Panel Vision - Master Men

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As I write this, it is the midst of December 2016- the dark times, as I presume future us will refer to the latter half of the 2010s.  In the middle of the long dark night of the nation’s soul comes a thoroughly ironic television event- season 2 of Amazon’s Man in the High Castle.  

The series is one of several prestige streaming shows produced in the wake of Netflix’ breakout success with original programming like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.  High Castle, as it’s often shortened to, is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick book of the same name from 1963 about an alternate history where the Axis won World War 2. 

These days “what if the Nazis won” is more colloquially known as “the 2016 election” so getting a whole TV show out of Nazi-ified Americana has decidedly lost its luster for the second season.  However, the event gives me a chance to dive into the comics backlog to once again talk about one of my favorite comics characters of all time: Uncle Sam.  Not only that, this is Uncle Sam’s latest adventure, going head-to-head with a Nazi version of the DCU in a tale aptly called…Master Men. 

Panel Vision - History of Uncle Sam & The Freedom Fighters

Over this last weekend Amazon released an original blockbuster streaming series entitled Man in the High Castle, an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story of the same name about an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War 2.  I haven’t watched it yet but I’ve heard a lot of good things so far and I’m already a pretty big fan of alternate histories in general.  However, alternate histories are actually pretty rare outside of literature.  There are plenty of historical farces but as far as alternate futures crafted by changes in history that’s actually pretty rare and the ones there are usually come from comic books.  

Which leads us to today’s subject, the most enduring and popular alternate history in comic books, the world of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters.  The heroes of an alternate timeline entitled Earth-10, Uncle Sam and his Freedom Fighters live in a world where President Roosevelt suffered a fatal heart attack at the height of World War 2 and the resulting instability cost the allies the war.  Now working in the underground Uncle Sam leads a small team of super heroes in a never-ending insurrection against the Axis Empire.