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Geek Girl On The Street Reports: The Summer of Hitler

Published Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:25:36 -0500

Last updated Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:27:10 -0500

Geek Girl On The Street Reports: The Summer of Hitler — I Killed Adolf Hitler, by Jason

Kate Kotler writes for Bleeding Cool;

Godwin 's Law is temporarily suspended for the duration of this column and the comment thread which will surely follow said column.

Hello Bleeding Cool, how ya doing? Good, glad to hear it. So, I have a question that I need answered and I was hoping someone out there in Bleeding Cool land could help me out:

What the fuck is up with Hitler this summer?

Before all your heads explode and you begin equating me to… well… a Nazi… let me state the following facts —

1. My Great-Grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

2. I do not support or condone the political agenda of neo-Nazis.

3. The actual question I'm asking here is: Why are there so many Hitler references in the comics and sci-fi industries this summer?

You know that thing where you see or hear some specific cultural reference once and all the sudden you see hear that cultural reference everywhere? Previously I've discussed this happening to me with the word "wheelhouse" and now, all of the sudden, it's all Hitler, Hitler, Hitler – everywhere I look – Adolf-fracking-Hitler.

The summer of Hitler started on June 2, 2011 when a friend forwarded me this very funny video made by the twisted minds over at iFanboy and extrapolating on the Downfall mashup craze: Hitler Reacts to the DC Comics Reboot

Then, last week, I overheard someone on the train describing (in detail) the Sebastian Shaw Nazi dream sequence from X –Men First Class.

On Sunday, June 12, 2011 I decided to watch Doctor Who: "A Good Man Goes to War," at the end of which I learned that the Doctor will return in September 2011 in "Let 's Kill Hitler."

Then this past MONDAY (June 13, 2011 for those keeping track) I was confronted with two crazy Hitler references — the first being the revealing of the limited edition poster for Captain America : The First Avenger which artist Paolo Rivera was commissioned to create for the movies' cast and crew. The artwork is actually gorgeous, but it does indeed pay homage to the 1941 Jack Kirby cover of Captain America #1 and pictures the Cap punching out Adolf Hitler.

Then in the same day, upon mentioning the weirdness of all the recent Hitler references to a friend, I was linked to a column written by one Marvin Wolf, who apparently is a lawyer, editor for a website called "Local Talk News.com" and a comics fan. The column in question, titled "Number One," rehashes the DC Reboot in a not so interesting way, except for the fact that in paragraph two of this column, Wolf states that DC co-publisher, Dan DiDio (not to be confused with "Jay Diddilo," of course) is "hated by [comic] fans only a little less than Adolf Hitler."

For decades, D.C.'s sales have been consistently less than its rival, Marvel Comics. Its movie properties took longer to get on to the screen and many of them haven't made it yet. The company has generally been seen as being mismanaged under co-publisher Dan Didio, who is hated by the fans a little bit less than Adolf Hitler."

I mean, DiDio isn't all that popular with fans, I would think – no publisher is – but, this seems to me like a gratuitous Hitler comparison.

But it still begs the question: What the HELL is going on here, what with all the Hitler references?????????

Seriously, does anyone know why all the Hitler references are happening now, in 2011, 66 years after the end of World War II? Are other people out there seeing Hitler everywhere they look, or am I the only one? Please someone explain this to me, as frankly, seeing all these Hitler is making me feel a little insane in the membrane.

Kate Kotler is the founding editor of Geek Girl on the Street .com, the editor-in-chief of FilmCatcher .com, a freelance writer/editor/marketing hack and full time geek girl who lives in Chicago. She loves Doctor Who, Frank Miller, Wonder Woman, knitting, puppetry and she used to be a professional fire eater. See her full resume on katekotler .com. You can Tweet at her @adorkablegrrl on the Twitters.