected. That aside, I'm wondering what his take on racial stereotypes could be? If he thinks it was inherently wrong to depict German and Japanese fascists in damning portraits, despite how this would be a basic reaction to those forcing totalitarian, barbaric ideologies upon the world, then he's really missing the boat. Any political correctness Adams may have condoned in his Zoom conference will not be for the better. Including his whole idea politics was the driving force behind much of early comicdom in the Golden Age.

Labels: Captain America, history, indie publishers, islam and jihad, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism