6 Libertarian Themed Comic Book Stories You MUST Read

3. Secret War

Theme: military adventurism & blowback

A story dealing with the unintended consequences of aggressive foreign policy, Director of SHIELD Nick Fury enlists the help of superheroes Luke Cage, Wolverine, Captain American, the Thing, Daredevil, and Spider-Man, in order to invade the fictional nation of Latveria (a country formerly under the reign of Dr. Doom), where the new democratically elected leader has been accused of selling high-tech weapons to terrorist organizations around the world.  Despite being told by the POTUS not to preeminently attack the country, Nick Fury and his covert team invade Latveria, kill its new leader, and blow up the capitol.

After returning from Latveria, Fury erases the minds of all of his accomplices in order to cut all remaining loose ends.  Years pass and suddenly the U.S. begins to suffer from random terrorist attacks throughout the nation.  After the heroes find themselves lured to a pier in Manhattan, the villain is exposed as the Latverian leader Fury thought they killed, along with a band of villains ready to attack on order.  The battle ensues and ultimately the heroes and Fury win, but as a result, the US now has to deal with a new foreign enemy. Fury must go into hiding, and the Marvel heroes must live with the knowledge of what they have done.

This cautionary tale alludes to the threats of terrorism, and the struggle ultimately between our reality and our fears.  By striking a foreign nation for what they might potentially do, Fury created an enemy which in turn decided to take out its anger on the innocent people of the United States, embodying the definition of “blowback”. Thus, all the lies, death, and destruction used to prevent further danger to the US in turn only created even more lies, death, and destruction.