The creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic Holocaust novel Maus said he pulled an essay introducing a collection of Marvel Comics because he was told to cut a slam at President Donald Trump .

Cartoonist Art Spiegelman revealed the demand in a tweaked version of his essay published in The Guardian. The essay, originally intended to introduce Marvel The Golden Age 1939-1949 , focused on the importance of Marvel characters during Nazi Germany and World War II and its aftermath. Spiegelmans dark Maus is an animal fable of his Jewish fathers experience in the Holocaust .

He argued in the version of the essay published Saturday that Marvel superheroes with their American values of freedom and truth, fairness and generosity, burst into life as a foil to fascism. Their creators, largely Jewish immigrants or from immigrant families in New York, conjured up mythic almost godlike secular saviors to fight for justice, like the time Captain America punches Adolf Hitler in the face. The artists were highly attuned to anti-Semitism, and believed in welcoming your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, Spiegelman noted.

The characters still speak to the dark politics of modern times, he added, drawing a parallel between the enemies of the superheroes created then and Trump.

In todays all too real world Captain Americas most nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America, Spiegleman wrote in a reference to the president.