Minor quibble on this one: at the time of their first appearances, I think Hydra originally were a stand-in for the Nazis. In their first story arc (Strange Tales, ~135-~145ish) they seemed to be just another KAOS/THRUSH/SMERSH/ 1960s bad-guy organization run by an utterly incompetent businessman, but within about 3 or 4 issues after their first defeat, it turned out that Baron Strucker was using Business-Guy as a front and Strucker’s take over was so seamless it seems to have been plotted that way. At the time, Strucker was Sgt. Fury (and his Howling Commandos!)'s main bad-guy. He was the face of Nazis at Marvel* and a major bad-guy (much less so than now).
At the same time (give or take), the Sons of the Serpent (Avengers 35 or so) was the stand in for the Ku Klux Klan, so it wouldn’t be too odd for Nazis to have a stand-in as well. I can’t think of any time actual Nazis as a group showed up in the 1960s at Marvel. I believe the idea (no proof, just personal guess) was that we WON against the Nazis and while some new threat may rise from their ashes, Stan and Jack didn’t want to take away the victory by having actual organized groups of Nazis running around.
*Ok, technically the Hate Monger, who was Adolph Hitler himself (not a clone! not a parallel universe duplicate although possibly one of Hitler’s many body doubles) was the literal face of Nazis, but he died fighting Col. Fury and the FF. around FF 21.
Yuuuuup. Within four months of their initial appearance, Hydra was turned into a full-fledged Nazi successor organization by Strucker and the Red Skull. I alluded to this in post #33.
Continuing my tradition of linking to other folks’ analysis of Secret Empire, this fella did a good long-form critique on Tumblr :
short version - context matters, and Marvel’s context isn’t great.
Since the fight is “What was Hydra originally”, I dug up my old Strange Tales and flipped through them looking for Nazi imagery. There’s (ha!!!) brief synopsis of the stories as well.
**
Strange Tales 135**.
First ever appearance of Hydra. There’s a meme going around on the web that they were mentioned in MENACE! comics circa 1954, but I’ve read the original and it didn’t mention Hydra originally. When the story was reprinted in the early '70s, someone thought it would be cute to add Hydra’s name to the reprint (they did this to reprints all the time, which IMO was stupid).
Supreme Hydra Leader has a black panther type cat–think Blofeld with his creepy persian cat) and a cigarette in a holder. Two Hydra goons are in a torch-light fight to the death (much more of a Klan vibe). Two flunkies fight it out, one wins and it turns out it’s “Agent H”, the first female Hydra goon. They do the "Let’s all stand in line with our arms in different positions salute.
The cigarette holder is 1960s Marvel code for Nazis (Strucker used one, Zemo used one). I think the panther is just a nod to Bond villians. As mentioned the torchlight rally/deathmatch is much more Klan than Nazi. Agent H is blond and severe looking–think early Invisible Girl, but in hindsight we know there was more planned for her, so ignore the blonde Ice Princess/Hawt Nazi chick imagery that might normally be here. The salute is clearly meant to remind you of Nazis.
(Agent H will turn out to be Laurel/Lauren/Laura? Brown, daughter of the Hydra Leader (the Business Guy–footnote: he’s actually the business guy’s weedy little flunky.) and will turn on him. She’s set up to be Nick’s girlfriend, but that never happens because Steranko wanted that Countess as Nick’s squeeze. I concur with Steranko)
Strange Tales 136
Other than the cigarette holder and big cat, no real iconography except a very tenuous SS vibe on how Hydra agents are promoted/replaced (you have to kill the person in the position you’re getting promoted to). There’s an SS feel to it because of the other stuff, but in a vacuum it’s standard super-villan henchmen stuff. (That said, it’s not IN a vacuum)
Strange Tales 137
We meet the Head Hydra Honcho and Stan Lee swipes from himself as it’s a rip-off of the Spider-Man plot where the nerdy reporter (Foswell?) is actually The Big Man. Turns out it’s the ruthless bulky businessman’s secretary who’s King Hydra, not the businessman himself.
There’s another torchlight rally, but this one is much more Nuremburg than it is Klan-esque. This one feels more Nazi. There’s some standard Super-Villian chatter about how power and wealth will be theirs when they take over the world, which has a “Hitler speaking to the masses” vibe (not the content, just the poses. And it’s not overt)
Agent H meets daddy privately and is kinda worried that he’s overly ambitious. He froths at her and shows her a map with a Hydra mask with octopus tentacles reaching over the world. Nazis didn’t use that imagery about themselves, but DID use it to show how Jews were taking over. Americans did use it about the Axis. I think this is a Stan/Jack nod to Hydra=Nazis.
Strange Tales 138
Things get weird here. Agent H starts thinking that maybe Hydra-Supreme/Daddy’s elevator doesn’t quite go to the top floor. Daddy cuddles his panther and goes completely paranoid (as spoken to the yawning panther “Only YOU are truly loyal! Only YOU have never failed me! For we are both alike, we two! The world belongs to the quick…and the strong. And I have seized it just as YOU would seize a helpless hen.”) His cigarette holder has quadrupled it’s size from the first appearance. Make of that what you will, Dr Freud.
He summons the head of all the Hydra divisions (which will be Retconned to include The Secret Empire, AIM, maybe The Hand, etc, but for now just have boring animal names: Assassins: TIGER, Supply: CAMEL, etc. He commented that he renamed the various divisions to animals, so the AIM/Secret Empire/etc thing might not be a retcon as there’s a clear setup that the dumb animal names weren’t always there)
They capture Nick Fury and there’s another torchlight scene…and we’re back to a KKK vibe.
**
Strange Tales 139**
Fury is captured, there’s some Sieg Heiling going on, Agent H frees fury because she’s realized that daddy is mad…MAD!!!
(As an aside, Tony “I’m being drawn to look exactly like Howard Hughes” Stark is building a Brainiosaur. Which isn’t as cool as it sounds. It’s just a robot shuttle that can dock with any enemy sattelite. This has no relevance to the Nazi thing except…wouldn’t comics be better if there were more things like Brainiosaurs in them?) Fury and Agent L struggle to escape
Strange Tales 140
Lotsa big fights as SHIELD invades Hydra. However, when they’re losing, Head Hydra gets all weepy and psycho (“Shall I watch my life’s work crumble…because of one disloyal female? Ad yet I did it all for HER!..etc”) Hydra goons are whispering that Head Hydra has lost it.
A telling panel where Supreme Leader walks down a “red carpet” and Hydra goons are actually Sieg Heiling him on either side, making an arch out of their arms–this isn’t a Hydra gesture, this is unquestionably Nazi imagry. A lot of stuff I’ve written has been my impressions, this isn’t. This panel is pure Nazi.
The ending is just bizarre though–as Head Hydra is leaving, it’s very, VERY clear he’s going to go into a bunker and blow his brains out. But either surprising plotting from Stan/Jack and or the Comics Code stopped that, and the nerdy guy returns to his business life with no-one the wiser as he pushes a button to blow up Hydra. And he implies (despite the stuff an issue earlier) that he created Hydra from scratch. We can just dump this on Stan’s crappy memory when he’s scripting 12 books a month. So the story ends with Hydra brought down but Daddy Hydra getting away scott free.
**Strange Tales 141: Oops. **
That’s what I get for writing as I’m going. Fury, Agent L and SHIELD are mopping up the remnants of Hydra. Some Hydra goons meet Daddy who says for them to back off because HE is Imperial Hydra. They :rolleyes: He says that he wore platform shoes, etc to make him look bigger. They :rolleyes: again. He recites the Hydra oath, they shout “Blasphemy!” and kill him.
Very weirdly there’s a couple of panels where he’s drawn as a white-haired Adolph Hitler: Hitler-stache and bad haircut and all. As this doesn’t jibe with any of his previous appearances (he had a thin, weedy mustache, thinning black hair and his face was shaped completely different) I don’t know if this was intentional on Jack’s part or just sloppiness. I lean towards the “sloppy” theory. Remember, Jack was drawing something like 6 books a month.
Agent L gets all weepy (of the “o daddy! You were evil and now you’re dead” variety) and it looks like they’re gonna set her up as a SHEILD agent and main squeeze for Nick.
Next post will be the second Hydra arc (there’s about an 8 issue gap where they fight some lameass badguys like The Druid). This way, if we’re gonna fight about it, at least we have an issue by issue guide based on first hand research. Also, I know that my memory was wrong about some stuff in the first Hydra arc (and I’m much more familiar with that than I am the Strucker arc, so it’ll be interesting to see if they actually DO say that Business Guy’s Secretary was just a stooge of Strucker (which I remember, but now wonder about) and how much Nazi imagery is in the second arc.
TL - DR #2. Last in a series. Collect them all (or don’t).
I don’t know how useful these are to the ongoing argument but I’m home today with an upset stomach and it gave me a reason to reread my Strange Tales, so something good came out of it.
Strange Tales 142-6
No Hydra, although there’s talk of a new group called “THEM” are showing up in Tales of Suspense to annoy Cap and/or Iron Man. Fury and co. comment on this Also several new SHEILD agents are recruited–Jasper Sitwell, a fussy but smart by the book guy who becomes important later)
Strange Tales 147
First appearance I can find of AIM; yellow bee-keeper suits and all. Zero Nazi imagery. None whatsoever. AIM is trying to kill Fury and Co with lumpy orange robots. They say that there’s a link between AIM and THEM but don’t say what. A dashing European businessman type introduces himself to SHEILD saying “A.I.M. is NOT a mere business organization…not a political union…but rather a society of the GREATEST INTELLECTS ON EARTH!!! Our purpose is simple…we wish to benefit mankind” The guy then goes on to say that AIM is happy to work with SHIELD but not if that big dumb lug Nick Fury is in charge. Pick someone else and we’ll be delighted to give all our new toys to you.
(Ah–Slick European guy is actually named “Count Bornag Royale”.)
LMDs are introduced here.
Also this issue, according to Jasper Sitwell (who knows this kind of stuff) AIM was “established in 1962 and functioned as an international cartel…!”) So either Jasper’s wrong or the victim of a disinformation campaign OR nobody planned that THEM/AIM were Hydra breakaways. I’m gonna argue that if they don’t use the breakaway thing in the next say, 5 issues, it wasn’t planned.
Strange Tales 148
Other than confirming that AIM and THEM are in chahoots, it’s just a bunch of fight scenes. Zero Nazi imagery, no mention of Hydra.
Strange Tales 149
There’s serious speculation that THEM and AIM are linked with Hydra at the end of the issue. No hint of Nazi stuff here either.
Strange Tales 150
It’s titled “HYDRA LIVES” so…
Don Caballero, richest guy south of the border invites Nick to fly down for a big party (Caballero is a “jet-setter” known for his crazy, far-out parties) in the Dead City of Karnopolois (looks like Egypt and Greece worked together to produce a really ugly city). Nick accepts because Caballero is UP TO NO GOOD!
A SHIELD agent is killed by a giant statue of a Pharaoh/Greek Warrior when he discovers that Hydra is still around and was never destroyed.
Don Cabellero is clearly in on it but the dialogue is unclear if Cabellero is Supreme Hydra or if he’s working for him.
Oh, and there’s a new weapon, the Overkill Horn that SHIELD has a demo of and Hydra or AIM or someone has created
**Strange Tales 151
**Steranko starts.
Don Cabellero is/was the “Grand Imperator” of THEM (so he may not have been a new character in issue 150) but he point blank says “The time has finally come for the world to tremble at my TRUE identity–The SUPREME, ALL HIGH-HEAD OF HYDRA”
Goons do the Hydra oath, but with a more Black Panther fist salute than a seig heil.
Turns out that Hydra has it’s own Overkill Horn and their goal is to put their flunkies in fallout shelters and then blow every atomic stockpile on earth. Then when things calm down, they’ll take control of the remnants of mankind. This is super-villian stuff, not Nazi stuff and there’s no “under-menchen” type talk (we had a little with the AIM guys, but none here)
Hm. Don Cabellero gets a super-long cigarette holder. That should counts towards Nazi in Marvel at this stage, but Don C. is such a dandy that I don’t think we can count it fairly. Also the classic Hydra Skull/Octopus logo shows up here (everything 'till now has been attempts at it)
The last three panels of the issue have a “Triumph of the Will” vibe to them…a pretty clear one. This is the clearest Nazi imagery of the second Hydra arc
**Strange Tales 152
**Don Cabellero, “greasy/slick Mexican” stereotype disguises himself as a sleazy Arab (Sheik El Something-Something) stereotype and goes to capture Agent L because she betrayed Hydra. A couple more Hail Hydra speeches. They don’t have the Nazi vibe that the previous issue did.
**Strange Tales 153
**Hm…turns out that both Don Cabellero and Sheik El Something-Something were both false faces. Supreme Hydra is bored with both disguises and we see him get a false face (the base for which looks like The Chameleon’s face from Spider-Man) put on. Is he Strucker? If so, the vaguely demeaning stereotypes of his previous disguises take on a whole 'nother meaning. He’s now some Square-Jawed white guy with the brown-turning-white Reed Richards haircut. Who’s a member of SHIELD. Named Agent Bronson.
This is subtle and I don’t know if it’s intentional: Fury captures a bunch of Hydra goons and unmasks them. They’re all white guys. SHIELD, however is integrated. We see black faces in the background and the issue ends with Gabe Jones playing cards with Dum Dum Dugan. Jimmy Woo will be introduced in a couple of issues. I like to think it’s intentional.
Strange Tales 154
Steranko’s artwork suddenly jumped light-years ahead of where it was and Miss Brown (Agent L) is framed: their super-computer says that she’s really Supreme Hydra. In reality Agent Brown did it and nobody really believes it was Agent L.
Strange Tales 155
Nothing happens excpet that Agent Brown is injured, Fury takes her to a med-bay, and they’re both captured and taken to Hydra Island!!!
**
Strange Tales 156**
Ok–here’s the key issue:
Supreme Hydra is revealed as Baron Strucker. And Strucker starts monologuing as hundreds of Hydra Agents are seig heiling him.
Here’s his actual text. I think it implies pretty strongly that Hydra is just Nazis, but here’s his actual words:
And that’s it. The next couple issues feature a lot of gorgeous Steranko artwork, the fall of Hydra (again), the (alleged) death of Baron Strucker and nothing about whether AIM/THEM were originally part of Hydra or were created after Hydra’s first collapse by Strucker. And it’s not even clear if Strucker/Nazis created Hydra or if it was Wimpy Secretary Guy-Supreme Hydra (he kept saying he did).
So far, the evidence in their first two (or three, if you count the THEM stuff in Tales of Suspense) appearances is clearly the following timeline:
Wimpy Guy creates Hydra in the early '60s from scratch-there was no preexisting outfit and Strucker wasn’t behind it’s creation. Wimpy Guy used KKK and Nazi imagery to build a cult of personality around him.
By 1962, he’s created the AIM branch of Hydra (and presumably THEM)
By 1966-ish, there’s a dozen or so divisions of Hydra (that, apparently, Wimpy Guy recently renamed to their animal-themed names).
Circa 1966/67, Wimpy Guy lets his daughter join as the first female goon.This eventually leads to his death when his followers shoot him (not realizing that he’s Supreme Hydra without the disguise on).
All the Hydra goons scatter and the various organizations lose their silly animal names and fracture as well.
Strucker gets wind of this and starts putting Hydra back together.
It’s the only way the timeline as we saw it make any sense. It simply can’t have been a Nazi organization originally.
One final thought–it’s weird: except for the one Strucker rant I quoted above, Wimpy Guy’s Hydra had much, MUCH more KKK and Nazi symbolism than Strucker’s. Steranko made Hydra into Bond villians. Wimpy guy’s original Hydra was much more sinister. Less effectual, but creepier.
Interesting. I think I recently saw a scan of a page (in a Jack Kirby issue? I forget) where Strucker said that he had never stopped being a Nazi, and he had always believed in tyranny. So while he was running Hydra, it was presumably serving his ambitions, which could have been his version of a Fourth Reich.
Strucker the aristocrat may have had a slightly different approach from Johann Schmidt’s general misanthropy or even Adolf Hitler’s revolutionary program, but I think we can agree they were all Nazis, or at least comic-book Nazis.
And yet, this whole argument about whether Hydra are Nazis is hilarious, on the order of whining that one isn’t a racist if one is bigoted against Muslims due to their religion.
Hydra have been established as a menace that seeks to conquer the world. Captain America is betraying the heroes. He’s the villain of the piece, and explicitly working with his Kirby-era antagonist Dr Faustus, who seems vaguely Nazi-ish. And what, we’re supposed to happy to root for Steve because he doesn’t actually wear a swastika? That’s not how this works.
This is a horror story, it stomps on the trademark of Cap as Big Good that’s been built up for a while, and it’s annoying. If Spencer’s intent was to generally disrespect fans of Steve to build up new Captain America Sam Wilson as a hero, then that could have ended up pitting Steve fans and Sam fans against each other. It’s a good thing that longtime Cap fans generally already like Sam, which diminishes that effect.
I think that it’s more that Spencer dislikes Steve than that Spencer’s really a Nazi. I don’t know what the Marvel office guys are thinking.
Maybe I’m just coming from a different place, being a fan of the X-Men (where pretty much every major character either used to be a villain, or has made a villainous turn at one point) but I don’t see a character turning evil as disrespectful, as long as it’s written well and doesn’t come from misunderstanding the character. Which doesn’t seem to be the case here, with his history being cosmically re-written.
Are we supposed to be “rooting for” HYDRA Steve? It’s a tragic story, and shows how even good people can mistakenly fall for the lure of something like fascism.
Oh, and now Spencer’s disrespecting the Thor book by showing Hydra-Steve holding Mjolnir, or what appears to be Mjolnir Not even the Odinson can pick up Mjolnir in the present Thor run, which is why the sone of Odin is moping and not even using his own name. To have evil-Steve pick it up is really inconsistent, and yet another case of the storytelling in crossovers being an offensive waste.
But it strongly plays into the idea that Nordic blonds like Thor and Steve Rogers could easily be “Nazi Übermenschen.” It feels like a bit of a nasty joke about all those blond heroes at Marvel.
I don’t think we’re supposed to be, but I think Marvel has the idea that Hydra are just wrestling heels, and if you want to root for them, fine, they’ll take your money.
Why else make a big deal about Hydra supposedly not really being Nazis?
Well as I said elsewhere, in the middle of the Alt-Right/Russian attack on our nation and democracy, we have someone deciding to take Captain America, as american red meat as you can get, and turn him into a villain.
That is some awesome detail background there. Thanks! I once saw Jim Steranko at a convention - apropos of nothing, he is a tiny, tiny man. I haven’t read his original Nick Fury work, just summaries and recaps.
Newsarama speculates about the tension between Marvel and Nick Spencer’s possibly contradictory statements about the ending of Secret Empire - includes spoilers for SE #2 :
You know what-- you’re right. I should have said allusions to Nazism and Nazi iconography…but…
This is such horse shit splitting hairs. It’s ridiculous. Kids are shown giving the hydra salute which is CLEARLY a stand in for a “Heil Hitler” salute. You then also have kids running around in HYDRA uniforms attacking their enemies. …“but but but they’re not called Hydra Youth” Not enough roll-eyes on the internet for that argument.
I haven’t read recent issues, but I don’t suppose the Cosmic Cube has actually made Hydra a bunch of good guys, rather than Cap a bad guy, explaining how Cap was able to wield Thor’s hammer…?
