Popular media, war propaganda and retroactive continuity: The construction of the enemy in Marvel comics (1942–1981)

Abstract

The construction of the enemy is a technique whose potential effects are of outmost consequence for the relationships between the media, war and propaganda. In World War II, in addition to the official media, psychological warfare also relied on non-official propaganda conveyed through comic books whose levels of hatred for the enemy are hardly matched. This article aims to shed light on how superhero and war comic books mirror the construction and depiction of World War II enemies in American culture. The authors’ research compares the original wartime comics published by Marvel Comics with the representation of the war enemy conveyed by Marvel between the 1960s and the early 1980s. To test whether changes occurred, the authors conduct a diachronic content analysis of comic-book covers from both periods.