Comics / Spotlight

In Memorium: How War Comics Affect and Mirror Public Opinion

By Dan Horn
May 30, 2011 - 16:13

The U.S. hadn't even joined the Allied fight against Nazi Germany when, in 1941, Captain America slugged Adolf Hitler one right in the mustached kisser. Simultaneously, Namor was off battling the prejudice-mutated ape-like caricatures of the Japanese fleet in the Pacific, and the android Human Torch would also lend a fireball-casting hand in the battle against the Axis powers. Superman even ended WWII, by delivering Hitler and Stalin to a League of Nations hearing, in Look magazine's February 27, 1940, edition. The United States hadn't experienced war since the inception of the comic book medium, and perhaps Americans were a "sleeping giant," but they dreamt of the glory of war and the ostensibly intrepid lives of the soldiers that fought therein.

With the events of Pearl Harbor following and America's hat being tossed in WWII's ring, comic books became not apologetic of their preemptive wartime reveries, but instead rallied a call to arms. Batman and Robin hocked war bonds while firing at German troops from a machine-gun nest, beaming blithely. The Man of Steel walked arm-in-arm with sailor, Marine, and soldier when he wasn't personally swimming after U-boats in the Atlantic. Even after the end of WWII, comic books would relay the harrowing stories of that carnage for decades. From Sgt Fury's Howling Commandos to Enemy Ace and Capt Storm, dogged WWII patriotism and bravado in sequential narratives would carry on through the Korean War and well into the Cold War and the Vietnam Conflict.

It was Vietnam that stemmed the tide, however, and a short-lived comic magazine, Blazing Combat, published by Warren Publishing in 1965, gives us some keen insight on the reason for the wanton flag-waving's end: War was, in fact, hell, and it was Blazing Combat's editor-writer Archie Goodwin who, with a stable of virtuosic creative talent including the now-legendary Frank Frazetta and Alex Toth, wanted to set the record straight. Unfortunately, Blazing Combat, with its horrifying covers and morally distressing depictions of human bloodshed, became viewed as unmarketable by vendors. Much of Blazing... was later reprinted in the groundbreaking horror series Creepy in the 80's, which should be some indication of how ahead-of-its-time and unsettling Goodwin's anti-war vision really was. Though deemed unpalatable by conservative parents, readers, and merchants alike, Archie Goodwin wasn't expressing an abnormal ethical conviction amongst Americans. War may have been necessary two decades earlier, but the exaltation in the loss of human life needed to end. As U.S. troop surges escalated futilely in Indochina, and the world press began exposing the terrifying and gruesome substructure of this Vietnam campaign, which gave birth to war crimes, rampant drug addiction, and widespread shell-shock (diagnosed today as post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD), it was time to separate ourselves from the childish reverence we once held warfare in.

Today, our perception of war stands forever changed by the grim realities of Vietnam, and it is often that viewpoint which reverberates in comic books even now. Whether it's exhibited by Frank Castle selling his soul to the devil to survive a Viet Cong onslaught as his drug-addled Marines drop like flies in Garth Ennis' Born (the main character of which is incidentally named Goodwin) or via David Axe's autobiographical look at the perverse allure of Operation Iraqi Freedom's grisly swathe of death and destruction in War Fix, it is apparent that we now know the steep cost exacted by war, making it even more critical that we take some time this Memorial Day to remember those who serve our country over seas, those who can't simply punch their way out of combat or use superhuman flight abilities to carry their enemies off to The Hague to stand before a war-crimes tribunal. Remember what Memorial Day is all about and what our troops are really enduring.

Last Updated: November 29, 2025 - 16:51