Marvel and Waid declined to say why the page was changed. But in an email message, Waid expressed frustration at how his original text was being presented. “I’m disappointed that the cherry-picked quotes circulated by the media severely mischaracterize what was actually written,” he wrote. While the essay was critical, he added, “As written, Cap is supportive of America as a whole.”

The change to the Captain America text comes nearly two weeks after The Guardian reported that the cartoonist Art Spiegelman said he was asked to remove criticism of President Trump from a foreword for the upcoming book “Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949,” published by the Folio Society. The essay, which The Guardian published, included the line, “In today’s all too real world, Captain America’s most nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America.” Spiegelman said he was told by the Folio Society that Marvel was trying to stay apolitical. Folio and Marvel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the change.

Captain America, who made his debut in 1940 (though the comic had a cover date of 1941), has a long and tangled relationship with American politics. In the issue of his own title that came out Wednesday, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and drawn by Jason Masters and Sean Izaakse, he finds himself at the Southern border of the United States, helping to guarantee safe passage for a group of migrants. When one of them asks why they were being hunted, Cap answers: “Ignorance. Ignorance and hate.”

In 2016, a story twist made the hero an operative of Hydra, a Nazi-like organization that was out for world domination. Fans of the character did not like seeing the patriotic champion in such a light, prompting Marvel to issue a statement asking readers “to allow the story to unfold before coming to any conclusion.”