How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth!

The Sons of the Serpent debuted in the pages of Avengers #32, presented for the first time by Stan Lee and Don Heck. This mob of racist slobs tricked out in ophidian finery pop out of the bushes and begin to threaten everyone around them. Also, a certain Chinese representative named General Chang shows up at the United Nations and starts to bellow about the inadequacies of the American system of government. 

While these political feints are underway Hank Pym at the time a Goliath stranded at ten feet in height (and wearing my favorite of all his many costumes) finds a worthy and capable lab assistant in one Bill Foster, who debuts in this comic. It just so happens that Bill Foster is a black man (weirdly colored gray as was the custom at Marvel at the time) and despite wearing what looks like for all the world like a waiter's uniform is helpful to Pym in his search for a respite from his giant size. But then Foster is attacked by the racist Serpents and Pym and the Avengers in a righteous anger decide to bring the group to heel. Having played his limited role as motivation Foster promptly disappears from the story until the next issue. 

In that next issue Captain America is captured by the Serpents and they use his captivity to extract all sorts of things from the Avengers, not the least of which is a public proclamation in support of some of the Serpent activity. This sends public opinion into a tailspin as the people of these United States are whipsawed around from support of the racist ideology to rejection of the Serpent notions depending on how they perceive the Avengers to be standing. Bill Foster shows back up and is stunned by the seeming support and for reasons utterly unknown to me is not brought into the overall strategy.  Ultimately Cap is rescued by Hawkeye with help from Black Widow and the team rounds up the Serpents and makes all right the world when they reveal that the top Serpent is...gasp...General Chen. (We knew that all the time of course.)

I want to like these stories more than I do. The art by Don Heck is pure but his storytelling breaks down in a few places and I'm wondering if the script was doctored after the fact. There seems to be a clear rejection of the ideas of racism and nativism which the Serpents pronounce but the way the public seems so gullible is bothersome to me. Maybe I don't want to believe that people could so easily fall under the spell of a self-righteous demagogue who spouts hatred for foreign peoples but then maybe I should wake up and smell the coffee. The Serpents cast their spell easily enough in these issues which propel at a rapid pace, but those notions seem all the ready to catch hold in this real world too. But like the real world, their threat is not ended. A comic book taught me that. The Sons of the Serpent will return. More on that later.

And if the name Bill Foster didn't ring a bell, then all I have to say is two words -- "Black Goliath". 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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