For you see, today Marvel find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of the Tea Party movement in the United States, the conservative and libertarian protest movement that emerged in early 2009 partially in response to the federal government's stimulus package.
Much to Marvel's chagrin, their patriotic superhero, Captain America, — wrapped as he is in Stars & Stripes — apparently doesn't like the Tea Party movement. In a recent Marvel comic edition, Captain America and his sidekick, the Falcon, try to infiltrate the Watchdogs, a group that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Tea Party movement. In one frame, a protester holds up a sign that reads "Tea bag the liberals before they tea bag you"; a sign inspired by a real-life Tea Party protest.
In the comic book, the Watchdogs are portrayed as an anti-government, racist group.
With Marvel Entertainment gearing up to start production on The First Avenger: Captain America feature, the timing is probably less than ideal. Tea Party leaders are less than impressed with Marvel's inky intimation, and the publisher's eleventh hour promise to alter the protest signs depicted in that scene when it reprints the comic seem to be falling on deaf ears. Yesterday, Fox News reported the following about the story:
But the change may come too late to placate a chorus of critics who noticed the apparent jab at the Tea Party movement and who accused Marvel of making supervillains out of patriotic Americans.
Michael Johns, a board member of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, said he felt the "juvenile" dig will ultimately do more damage to Marvel's brand than to the Tea Party movement. He also disputed the insinuation that the growing movement lacks diversity.
"The Tea Party movement has been very reflective of broad concerns of all Americans," Johns said. "Membership is across ethnic, religious and even political lines."
Quick to soft pedal the PR blunder, Marvel said the comic storyline meant no offense and that 'dig' at the Tea Party was accidentally added late in the production process. Hoping to quell the damage, Quesada released the following statement:
The book was getting ready to go to the printer, it was on fire already from a deadline standpoint, but the editor on the book noticed that there was a small art correct that needed to get done. On the first page featuring the protestors, the artist on the book drew slogans into the protest signs to give them a sense of reality and to set up the scene. On the following page featuring the protestors again, there were signs, but nothing written in them. From a continuity standpoint, this omission stood out like a sore thumb, but was easily fixable. So, just before the book went to the printer, the editor asked the letterer on the book to just fudge in some quick signs. The letterer in his rush to get the book out of the door but wanting to keep the signs believable, looked on the net and started pulling slogans from actual signs…
Oh for the good old days when Marvel's titular character only had to worry about simple things, like taking on Nazis.
And speaking of takes, what's your take on all of this? PR blunder aside, did Marvel make an honest mistake; did the writers try to slip a little bit of "political agenda" into the mix…or does any of it really matter? After all, Captain America has got to be a registered voter, right? Which means he pretty much has to end up picking sides in the ballot box.
Perhaps we're just never supposed to know what side he picks. And perhaps that is the overriding point here. After all, superheroes and domestic politics have always made strange bedfellows.
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