Not content with their monopoly on cinema box-office charts and industry budgets, Marvel enthusiasts have found a new outlet for their online fan-fiction: the war in Ukraine. Amid the world’s first “TikTok war” – the video-sharing platform is filled daily with footage from, and of, soldiers and civilians in the conflict – fans of the superhero franchise have started to superimpose their imaginary characters onto a very real situation.
TikTok is filled with video clips of Marvel films captioned or labelled with Russia-Ukraine comparisons; the videos are wildly popular, with viewing figures surpassing hundreds of thousands, while the comment section is filled with ardent geeks battling it out to decide whether their favourite superhero has had appropriate treatment.
One video, for instance, shows Captain America wearing a Ukrainian flag, and has had more than 50,000 “likes”; in the same clip, fellow Marvel hero Black Panther is labelled as the EU, while time-travelling Doctor Strange is America. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, the youngest of the pack, has a Union Flag emblazoned across his chest – leaving Thanos, the gemstone-ring-wearing purple villain, as Vladimir Putin. A different video, viewed almost half a million times, uses the same clip, but this time Captain America is Ukraine – representing, one can only assume, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Sophisticated analogies these are not. And not only do they trivialise a conflict causing untold death and destruction, but they also fail to show young people just what is at stake. In the Avengers films, one can be sure that the good people will win and the bad people will lose. War in the real world offers no such guarantees.
The comments underneath the TikTok videos are not confined to fanfiction – some people use the platform to debate serious issues such as Nato’s role in Eastern Europe or the threat of nuclear war. And, on the one hand, it could be argued that teenagers utilising any platform to educate themselves and discuss world affairs is preferable to silent ignorance.
