I've received a number of messages asking me to comment on a recent controversy in the Captain America comic book…something about the hero taking a stand about "Teabaggers" or something. I'm not quite clear on it because I didn't read the comic in question and therefore can't comment.
Several of those messages asked me to weigh in on what I think Jack Kirby would have thought of it. Well, since Jack's been dead now for sixteen years, he's even less qualified to discuss that comic than I am. But on at least two message boards, folks are debating what he would have said and how his politics would be described in today's political environment. Again, I can't say. Jack is not in today's political environment. When I knew him he was a solid, lifelong Liberal Democrat. Would he still be? Who knows? I have a friend who was a member of the John Birch Society in the sixties and today is slightly to the left of Leon Trotsky. People change. (Hey, Joe the Plumber now thinks ill of John McCain. That oughta be good for another 15 seconds of fame.)
I see no reason to presume Jack would have changed…or that any change would not have taken him towards more progressive ground. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you any particular change could never have occurred. About the only thing I'm reasonably sure of in this area is that there is nothing that could have ever happened, up to and including a complete personality transformation, that would have caused Kirby to not despise Richard Nixon.