ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with the striking responses to both Watergate and Vietnam offered by Marvel, as well as DC's carefully considered response to domestic politics and it's less carefully considered take on feminism through Wonder Woman and Lois Lane. Marvel superheroes had been overtly international: the Fantastic Four competed with Soviets, Iron Man travelled to Vietnam, the Hulk travelled to the Far East; DC heroes had been intergalactic, with Superman often leaving Earth to fight crime in space. The breakdown of Iron Man's ability to combat problems with weapons as he had done previously mediates the inability of the US to win the war, but also the argument. Captain America is understandably traumatised by the revelations of corruption. Captain America's inner turmoil, as with Iron Man's doubts about Vietnam, exposed elite ideology to criticism. As with Iron Man in response to the horrors of Vietnam, Steve Rogers is provoked to reflection rather than action by his exposure to trauma.
