The Four Color Media Monitor

Since the subject of Marvel's continued degradation of a Jewish-created icon (by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, of course) has come up in the past week, it would seem Multiversity Comics wrote a number of reviews of the parts comprising Robert Morales and Kyle Baker's loathsome 2003 miniseries, The Truth: Red, White & Black, where they seek to turn something even most liberals at the time didn't care for, and turn it into some kind of overlooked treasure for their cause today. Here's the first part, and what is the propaganda problem in this one:

After 18 years (or 80 years depending on how you look at it), Isaiah Bradley is finally a household name. He is finally getting the recognition he deserves in both our familiar world and the dimension given to whimsical flights of fancy known as Earth 616, where most of our favorite Marvel heroes reside. Beyond a few brief mentions in other series, Bradley (the brainchild of Robert Morales and Kyle Baker), never existed outside the 2003 miniseries “Truth: Red, White and Black.” That is until just a few months ago Bradley was resurrected from his banishment into obscurity by the creators of the immensely popular The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series on Disney+. And all I can say is, its about fricking time. Bradley became a super soldier after unethical experiments were performed on him and he, and his fellow black soldiers, paid dearly for it.

So that's why they're fawning over this atrocity for starters. Because the producers of the new TV wokefest drew elements from the nasty little miniseries. Let's be clear. It's one thing if you want to make use of the Bradley character, because a fictional figure is not to blame for the awful story he or she was put inside. But it's another entirely if you're going to base anything around the TV show on such an awful miniseries whose only real purpose was anti-American propaganda, all at the expense of Jack Kirby/Joe Simon's famous creation. Making it all look as though Steve Rogers' super-soldier formula was first tested on Black soldiers as lab guinea pigs, not on volunteer soldiers at the request of a scientist who was murdered by a spy, leaving Steve the only truly successful result, since the ingredients weren't written down for top secret reasons. It continues:

...Morales and Baker’s 2003 comic has never been more relevant and taps into the shameful legacy of abuse and dehumanization that darkens America’s self-proclaimed pristine, picture perfect history. It is a history largely written by white men who have no time for criticism, reflection, and critique. The comic has a certain realism due to the fact that it is inspired by real events. From 1932 until 1972 countless black men were given syphilis by government doctors and left to die as the doctors and scientists documented the disease. As a person dies from syphilis, they slowly are driven mad. Imagine dying and going mad and not knowing why? All the while, the very government you’re told to trust is to blame.

By any chance, would that be a Democrat-led government? These propagandists never seem to say whether they consider Franklin Roosevelt a scumbag for any wrongdoing on his record, so I'm not sure what the point is here. And do they believe what happened in the 1930s was consistently performed without interruption until 1972? Apparently, yes, and notice simultaneously how they seem to think everyone glosses over the USA's history altogether in every way. It's worth noting that, over a dozen years ago, the Huffington Post said this was all taken out of context, and exaggerated. Say, and do the aforementioned white men include Kirby/Simon? I guess so, because why else would they approve of denigrating their whole premise, which was meant for people to admire? Besides, by the late 60s, Cap's stories were focusing on race relations, yet somehow, even that's not enough for Multiversity's reprehensible contributor. Who goes on, stunningly enough, to justify the book's art style by Baker:

The art style is entirely unique to the superhero genre. It’s cool, jazz-like improvised wavy lines keep your toe tapping to the syncopated beats of dialogue, story, narration. It is flush with cartoony figures and backdrops. It’s raw, rough outlines and exaggerated proportions and features of the characters give it a surreal almost dreamlike effect. The colors are also exaggerated and innovative with characters like Bradley and Sargent Evans being a more traditional shade of brown but other characters like Maurice Canfield and his family being depicted in purple yam-like hues. This is a fascinating, and jarring way to depict the wide variety of shades of color represented in the Black community.

It's horrific how somebody buys into the premise so deeply, at the expense of famous figures' creations, that he's willing to dismiss/justify the stereotypical art in order to make his biased point. Say, and what's that about surreal? This from a writer who's spent time talking about what he believes is entirely true to real-life? Something is definitely out of place here, and the rest of the site's entries pretty much follow this narrative. And on that note, next comes another biased take on the second part:

The more cartoony art style induces a dreamlike hypnotic effect and tone but the exaggerated proportions of the faces and figures of the comic keep it grounded in comic relief. The character designs are not your typical uniform square jawed figure of classic superhero artists. [...]

Gee, I wonder why a subject promoted as serious is being touted as comic relief? Most mysterious. And doesn't get any better with this:

Even though this is set nearly 80 years ago at the beginning of World War II, it is still timely and applicable in today’s world. There is a reason some black people do not trust doctors or hospitals, even today. They have been the subject of terrible, unethical experiments and are less likely to be believed by their doctors than their white counterparts leading to a lot of misdiagnosis and malpractice. Even mental illnesses go undiagnosed because doctors tend to blame obvious mental illness on what they portray as “moral” defects.

Oh, for crying out loud. Seriously, not a single Black American trusts the AMA? This is getting awfully incomprehensible. There are prominent medical services out there who've been very effective in aiding African Americans on health subjects, and they make it sound like the entire country's got a negative position, coast to coast. And the defense of the crude artwork continues:

...The more cartoony aspects of the figures and the backgrounds give the book a sense of sincerity that might not have been drawn out so much by a more traditional superhero style. Overall, this issue is actually an improvement upon an already stellar book.

No doubt, the above was deliberate in the extreme. But about what one could expect from a site that's decidedly not very dedicated to the art form, let alone justice. It drones on in the third part:

...The art is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered, particularly in a superhero book. I am glad Marvel let the artists literally color outside the lines and tell an unconventional exciting and compelling story.

There is a weird David Lynch vibe for some of the characters, and I’m here for it. Some of the designs are so exaggerated and intricate they almost remind me of one of those caricature artists set up on the Santa Monica pier on a sunny Sunday afternoon, cigarette dangling from his mouth as he quickly tries to capture as many features as possible in the shortest time possible. But you can completely tell Baker and co. put an enormous amount of time into this comic. The caricature comparison is just a cursory glance, but upon further careful inspection, the art puts proper introspection in the mind of the reader. If the art was more “realistic,” it wouldn’t feel right. Something about the caricature-but-not-really-caricature style humanizes the victims of these heinous experiments and gives them each backstory context beyond just narrative storytelling, which you would think it would have the opposite effect. Sargent Lucas Evan’s sunken cheekbones and skinny elongated limbs points to the fact he’s lived a tough life, is fearless, and takes no shit from anybody; these are all features that make him a good leader.

If the subject is considered serious, why isn't the art more "realistic"? The columnist obviously doesn't recognize why such terrible character design does more to minimize the issue than draw serious attention to it. And then, the fourth part:

The injustices of blatant racism, white supremacy, and dehumanizing experimentation in the comic, all which have their own real life historical basis, make you wonder if the Allies really were that much better than the Nazi scourge we justly waged war against. The Nazis were worse, with their death camps and widespread extermination of the Jews, LGBTQ community and others. But we’re not off the hook either. The immoral plague of slavery isn’t that far off from 1942, or even 2021. And shortly after the war, the United States started project MK Ultra (also called Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke) which featured experiments on human subjects (many which were unwitting and unsuspecting black and brown prisoners) against their will. These experiments consisted of dosing unknowing subjects with mind altering drugs in an effort to master mind control and physically and even sexually abusing these poor people. But even in more recent times we have the grave injustices of the multifarious abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, committed by US soldiers who proudly took pictures of it. I applaud the work that Morales and Kyle are doing, using the fictional Marvel Universe to expose real, historical injustices. To paraphrase the great Neil Gaiman, fiction is truly the lie we use to tell the truth.

Well Gaiman's quite a biased leftist himself, so I can't put much value in his words, sorry. By the way, what proof does this propagandist have that LGBT people were as much victims of National Socialism as Jews were? Or, why do they see fit to specifically cite LGBTQ rather than Romani communities? In any case, it's shameful how the writer's gone out of his way to make sure the US is villified, and lecture the audience that the US is just plain, irredeemably evil. I notice there appears to be subtle pro-Islamic propaganda here, without consideration or research into what role Islam played in antisemitic persecution during WW2, including the mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. And we're supposed to take pity on terrorists kept at abu Ghraib? Of course, that's the far-left narrative for you. Here's the fifth part of the miniseries:

Robert Morales and Kyle Baker use shadow and silhouette to create a visual love letter to the many unsung heroes who fought for a country that didn’t even see their humanity. Bradley represents the countless heroes who didn’t have super strength and who didn’t get a cool patriotic costume. Bradley will never have a comic about his exploits, he will never have his own merchandise. Even in the fictional worlds of the Marvel Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have very little to say about even the fictional Bradley. Hopefully with the rising popularity of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Bradley will finally get the attention he deserves. In more ways than just visually this is a world of shadows, of silhouettes and it it is ultimately about the people who have been banished to the shadows, to the world of black and white.

It may be one thing to give Bradley merchandise, as though that were such a big deal. But it shouldn't be based on his starring role in this abomination whose only purpose, again, was draining Cap's comics of all meaning for the sake of a far-left agenda. And if ratings suggest, the TV show's losing audience after the wokefest that came in the premiere. Then comes the sixth part:

The art of Kyle Baker is well suited to the grotesque villains of this story. Private Phillip Merritt’s exaggerated lumpy features already render him in the 1940s as someone who is just as ugly outside as his racist ass is on the inside. But years later when Steve Rogers visits him in prison as part of his investigation, he is even more hunched and lumpy; he has become a grotesque sycophant who worships the white Captain America in a twisted, warped cult of white supremacy. He lauds the feats of white Steve Rogers while praising fascism and dehumanizing Cap’s Black counterparts.

It may be fine to draw the villains as grotesques, but why the heroes too? Such hypocrisy indeed, and this throughly obscures how the story setup is written as a metaphor for Capt. America fans, making it look, in the book's twisted vision, as though fans of Kirby/Simon's creation are racists and white supremacists. What, no Jews in the audience? Though many in such a community today couldn't care less, based on how far-left they are too.

One thing I have always liked about Steve Rogers is his willingness to sharply critique America’s many faults and hold her accountable. That is what true patriotism is. Not shying away from harshly criticizing your country or system. True patriots are highly critical, not blindly proud or unquestioning of their country. True patriots are willing to be uncomfortable and are proud of what their country can be, not complacently accepting of how things are.

But why are many leftists not willing to acknowledge their faults? Stressing the faults of the USA is okay, but not if you're only doing it to score brownie points with the virtue-signaling left-wingers, by making it sound and look as though it's impossible for the US to improve, and abandon what they believe is wrong with it. This too is more hypocrisy coming from somebody who doesn't sound like he approves of the USA, or specific ideas built upon. Besides, doesn't the real credit go to the writers in charge of Cap stories for writing in moments where he wants to be objective about the US?

Next up, here's another leftist apologia quagmire from the UK Independent, claiming conservatives are being "mocked" over the politicization of Cap, and they defend the storylines like so:

It’s a punchy and thought-provoking way for writer Christopher Cantwell to start the series but fundamentally remains true to the character in that Captain America represents what the United States could become, but not what it is. After all, in fiction, the character was first introduced as a propaganda tool for the US government during World War II and was even pictured punching Adolf Hitler on the cover of his first-ever comic. [...]

So they're claiming in addition that Cap's comics were nothing more than US government propaganda? Well, that figures they'd speak in such a manner. No clear mention of Kirby/Simon anywhere, as expected. But they sure do sound like they're pretending Steve Rogers is a real person, and that's decidedly unacceptable. As is the following defense:

None of those people have ever read a Captain America comic. pic.twitter.com/WvrD9rWY5O

— Krys10iam (@krys10iam) July 6, 2021

I'm not sure why somebody thinks a scene towards the end of What If? #44 counts as literal slam on the USA for what he considers the right reasons. That was an anthology presenting hypothetical viewpoints of alternate realities; it wasn't the main continuities per se. There's also this shoddy item at Raw Story, which says:

For those unaware, Captain America was created in the middle of World War II, just before America officially entered the war, as an instrument to help Americans in the fight against the Axis powers. He's been called a "patriotic supersoldier," his entire foundation is literally about fighting fascism and the far right, and his popularity over the decades has only increased.

Oh, so Cap as a fictional creation must be all about fighting what they describe as "far-right", but not far-left? All because these people believe Cap as a creation quite literally belongs to them, and only them alone, despite Simon being a conservative in his time. Do they even realize National Socialism was a left-wing ideology? Unmentioned are the times Cap fought communist villains in the Silver/Bronze Age, with one of the most notable villains being the Crimson Dynamo. They also say:

Marvel is literally just saying America has to be actively reinvented every day, and to do that we need and should want immigrants to share in our dream.

And also illegal immigrants, right? Oddly enough, if the writer paid attention or cared, he'd notice all the foreign children who made their way across the US borders now being kept in cages. Not exactly sharing the dream with them, huh?

Loftus says Captain America "has a huge impact" on children, calling the declaration that America is a land of immigrants "pretty insidious," while complaining the left doesn't "want the right to have any heroes."

They definitely don't want them to own any franchises, that's for sure. Nor do they want Jews to own their creations like Cap. Such a disgusting news site.

On the other hand, Chuck Dixon recently took issue with the majors in his podcasts, making a point about how they're only promoting reprehensible agendas now, and:

Dixon also decried the glut of superhero titles.

“There really isn’t anything else at the mainstream companies,” he continued. “It’s superheroes, superheroes, superheroes. And they’re all avatars for the writers’ political agenda. And they’re kind of tiresome. They’re not particularly well drawn. They’re not particularly well-realized.”

Dixon said he avoids getting pedantic in his comics.

“That’s why I never put politics in the comics because who wants to read my politics? You’re not reading a comic book to read about politics, you know. You’re reading it to escape.”

He's right that the failure to move beyond costumed superheroes and supervillains as the foremost focus is making a joke out of the entire US medium. In the Golden Age, there were some tales focusing on ordinary law enforcement-like protagonists, like Cliff Cornwall. There have even been western stars like Rawhide Kid and Jonah Hex. There were even romance tales, lest we forget. But those have almost entirely disappeared, with superheroes comprising a solid majority of what's turned out in the medium, and sometimes all you hear about in the MSM. Such bankruptcy is what brought down the medium as a whole over the decades, and The Truth: Red, White & Black was an outgrowth of that narrow marketing, as ideology began to destroy creativity, along with PC cowardice, recalling how, at the time, the Marvel Knights series with Cap became apologia for Islamic terrorism, another subject that's become taboo in today's industry.

I'm hugely disappointed with Multiversity for going miles out of their way to promote Marvel's revolting 2003 roach of a miniseries as though it were all some overlooked gemstone of the times, when it simply isn't. The way they do somersaults to justify their twisted logic is stunning, but hardly a surprise at this point. Seems some people are so desperate to make a point, no matter how illogical or poor, they'll go to very long lengths to put it across, no matter how farfetched it becomes in the end.

Labels: Captain America, islam and jihad, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism