Both A.I.M. and Hydra first appeared in the 1960s as analogs for the threat of Communism , but are also associated with Nazism and resemble organizations fought by Captain America in World War II ; political science professor Matthew J. Costello has pointed out that this conflation of Communist and Nazi totalitarianism removes ambiguity from the threat and thus from America 's moral superiority in the comics . In contrast , in the post-9 / 11 context of '' Iron Man 3 '' , Pepper says of Extremis ' war profiteering , " That 's exactly what Stark Industries used to do " . Whereas immediately after 9/11 Captain America was concerned with Islamic terrorism , by 2005 – 2007 he was primarily engaged with homegrown terrorists : A.I.M. and A.I.D
9/11
September 11 attacks
Advanced Idea Mechanics