>Lately, Marvel and politics have mixed quite a bit. Civil War was a big allegory for the Patriot Act and civil liberties. During the course of Secret Invasion, faux-pundit Stephen Colbert ran for president complete with campaign posters in the background of a lot of issues, and you may have read one of my more recent blogs about Siege Embedded’s satire of cable news network pundits. These jabs at modern politics and current affairs were done in good fun, and so far no one’s been particularly offended. So how surprising was it when folks did finally get riled up, and it’s in the pages of a Marvel comic about a character who embodies our country: Captain America.

If you watch the news, you may be acutely aware of the Tea-Party Movement and their rising visibility in the media. They are known for leaning towards the more conservative end of the political spectrum, and have earned the moniker “tea-baggers”, which you hopefully know the more subversive meaning of without me having to explain to you. The Tea-Party Movement is gaining visibility through public protests, and have become inescapable in the past year. Most recently in Captain America #602, the Falcon and Bucky Cap are discussing an infiltration of an organization called the Watchdogs on a rooftop, when a panel pans down to a crowd of protesters holding signs that read “Stop the Socialists”, “No new taxes”, and then the big one, ” Tea bag the libs before they tea-bag you!” This panel led Marvel EIC Joe Quesada to publicly apologize to the Tea-Party Movement, causing blame to be pegged on various members of the creative team, and the panel will be altered in all future printing. Ed Brubaker is denying any involvement in the affair attributing it to a “lettering error”. So what started as a bit of political satire has turned into a relatively small controversy. Who’d a thunk it would be in the world of comics?

Now, I’m not here to sway anyones political opinion in any direction here, I’m just some guy blogging about comics after all. I’m just slightly tickled to see a comic book can rile up the world of politics in the first place.

-Jim

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