They go from “the War on Terror is a scam and built on lies” (Iron Man) to “SHIELD is full of nazis” (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) to “CIA saves Wakanda”.
Iron Man
Even from the very first Iron Man movie, the Marvel films were never against the War on Terror - Tony Stark and Iron Man represented the kind of war that liberals wished they could fight, where the bad guys get blown up and the technology is so good that no civilians are harmed. Compare Iron Man’s sleek, smart suit to Jebediah’s knockoff at the end of the movie, which is much bigger, and it perfectly mirrors the liberal conception of a good war as being one fought with drones and special forces instead of a big military occupation.
Yeah Tony Stark decides to stop selling weapons to the government (but immediately makes exceptions for War Machine), but then flies to Afghanistan and personally murders a bunch of nameless bad guys. But the audience knows it’s good that he flew there to do murders because they take time out of being murdered to act reprehensible while he’s doing it.
The superhero people are very nice dear.
Killmonger was an imperialist.
He wasn’t even that cool of a villain and his whole schtick was he was mad he grew up poor.
Oi, mate! Some of us are petite bourgeoisie which failed to hold class status!
edit: not me though
I think that the recent rise of the superhero movie is more of a a pseudo-fascist plee for an uberperson to “save” us.
Disney has been in bed with the military since WW2. Part of the reason Captain Marvel was even made is because they did a huge ad campaign for the Air Force and the DoD lent them locations to shoot. Iron Man was still under Paramount when it was made and released. By Iron Man 2 he goes completely Libertarian and literally says “I’m tired of the liberal agenda” in regards to philanthropy and stuff. It’s also about the Air Force getting a badass Iron Man suit which is actually more responsible because Tony was being a dick and a drunk. A military officer stole his suit and they never confront that ever again in the series. Other than some throwaway line about how if Tony didn’t actually want Rhodes to have it, he would have set a different password. Which actually doesn’t help their image as much as they think. Blaming the individual for not protecting themselves against eminent domain is pretty cringe.
Winter Soldier doesn’t ever criticize the military with the Hydra thing. All the CIA people stand up for Cap while the evil Hydra mercs hold them hostage. Project Insight is revealed to be a Hydra plot and not the kind of status quo mass surveillance and drone warfare that everyone in government is fine with. Cap’s line about how “This isn’t security, it’s fear” or whatever falls flat in the face of that.
The Marvel movies can sometimes give the illusion of a greater commentary, but it’s just a writing sleight of hand. It never actually challenges anyone’s beliefs or makes a real statement other than military good.
That being said I don’t dislike the Marvel movies like a lot of other leftists. They’re hit and miss but there are some good ones.
