Didn’t you know that in the comic world Nazis speak English but with funny accents, unlike real Germans who speak German?
In comic-books, Nazis say “Die, Englander!” - which in German means “the English” (die Engländer).
For much of the War, part of France was “German” and part was kind of neutral. The French navy spent much of its time in harbor. One shouldn’t look for too much accuracy in comics.
It was a convention in many English comic books (and also in the Asterix books) that anything in blackletter was supposed to be in German, even though it was translated in the caption into English or French. It’s interesting how quickly we adapt to these conventions almost without noticing them, and it takes an academic commentator like Umberto Eco to point them out (his essay on American versus Chinese war comics is interesting, but AFAIK only in dead tree version. I think it has been translated into English.)
That issue of Marvel Mystery (also drawn by Alex Schomburg, btw) was published on 1 Feb, 1940, almost five full months before the fall of France (and, obviously, almost two years before Pearl Harbor.)
Someone posted in one of the Syrian refugee threads a handful of polls ca. 1938 surveying American attitudes towards receiving Jewish refugees from Europe. Perhaps shockingly to our deluded notions of infallible American virtue, we were overwhelmingly against it, on the order of 70-30. American Jewry, even those in the bubble of New York City, must have had a hard row to hoe trying to counter such widespread isolationist sentiments. Looked at in that light, the anti-Nazi comics of the U.S.’ immediate prewar era are less gleefully enthusiastic rootin’-tootin’ sock-it-to-’em propaganda than a desperate call for help on behalf of European brethren. Puts a little bit of a somber aura around it.
Just for the sake of credit where credit is due, the one who posted those polls was @jsroberts here:
And I’m honest enough to say that, indeed I was shocked. I’m an American, and while I often like to consider myself cynical of my country’s actions, found such a widespread lack of basic compassion to be unconscionable, and super fucked up.
Yes, tbh I hadn’t noticed the date.
The evil people who sank French ships at the outbreak of WW2 were the British, not the Germans. Churchill did not trust Darlan…quite rightly given subsequent events. He made the only decision which made strategic sense - to sink as much of the French fleet as possible - but poisoned relations with the French by sinking ships and killing sailors.
Darlan’s refusal to transfer the French Navy to the British probably lengthened the War by several months, but at the time he would have seemed right in his assumption that Germany would win the war, since US businesses (and Russia) were cheerfully supplying Nazi Germany and Britain’s position seemed hopeless.
I agree entirely with your post, btw. There is even today an immense amount of anti-Semitism in the US, but usually from people who are not in a position to do much about it. Now it’s going to be anti-Muslim.
Someone today pointed out the parallels in the UK. The “whining Jews” (as a senior civil servant described them) came to this country, created jobs and raised the standards of medicine and academia. Our neo-fascist party UKIP keeps on about Muslims supposedly living on State handouts, but a quick look around major cities shows large numbers of small Muslim businesses, and without Muslims and Hindus our national health service would be non-viable. (Also without people from the Caribbean, though most of them are actually now second or third generation British.) People have simply not thought through the implications of reducing immigration and “sending them back” - an impoverished country with failed public services. Politicians need to stop looking at the editor of the Daily Mail and start telling the truth.
It’s pretty obvious from the “American Experiment” (not scare quotes per se. Just an admission that we haven’t always borne sweet fruit) that diversity, compassion and rules that minimize harm leads to greatness. While suspicion, hatred, and bigotry invariably leads to destruction, death, and unrest.
America certainly isn’t perfect. But it can offer an illustrative example in its history, at least. I’m certainly willing to be an object lesson. I’m not great, or possibly even good. But I’m sure someone can learn from my mistakes. Likewise, I’m sure people can learn from America’s mistakes.
I don’t expect Americans in general to be better or worse than any other people. What happens there, however, affects us all because its politicians are more powerful and its businesses bigger than those of any other nation. And that is in part because it has more educated middle and upper class people to choose from than any other country in the world (China and India have more people but the populations with Western living standards are much smaller than the US).
Europe is still a mess because it is full of nationalistic, little politicians. The US State system means that little politicians can posture in the states without threatening the whole enterprise. In Europe, similar people can and do create chaos. Sadly, the example of the US seems wasted on the little national politicians. The fact that the President of the EU is a “little” politician from a tiny country which is largely a tax haven says it all.
The Angel appears to have a mustache; aside from magical heroes, like Mandrake, and the male Viltrumites in “Invincible”, this facial adornment seems to have fallen by the wayside. It is odd, because a fake mustache could really add to the disguise value of a superhero costume.
Osborne is a comic book character who is not funny.
But he is forbidden to acknowledge that the problem of the British economy is all the money going into a housing bubble, starving the real economy of investment. The real super-villains are behind the scenes; he is just the monkey, they are grinding the organ.
