superhero media as military or police propaganda

  • abolition
  • anti-individualism
  • culture-art-media
  • ‘super-soldier’ tropes, ‘super-cop’ tropes

  • but also a lot of government taskforce/military presence/foreign invader narratives

  • very blatant in examples from various comic book eras

    • interesting as other comic universes/publications/stories skewed sci-fi, which commonly skews anti-authoritarian
  • in Marvel Cinematic Universe era (roughly 2000-2020)

  • superhero worlds almost always US-centric, and often individualistic tropes

  • also how Disney buying Marvel/increase in streaming over/downfall of cinema led to a swathe of Disney+ superhero-adjacent TV series, the change in format then allowed for the start of a more experimental era (eg Wandavision, Loki).

    • DC actually found success in TV earlier than Marvel but Marvel’s evolution is more interesting as DC’s shows are commonly reminiscent of any other 2010s US action/drama/with some fantastical elements.