Table Of ContentSuperhero
Culture Wars
ii
Superhero
Culture Wars
Politics, Marketing,
and Social Justice in
Marvel Comics
Monica Flegel and Judith Leggatt
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2021
Copyright © Monica Flegel and Judith Legatt, 2021
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vi
List of Abbreviations vii
Introduction: Mockingbird and Milkshakes: Comicsgate,
Identity, and the Politics of Marketing in an Age of
Outrage 1
1 From Stan’s Soapbox to Twitter: Politics and
Story-Telling in the Marvel Universe 17
2 Diversity Done Right? Miles Morales and Kamala
Khan 55
3 “Captain America Is Black and Thor Is a Woman”:
Gender- and Race-Bent Mantle Passing in Marvel’s
All-New, All-Different Campaign 89
4 Rethinking Secret Empire: Writing and Marketing
Political Comics in an Age of Rising Fascism 123
Conclusion: Marvel Legacy and Fresh Start:
Selling (and Selling Out) Progressive Politics 157
Works Cited 175
Index 193
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book is never the sole creation of a single person, or even two people. We
would like to acknowledge everyone who helped us in the process of writing,
in particular the office of the Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities at
Lakehead University, which provided us with a Summer Undergraduate
Research Internship in 2017, and McKenna Boeckner, who filled that role
and helped us with preliminary research into the Gabriel controversy. We
would also like to thank Lakehead for providing us with sabbatical leaves
in 2018–2019, without which this book could not have been completed in
a timely fashion. We’d also like to give a shoutout to Hill City Comics in
Thunder Bay for being our source for paper comics and the keeper of our
pull-lists.
We have many wonderful friends and colleagues who have supported us
throughout this whole process. Many thanks go to Bry, Kyle, and Merk of
the Zero Issues Comics podcast; our colleagues in the English department;
Judith’s partner, Chris, who has no particular interest in superhero comics,
but put up with our obsessive discussions of all things Marvel; and Monica’s
family, who are too many, and as nerdy as they are plentiful.
We would also like to thank the five cats who kept us warm and
entertained as we wrote, and who were happy to distract us when we needed
a break.
Finally, thank you to the creators of Marvel comics, without whom we
would not have these incredible texts to enjoy, critique, and analyze; you are
the true superheroes of the comics industry.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ANADM All-New, All-Different Marvel
CA Captain America (1968–1996)
CA:SR Captain America: Steve Rogers
MCU Marvel Cinematic Universe
SE Secret Empire
IP Intellectual Property
viii
Introduction
Mockingbird and Milkshakes:
Comicsgate, Identity, and
the Politics of Marketing in
an Age of Outrage
In May 2016, Marvel Comics had good reason to celebrate with the positive
press it was receiving for its new, diverse superheroes. In an article for The
Guardian, entitled “Marvel Editor-in-Chief: ‘Writing Comics Was a Hobby
for White Guys,’” Sam Thielman notes that Axel Alonso’s “Marvel looks
very different: one of two Spider-Men is a biracial kid named Miles Morales,
Thor is a white woman, one of the Captains America is a black man, Ms
Marvel is Pakistani American and the Hulk is Korean American.” He
then approvingly asserts, “All this happened with comparatively minimal
backlash from notoriously tetchy readers, because Alonso and the company’s
writing and editing teams have made changes carefully, switching costumes
among established characters and stacking the deck with popular creators
when the possibility of fan rage—which is always at least ambient—seems
likely.” The publication date of the article allows us, with hindsight, to see
this proclamation as woefully premature; in 2016, the comics world was
not yet fully engulfed in the volatile culture clashes that have characterized
the second decade of the twenty-first century. Unlike the culture wars
of the 1990s, these new iterations are fueled by online culture and the
mainstreaming of fandom, and include Gamergate in 2014, the 2015 Hugo
Awards controversy, the Ghostbusters 2016 backlash campaign, and the
