Last night I took another step towards being able to fully enjoy Joss Whedon's critically-acclaimed The Avengers by watching the mediocre Captain America: The First Avenger. It had its moments, but during most of the action scenes I found myself cleaning my fingernails and wondering about what comic book characters other countries came up with in times of conflict. Turns out there were a lot.
Germany; Hotzi and Klutzi
Nazi Germany's version of Goofus and Gallant taught children how to properly respect military authority without making embarrassing mistakes. The comic strip ran for 6 months until Klutzi was diagnosed with a mental disability and sent to a concentration camp.
North Korea; The Adventures of Kim Jong Fun!
North Korea's only state-sanctioned comic strip is published weekly in newspapers and consists of the titular character's adventures of toiling and lecturing. Government reports rank The Adventures of Kim Jong Fun to be the most-read comic strip in the world with an estimated 9.4 billion readers every week.
Uganda: Super Idi Amin
Written and illustrated by Idi Amin himself, this sporadically published comic book followed the conquests of Idi Amin and his crocodile sidekick named Queen Elizabeth as they conquered the world through military might and the hypnotic powers of Amin's penis. The comic didn't fare well due to it's numerous spelling errors and the distracting horizontal blue lines from the notebook paper it was drawn on.
France; Captain Guillotine
One of the world's oldest political cartoons / superheroes fought bravely against the enemies of the French Revolution from 1793-1795. Although extremely popular at first, after battling both Dark Lord Danton and Doctor Robespierre in 1794, Captain Guillotine's allies and enemies became harder to tell apart and audiences began to lose interest.
Turkey; SuperTurk
This patriotic superhero from Turkey used his super powers to fight against ethnic minorities. From 1930 through 1996 he fought a wide variety of archenemies including The Masked Armenian, The Kurdish Terror, The Assyrian Assassin, Doctor Orthodox, Zorba the Creep, and The Legion of Uppity Jews.
Vatican City; Pip-Pip: the World's Bravest Alter Boy
The small city-state of Vatican City publishes this bi-monthly comic book of a young boy Pip-Pip who possesses a superhuman ability to keep his mouth shut. Written in Latin, it is translated to over 16 languages but has never been printed in any of them as depictions of Pip-Pip's adventures violate most countries' obscenity laws.
Japan; Rapid Heartbeat Supreme Patriot Cat
Another publication from the WWII era, Doki Doki Yamato Neko followed the adventures of a blue-haired Japanese soldier whose secret identity was Emperor Hirohito's cat. Hungry for escapist fantasy, the war-weary Japanese population often criticized the premise as too realistic.
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