The most idiotic racists of all time.

And astonishingly, I’m not even talking about politics.
I’m currently working through the fourth volume of Essential Avengers, which features the return of the Sons of the Serpent. A white supremacist group, they function as a souped-up KKK (racism plus rayguns!). Just as the serpent drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden for their sins, so will they drive the nonwhites from America!
Which is the first stupidity: How many racists would sign up for a group that takes its cues from Satan? I admit Sons of the Serpent sounds cooler than Sons of Michael, but still.
And keep in mind this is coming from a lifelong comic geek who doesn’t bat an eye at organizations that call themselves the Masters of Evil and the like.
In the second place, all through the Silver and Bronze Ages, they were never anything but dupes. The original group were dupes for a Chinese envoy plotting to stir up a race war to distract from China’s human rights record.
In the volume I’m currently reading, two TV pundits—one white, one black—use them to trigger a race war in the hopes of exploiting both sides for political power (which I admit sounds creepily plausible these days). A few years later, in The Defenders, they were the dupes of a black businessman directing them toward targets for financial gain (I forget exactly how).
So after being used by two black guys and a Chinese guy, why would they have any cred at all? You’d think every serious white supremacist in the MU would avoid them like the plague.
Unfortunately, there’s no villain from the Silver Age so dumb that Marvel won’t keep reusing them, so they keep turning up.