{"id":6050,"date":"2022-04-06T11:34:15","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T15:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=6050"},"modified":"2022-04-12T13:29:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:29:41","slug":"vietnam-war-in-balloons-and-panels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/04\/vietnam-war-in-balloons-and-panels\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam war in balloons and panels"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he purpose of this piece is to review an often overlooked medium and its depiction of the Vietnam War. I will focus on those mainstream publishers that chose to address the war inside their pages. I will avoid discussing examples like comics legend Will Eisner\u2019s strip<\/a> for the military that explained how to use the M-16 rifle, Tom Vietch\u2019s underground satire<\/a> of the My Lai Massacre, or Julian Bond\u2019s 1967 comic<\/a> laying out the anti-war movements’ reasons for opposing the war. Interesting though these works were , I will instead look at how mainstream publishers such as Marvel, DC, and a few other now defunct publishers from this time period depicted the war during the war years and how this portrayal changed with the fortunes of the war and the anti-war movement.<\/p>\n

Marvel\u2019s involvement in the war began with the origin story of Iron Man, one of their most popular characters in recent years. Iron Man, for those unaware, began as Tony Stark, a weapons manufacturer for the United States government. In his first appearance, Tales of Suspense 39<\/em><\/a>(March 1963), Stark is in South Vietnam demonstrating his \u201cmicro-transistor\u201d powered weaponry that allows mortars to be reduced in size and shape comparable to a flashlight. While in Vietnam, Stark is ambushed and mortally wounded by the \u201cred guerilla tyrant\u201d Wong-Chu and forced to build weapons for him. Instead Tony Stark uses the materials to build an iron suit that will not only keep his wounded heart beating but also give him the strength to escape, which he does after defeating Wong-Chu in a wrestling match.<\/p>\n

Iron Man\u2019s next trip to Vietnam came \u201cIn the Vastness of Vietnam” published in Tales of Suspense 92<\/em><\/a>, (May 1967). Sample dialogue includes \u201cBoy, will this give \u2018em something to talk about when they get together at their next peace through strength rally!\u201d as Tony Stark battles communist mad scientist Half Face on behalf of the U.S. Army. Bizarrely, \u201cpeace through strength\u201d was never a slogan of the Vietnamese guerillas but it was a slogan of 1964 Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.<\/p>\n

One would expect Captain America, being the premiere patriotic superhero to have been the most involved in Vietnam, but this is untrue. Cap made precisely two visits to Vietnam, and a comparison between the two reveals how attitudes towards the war changed over the years. In Tales of Suspense 61<\/em><\/a> (January1965) the Star-Spangled Avenger went on a lone mission to Vietnam to rescue a pilot who was shot down. The Vietnam War is depicted as being very similar to World War II with the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front (NLF) militias wearing German WWII uniforms and wielding German weapons while their leader, General Wo, is depicted as being a sumo wrestler, something more associated with Japan, another Axis Power. Captain America mocks his foes saying \u201cIs the Communist Fighting Man so weak, so unsure of himself that he fears one lone American?? Is THIS the much-vaunted power of the Viet Cong??\u201d<\/p>\n

The second Captain America story in Vietnam came in Captain America 125<\/em><\/a> (May 1970) in which eminent peacemaker Dr. Roberts is kidnapped with both North and South Vietnam blaming the other for his disappearance. Marvel\u2019s house ads for the issue seemed to have forgotten about the earlier story since they announced \u201cOur red-white-and-blue Avenger finally battles in Viet Nam\u2014but not the way you expect! And watch for the surprise villain!\u201d Cap embarks on his mission figuring that both sides will use the Doctor\u2019s disappearance to forestall peace talks. It turns out that Iron Man\u2019s foe the Mandarin has captured Hoskins who wishes to see the war continue until both sides are destroyed and he can rule over Southeast Asia. Of course, Captain America emerges victorious in this story that is incredibly different from the earlier \u201cus\u201d vs \u201cthem\u201d tone of the story in Tales of Suspense 61.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Superman joins the Army in the Soldier of Steel. Source DC Database<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite being a Norse god, the Mighty Thor also took time to fight communism in Vietnam. In Journey into Mystery 117<\/em><\/a> (June 1965) the Thunder God is shot down by NLF anti-air weapons and comes to the aid of the peasantry being oppressed by the \u201cevil\u201d guerillas who, like in the first Captain America story, wear Nazi-style uniforms and carry German WWII weapons. After the lead guerrilla accidentally executes his own family he commits suicide proclaiming melodramatically \u201cIt was communism that made me what I am\u2014that shaped me into a brutal, unthinking instrument of destruction! To communism, then\u2014may it vanish from the face of the earth and the memory of mankind!\u201d<\/p>\n

Spider-Man himself may have never gone to Vietnam, but one of his supporting characters did. In Amazing Spider-Man 43<\/em><\/a> (December1966), the Web-Spinner\u2019s friend Flash Thompson is drafted into the Army and in Amazing Spider-Man 47<\/em><\/a>(April 1967) a going-away party is held for Flash. All throughout, Flash\u2019s service is depicted in an apolitical, supportive manner. However, by the time Flash returns on leave in Amazing Spider-Man 83<\/em><\/a> (April 1970) the titular character laments that his friend is fighting \u201ca war that nobody wants\u2026against an enemy that you don\u2019t even hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marvel\u2019s war comics from the decade stayed out of Vietnam, since they were universally set during World War II with one glaring exception: Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual 3<\/em><\/a> (August 1967). The plot features the crack commando unit from World War II being called in for the cliche \u201cone last mission\u201d to sabotage the recently developed North Vietnamese hydrogen bomb. The issue ends with the commandos<\/em> making a daring escape after detonating the bomb in the city of Haiphong and probably killing hundreds of thousands of people in an atomic holocaust.<\/p>\n

Reader reaction to Marvel\u2019s stories was mixed, to say the least. A 1966 editorial<\/a> from the New Guard<\/em>, the journal of the right-wing Young Americans, written by future Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan, praised Marvel for \u201cthe fact that the heroes run to being such capitalistic types as arms manufacturers (Tony Stark, whose alter ego is Iron Man), while the villains are often communists (and plainly labeled as such, in less than complimentary terms).\u201d However, by 1970, when the anti-war movement had assumed a mass character, readers wrote letters<\/a> calling Iron Man \u201can enemy of the people\u201d and a \u201cprofiteering, capitalist, war-mongering pig.\u201d The letter columns of Captain America were not much different. Bradford W. Wright in Comic Book Nation<\/em> writes that \u201cStan Lee affirmed that the majority of readers polled by Marvel wanted the hero to stay out of Vietnam\u201d. The anti-war sentiment of Marvel readers is unsurprising when we remember that a 1965 Esquire<\/em> poll <\/a>found that Spider-Man and the Hulk ranked alongside Che Guevara and Malcolm X in their iconic status among student radicals.<\/p>\n