I have thought about how in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Soviet Union officials are the villains, but they are shown to be acting in reaction to existing United States weaponry and technology that is threatening their country and government. RedLetterMedia does good job of explaining this in their review of the movie.
However, their main goal is to use the titular skull for mind control against Earth's population.
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Obligatory Legend of Korra Politics Bending plug.
re MHA's Stain -- his arc and ideology actually has had repercussions up to the current arc we're in now (manga-wise). Let's just say I'm intrigued by how Horikoshi has continued to build on that instead of it being a throw away.
I'd really recommend catching up -- the anime is pretty 1-1 with the manga and you can then catch up on the manga via the Viz website. Free 7 day trial, allowed to read up to 50 chapters a day, you could definitely catch up before the trial runs out. Even if you don't, membership is $1.99 a month and you get unlimited access (barring the 50 chapters a day) to a decent amount of Shonen Jump manga series.
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