What Can Superhero Comics Teach Us About Fascism?

Page from Steve Rogers: Captain America #1 (July 2016)

Source: Marvel Comics

Comics fandom was shocked in 2016 when Captain America, the man who famously socked Adolf Hitler in the jaw on the cover of his first comic, said, “Hail Hydra,” the famous catchphrase of the modern heirs to Nazism in the Marvel Universe. This launched a massive crossover storyline, “Secret Empire,” which lasted over a year and culminated in Captain America leading Hydra in a fascist takeover of the United States of America (which was thwarted at the last minute in typical dramatic comic-book style).

Soon after their hero’s alarming proclamation, fans learned that Captain America had been brainwashed by the Red Skull into believing he was raised since childhood in Hydra’s fascist ideology. In his mind, he was a sleeper agent who only pretended to be the champion of freedom and democracy until the time was right for Hydra to activate him and help overthrow the country.

This story represented a radical transformation to the character of Captain America, who had long been the epitome of virtue in the Marvel Universe, but it also served as an insightful portrayal of how fascism works, illustrating many points made by prominent scholars in the field.¹

1. Inventing a “Mythic Past”

After their successful takeover of the country, Hydra spreads the idea that they, not the Allied forces, won World War II. This shows fascists’ insistence on creating a false historical narrative based on what philosopher Jason Stanley calls the “mythic past,” a concocted golden age when everything was better—at least for the people fascism favors.²

In the story, this revised “truth” is taught as history to schoolchildren, with any lingering thought that the Allies won the war dismissed as “the Great Illusion” and any evidence pointing to it suppressed or destroyed. For this reason, as historian Timothy Snyder explains, fascists take control of education and replace it with propaganda and slogans and weaken the press, schools, and universities so their false narratives cannot be disputed.³

2. Setting “Us” Against “Them”

Hydra’s golden age, during which “the good people” were heralded and “the bad people” kept quiet, is based on another classic tool of fascism: dividing the people into “us” and “them,” whether alongside lines of political allegiance or more inherent differences. In the Marvel storyline, Hydra targets mutants and Inhumans, races distinct from humans who have long served in Marvel Comics as symbols of real-world targets of racism and xenophobia. The corrupted Captain America wonders why people are “being asked to live next door to that,” referring to members of other races as things rather than people, while the Red Skull warns of “an invading army” with “fanatical beliefs.”

Instilling fear of “the other” is only one way fascists create false danger they exploit for their advantage (like mobsters shaking down business owners for “protection money”). Early in the story, the corrupted Captain America exaggerates actual threats to the country to gain political power, then uses that power to create new threats—all of which he claims only he can solve. To this end, he engineered an actual invasion by space aliens and a (second) superhero “civil war,” both of which distracted the other heroes and frightened the populace, who came to see Hydra as a solution to their problems, promising to restore order to a chaotic world.

3. Presenting a “Strongman”

Of course, it was not just anyone who promised to restore this order, but the one man the world trusted more than any other to do what’s right. Captain America served Hydra’s purposes by giving the country what historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls a “strongman,” a charismatic figure tailor-made to sell fascism to a population frightened by exaggerated or fabricated threats (including the “danger” posed by independent women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ persons).

The corrupted Captain America relies on his sterling reputation to assure the American people that everything will be better if only they give him even more power and allow him to act outside the law “for the good of the country.” As Ben-Ghiat explains, this mirrors the path to power of many real-world fascist leaders, who never give up the powers they claim they will use temporarily because the “emergency” they promise to solve “somehow” never goes away.⁴

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What Superhero Comics Can Teach Us About Fascism

Superhero comics, just like novels such as 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale, can bring the dangers of fascism to the attention of people who believe that “it could never happen here.” In particular, “Secret Empire” shows how fascists exploit valid anxieties and create illusory ones to weaken people’s faith in democracy and justify the suspension of law and civil rights. It also reminds us why it is never more crucial to preserve education, journalism, and free speech than when we face the threat of encroaching fascism—a lesson the real Captain America has been teaching comics fans for over 80 years.