Marvel All New, All Different - Ongoing Discussion (Spoilers)

The comedy continues. After Nick Spencer turned Captain America (famed WWII hero) into a Nazi last year. He seeks to make Magneto (a Holocaust survivor and Polish Jew) into the next member of Hydra.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03/06/magneto-joining-hydra-secret-empire-nick-spencer/

Spoiler

 

That is kind of a what the hell kind of thing, but I don't think it's quite as bad if he's not actually allying with the Red Skull/Nazi Hydra. Like they point out in the article Hydra isn't necessarily purely a Nazi thing.

 

That's Marvel's recent retcon of HYDRA though. That it was/is an ancient (thousands of years old) organization that just happened to ally itself with Nazi Germany during WWII as a way to further it's own agenda. I believe they also made SHIELD an ancient organization as well.

 

When it comes to the argument that HYDRA aren't nazi's, I'll give my opinion by quoting an internet personality whom I like's recent social media post about it (which was prompted by the magneto thing)

Regardless of the ridiculous retcons about them being "ancient", in the end, HYDRA are Nazi's. They're Marvel's way of doing Nazi's in a way they can both profit from and use to get Nazi-ish villains in stories published in countries that are more strict about using Nazi stuff/stories for younger readers/viewers they might not want to have reading about blatant nazi's.

 

I didn't realize that. I had thought that went back to the Lee/Ditko era at least.
So they they pretty much are Nazis then? If so then teaming Magneto up with them is not only a weird idea, but also borderline offensive.

 

Yeah, they're Nazis. Created by the Silver Age Marvel brain powers. Lee, Ditko, Kirby, Ayers. Lee and Kirby are Jewish themselves and they both served in the army in WWII. So they drew a lot of inspiration from their time in Europe and Hitler's Germany when crafting villains for the MU. Kirby would go on to create the New Gods. The world and culture of Apokolips and Darkseid himself are meant to represent Nazi Germany also.

Marvel's recent retcon/rebranding (starting in 2015 I think) was to disconnect Hydra from it's Nazi roots. No idea why, but if I had to guess, it's to not offend German audience. Which is odd, because everybody vilifies Nazis in pop culture (Captain America, Wonder Woman, The Invaders, JSA, Superman, Star Wars, TOS Trek, the Gundam series from Japan, Indiana Jones, James Bond, and a whole series of WWII movies and shows), but Marvel seems to be trying to rebrand Hydra as being not that bad.

I mean, Hail Hydra = Heil Hitler, is still a thing. Hydra still has their "Hitler Youth" programs, of inducting children into believers of Hydra's message at a young age, and the conscripting them later. Red Skull is still talking about creating a Reich. The uniforms, arm patches, flags and swatsitkas (on Master Man at least) haven't disappeared.

For Magneto, Marvel constantly reminds us that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor. See the photos I posted above in the spoiler tag. Mags doesn't tolerate a lot of things but Nazis are at the top of his list.

 

That wasn't always true:

At the start he was quite comfortable with Neo-Nazi iconography and philosophy. He just replaced "Jewish" with Human and "Master Race" with Homo Superior. His "makeover" began under Claremont's watch.

I think Hydra began as a Bondian Evil organization. ( which usually a touch of fascism) The Nazi connection started when Baron Strucker from the Sgt Fury strip was shown to be it's leader. The original leader was Arnold Brown an industrialist. IIRC the Skull's involvement is recent. For most of Hydra's existence the Skull was nowhere to be found. He had his own organization and followers. Though he did take over a faction of Hydra based in Las Vegas once. I also seem to have a hazy memory of Strucker being on the run from the Skull when he joined Hydra.

 

To be fair, being older then Nazi's doesn't mean they weren't already similar to them, and they definitely absorbed a lot of the Nazi "style". Trying to pretend they aren't a group with deep Nazi similarities/connections is just ridiculous in my opinion. It doesn't matter how old the group is supposed to be, they were always evil, probably always fascist and at this point are basically just Nazi's with a different logo and a slightly different focus.

 

Just like Magneto would be if he had his way. One of the more ironic parts that has always been part of his character.

 

Yeah, he's had those elements, and that can be interesting. I think that doesn't excuse making him a HYDRA member, though.

 

No that is totally wrong. The Brotherhood of the Shield are portrayed as being the impetus for what becomes SHIELD, but it still exists as its own thing in the modern day as we see in several comics such as Red She-Hulk. Likewise HYDRA is seen as incorporating stuff from the Brotherhood of the Spear only after the fall of Germany, but the origin of HYDRA is still rooted in Nazi Germany. And in the Avengers World, we do see a new version of SPEAR being created ala SHIELD by China.

 

I have no idea. I'm just saying that there is no justification to do it. but, after what they let Spencer do to Captain America, Marvel really can't shock me with stupid moves right now.

Speaking of stupid, Inhmans vs X-Men just ended. I was liking the event decently, but that ending

Spoiler: Inhumans vs X-Men Ending

Apparently no one told Medusa that the Terrigen cloud was reaching total saturation and was going to kill every mutant on Earth. So, when they told her and then her own people gave her a way to destroy the terrigen, she did it without hesitation. She then basically said she would have done this at the very beginning, without fighting, if the X-Men had just talked to her. To her, while terigenesis is important to Inhumans its not worth the life of even a single mutant, much less all of them.

In the end, it was the X-men's stupidity, lead by Emma Frost being super manipulative (she even takes over Magento's mind and forces Forge to build super inhuman killing sentinels), and Emma being angry that the terrigen killed Cyclops before they knew that would happen that caused the fighting. So, this whole story would have been over about 4 pages into issue #1 if anyone had bothered to talk to Medusa about the terrigen cloud This event is literally the biggest waste of time of any event I've read, and at this point I've read a lot of them. It also made all the X-men (except Beast) come off as idiots.

 

Um.

Beast was specifically on site in Atilan to find a cure.

He was working along side Inhuman scientists.

No Prize.

Maximus was making the Inhuman's forget... Even though his powers don't exactly work that way.

White Queen has to Mrs. Robinson young Scott.

(Counting down to his 18th Birthday.)

 

I just read it. Quite a mess. just like the entire mini.

 

John and Medz broke up, a week after Reed shows up in Iron Man.

Do you smell what Marvel is cooking?

 

Real Reed?

 

It was one panel.

Yes, it was the real Reed, or there wasn't an obvious "tell" to say that it wasn't the real Reed.

http://comicbook.com/marvel/2017/02/22/infamous-iron-man-doctor-doom-reed-richards/

But... He seems to have new girlfriend.

 

From the article...

I can't think of any more perfect arch-foe for a heroic Victor Von Doom than an evil Reed Richards.