People often assume the comic book movies that dominate the multiplex each summer are mindlessly escapist – but that is far from the case. The Dark Knight trilogy, Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: Days of Future Past have featured challenging political critiques and even wholesale questioning of American values and identity. These movies continue a long tradition of provocative political engagement in their comic book source material, dating back to when Captain America punched Hitler on the cover of his debut issue – months before the US entered World War II. BBC Culture deputy editor Christian Blauvelt will show how thematically rich and deeply subversive the superhero film genre can be.