by Hanley, Tim
Dr. Fredric Wertham was a noted psychologist who did some remarkable work in the 1950s. In 1953, he argued against Ethel Rosenberg’s solitary confinement during the trial of the famous American communist spies. In 1954, he gave testimony during the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in which he described the adverse psychological effects of segregation on African American children. Throughout the entire decade, he ran a mental health clinic in Harlem in order to serve the often-ignored minority community. Despite these impressive actions, though, Wertham is today best remembered as the man who nearly destroyed the comic book industry.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Wertham wrote several articles about the dangers of comic books, calling them out as a contributing factor to juvenile delinquency. His comic book research culminated in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, which received several favorable reviews in national magazines and was even excerpted in an issue of Reader’s Digest. In the book, Wertham outlined his major objections to comic books, which were:
1) The comic-book format is an invitation to illiteracy.
2) Crime comic books create an atmosphere of cruelty and deceit.
3) They create a readiness for temptation.
4) They stimulate unwholesome fantasies.
5) They suggest criminal or sexually abnormal ideas.
6) They furnish the rationalization for them, which may be ethically even more harmful than the impulse.
7) They suggest the forms a delinquent impulse may take and supply details of technique.
8) They may tip the scales toward maladjustment or delinquency.
Wertham’s major concern was that the horror and suspense stories that dominated the genre spent most of their time depicting crimes, violence, and offensive/racist rhetoric, and very little time showing that those things were wrong. He argued that while the perpetrator was regularly caught and punished at the end of a story, for a young mind that last page of justice didn’t balance out the twenty pages of injustice that preceded it.
As such, Wertham believed that comic books placed a strong focus on negative activities, and that this focus was a contributing factor to the alarming rise in juvenile delinquency in the mid-1950s.* The popularity of Seduction of the Innocent was noticed by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which was led by Senator Estes Kefauver, famous for his hearings on organized crime. Soon Wertham was invited to speak before the committee.
The Senate hearings were a disaster for the comic book industry. Wertham stepped up his rhetoric; while his book focused primarily on crime and horror series, he painted all comic books with the same brush before the Senate, decrying the output of the industry as a whole. Ultimately, Wertham stated that “Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry. They get the children much younger. They teach them race hatred at the age of four before they can read.” Wertham’s alarmist testimony shocked many, and Bill Gaines had to follow his blistering attack later that afternoon. Unfortunately, Gaines was even more damaging than Wertham.†
Gaines started off well enough, but when he was asked what were the limits of what he would print in a comic book, Gaines stated, “My only limits are the bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste.” Senator Kefauver then showed the cover of Crime SuspenStories #22, which depicted a woman’s body lying on the floor and a man holding a bloodied ax and the woman’s severed head. The senator asked Gaines if the cover was in good taste and Gaines, having painted himself into a corner, had to say that it was. He added that “a cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.” Gaines made the front page of the New York Times the very next day with the headline No HARM IN HORROR, COMICS ISSUER SAYS; COMICS PUBLISHER SEES No HARM IN HORROR, DISCOUNTS “GOOD TASTE.” The Senate hearings received national press coverage, and the comic book industry came out of them in terrible shape.
Back in the 1930s, educational and parental groups had some problems with comic books, but their ire was more of the angry letter variety and was calmed by advisory panels. After the Senate hearings, several municipal governments across America banned comic books outright, and there were even comic book burnings. With a full-blown crisis on its hands, the comic book industry had no choice but to band together.
Rather than having the government impose regulations upon them from the outside, comics publishers came up with their own rules and created the Comics Code Authority. The CCA was extremely strict and specific; the goal was to make comics as unobjectionable as possible so that the Seduction of the Innocent/Senate hearings outrage would fade away as quickly as possible. The CCA prohibited vulgar language and poor grammar, salacious or exaggerated depictions of women, and the ridiculing of religious groups, racial groups, or the police and other authority figures. According to the Code, comic books were supposed to show that “in every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.” Basically, the publishers took every criticism leveled against them and made it mandatory that comic books do the exact opposite.
Most important for the industry, the CCA forbade the use of the words “terror” and “horror” from comics titles, as well as the depiction of gruesome imagery and “scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism and werewolfism.” These rules destroyed horror comics, and intentionally so. All of the publishers without a solid horror line saw an opportunity to kill the genre that was slaughtering them on the sales charts, and they went for it. Retailers wouldn’t sell comic books without the CCA’s “seal of approval” on the cover, and publishers who refused to participate, like Gaines’s EC Comics, very quickly went out of business.
For the publishers who survived, there was still a lot of work to do. Without the genres that had dominated the newsstands for years, publishers began to look for new, more wholesome and unobjectionable types of comic books to replace them. The editors at DC Comics decided to return to their superhero properties, and thus the Silver Age of comics began.
The Dawn of the Silver Age
In the early 1940s, DC Comics had been the biggest publisher of superhero comic books, and after the catastrophic events of 1954 it decided to revitalize some of its old characters. The first hero to come back was the Flash, who was revamped by John Broome, Carmine Infantino, and, coincidentally, Robert Kanigher. This new Flash was Barry Allen, a police scientist who developed superspeed when lightning struck his laboratory and spilled electrified chemicals over him. His first appearance in Showcase #4 in October 1956 is generally agreed upon as the official start of the Silver Age.
Many other reimagined heroes soon followed. Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, had a magical power ring, but Hal Jordan, who appeared as the new Green Lantern in October 1959, was a member of an intergalactic police force with a power ring given to him by an alien. The new Hawkman, Katar Hol, was a policeman as well; he first appeared in February 1961 as a police officer from the planet Thanagar, unlike the original Hawkman, who was a reincarnated Egyptian god. The original Atom, Al Pratt, was just a short guy with a superpunch, but the new Atom, Ray Palmer, was a physicist who could shrink down to subatomic size. Other heroes were brought back without significant changes, like Aquaman, who kept his original costume and powers and was given a slightly different backstory.
There were entirely new characters too, like the Martian Manhunter, a shape-shifting Martian accidentally transported to Earth who became a police detective, and Supergirl, Superman’s younger Kryptonian cousin. All of these new and revitalized characters led to an explosion of new series, and superheroes became a dominant force in the comic book industry again.
The origin stories of these new characters marked a significant change in tone from those of their Golden Age counterparts. Their abilities tended to be rooted in science and technology
instead of magic and mysticism. The Guardians of the Universe who ran the Green Lantern intergalactic police force used power rings built with super advanced alien technology to give their members superpowers. Hawkman had the ability to fly because of Thanagarian technology and the antigravity Nth metal. The Atom could shrink down as small as the tiniest particle because he built a belt powered by a white dwarf star.
When Marvel Comics debuted its own superheroes in the early 1960s, it took this scientific focus even further and used fantastical versions of real-life science to explain its heroes’ powers. For example, the Fantastic Four gained superpowers after being exposed to cosmic rays while in space, Peter Parker became Spider-Man after being bitten by a radioactive spider, and gamma rays turned mild-mannered Bruce Banner into the raging Hulk. In this age of atomic science and the beginnings of space exploration, it was no wonder that the creators of Silver Age heroes looked to the stars and modern science for their origins.
More significantly, the origin stories of Silver Age superheroes often lacked the tragic genesis that was so common in the Golden Age. These new heroes were well-adjusted men who saw crime fighting as an adventure, not a sacred duty or quest for vengeance. The orphan motif disappeared, and most of the new heroes had a very stable home life, including a girlfriend or a wife. The Flash, Green Lantern, and the Atom all had girlfriends, while Hawkman arrived on Earth with his wife, Shayera, and Aquaman quickly found an undersea queen, Mera.
The tragic elements of their origin stories were minor at best. Hal Jordan inherited his ring from Abin Sur, who died when his spaceship crashed onto Earth, and the Martian Manhunter was separated from his family back on Mars, but these examples pale in comparison to being the last of an extinct race or witnessing the murder of your parents.* The superheroes of the Silver Age were an upbeat, happy-go-lucky group, and the positivity of their origins seemed to reverberate throughout the entire DC Comics universe.
Before the Silver Age, Superman and Batman had some dark elements in their lives in terms of the tragedies at the root of their motivation. Both of them had lost their family in a deeply unpleasant way, and while they had pals like Jimmy Olsen and Robin, one buddy hardly made up for their loss. The Silver Age, however, brought with it a new lease on life for the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader.
Under editor Mort Weisinger, Superman’s supporting cast started to resemble a family. Superman was the father, Lois Lane the mother, Jimmy and Supergirl were the children, and Daily Planet editor Perry White was like a curmudgeonly grandfather. Along with this faux family, the addition of Supergirl in 1959 gave Superman a real, Kryptonian family member in his cousin, Kara Zor-El. Furthermore, in 1958 Superman rescued Krypton’s capital city of Kandor, which had been miniaturized and bottled by the villain Brainiac before Krypton was destroyed. Superman couldn’t restore Kandor, but he kept it in his Fortress of Solitude and developed technology so he could shrink down and visit his fellow Kryptonians. His parents, real and adopted, were still dead, but he had a new family-like group of friends, his cousin, and the residents of his home world’s capital city for company.
Similarly, Batman’s supporting cast also grew; inspired by Batman’s war on crime, Kathy Kane became Batwoman, and her niece Betty Kane joined her as Bat-Girl. These women provided love interests for the Dynamic Duo while also creating a Superman-style faux family. In fact, in 1961 Batman Annual #2 featured a pinup picture of the entire Bat-family. Batman and Batwoman were the parents; Robin and Bat-Girl were the two children; Batman’s butler, Alfred, and Gotham City’s police commissioner, James Gordon, appeared as grandfathers or kindly uncles; on the floor lay their pet, Ace the Bat-Hound; and perched on Batman’s shoulder was Bat-Mite, an imp from another dimension, who looked like a young toddler.* The pinup read “Greetings from the Batman Family,” and the Caped Crusader, that dark denizen of the night, beamed broadly. The world was a happier place for heroes in the Silver Age, and that had a lot to do with the Comics Code Authority.
The Silver Age Batman faced all manner of unusual scenarios, including being turned into an alien, sent back to ancient Babylon, and battling gods, dragons, and interdimensional imps. The Silver Age was, frankly, rather silly. Under the strict guidelines of the CCA, regular crime stories and dangerous villains were strongly discouraged. The result was campy adventures with innocuous story lines and fantastical creatures, more juvenile science fiction than crime fighting. Aliens and bizarre creatures were nothing new for superhero comic books, but they became much more common after 1954.
Robert Kanigher Revises Wonder Woman
Kanigher’s Wonder Woman followed these dominant trends in terms of campy adventures and a familial focus, but he went the opposite direction with her origin. The Golden Age Wonder Woman had powers rooted in her utopian upbringing, unlike the tragedies of her peers. While Silver Age superheroes moved on to upbeat origins rooted in the hopefulness of science and space travel, Kanigher’s origin for the Silver Age Wonder Woman went backward into a tragic genesis. He removed the utopian aspects of her creation and changed the nature of her powers and mission.
The cover of Wonder Woman #105 declared that Wonder Woman would face “The Amazon’s Most Startling Opponent—The EAGLE of SPACE!” and the book certainly did deliver that riveting tale, but a small banner at the top promised the never-before-revealed secret origin of Wonder Woman. The story began centuries in the past, when baby Diana was visited by four impressive guests. The first was Aphrodite, who bequeathed to her the gift of beauty; second came Athena, who gave her wisdom; third was Mercury, who gave Diana speed; and finally came Hercules, who bestowed her with strength.
The story then jumped ahead several years to when Diana was a teenager, and horrible news reached Queen Hippolyta’s throne room.* The Amazons had husbands, brothers, and sons who had all gone off to war, and they’d been wiped out by their enemies. The news prompted one distraught Amazon to cry, “Woe is us … we are alone … now—!” A tearful Hippolyta told Diana, “You must be … brave … Diana … as befitting … a … princess—!” The crying young princess responded, “Y-y-yes … mother … !” Everyone in the throne room wept and wailed in a very un-Amazon fashion.
Overcome with grief, Hippolyta decided to leave their home to escape the wars. The superpowered Diana built a boat by herself, and on their journey to a new home she saved her fellow Amazons from a whirlpool, a sea of fire, and a sea of dangerous gas fumes. Finally they reached Paradise Island, where Athena was waiting and granted them immortal life so long as they remained on the island. Diana singlehandedly built the Amazons a city to live in and became their guardian, battling any beast that came near their new home.
When the Silver Age Diana became Wonder Woman, it had nothing to do with World War II or America as a citadel of freedom and democracy. Instead, Athena appeared to Hippolyta in a dream one day and instructed her to choose an Amazon who would go to “man’s world to battle crime and injustice—and help people in distress!” Hippolyta held a competition to choose a champion and, to prevent favoritism, all of the Amazons dressed like Diana and wore Diana masks so Hippolyta couldn’t tell them apart. Kanigher’s tasks were less dangerous than Marston’s original tournament and included a tug of war, log rolling, and a wrestling match on a high wire. Of course, Diana won and was given a final task of going to man’s world and turning a penny into a million dollars.*
In a remarkable coincidence, just as Diana was about to leave, an airplane exploded overhead and Steve Trevor came plummeting toward Paradise Island. Wonder Woman caught him in midair and flew him back to America while he hailed her as an angel. Once in America, she learned that the city was looking to pay a million dollars for a new bridge. Using her Amazon strength and violating the laws of physics, she stretched the single, three-gram penny out into a long cord and wove an entire suspension bridge. Along the way she also disarmed a nuclear bomb, destroyed an enemy submarine, and saved a children’s camp.
Wonder Woman’s new origin story made some notab
le additions to the Wonder Woman mythos, including the ability to fly. While she could always jump extremely high with her superstrength, she needed her invisible jet for any sustained flight. However, when she saved Steve Trevor from falling to his doom, Wonder Woman realized that she could manipulate updrafts in order to propel herself toward Steve, and gained the power of flight.
Wonder Woman #105 made further changes to the character, marking the beginning of Wonder Woman’s teenage adventures as Wonder Girl. The younger Amazon princess wore a modified Wonder Woman costume and had the same abilities as her adult self.* The adventures of a teenaged Clark Kent as Superboy were very popular in Superman comics at the time, so it seems that Kanigher borrowed the idea to expand on the types of stories he could tell with Wonder Woman. Over the next decade, Wonder Girl appeared in the series almost as often as Wonder Woman.
Kanigher’s origin story also offered a new approach to the mythology of the Amazons. Marston was a mythology buff, and his stories were rooted in the Greek legends of the Amazons, but Kanigher appeared unconcerned with mythological consistency. Adding men to the Amazon homeland was an odd choice, made even more confusing by having them off fighting wars while Queen Hippolyta and the Amazon women stayed at home. There were men in a few Amazon myths, but they were the stay-at-home type, often because their Amazon mothers hobbled them as infants so they could never overthrow their female rule. The defining characteristic of the Amazons throughout history was that they were a race of warrior women, so having men fight for them, not to mention fleeing the wars after the men all died, was an unusual approach.
Looking at Kanigher in light of Marston, these changes drastically altered the message of the book. Marston’s Amazons were an extension of his psychological theories, however problematically, and Kanigher removed or altered all of the key components. For Marston, the Amazons willingly rejected involvement with men and were better because of it. For Kanigher, it appeared that the Amazons would gladly welcome their men back at any time, and only established Paradise Island so that the world wouldn’t bring them any more grief. This eliminated the Amazons’ original feminist message of female superiority, but Kanigher wasn’t done.