{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "The thing about the WH40K Space Marines is they gave late-20th century British teenage military otaku a force of elite badass...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/698704618329423872/", "html": "

fireleaptfromhousetohouse:

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kontextmaschine:

fireleaptfromhousetohouse:

kontextmaschine:

fireleaptfromhousetohouse:

kontextmaschine:

The thing about the WH40K Space Marines is they gave late-20th century British teenage military otaku a force of elite badass soldiers to identify with that wasn\u2019t the Nazis

Counterpoint:

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While the late 20th century in America may have been typified by the military (from the elites on down) losing its shine post-Vietnam, Britain didn\u2019t really have that problem, it was busy falling apart internally in other ways.

As superhumans\u00a0go, though - well, the Space Marines got away quite handily with constantly burbling on about the purity of their genetic stock and festooning themselves with iron crosses, didn\u2019t they? It\u2019s an alarming contrast to America\u2019s own Superman, who in pure melting-pot mode manages to be a nice Jewish boy and a humble Methodist farmboy\u00a0at the same time.

WH40K debuted in 1987, same year as Blood & Honor. I submit that \u201cidentifying with the Nazis as badasses\u201d kind of was an issue in Britain at the time

Oh, for sure, these were the days when the National Front was popular enough to have a major schism, but that was firmly about the racism rather than holding up the Nazis as particularly good soldiers.\u00a0It\u2019s impossible to disentangle any serious Nazi-liking from the idea of martial virtue, but this had to contest with WWII\u2019s outsize place in the national mythos, and crucially from that the fact that Britain had beaten\u00a0the Nazis (as we went on to do again in 1966). Even our own playful go at a fascist party in the\u00a0\u201830s ended up having their faces pushed in by a bunch of barrow boys. So while they could be, at best, worthy opponents, they still defaulted to the heel role.

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Hilariously trigger-happy bike cop with eagle epaulettes? Mate, that\u2019s just burgerposting.\u00a0

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Is this something like how Guy Gardner, Most Obviously British Man In Comics, is supposed to have been a Brit writing an American stereotype?

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