I didn’t capitalize or italicize the phrase so I can understand the confusion, but in that sentence I was referring to the ideal from which the magazine clearly

I didn’t capitalize or italicize the phrase so I can understand the confusion, but in that sentence I was referring to the ideal from which the magazine clearly benefited. And in that case, the ideal, not the magazine, I’d argue that the fictionalized ideal was definitely depicted as some kind of apolitical, down on his luck, “good guy.” Essentially an evolution of the lone range cowboy gun for hire. I haven’t read this yet but the abstract of this article at least seems to also suggest that characterization is correct, though of course totally fictional: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358238712_Mercenaries_at_the_movies_representations_of_soldiers_of_fortune_in_Mexico_and_the_Congo_in_American_and_European_cinema https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358238712_Mercenari... It’s that ideal I’d suggest that made reading the magazine rather fun as a kid, the geopolitics lost on me.