Skip to main content

Captain America & Secret Empire should my library carry them when I find it repulsive?

This was a question someone reached out to me and asked me to tackle, so here we go..

Let's get a few things out of the way first shall we? Yes, Captain America is essentially a Nazi now or at the very, very least being used as a Neo-Nazi/white supremacist propaganda.

And yes, that is extremely troubling and flies in the face of the late great Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of Captain America, who like many early comic writers were Jewish.

Also, no you do not have to personally support any of these books. You don't need to buy Captain America, Secret Empire, Thunderbolts, or any the tie in stories. You just don't.

You should, however, buy it for the books for your library if you think they will circulate and justify your purpose as a library (like if you have a huge white supremacist population and you think they'll read it). That's ultimately the reason to have any controversial material and there is legitimate reasons to have material that is pushing the envelope and making people study the issue. If Captain America's reveal makes people re-evaluate their views, then that is a good thing.

But here is the reality on the popularity side, as Bookriot No Marvel We're Out of Patience points out sales on Captain America are slumping which is sort of typical of a Marvel title, but they're really going down fast over all. Secret Empire started out solid in sales, but that is with 5 covers, so ultimately.. sales data does not suggest that this is a hugely popular series, if you want to argue that.

This also is a trend for Marvel of the last several years of making all of their heroes into villains or rather generally bad people, so people could be bored with the concept over all as it's not very new. But it has drawn a lot of protest, anger and people being upset so adding it to your library collection should be done with care if you choose to have it and I would make sure your policies are strong on collecting and keeping objectionable material so you can defend your choice.

Really this boils down to: if you think it will circulate, get it. If you do not think it will, don't. There are numbers and arguments to back up both sides, but personal opinions on the comic and story really shouldn't come into play anymore than any other objectionable material. You make these decisions either way, just be prepared to defend your position and also be open to hearing the both sides of the argument to make that decision. The controversy should not be the only reason you shy away from it or openly support it and you cannot stand on that argument alone. You also cannot use the argument that people are hurt or upset by it as the only reason for exclusion anymore than you would accept the same reasoning for excluding a Harry Potter book or Perry Moore's Hero or Walter Dean Myers' Monster. 

Ultimately do what is best for your library and remember this is no different than any other controversial material.





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Superhero Comics Teach Information Literacy Part 1

OK. I had this idea and submitted it to be published in a book about comics and information literacy and the rejected it. Sad face. I know I could type this out and send it to be officially published and maybe one day I'll take the ideas here and reuse them for an article, but.. that's a long process and I think this is too important to lock up for long periods of time and potentially a paywall. So I'm going to do a series of posts about how superhero comics inherently teach information literacy and how you as a librarian can tap into that and use that to advocate for comics or even help people understand information literacy. No clue how many posts there will be if I'm honest.. but here's the first. Early example of a Marvel Citation If you've ever read a lot of Marvel/DC Superhero comics especially from the 60's, 70's and 80's, you will have noticed these little boxes with editors notes in them. These small notes often told readers when
Post a Comment
Read more

Transformers More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise

I know I've recommended these books before, but I've been re-reading Robots in Disguise  (which becomes just Transformers  later) and reading for the first time most of More than Meets the Eye  (which becomes Transformers: Lost Light) and I have to say.. wow. These books are just so beautifully done. I've talked before about the right and wrong ways to do politics in a book. These books? They get it right. How do they do it? Well here's the thing.. both of these books take place after the war between the Autobots and Decepticons is finally over. It's done. Time to move on and build a new world. In Robots in Disguise , we follow the adventures of all the Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons and Non-Aligned Indigenous Life Forms (or NAILs) all trying to make a new life on Cybertron. There is animosity between all 3 groups Autobots and Decepticons obviously still hate each other from the 4 million year war and NAILs feel like the war destroyed their planet and th
Post a Comment
Read more

Pride Month Recommendations Part 1 Gay/bisexual male

I feel like I'm running behind on a lot of stuff right now, so there will probably be a few posts this week to make up for it. Sorry about that,. So June is typically considered Pride Month in the US, though local areas may have their own pride at different times. I'm going to start doing a series of posts on LGBTQIA comics that I recommend, but I'm going to do this a little differently. My idea is to break it down into parts, the first focusing on gay and bi men, then lesbians and bi women, then trans*, queer, intersex and asexual, then  finally circle back and focus on books that do a bit of all of them well (namely team books). I want to do it this way for a couple of reasons. First, while LGBTQIA is a community for various reasons, each individual group has it's own wants/needs/desires, so a book with a lesbian lead may not speak to an asexual teen as well as another book. The second reasons is to highlight some of the areas where comics as a medium are lacking ov
Post a Comment
Read more