![]() The ‘Nam was a smash hit for Marvel, and the series inaugural issue actually outsold the ever popular Uncanny X-Men that month. Marvel even revealed in a 1987 Comics Interview article that they asked comic stores to position the title on display near the American flag to take advantage of potential buyers’ patriotic sentiment. The commercial environment of the 1980s, after the releases of films set in the Vietnam War like Coming Home, Apocalypse Now, and Deer Hunter would be more hospitable to such stories. Murray had attempted to pitch Vietnam war comics in 1972 but found his scripts rewritten to take place in the less controversial World War II. Jim Rhodes, the helicopter pilot in question, would later serve as Iron Man and after that as the superhero War Machine.Īdditionally, Marvel published one of the longest lasting Vietnam war comics, The ‘Nam, which launched in December 1986 with an original creative team of writer Doug Murray (a Vietnam veteran) and illustrator Michael Golden. The issue itself is “Dedicated to Peace.” The second Iron Man Vietnam flashback, from Iron Man 144 (March, 1981), is less overtly political, featuring the superhero saving a downed helicopter pilot shortly after his origin story. The story ends with a present-day Iron Man renewing his vow to no longer manufacture weapons. ![]() Army that resulted in the destruction of a village full of civilians in Vietnam. Billionaire industrialist Tony Stark muses to himself that “As Iron Man, you beat the Commies for democracy without questioning just whose democracy you were serving” and says of Vietnam, “What right had we to be there in the first place?” This prompts a flashback to a time when Stark built a weapon for the U.S. This installment was followed up by the unusually remorseful anti-war story “Long Time Gone” from Iron Man 78 (September, 1975). Well, I’m sure of this: It’s no longer Tony Stark’s war.” Surveying a bombed out village, Iron Man remarks “I used to be really proud of my support for the war, but things like this first hand really fog up one’s thinking. In Iron Man 68 (June, 1974) the superhero is in Vietnam searching for one of the supporting characters, Marty March. troops withdrew in 1973, he returned only once-although there were two flashback stories detailing previously unseen Iron Man adventures during the war. The Iron Man character was born in the jungles of Vietnam, but after U.S. Marvel, who published more about the war than any other publisher, had a complicated relationship with the war. ![]() Like other artistic and cultural products of the last decades, comics also reflected the highly contested memory and meaning of the Vietnam War. The old propagandistic stories of the 1960s never returned, although some pro-war messaging can be detected in titles that came afterwards such as The ‘Nam or Dong Xoia, Vietnam 1965. Since the end of the Vietnam war, comics creators and publishers have explored the war in several ways, from autobiography, horror, war stories, and even superheroics.
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