182 ESPIONAGE
Captain America’s origins begin with fi fth-column espionage, as Nazi infi ltrators
killed the doctor who developed the “super soldier” serum tested on Private Steve
Rogers. Spy smashing was Captain America’s main line of work during the war. Cap’s
main antagonist, the Red Skull, would serve as the ring leader of a Nazi-inspired
U.S.-based underground criminal and espionage organization. After the war, and with
the subsequent decline of the superhero comic, Captain America, like many other
superheroes, would briefl y fi ght off communists and the occasional supernatural villain
before the comic and the character would be put on ice (in this case both fi guratively
and literally) until the early 1960s.
Blackhawk, fi rst seen in August 1941 in Quality Comics’ Military Comics, was
the name given to a group of international military pilots. Although the cast was
international, the book has been criticized by contemporary critics for its use of ethnic
stereotypes (seen in many comics from the 1930s and 1940s). Th eir mission objectives
were mainly to prevent spies from stealing secrets or otherwise stopping nefarious Axis
plots that threatened the Allied cause. A mix of military fi ction/adventure and the spy
genre, the initial Blackhawk stories focused on very realistic war themes and promoted
the ethic of vigilante wartime justice. Th e Blackhawk stories ran until 1953, although
the property would be revived various times by DC from the 1970s onward.
Th e Silver Age of comics would also refl ect the changing face of the spy genre. As the
spy genre changed in popular literature, so too did espionage themes in popular comics.
A well-known espionage-themed comic from this era was Antonio Prohias’s Spy vs. Spy,
a satirical spoof of Cold War espionage featured in Mad Magazine. Introduced in 1961,
Spy vs. Spy was a comic strip featuring two identical spies, both wearing trench coats
and narrow brimmed hats. Th eir features are identical save that one is colored black,
while the other is white. In the Warner Brothers tradition of cartoons, all Spy vs. Spy
tales involved the two agents attempting to outdo the other in creative ways. While the
white/black connotation may have given readers some idea of political or national affi li-
ation, little preference was give to which color “won” in each strip. In the end, Spy vs. Spy
was a humorous look into the absurdities of Cold War politics and espionage. Th e strip
continues to today in Mad.
Th e infl uence of James Bond was seen in many comics of the 1960s. T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents, developed by artist Wally Wood, was a team of United Nations–chartered
adventurers tasked to take on various underground organizations bent on world conquest,
such as the forces of “the Warlord” and “S.P.I.D.E.R.” (Secret People’s International Direc-
torate for Extralegal Revenue). Th e espionage genre conventions in the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents would be seen again in the 1980s G.I. Joe stories.
Marvel comics, following up on the popularity of the James Bond novels and sub-
sequent fi lms, also led in the integration of espionage themes into its larger continuity
by introducing S.H.I.E.L.D. into its storylines by 1965. As a covert government-run
espionage organization, S.H.I.E.L.D. featured Nick Fury. S.H.I.E.L.D. was originally
an acronym for “Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement
Division”, though that would later be changed to “Strategic Hazard Intervention,
