I think that Black Panther is (ironically enough) even more right wing than Iron Man given that it directly and repeatedly endorses the CIA intervening in another country’s politics in order to overthrow the new dictator (who just happens to be anti-US and against opening up Wakanda’s markets to foreign exploitation) so that they can reinstall the righteous leader (who just happens to be pro-US and all for opening up Wakanda’s markets to foreign exploitation). All the while justifying all the work the new dictator did to illegally overthrow the governments of other countries and torture dissidents while on the payroll of the CIA right up until he starts acting against US interests (kind of like a certain real world Iraqi romance novelist turned poster boy of democracy turned evil tyrant).
Also it promotes the idea that said evil dictator utilising the natural resources of Wakanda to defend other African nations from being ruthlessly exploited by western imperialists is a violent terrorist action is extremely .
And the post credits scene shows the UN applauding as the restored righteous monarch declares that he’s opening the country’s markets for foreign exploitation or ‘to help those with less than us, so that we can be citizens of the world’ or whatever moralising bullshit he says to that effect
Edit: also I forgot about how Kill Monger, did actually legally win the trial by combat and as such the CIA is overthrowing the legal ruler of the country.
Damn, the ideology goes deep on this one, when Kill Monger disregards wakanda’s traditions on isolationism he’s the bad guy for “upsetting whatever wakanda’s bullshit version of the prime directive is” (attempting to build internationalist relations with other exploited countries) but when he respects wakanda’s traditions of trial by combat to decide who rules the country he’s “taking advantage of an obsolete violent system”.
:parenti:
Black Panther is pretty bad but I do think Iron Man 2 is the most right-wing. The scene where Tony goes before the Senate committee is very obviously heavily inspired by Hank Rearden's trial scene from Atlas Shrugged, and even worse Tony's argument is proven objectively correct by Winter Soldier when it is revealed the chairman of that Senate committee was Hydra all along and implicitly wanted the Iron Man technology to institute a tyrannical Orwellian dictatorship. The central conflict is essentially about patent disputes and the moral is implicitly that it's bad for gifted geniuses to get out of the weapons manufacturing industry because it allows far inferior lowest-bidder competitors to win those government contracts and cause a catastrophe.
All the Iron Man movies are, ultimately, overflowing with dogshit Randian tropes. But I believe the core pitch of Iron Man - both in the original comic books and the movies - is that weapons proliferation and armed escalations are bad. The problem with Iron Man as a franchise is that its always "Baby's First Argument For Demilitarization". So you get the fundamental problem with escalation (more heavily in 1 and 3 than 2, but its definitely still there) and the ahem Stark realization that you can't really control where these weapons of war end up. But you never get to the next steps of the equation - what drives militarization? what drives global conflict? what is necessary to achieve demilitarization? what role do people other than oligarchs play in demilitarizing states?
On that note, I really think Civil War is the most right-wing of the Marvel movies. It pitches this theory of justified escalation that neoliberals absolutely gobbled up during the Trump years. It posits an insidious "Outside Other" as the cause of all our domestic problems. It advocates for more Patriotic Vigilantism and mass surveillance in pursuit of these Fifth Columnist villains. And it promotes the military (rogue good-guy Nick Fury) over civilian government (evil Nazi politician) as somehow incorruptible, if not infallible.