Venerable Comics blog ComicsComics has proof that the annoying tendency of modern conservatives to see evidence of conservative values in any halfway popular media phenomenom. But whereas today it’s television series like South Park, Lost or even The Wire they like to claim for the rightwing, back in 1966 it was Marvel comics:
But despite their lightheartedness, the heroes are indeed heroic, and the villains villainous. This in itself is not amazing—but the fact that the heroes run to being such capitalistic types as arms manufacturers (Tony Stark, whose alter ego is Iron Man), while the villains are often Communists (and plainly labeled as such, in less than complimentary terms) is a breath of fresh air in a world such as ours, where all too often “good guys” and “bad guys” are portrayed as being indistinguishable.
And it is in their frank recognition of the difference between good and evil that makes Marvel Comics, at least in my opinion, “right wing” in tone. The “Bullpen Gang,” as the Marvel staffers refer to themselves in print, is not afraid to say that good and evil are mutually incompatible. Furthermore, they equate good with freedom and evil with totalitarianism, whether Communist, Nazi, or inhuman in origin. This is the “message” so assiduously repeated in all their sagas—and with such a message, no YAF member should have any quarrel.