We've tried really hard to manufacture controversy and stoke the fires of nerd rage over this whole "there won't be any Nazis in the Captain America movie" thing, which really kicked off when behind-the-scenes photos revealed HYDRA tanks that were totally not Nazi tanks. Unfortunately, it seems our efforts to muckrake this into a "they're whitewashing history" issue were all for naught, as Marvel Comics writer Fred Van Lente has confirmed that in the world of Captain America: The First Avenger, HYDRA are explicitly a division of Hitler's Third Reich.As we discussed in November of last year, the move away from explicit Nazi imagery seems to be policy across Marvel's multimedia efforts, particularly with respect to the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated series and the Captain America film and its various games and comic book tie-ins. The reason for this is no doubt the headaches that would certainly arise should parents encounter Marvel-branded merchandise like action figures, vehicles and playsets emblazoned with swastikas. Obviously, a consequence of this practice is side-stepping important world history that directly influenced the creation of Captain America.

However! In support of his Captain America: First Vengeance, a free-to-read digital comics prelude to the events of The First Avenger, Fred Van Lente gave an interview to Newsarama in which the film's apparent downplaying of Nazis was directly addressed.

It is not some kind of rewriting of world history. There are Nazis in the movie, I've read the script. It is not trying to pretend that the Nazis didn't exist, or that World War II didn't happen the way we all know it from history.

Look! "Nazi-Occupied Danish Straits"!


Van Lente also said that his First Vengeance comic is "chockfull of Nazis," and that the Red Skull's origin details HYDRA's place in the structure of the Third Reich.

Oh, well. Don't worry, we'll work on finding something new to get outraged about.

More From ComicsAlliance