Hi Jordan. I've been hearing some disturbing things about the way Marvel is using Hydra to market their books (trying to get comic store employees to dress as Hydra agents, retconning Cap and Magneto to be Hydra) and it's seeming that as fictional as Hydra is, actual white supremacists are loving this marketing, and using it to celebrate their bigotry. Idk what power, if any, you have over this, but as a queer long time fan, I really hope it ends soon.

Thanks for expressing your concern to me.

First off, I do always like to say that you are entitled to your own opinion. I am not trying to negate your feelings–they are yours and no one can take that from you. But you wrote to me, so I am going to do what I can to answer/explain from my point of view.

There are a few things in your ask that ring of the telephone game. There are sites out there that are taking the story and the facts and spinning them into different meanings than intended, and then THOSE stories are getting more play than the actual facts of what is happening.

I don’t believe Marvel is asking employees to dress as Hydra agents…I think they were offering them T-Shirts with the Hydra logo on them. Hydra are the villains in this story, they are a big part of it, so promoting them makes sense, to me. Again–I edit the Darth Vader books, which are about a traitorous murderer who works for an oppressive fascist regime that literally blew up multiple planets. He’s the main character of the series, but I hope it’s clear you’re not meant to emulate him.

I don’t believe there is any comic where Magneto joins Hydra.

Now…I have not heard anything about actual white supremacists using Hydra to celebrate their own beliefs. If this is actually true…yeah, of course, that is horrible. It also makes them pretty foolish, because again…it’s pretty clear to me Hydra are the bad guys in this story. The story judges them harshly and invites the reader to do so as well. So…to point to them and hold them up as your ideal is a poor choice for a lot of reasons…not the least of which is that the good guys tend to win in comics, the vast majority of the time.