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.
SEDUCTION
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.
THE CODE
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
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.122 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.
SPIDER-MAN
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 new
spaper The Daily Bugle. This had enormous appeal for an audience already prone to bullying and feelings of persecution.
The Amazing Spider-Man was a top seller in the 1960s, and was quickly adapted to other media. A popular (and faithful) television cartoon ran from 1967 to 1970. Spidey became a frequent guest star on the PBS kids' show The Electric Company in 1974. A live-action TV show ran on CBS in 1978, and two separate animated television series appeared in 1981. Another series appeared on Fox from 1994 to 1998, and a computer-animated mini-series ran on MTV in 2003. Of course, the Spider-Man feature films, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, were huge hits, and a third came out in 2007. The success of these films also inspired a series of wildly popular video games. As of this writing, Spider-Man's popularity shows no sign of waning.
THE SILVER SURFER
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Marvel Comics' other great Messiah figure in an extremely roundabout way. In fact, the Silver Surfer began life as an afterthought. While developing a storyline in which the Fantastic Four confront Galactus, an enormous alien who travels from galaxy to galaxy feeding off the energy of entire planets, Kirby doodled in a metallic humanoid riding a surfboard, explaining to Lee that a character as momentous as Galactus needed a herald to announce his arrival.124 Lee loved the idea and used the Surfer as a scout who cruises the universe in search of planets for Galactus to devour. In 1966, the two appeared in an adventure that signalled the peak of Lee and Kirby's collaboration (“The Coming of Galactus,” Fantastic Four #48). In a multi-issue story, Silver Surfer encounters the Thing's blind girlfriend, Alicia Masters, who convinces him that humanity is worth saving. He then rebels against Galactus and helps the Fantastic Four defeat him. As punishment, Galactus banishes the Surfer to Earth.
The Surfer became a recurring guest star in The Fantastic Four. When Marvel expanded their line in 1968, the character was given his own title. Lee's version of the Surfer was far different from Kirby's, however. Lee saw him as an explicitly Christlike figure and in 1969, even pitted him against Marvel's version of Satan, Mephisto (Silver Surfer #8). Without Kirby's ferocious imagination, some felt the Surfer lost his cosmic edge. The title was canceled after only eighteen issues. In 1978, Lee and Kirby later teamed up for Marvel's first original graphic novel, The Silver Surfer, and the Surfer regained his own series in 1988, which was a hit. A short-lived Surfer cartoon ran on the Fox network in 1998, and the character is featured in the second Fantastic Four film.
116 Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 57.
117 Mike Benton, Horror Comics (Dallas: Taylor, 1991), p. 9.
118 Wright, Comic Book Nation, p. 77
119 Wright, Comic Book Nation, pp. 177, 178, 181.
120 Daniel Herman, Silver Age: The Second Generation of Comic Book Artists (Nesahannock, PA: Hermes Press, 2004), p. 90.
121 Flash Comics #1, January 1940, p. 50.
122 This galactic fraternity, with its ring and lantern imagery, has a distinctly Masonic whiff to it. Broome, a follower of Wilhelm Reich, was no stranger to esoteric topics, and quit comics to study Zen in Asia. He died in Thailand in 1999.
123 See Joe and Jim Simon, The Comic Book Makers (Clinton, NJ: Vanguard, 2003), pp. 182–184.
124 Kirby later said that Galactus was his vision of God, which tells you a lot about how Jack Kirby perceived the world. See William A. Christensen and Mark Seifert, “The King,” Wizard Magazine #36, August 1994.
CHAPTER 16
THE GOLEMS
The second major superhero archetype, the Golem, comes to us from Jewish mysticism. The myth of the Golem harkens back to the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, where Jews periodically found themselves terrorized by hostile Gentiles. Legend has it that rabbis fashioned Golems out of clay and animated them using the magic of the Kabbalah. The Golems protected the Jews and punished their enemies. Implicit in the Golem folktales, however, is a certain danger for those the Golem is meant to protect.
But the most famous Golem story deals with Rabbi Loew, a Jewish leader in late 16th-century Prague, a thriving center for alchemy, Kabbalah, and other occult pursuits. Following a series of anti-Semitic attacks by hostile burghers, Loew formed a Golem taking mud from the Vltava river and breathing life into it using Kabbalistic gematria. He carved the Hebrew epithet emet (truth) into his forehead.
But the Golem, meant to protect the Jews, soon became too powerful for Loew to control and came to pose a threat to Jews and Gentiles alike. The burghers promised to stop the pogroms if Loew destroyed the Golem. Loew rubbed out the first letter of emet from the Golem's forehead, leaving the word met, meaning death.
The Golem was a favorite literary theme in both Christian and Jewish folktales, inspiring alchemists like Paracelsus, who sought to create a miniature version called the Homunculus (Latin for “little man”). Golem stories first appeared in print in 1847 in Galerie der Sippurim, a collection of Jewish folktales. A German film entitled The Golem: How He Came into the World was made by Paul Wegener in 1920. Some claim the Golems are the first robots in literature; others see them more them as zombies.
The Golem archetype in comics has its thematic roots in the legends, but with many important differences. In comics, the Golem is often an antihero. Golems like Batman are dangerous heroes who act out of a need for vengeance. Golems like Wolverine and Punisher are beserkers, whose rage causes them to kill almost indiscriminately. In addition to a need for revenge, Golems usually have some artificial component to them—a cybernetic aspect, or even something as simple as a disguise that fundamentally changes their nature. The Golem is a man transformed into something different, often through some arcane science.
The forces that drive the Golem make him liable to do harm to those he is supposed to protect. Historically, the Golem is an expression of rage, and ultimately, of powerlessness. There is often something weak or vulnerable about Golem characters, however, something that needs to be buttressed with armor. Marvel's Iron Man is actually Tony Stark, a Bruce Wayne-type playboy who needs to be encased in armor to protect his weak heart.125 Frank Miller brilliantly depicted Bruce Wayne in Dark Knight as a wounded child who constantly flashes back to the murder of his parents.
Golem characters like the Shadow became popular in the 1930s when organized crime was as frightening to the average citizen as the Cossacks were to Russian Jews. The three men most responsible for the creation and development of Batman—Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson—were all American-born Jews who probably heard the Golem stories at some time in their lives. They translated the terror of the legends to the more generalized fear experienced by kids confronted by bullies and the real sense of helplessness experienced by honest citizens confronted by gangsters.
So what is it about the comics medium that it has given birth to so many Golems? The answer may be in the people who create them. Many of the leading writers in the early days of comics were diaspora Jews who created their heroes in the shadow of anti-Semitism. Stories of persecution were very fresh in the minds of the young Jews who created characters like Batman, the Thing, and the Hulk. Jewish or not, many comic readers (and creators) are often bookish and sensitive young lads, prone to harassment by bullies in their school days. The Golem archetype is essentially the byproduct of insecurity and wounded pride. It provides a satisfying emotional release for the bottled-up rage, frustration, and feelings of impotence that persecution and bullying engender.
BATMAN
The archetypal Golem figure, Batman, first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Batman, elaborating on Gibson's depiction of the Shadow, was introduced as the alter ego of millionaire Bruce Wayne, whose parents are shot dead before his eyes. Creator Bob Kane originally portrayed Batman as ruthless and unrelenting. As his hero's popularity grew, however, Kane smoothed some of these rough edges and made him less of a vigilante. In 1940, he introduced Robin, Batman's boy sidekick, who is sworn into the crimefighting fraternity in a candlelight ceremony in Detect
ive Comics #38.126 Robin was purportedly introduced as a character to whom young readers could relate. But there is something disturbing about scenarios in which an adult exposes a prepubescent boy to constant physical danger. The boy sidekick, though phased out in the Silver Age, remains grist for critics and satirists alike. Saturday Night Live features Robert Smigel's cartoon series The Ambiguously Gay Duo, which pokes fun at the pair's apparent gender confusion.
Batman's innocuous and inoffensive post-Code stories, however, eventually drove bored writers to turn the series into a surreal, dreamlike sci-fi extravaganza. In the late 1950s, the hero found himself in some of the strangest stories ever seen in comics—stories that were even more disturbing, in their own way, than the crime comics. Batman was plunged into other dimensions and pursued by creatures from other dimensions who plunge into ours. He became a bobble-headed alien, a medieval knight, a giant Godzilla-type monster, and discovered his psychic twin. A strange array of companions—Batwoman, Batgirl, Batmite, a Bathound, and even Bat-Ape—all made regular appearances. And all of this mind-numbing weirdness is rendered in the bland, childish, 50s DC house style, making the goings-on seem even more psychedelic and unsettling. As a result, Batman soon found himself teetering on the brink of cancellation.
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