Conservative thinker Jordan Peterson was shocked this month to discover that Marvel Comics had assigned his writings to the evil Nazi villain Red Skull in the latest issue of Captain America.
Peterson commented on the absurd situation upon the release of Captain America comics, Volume 9, #28, published by Marvel Comics last week. The current series is being penned by left-wing activist Ta-Nehisi Coates.
On one page of the new issue, Coates parodied Peterson’s famous book 12 Rules for Life by depicting the series’ classic villain Red Skull — a character long associated with Nazi Germany — pushing an Internet video called “The Ten Rules for Life.”
The page also features Captain America criticizing the “weak” young men who glom onto Red Skull’s online videos. “It’s the same for all of them. Young men. Weak. Looking for purpose. I found the flag, you found the badge. They found the Skull,” Cap says in one of the panels.
“He tells them what they’ve always longed to hear. That they are secretly great. That the whole world is against them. That if they’re truly men, they’ll fight back,” the hero adds in a seeming swipe at thinkers including Peterson.
Peterson was not amused by the comic book’s unfair attention. The Canadian writer took to Twitter to remark on his ideas being presented as part of a Nazi villain’s credo.
In a follow-up tweet, Peterson asked aloud, “Do I really live in a universe where Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a Captain America comic featuring a parody of my ideas as part of the philosophy of the arch villain Red Skull?”
Ta-Nehisi Coates has been penning comic book stories for the last decade, but his comics have not consistently fared well commercially. His last Black Panther series was canceled due to poor sales.
Coates has been hired to write a new Superman script for the next film for Marvel’s comic book rival DC Comics, along with Warner Bros., and producer J.J. Abrams.
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