Hey, all, I am once again using my news subscriptions to bring you the thoughtful essays, investigative reports and other interesting journalism I come across.
Each Wednesday, I intend to share an article from the Wall Street Journal.
This week, I bring you Robbie Whelan’s deep dive into the politics of Marvel and how the MCU has tightrope walk a fine line between inclusivity and alienation.
In the 2016 movie “Captain America: Civil War,” the character, originally a World War II soldier who was granted superhuman powers by a military experiment, fights to maintain the independence of the Avengers against his friend Iron Man, who wants them to submit to the supervision of the United Nations. “It’s almost a miracle that the character of Captain America, this old-fashioned, ultraconservative character, works in a modern way at all,” said Joanna Robinson, a journalist and co-author of the forthcoming business history “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios.”
But as Marvel has grown more powerful, the politics of the MCU have become more progressive in obvious ways. Tony Stark, the genius engineer behind the Iron Man suit (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) started out in the first 2008 film as a weapons manufacturer and defense contractor. By the time “The Avengers” was released in 2012, he was using the arc reactor technology that powered his suit as a source of clean, renewable energy for office buildings. - WSJ