Retconning the history of covert operations: spy comics at the end of the Cold War

This article analyses the revisionist engagement with the history of US covert operations in three spy series published by DC Comics in 1988–90: Blackhawk, The Unknown Soldier and Justice, Inc. It discusses four levels of revisionism: pre-textual (in the editorial/creative process), textual (in the ensuing narratives), intertextual (in the interplay with other media and earlier versions of same franchises) and extratextual (advertisements, reviews, editorials, readers’ letters). The article argues that these comics recoded the Cold War in a critical light and recreated the process of disenchantment with orthodox narratives, destabilising the era’s dominant historical imaginary of nostalgia and triumphalism.