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’t the Nazis
Counterpoint:
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’t really have that problem, it was busy falling apart internally in other ways.
As superhumans go, 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’t they? It’s an alarming contrast to America’s own Superman, who in pure melting-pot mode manages to be a nice Jewish boy and a humble Methodist farmboy at the same time.
WH40K debuted in 1987, same year as Blood & Honor. I submit that “identifying with the Nazis as badasses” 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. It’s impossible to disentangle any serious Nazi-liking from the idea of martial virtue, but this had to contest with WWII’s outsize place in the national mythos, and crucially from that the fact that Britain had beaten the Nazis (as we went on to do again in 1966). Even our own playful go at a fascist party in the ‘30s 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.
As a mostly disinterested third party, I've noticed that left-ish Americans on the internet seem to have become much more hostile to the British(/ English?) as, like, a collective (as opposed to politicians or anything) over the last couple of years. As Tumblr's top America-whisperer, any insights?
