Image : Marvel Comics

World War II was a formative time for the superhero genre, throwing fantastic characters into a real-world conflict to connect their heroism with that of Allied soldiers . The Invaders were Marvel’s team of superheroes that helped rally soldiers against the Axis powers, with Captain America, Bucky, Namor, the Human Torch, and other international figures putting their differences aside to quell the spread of fascism. Now, t he team is back in a new Invaders series by writer Chip Zdarsky, artists Carlos Magno and Butch Guice, colorist Alex Guimarães, and letterer Travis Lanham, but those old allegiances have been shattered by the current situations of the former colleagues. Namor is back to waging war against the surface world for the damage it has done toconditions. In winter the temperatures here plummet to -50C.

The city was founded in the late 1930s to meet wartime demand for metal. It was built on the ice by prisoners who were shipped in. The nickel factory you see in the photograph was built first, in 1942, followed by a copper factory and the Nadejda metallurgical complex. The city grew, surrounded by chimneys. When I first travelled there in the 1990s, the pollution was overwhelming. You could not breathe, and barely see. At the time, though, no one cared: it was the last thing anybody thought about.

Thousands of prisoners were shipped to Norilsk. It was a one-way ticket. Nobody knows exactly how many perished

In June 2018, I spent about two weeks there and a local historian showed me