Lately — with all the uncertainty and worry about the future of this country — a lot of folks have taken the time to debate the question, "Would the creator of Captain America have punched a Nazi in the face?" They mean Jack Kirby, the co-creator of the character along with Joe Simon. This has gone around the 'net enough that it's now become a Snopes article which quotes various sources, including my book on Jack.
The first thing that should be noted is that when Jack was in the Army, his main job was to kill Nazis and he was quite willing to do that. Generally speaking, if you're prepared to kill someone, you should have no problem with punching them in the face. You might be disappointed that you don't get to kill them also but I suspect my dear friend Jack would have settled for whatever he could get.
The second thing that should be noted is that that was in a time of honest-to-God, all-out declared war. As far as I know, Jack never harmed a Nazi after that. Yeah, he hated them but a lot of us hate Nazis and never punch one in the face. I don't think he would have shot one if he wasn't in a wartime context so maybe he wouldn't have punched one in the face either.
Then people tell the story that I heard many times from Jack. This was before he went off to war, when he and Joe were doing the early issues of Captain America…
On occasion the Timely office would get phone calls and letters from Nazi sympathizers threatening the creators of Captain America. Once, while Jack was in the Timely office, a call came from someone in the lobby. When Kirby answered, the caller threatened Jack with bodily harm if he showed his face. Kirby told the caller he would be right down, but by the time Jack reached street level, there was no one to be found.
For what it's worth, I don't think that story had as much to do with Jack's feeling towards Nazis as it did with his natural response to anyone — Nazi or otherwise — who threatened him. He was real big on standing up to threats of any kind. Then again, that incident would have happened in 1941 when Jack was 24. When I met him, he was 52 and the father of four. I can imagine a kid in his twenties being more willing to use his fists than he would be later in life.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't know for certain and you don't and we never will. There are certain "What would Jack have done?" questions that I feel pretty confident I can answer but a whole lot where I don't. He surprised a lot of us at times with the way his mind worked. It was a brilliant mind but it "saw" things that mere mortals cannot…often a much wider, larger picture. Still, I can't imagine the Jack Kirby I knew just punching anyone who posed no physical threat to him.
So my answer to the question "Would the creator of Captain America have punched a Nazi in the face?" is that it would depend on the situation but probably not.
And that whole question flows from an incident at the recent inauguration when a man clad in black ran up and socked Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer, who was being interviewed on camera and presumably at that moment, not pointing a gun at anyone or threatening to punch them first. I feel confident in saying that in that situation, Jack would never have hit anyone. What he might have done is gone home, taken his contempt for Spencer and used it to create a story that would have been more devastating than punching the guy in the face. I would have liked to have seen that.