Only a Communist Would Hide Behind a Mask - Superheroes During the Red Scare


I'm currently working my way through James Patterson's Grand Expectations, covering the history of the United States from the end of World War II and Watergate. Currently I'm in the 1952 presidential election, though the book isn't 100% sequential - for example, it covered the end of the Korean War before diving into the 1952 election. 


One thing I'm finding fascinating is the multiple facets of American life in the late 1940s and early 1950s. On the one hand, we see the United States enjoying prosperity which, to our eyes, is hard to believe. But that assumes you were white. And not a farmer. Or a woman looking for her own career. Or non-straight. Or having unpatriotic views.

There's a definite undercurrent of fear at the communist menace. The commies are everywhere. To be clear, there were unions whose leadership did indeed receive marching orders from Moscow. And the Soviet Union did indeed engage in espionage. But it is also clear how much of the Red Scare of the era was a witch hunt, looking for the communist menace at a time when FBI informants made up around 30% of the communist party. But an accusation could ruin a career. And refusal to take a loyalty oath could end a career as well.


How would such a society react to masked superheroes? Of course, it depends on what sort of lens you want your superheroes. Atlas Comics, the successor to Timely and predecessor to Marvel, briefly revived Captain America to have him fight communists. This was before retcons and it was portrayed as Steve Rogers and Bucky coming out of retirement and the Red Skull switching his allegiance from Nazi to communist. I suppose his name worked well for that. Eventually Marvel declared that this Captain America wasn't "really" Steve Rogers but some poor guy programmed to think he was, with the real Captain America being lost and frozen at the end of the war and Bucky being killed (until the relatively recent Winter Soldier storyline).
Over at DC, superheroes were quickly reduced to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The last Justice Society of America story appeared in 1951. The in-universe explanation for their retirements did not appear until 1979's Adventure Comics #466 where a joint Congressional Committee ordered them to unmask. They refused and retired. 

Watchmen had something similar, where some of the Minutemen chose to reveal their identities to Congress while others retired.

I would imagine in any superhero setting, masked heroes would be ordered to unmask. Actually it seems likely that that would have happened prior to that but in the midst of the Red Scare it is practically certain this would happen. And in any group of people it is also nearly certain that some would be "deviants" by the standards of the day. Someone who was once a part of the communist party. A sexual "deviant" (i.e. non-straight). 

It could make for an interesting dark-toned RPG campaign - having a group of superheroes survive political witch hunts. "What do you mean our nemesis Captain Doom has been deputized by the government?"







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jules Verne Translations That Don't Stink

Image
Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG,  Castle Falkenstein. Having missed out on Space: 1889  when it first came out this was my first steampunk RPG, though I had been exposed to the genre by Gibson and Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (a novel which, though I though I found the setting compelling, I did not particularly care for - must reread some day). Jules Verne was one of the authors in the inspirational reading section of Castle Falkenstein.  Heck, the game also made him into France's scientific advisor, having him responsible for their massive Verne Cannons  which formed a sort of nuclear deterrent.  With that in mind, one Sunday afternoon I was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore my new girlfriend (now my wife of nearly 16 years!).  On a whim I decided to pick up a Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . That night I started reading it, never having read any of his works b...
Keep reading

Stepping Away and a New Beginning

Image
After maintaining this blog for nearly seven years (an eternity in internet time), I've decided to step away from it. When I first began I wasn't 100% certain what it would be about. For a while I thought it would be a blog related to OSR type RPGs but I found my own tastes not firmly rooted there. Looking at the history of the blog, I see a lot of Call of Cthulhu which is hardly surprising. However, some lack of consistency definitely made it tough for me find a defined niche and over the past few months I've been giving some thought to starting a new, more narrowly focused blog. The imminent end of Google+ played a part in these thoughts, with much of my traffic coming from that site. I write because I enjoy writing, but I do enjoy growing an audience. My plan to start a narrowly-focused blog took a turn when I had the opportunity to join the  Rolling Boxcars  blog. Talking with the contributors (one of whom I game with on Discord already) and going through thei...
Keep reading

Developing Boston for 1920s Call of Cthulhu

Image
While Chaosium has produced sourcebooks for many locations in Lovecraft Country (Kingsport, Arkham, and Innsmouth) as well as non-fictional cities of the 1920s (such as New York City and New Orleans), the nearby city of Boston, while being featured in many adventures, has never received its own full sourcebook. The most common era for my Call of Cthulhu  games has been in the 1920s - some campaigns have been in New York City while others have been in Lovecraft country. For those in Lovecraft Country, many adventures have been in nearby Boston. Over the years I've slowly been building up some expertise in the area and I thought it might be of interest to others gaming in the same setting - whether with Mythos horrors or a purely mundane game. First, let us investigate those official sources. While Boston has found its way into many adventures, I can think of two sources where it has been given a fair amount of detail. First, The Unspeakable Oath  double issue 16/17 has ...
Keep reading

Using the Force in D6 Star Wars

Image
Defending yourself with just 1D in Sense is not easy, as Luke discovers when training with a remote. My previous post discussed the proto-D6 System as found in the Ghostbusters RPG. For those unfamiliar with the D6 System and the way it does the Force (or for a brief review) the essentials are: You roll a bunch of six sided dice against a target number, typically ranging from 5-ish (easy) to 20 or even higher. Your rating is listed as something like 2D+2 which means roll 2d6+2. By default, most normal/non-heroic people have 2D in most stats.  Starting heroes will might have their best skill be at 5D or a touch higher. You can take as many actions as you want in a round. However, taking two actions in a round reduces all dice codes by 1D, taking three reduces all by 2D, etc. Starting with Force skills will lower a characters starting attributes. Unlike most skills they start off at 1D. There are three Force skills - control, sense, and alter. Control lets you contr...
Keep reading

RPG Review: Star Trek The Role Playing Game (FASA/1983)

Image
It really isn't my fault that I'm a Trekkie. When I was a preschooler in the suburbs of Syracuse back in the early 1970s my mother would put WPIX Star Trek reruns (all the way from NYC, there was cable tv awfully early in that area) on for me while she made dinner every weeknight at 6 PM. I liked the funny guy with the pointy ears. My uncle and godfather was the family Trekkie. He took me to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 . Truth be told my 8-year old self found it a bit boring. However in 1982 I absolutely loved Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . That was a movie an 10-year old (almost 11 that summer) could appreciate it. Though seeing ear-worms on a giant drive-in movie screen was incredibly gross. By that time I had my first official D&D group. We used to meet in the Howard Whittemore Library in Naugatuck, CT. One winter I was hanging outside the library waiting for for my parents to pick me up after our game was complete when I ran into the GM of anoth...
Keep reading