Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s brief
back-of-the-book Marvel tales-with-a-twist were fun. But sometimes, like Rod
Serling’s Twilight Zone TV series,
they also carried a quietly effective theme about human nature. This one
concerns the power and danger of propaganda, a message even more relevant in
2016 than in 1960.
In Tales of Suspense 8 (March 1960), a shape-shifting alien (a direct
ancestor of the Skrulls) wreaks havoc until he’s captured because he made the
mistake of assuming the form of a beloved astronaut dog who’s in space.
A silly surprise ending, yes, but
the real message was slipped in earlier — that beguiling media propaganda can
be used not only to dangerously misinform citizens, but even more insidiously to
discredit the truth-tellers by spreading suspicion about all news sources.
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