10 Marvel Graphic Novels You Must Read Before You Die

3. Truth: Red, White & Black

Speaking of the evil that men do, we now come onto a Captain America series that's all but been forgotten (partially due to confusing rights issues between the publisher and writer). Cap has been a stalwart Marvel character since before the outbreak of the second world war, a perennial favourite who - much like DC's Superman - has come to represent all that's good and pure about his home country, delivering a consistently patriotic and uncomplicated brand of heroism that's sort of refreshing amongst his brooding, conflicted peers.

Even Steve Rogers isn't free of controversy, however, as this story about the early days of the super serum project that gave him his powers reveals. Inspired by the horrific Tuskegee experiment that took place between the twenties and the seventies, where the US government dosed hundreds of unknowing black citizens with syphilis to test the long term effects of the illness, writer Robert Morales said of Truth: Red, White & Black that "I wrote a proposal that was so staggeringly depressing I was certain they'd turn it down. But they didn't."

We're certainly not going to debate him on the first point, and we're infinitely thankful that the Marvel editorial at the time didn't turn him down. Because even separated from its comic book context, it remains a powerful and important work.

Drawing on both Tuskegee and the awful treatment of black soldiers in World War II, the series follows a regiment who are forced to become guinea pigs in the military's attempts to create Captain America, each of whom dies in an often gruesome manner as a result of the failed experiments. The only one who survives, one Isaiah Bradley, has his existence covered up in favour of the white, blonde haired, blue eyed Steve Rogers.

Truth is a damning indictment of the way Americans have treated black people in their country for decades, and continue to do so. It's a protest song of a graphic novel, and deserves - and is designed - to be read as widely as possible.