HYDRA Tanks in ‘Captain America’ Film Are Totally Not Nazi Tanks

New leaked photos from the England set of Captain America: The First Avenger reveal more of director Joe Johnston's ambitious approach to the Marvel Comics icon and his World War II backstory. Seen for the first time on Comic Book Movie, the photos show life-size and presumably working models of some of the vehicles we'll see in the film, although conspicuously absent from their hulls and hood ornaments are the Nazi swastikas, with the emblem of HYDRA in their places.

While there's been some fan consternation about the more or less whitewashing of Hitler and the Nazis from Captain America's multimedia affairs -- the Avengers: Earth's MIghtiest Heroes animated series, The Avengers film, Captain America: The First Avenger; and the video game, Captain America: Super Soldier -- the villainous HYDRA outfit would seem to be a decent replacement. Certainly, the realities of World War II were crucial to the creation of Captain America, and if a fear of explaining to younger fans what exactly went on in Europe during that time seems a daunting task, well, parents are going to have to deal with it sooner or later. However, more daunting than that would seem to be the prospect of telling Marvel-branded, Swastika-emblazoned action figures, vehicles and playsets at Toys 'R Us in support of the Captain America film.

Obviously, there's precedent for such concerns: