The low point of the current stale output of Disney-owned "Marvel" comics came when a Brubaker issue of Captain America showed a crowd of tea party protesters, who, unlike the real tea party, were 100% white anglo-saxon protestants. And of course, ignorant extremists!
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, despite being much older than their then-fans, created a miracle with the original Marvel Comics continuity from 1961 to roughly 1974. There were many anti-war sentiments expressed, and Stever Gerber, who stands out as the greatest comicbook writer of the period in many respects, had his share of anti-war messages.
However, Gerber's pacificism tendencies were balanced by the need as he saw it to fight for principles- in his own life during his battle with Marvel, and in his fictional creations who not only had to undergo formulaic battles but also had some violent confrontations forced upon them.
All that subtelty is lost in modern Disney (and Warner for that matter) comics. The almost pornographic prurience of too much of their output in terms of plot and artwork is obscured by the sheer mastery of some of the art, but underlying Disney comics is a sour attitude. It is the attitude of the eternally-adolescent left winger, the college attendee (possibly graduate) who never matures, goes from spotty kid to overweight adult with no creative phase inbetween, and completes their education by entering the echo chamber of small L liberal behaviour. Never popular people, one might surmise, the crop of comic writers at Disney seem to be overcompensating to try and fit in with the perceived cool kids of the socialist media and political scene.
Hence all of those awful, awful Obama covers and stories. Cringe inducing stuff to any normal soul.
Jack Kirby's run on Captain America during the bicentennial is hallucinatory, absurd- and yet can not fail to be deeply true to the character. After all Kirby (and Simon) created the character. Captain America now is a shadow puppet, his once permanently dead kid sidekick returned from the dead for cheap and extremely clumsy storytelling- turns out he was a soviet agent then in hiding and... whatever.
Bringing back Bucky robbed Captain America of more of his historicity than any sliding time scale ever did. It invalidated the message of sacrifice, and it makes those early stories written by Lee a nonsense. This is the curse of the revolving door of death.
It also makes the living symbol of America at her most heroic in war a mockery.
Once again the movie will no doubt be far truer to the original in continuity stories from 1961-1974 than any amount of the current low-selling pamphlets ever will.
