The latest issue of Wired Magazine features the art of Aran Harahap, an Indonesian photographer and illustrator, who inserts superheroes into actual historical events. Like the black and white photograph (to make it seem more “historical”) where Batman watches Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro addressing US media in 1959.

It is unclear what Batman is doing there and whether he approves of Castro or the Cuban Revolution, but we do know that Hollywood and the American public (and private) mass media and opinion were initially enamored by Castro and the Cuban Revolution,  before crude Cold War propaganda and the appetite of American Empire combined to change their minds. Also, we know that the average American, their rightwing government and mass media did not understand the idea of self-determination.

Comics were no different. Over time, comic writers sadly incorporated American Cold War tropes and caricatures.  There was one comic, though, where superheroes – not Batman – went to save Castro and the Cuban Revolution. In “Invasion,” which came out in 1988, the Durlans, “a race of shape shifters,” infiltrate Cuba. They kidnaps Fidel Castro and leading members of the Cuban government and army and replace them with clones. However, the plot fails when the Flash and Manhunter restore Castro and his government back to power. There is a lot to unpack here as DC Comics were in lockstep with a liberal view of American empire and its plot lines mostly channeled that politics which didn’t and still does not view the Cuban Revolution in good light. So I’m not sure what to think.

As many readers know, I’m a fan of Castro and the Cuban people, largely because of their role in liberating Southern Africa from colonialism and apartheid and knowing the history of Indonesian Third Worldism around the time of the Cuban Revolution as well as the early years of Indonesia’s postindependence government before its generals overthrew Sukarno and killed leftists to start a long, violent alliance with the United States, I’ll chalk this one up as Batman protectively watching over the great Cuban revolutionary.

Other superheroes, like Superman below, also insert themselves into Harahat’s mashups of historical events here, but we’re especially taken by Castro’s inclusion.