Our Gods Wear Spandex (19 page)

Comic book superheroes were everywhere in the 1940s. According to surveys, half of the U. S. population read comics. During the war, 90 percent of DC's titles were superhero-based. Comics outsold the
Saturday Evening Post
and
Reader's Digest
combined by a factor of ten to one on military newsstands.
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Superheroes propagandized not only for the war effort, but for various governmental and non governmental programs—war bonds, scrap-metal and paper collection, the American Red Cross, the USO, and other patriotic pitch-in efforts. But with their mission accomplished in 1945, superhero sales began to decline, replaced by funny animals, teen humor, and the new romance comics. But none of these could deliver sales like the superheroes once did, and the industry suffered.

As is too often the case, market pressures forced publishers to aim for the gutter, and falling superhero sales encouraged a substantial coarsening of content. Beginning with Lev Gleason's
Crime Does Not Pay
in 1942, crime comics flooded the market until, by 1948, every fifth comic sold was a crime comic.
¹¹⁷
Bradford Wright notes that the crime comics “delved into violence, brutality, and sadism to a graphic degree never before seen in comic books—in some instances, never before seen anywhere in mass entertainment.”
¹¹⁸

Crime comics were followed by equally graphic horror. These titles naturally used themes of the occult and the supernatural, most commonly werewolves and vampires, but more often depicted ordinary human killers slicing and dicing beautiful women. The best-known horror comics were published by Entertaining Comics, better known as EC, run by William Gaines (Max's son) and editor Al Feldstein. EC's horror stories were all ostensibly based in conventional morality, with a bloody comeuppance usually reserved for criminals and evil-doers. But Gaines and Feldstein also amused themselves by trying to outdo each other with outlandishly gory plots. The resulting stories were often clever, well-crafted black humor, but they were being marketed to very young children. Even Gaines and Feldstein felt tinges of guilt over the horror comics, eventually admitting that the criticism of them was essentially justified.

Most crime and horror comics were little more than exploitation, violence, and degeneracy for their own sake, made all the more distasteful by their targeting of a preteen audience. In most cases, they were published to keep the presses running after the public lost interest in the superheroes. Gaines disingenuously tried to defend the books before a Congressional subcommittee, but the EC line collapsed in the mid 1950s.
¹¹⁹
Gaines soon rebounded, however, and converted the comic book
MAD
into magazine format, creating one of the most successful and influential culture icons of the 20th century.

The most outspoken crusader against comic books was Frederic Wertham (1895–1981), a left-leaning German Jew who came to America in 1922 to work as a psychiatrist. His
pro bono
work with juvenile delinquents and child criminals convinced him that violent comic books had a destructive effect on young minds. He began a campaign against comic books in 1941, but received little attention until the rise of the crime titles. In 1954, he published his landmark treatise against comic books,
Seduction of the Innocent
. In addition to his criticisms of the gore and depravity in crime and horror comics, Wertham attacked the superheroes, arguing that the violence and vigilantism in their yarns encouraged antisocial behavior, sexual perversion, and fascist impulses. His attack had a powerful impact on the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings, led by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver. Largely because of his crusade, the public mood turned against comic books, and publishers found themselves threatened both economically and politically. It was do or die.

In 1954, the major publishers banded together and formed a strict self-censorship body called the Comics Code Authority (CCA). The Authority banned words like “terror” and “horror” from titles, banished werewolves, vampires, and zombies, and forbade graphic depictions of murder or sex. All comics were to be submitted to the CCA for their literal seal of approval.

Overnight, death, gore, and sex vanished from the funny books but the industry barely survived the furor. An unintended consequence of the Code was to force creators to dig deep into the recesses of their imaginations to capture their readers' attention. Truly bizarre sci-fi and fantasy imagery entered the mix, which opened the door to the eventual theological reinterpretations of the superheroes. As Daniel Herman wrote: “The Comics Code was not an impediment to the further development of the artists and their art, it was merely a detour.”
¹²⁰
The Code, in fact, ushered in what came to be known as the Silver Age.

The Silver Age of comics kicked off in
Showcase
#4 in 1956, with the reinvention of Golden Age hero the Flash, written by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino. Original creator Gardner Fox called Flash “a reincarnation of the winged Mercury,”
¹²¹
but the new version is actually a police scientist who acquires superspeed after a laboratory mishap. In contrast to the often grungy and dingy characters of the Golden Age, the new Silver Age Flash signaled the arrival of a clean, sharp, and futuristic breed of heroes.

In 1959, a sci-fi oriented Green Lantern (
Showcase
#22) made his appearance, resurrected, not as a hero who gets his powers from a magic lantern, but as a test pilot named Hal Jordan who is initiated into the galactic Green Lantern Corps by a dying alien.
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Created by writer John Broome, the art for the new Green Lantern was handled by legendary artist Gil Kane, master of the sleek and stylish look that came to identify the Silver Age at DC. Kane was also tapped in 1961 for the revival of the Atom (
Showcase
#34), a tedious strongman character in his Golden Age incarnation, but reborn as scientist Ray Palmer who, using “dwarf star matter,” is able to shrink to microscopic size yet still retain the strength of a full-grown man.

The science-hero archetype tapped into the
zeitgeist
of the atomic age and the rapidly approaching space age. It spoke to the phobias and aspirations of its time, presenting a clean, tidy, and communitarian image of American society. The Science Heroes upheld the common civic assumptions of a strong, centralized federal government and a prosperous middle class. Where the heroes of the 1940s played into liberal Rooseveltian idealism by making villains of greedy corporate executives, the new science heroes were proud servants of the military-industrial complex.

Although some have criticized the Silver Age heroes for being dull, stolid, and uptight, they offered something lacking in the pop culture—a positive, optimistic vision and heroes worth emulating. Theirs was a hopeful and idealistic vision that still holds a lot of appeal for modern fans and creators. The success of the archetype inspired the floundering Marvel to embrace the new heroic paradigm.
Stan Lee and his talented freelancers eventually invoked the spirit of the new gods and changed the face of comicdom—and American culture—forever.

One of the most recognizable characters in the world is Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962 (
Amazing Fantasy
#15). Spider-Man has earned countless millions for Marvel Comics, appearing in comics, cartoons, movies, coloring books, novels, records, and children's books. He's been used to sell toys, games, cereal, canned foods, paper products, candy, soap, costumes, and just about anything else you can think of. Spider-Man acts as Marvel's official mascot, just as Mickey Mouse does for Disney. Unknown to many fans, however, Spider-Man has a deep and mysterious history.

Spider-Man developed out of an unpublished character named the Silver Spider. Created by writer Jack Oleck and
Captain Marvel
artist C. C. Beck, Silver Spider was a young orphan who finds a magic ring that turns him into a Marvel-esque superhero. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby renamed the character “Spider-Man” in the Fifties, but dissolved their publishing concern before they could get him to print. Later, they expanded on the character's occult origin, renamed him the Fly, and sold the character to Archie Comics, who published the first four issues of
Adventures of the Fly
in 1959. Shortly after, Kirby decamped to Marvel and pitched the original Spider-Man idea to Stan Lee, who radically changed the character and handed him off to artist Steve Ditko.
¹²³

Lee, who, like most people in the Fifties, was fascinated by radiation, created a storyline in which science nerd Peter Parker's powers were acquired from the bite of a radioactive arachnid. Somehow, young Peter doesn't die of radiation sickness, but acquires the strength and agility of a spider, as well as an uncanny “spider-sense.” Peter at first decides to use these powers for financial gain in a career as a professional wrestler, but his world is turned upside down after a robber he lets escape kills his beloved Uncle Ben. Having learned the hard way that “with great power comes great responsibility,” Peter dons the requisite Spandex and goes out to battle evil. He also defies the laws of geometry zooming around Manhatthan in impossible arcs at high speed using his webshooter.

Like Captain America, Spider-Man is a nerdy weakling transformed into a hero through pseudoscientific means—but still suffers the indignities of high-school bullying without resorting to his immense strength to defend himself. And this is the secret of his success. Spider-Man was pitched to readers as an underdog—“the hero that could be you,” as Stan Lee so cannily put it. Not only is Peter Parker scorned in school, as Spider-Man, he is vilified by J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the tabloid newspaper
The Daily Bugle
. This had enormous appeal for an audience already prone to bullying and feelings of persecution.