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Joe Simon and Jack Kirby received so many death threats as a result of Captain America No. 1 that Mayor LaGuardia had to personally promise them protection.
Simon, born Hymie Simon and Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, were two Jewish young men at the time who despised Hitler.
Simon himself said Captain America was a political creation: “The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too.”
Simon himself said Captain America was a political creation: “The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too.”
Source for that quote: jta.org/2011/12/15/cul…
Now @EthanVanSciver says the comic came out in March 1941 to correspond to the Lend/Lease Act, but that’s actually false. While the comic’s cover is dated for March 1941, Captain America No. 1 went on sale on December 20, 1940.
Captain America was developed during a time of shifting opinion on intervention into the European theater, this much is true. Still, it was very much a political issue, to the point where Willkie’s 1940 campaign for President was dominated in the late months by isolationism.
Willkie did so in response to polls that showed him well behind Roosevelt, and it worked, as Willkie was able to close some of the gap to Roosevelt, so much so that it led to Roosevelt promising not to enter “any foreign war”.
Willkie lost the election in 1940, but he out performed other Republicans that ran against Roosevelt, winning 45% of the popular vote despite a landslide loss in the electoral college. He did so largely on the back of an anti-intervention message.
All of this happened, mind you, as the character of Captain America was being developed and Captain America No. 1 was being written and drawn. To say intervention into World War II was not political is just false.
Even the Lend/Lease Act (which again, happened months after this comic went on sale) was opposed by around 1 in 4 Americans. nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/d…
In short, @EthanVanSciver has gotten basic facts and dates wrong and clearly doesn’t have the understanding of the political atmosphere that Captain America was created in, or the political motivations of his creators.
