I would agree that discussion of the socio-political environment surrounding a work are undeniably on topic when discussing the work; as Foucault argued, statements depend on the conditions of the discourse in which they arise, and cannot exist outside of the statements which precede and follow them. As such, the Civil War not only cannot exist outside of the “Post-9/11” America in which it was created and conceived, but also cannot exist outside of the Reagan '80s, Vietnam, or even the Revolutionary War and the enlightenment principles on which America is founded. The role of the Hegelian dialectic is especially key in any consideration of superhero comics. The masked vigilante trades in a human visage and identity for a more generalized appearance; Daniel Rand takes up the mask of Daredevil, in lieu of Matt Murdock, and becomes Daredevil by virtue not of any verbal declaration (he does not have to announce “I am the Daredevil”), but rather by the performative act of wearing the mask which confers the heroic identity.
When discussing a politically-oriented Marvel comic, Captain America is absolutely key to consider from this standpoint. His generalized, abstract appearance is not simply that of a vigilante, but that of a nation. Captain America becomes the personification and facial representation of the entire imagined community of a nation state. Consider the “Nomad” identity Captain America briefly takes up when he becomes disillusioned with the United States Government in the 1970s with regard to Hegel’s dialectic; initially, Captain America is the Abstract (being an abstract representation of America and its values), but when he sees this abstract is flawed, he turns to the Negative (the “Nomad” identity, in which he rejects Americanism in favour of becoming a nomad, a man without a country), before arriving at the Concrete in returning to his original identity with the understanding that he can represent America without standing for its government.
The Civil War Captain America is no different, and the Civil War Iron Man exists within a similar dialectic. What Captain America is to America, Iron Man is to transnational capital and globalization. While Captain America has the righteous, yet rebellious streak many have noted as common among American heroes (Priscilla Wald describes it quite eloquently in the context of “outbreak narratives” in her book Contagious), Iron Man’s personal moral convictions are less strict (Tony Stark is an alcoholic and womanizer), but he sides more strongly with the government and social norms, since the capital (and capitalism) he represents necessitate the Hobbesian sovereign state for which he fights. As such, either individual may be seen as an abstract and as a negative, in reference to the other. The resultant synthesis/concrete phase in the dialectic is perhaps less hopeful in Civil War than it has been in the past, with Captain America realizing that what is easy and convenient will more often be chosen than what is right, in a symbolic victory of capitalism and the state. In fact, while the legality of superheroics is a more central theme than in the past, the government is arguably brought under less scrutiny than in the past, and is shown as the winner not only in a practical, but largely in a philosophical sense.
The assertion that legality has not been dealt with before is hardly true, though; Spiderman and the X-Men both had numerous legal issues throughout their career, with Spiderman frequently a wanted “criminal” and government attempts to regulate mutants being frequent topics. Political questioning was still quite common in the artistic world of all the eras the 984 mentioned, as well. the villains Casablanca are Nazis, and its hero is an American, but Rick fought with the loyalists (and thus on the same side as communists) in the Spanish Civil War, and cannot return to America. Another Bogey movie, Key Largo, features Bogart’s character lambasting claims that he was a war hero with the phrase “I believed some words.” In the western classic The Magnificent Seven, a hero argues that a contract no court would enforce is “Just the kind you have to keep.” John Ford’s Westerns abound with anti-establishment sentiment. Beat poetry aligned itself heavily against capitalism and militarism. More strict censorship forced these themes into undertones or the works into obscurity, in comparison with today, but they were heavily present in art for a long time. The issue, I feel, is largely as the 984 argued, and the difference is less in the discourse surrounding comics, but the place of comics within that discourse; it is a more recent phenomenon that comics have attempted to place themselves in the canon of more serious Art. The child/adult audience is less key than the change from attempts to entertain to attempts to make serious, meaningful statements about the world.
Would’ve been cute. Civil War however never even attempted it though.)