Sanderson on Comics

Super-Villains in Politics

Watching Marvel Television’s new series, “Daredevil: Born Again” on Disney+, I see that Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, who was convicted and imprisoned in Marvel’s previous “Daredevil” series on Netflix, is now the mayor of a New York City. Yes, this is a storyline that was derived from the comics, but the timing of doing this story on television now has pointedly political implications.

One thing I have been wondering about lately is how the current Trump administration may be reflected in comic book stories. Obviously Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic strip has been addressing it directly and explicitly. But how will the superhero genre respond to the current political situation?

I think back to writer Steve Englehart’s work on “Captain America” in the 1970s, the decade of Richard Nixon’s presidency and the Watergate scandals. Englehart sought to explore the difference between Captain America, a patriotic hero of World War II, when Americans were united in a struggle against fascism, and the political zeitgeist of the 1970s, when there was widespread distrust of the government due to the Vietnam war and other factors. Englehart stated, “I was writing a man who believed in America’s highest ideals at a time when the president was a crook. I could not ignore that.”

So Englehart devised a storyline that served as a metaphor for the Watergate scandals. He introduced the Committee to Regain America’s Principles, headed by Quentin Harderman. The Committee was an analogue to Nixon’s real life Committee to Re-Elect the President, and Harderman was an analogue to H. R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff who was eventually convicted for his role in the Watergate scandals. The Committee to Re-Elect the President was disparagingly known as “CREEP,” and Englehart’s Committee to Regain America’s Principles can obviously have its own nasty acronym.

Englehart’s Committee made false claims about Captain America and spread disinformation to brand him as a potential menace, turning much of the public against him. This use of disinformation echoes the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also applies to politics in the 2020s. Englehart’s storyline remains relevant today.

It turns out that Englehart’s Committee is a front for the subversive organization known as the Secret Empire. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had introduced the Secret Empire years before as one of the many arms of Hydra, the neo-fascist subversive army that was the principal opponent of Nick Fury and the super-spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D.. Jim Steranko made the fascist roots of Hydra explicit when he revealed Fury’s Nazi archenemy from World War II, Baron Strucker, as head of Hydra. Englehart’s Secret Empire has no connection to Hydra, but it too seeks to take a of t States government, instituting an authoritarian regime.

Hydra and the Secret Empire also seem to evoke the Ku Klux Klan in that they all wear costumes. The members of the Secret Empire wear robes and hoods, concealing their faces.

The climax of Englehart’s Secret Empire storyline takes place on the grounds of the White House itself. Captain America pursues the masked leader of the Secret Empire, Number One, into the Oval Office itself. Number One removes his hood, and although we are not shown his face, Captain America sees and recognizes him and is shocked. Number One commits suicide in front of Captain America, who is appalled. As a result, Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, is so disillusioned about America that he gives up his Captain America identity. Eventually Rogers takes on a new costumed identity, that of the original Nomad, a hero without a country. Of course inevitably Rogers resumes his Captain America identity when his Nazi archenemy from World War II, the Red Skull, resurfaces. And so Captain America’s battle against fascism resumes.

Englehart did not reveal the identity of Number One, but as he intended, readers assumed that he was Richard Nixon. In recent years many comics readers have complained that contemporary superhero comics deal in “woke” political attitudes. But Steve Englehart’s Secret Empire saga is but one of many examples that demonstrate that politics have always been part of the superhero genre.

Of course taking a political stance runs the risk of alienating readers who hold opposing opinions. Perhaps that is why Englehart was cautious not to explicitly implicate Nixon in the Secret Empire saga.

With American society so polarized in the 2020s, taking explicit political stands in comic books is even riskier. In “Captain America: Sam Wilson” #1, published in 2015, the third year of the first Trump administration, the new Captain America contended against the Sons of the Serpent, a subversive organization opposed to immigrants and Blacks. Fox News contended that the comic was attacking Americans opposing illegal immigration.

In fact Stan Lee and Don Heck had created the Sons of the Serpent way back in “Avengers” #32 in 1966, nearly a half century earlier. With their costumes, the Sons of the Serpent seemed to be another analogue to the racist, xenophobic Ku Klux Klan. Nick Spencer, the writer of “Captain America: Sam Wilson” #1, clearly recognized the relevance of the Sons of the Serpent to the 2010s. This first issue shows Sam Wilson becoming a controversial figure in a polarized society by openly taking political stands and inserting himself into the debate over immigration. The Sons of the Serpent in this story take extremist versions of familiar stands on immigration in the 21st century.

If the Sons of the Serpent’s appearance aroused controversy from the right, then taking a stand on Trump himself would surely inspire more furor, which Marvel and its owner Disney would surely want to avoid.

But what about metaphors for the current political situation?

In the comics and now in the “Daredevil: Born Again” television series, Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, a known criminal, was nonetheless elected Mayor of New York City. In the comics this took place in “Daredevil” # 595, published in 2017, the first year of the first Trump administration.

I find it hard to believe that this was a coincidence.

In the comics the Kingpin was the head of organized crime in New York City. His public role was that of a powerful, legitimate businessman, a “dealer in spices.” Nonetheless, his criminality was known by the public. Indeed, in the Kingpin’s first appearances in “Amazing Spider-Man” #50-52, J. Jonah Jameson is running an expose of the Kingpin in “The Daily Bugle.” Fisk has been convicted and imprisoned more than once.

The Kingpin was one of the most prominent examples of the corporate mogul as villain in the superhero genre. There have by now been a great many of these. I hereby designate them as Super-Villain Oligarchs.

One of the first was billionaire Gregory Gideon, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in “Fantastic Four” # 34, published in late 1964. (I am one of the few people who have written a story using Mr. Gideon! In my story, part of my “Saga of the Serpent Crown” serial, he headed an oligarchical cabal of similar corporate mogul villains who had appeared in previous Marvel stories. See “Web of Spider-Man Annual” #5 and “West Coast Avengers Annual” #4, both in 1989.)

A much more familiar millionaire businessman villain is Norman Osborn, alias the Green Goblin. Although the Green Goblin debuted in “Amazing Spider-Man” #14, also published in 1964, Norman Osborn was not introduced by name until “Amazing Spider-Man” #37 in 1966.

The most prominent billionaire super-villain in the superhero genre is Lex Luthor. For decades Luthor was depicted as a criminal scientific genius, wearing business suits or lab coats or, most often in the Silver Age of the 1960s, his gray prison uniform. In other words the Silver Age Luthor had no fashion sense and seemed not to mind looking like a penniless convict! In the 1970s editor Julius Schwartz, presumably disliking Luther’s preference for prison garb, gave him a super-villain costume. Luther’s prowess lay in his scientific genius, not any wealth, and indeed he would use his inventions to rob banks.

This changed in 1986 when DC Comics rebooted Superman and his mythos. It was writer Marv Wolfman who came up with the idea of making Lex Luthor the most powerful man in Metropolis through being wealthy. Writer and artist John Byrne further developed this idea, and introduced the new version of Luthor as billionaire businessman in “The Man of Steel” #4 in 1986. Strangely, Byrne no longer depicted Luthor as a scientific genius; rather, this Luthor was wealthy enough to hire brilliant scientists and finance their inventions. We see Luthor do this in “The Man of Steel” #5, employing the scientist who creates Bizarro.

The idea of Luthor as ruthless billionaire was embraced by other writers and other media, such as in “Superman: The Animated Series,” and lasted for decades. Inevitably, Luthor was again presented as a scientific genius again, as well. For example, Neil Gaiman disliked the change in Luthor, and his “Black Orchid” series in 1988 was the first place where I saw Luthor as scientific genius re-emerge, while retaining his new billionaire mogul status.

And here is something that is very significant in 2025. John Byrne has been quoted as saying about his version of Luthor, “I built the character as a cross between Donald Trump, Ted Turner, Howard Hughes, and maybe Satan himself!” (See https://www.cbr.com/superman-lex-luthor-donald-trump/ ) “Comic Book Resources” also points out that when DC Comics published ”Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography” in 1989, its cover evoked the cover of Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” (By the way, I have long thought that Stan Lee modeled Tony Stark after the young Howard Hughes: wealthy, a brilliant inventor, and known for his many romances.)

Also importantly, Lex Luthor was elected President of the United States in 2001. Hard as this is to believe, he managed to blame his past crimes on a clone of himself! Hence he had no criminal record when he was elected. But of course Luthor had not reformed, and (in an echo of the end of the Nixon presidency) fled from office in 2003 because there was a recording of his confessing to crimes as President.

This storyline establishes the concept that the citizenry of the United States will vote a reputed criminal into high office. In Luthor’s case he was aided by the electorate’s reaction against the previous administration’s handling of the Gotham City earthquake crisis (as recounted in the “Batman” storyline “No Man’s Land”). And it does seem that Trump’s re-election was largely due to public discontent with the Biden Administration.

As for Norman Osborn, despite being publicly exposed as the Green Goblin, he too was an oligarch who rose to political power. Presumably, the government believed that Osborn had been cured of the multiple personality disorder that caused him to become the Green Goblin. Yet even as himself Osborn was still morally corrupt. During the “Civil War” in Marvel Comics during 2006 -2007, Osborn was appointed as head of a new Thunderbolts team, tasked by the federal government with enforcing the Superhuman Registration Act. Later, during the “Secret Invasion” comics saga in 2008, about alien Skrulls impersonating superheroes, Osborn became the leader of H.A.M.M.E.R., a new federal law enforcement agency that replaced S.H.I.E.L.D.. Eventually Osborn overreached and was imprisoned in the Raft.

A more positive example of the oligarch achieving high political office is Kyle Richmond, alias Nighthawk of the Squadron Supreme of an alternate Earth. Richmond and Nighthawk are clearly inspired by Bruce Wayne and Batman. Richmond too is a wealthy man, who retires from his superheroic career to become President of the United States of the Squadron’s world. In the first issue of the late Mark Gruenwald’s “Squadron Supreme” series in 1986, Richmond resigned as President in protest against the Squadron’s taking authoritarian control of the government. Resuming his Nighthawk identity, Richmond then led a team called the Redeemers in attempting to overthrow the Squadron’s regime, succeeding at the cost of his own life. Here is a case of a wealthy character in the superhero genre who attains high office but battles against authoritarian rule rather than trying to institute it.

A much earlier example of a super-villain running for high political office is the Penguin in the 1966 “Batman” television series episodes “Hizzoner the Penguin” and “Dizzoner the Penguin.” When the Penguin, a known criminal, convicted many times, declared his candidacy for mayor of Gotham City, Batman and Robin were confident that the people of Gotham would never elect such a notorious criminal. But they are wrong, at least at first. Through a combination of charisma, craftiness, outright lying, and show biz pizazz, the Penguin quickly won wide popularity among the Gotham electorate. Ultimately the Penguin went down to defeat, but for a while he seemed to have a great chance of winning. I intend to write at length about these episodes ina future Substack installment. But this “Batman” two-parter introduces the notion that much of the American populace in the superhero genre is willing to support a criminal demagogue.

So the Kingpin followed in Luthor’s footsteps. Luthor became President and the Kingpin became mayor of New York City. In the comics the Kingpin became mayor in 2017, the first year of the first Trump administration. And now in the “Daredevil: Born Again” television series, the Kingpin becomes mayor in 2025, the first year of the second Trump administration.

The first time may have been coincidence. The second time surely is not. And “Daredevil: Born Again” is full of echoes of the real life politics of the last decade. This is a subject we will explore in the next installment of this Substack column.