Matt Ney
12/04/2010
Decade of the 60s
Comic Books in the 60s
To preface this report, I am limiting the extent of my writings and research to
primarily the DC and Marvel comic book brands, but I may include other comics
depending on their relevance and potential impact to the culture of the time.
Comic books have an interesting history throughout their existence. They’ve been
seen as both nuisances and as representing America’s greatest qualities and ideals;
they’ve been an international pastime and also been on the fiery end of book burnings.
Society’s view on comic books has been, to say the least, capricious and tumultuous.
Some things that cannot be denied, though, is the impact that society has upon comics,
the vice versa, and our collective consciousness has been severely altered by the
inception and continuation of the comic book industry. With this paper, I’d like to
observe and report upon the cultural change of the 60s and the reflection it carried with
comic books and their heroes.
Before I begin headlong into the 60s, I must give some context about the
changing climate in comics through the years and decades. During the 50s, we were
finished with the Second World War and suddenly finding ourselves caught up in the
Cold War, but, more importantly for this paper, this was the transitional phase between
the Golden Age and the Silver Age of Comics. As all good superheroes should do, all of
the legendary heroes were veterans that went against Germany and Japan, but they were
much unlike other returning war heroes. What they returned home to was a major drop in
interest and therefore a sharp decrease in sells.
In an effort to boost sells once again, writers and editors geared series towards
more goofy storylines like Batman fighting aliens or Superman helping housewives.
Basically they were trying to reconnect with their former audience and even with a larger
one by tapping into popular movies genres (i.e. Sci Fi and Westerns) and common plights
of common people. Eventually, Western-themed comics became so popular that
superheroes were taken out of series entirely. Humor and horror themes in comics also
pushed heroes out of their own series. So all that remained of comic books in the wake of
such massive changes was gore, horror, and the old idea of West and this categorized the
50s quite well. To perhaps give an idea as to how bad these comics became, a psychiatrist
by the name of Fredric Werlham studied them and concluded that they were the reason
behind the beginning and rise of juvenile delinquency. He also accused Batman and
Robin of being homosexuals and Wonder Woman of being a lesbian. This was a tough
time for comic book heroes.
All was not, though, and by the end of the decade, most superheroes came back in
a big way. They were redesigned, modernize, and made to fit in with America’s new
interests. Sputnik had recently been launched into space, so publishers took advantage of
our heated worry and wonder over what this implied and how we could hurry to compete
with them. That’s exactly what comics reflected; the growing interest and desire to
advance our sciences to get ourselves into space. By the turn of the decade, comic books
were back in style, but with a certain shift in appeal. Detective Comics, or DC, was one
of the first comic book companies and probably the most well-known and they dominated
the landscape since their creation. That is until the 60s arrived and, along with it, SpiderMan. Spider-man was first created in the year 1962 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and it
was starkly different from any other superhero at the time. He was a teenager with typical
teenaged problems. He had school to worry over, he wasn’t too popular and he was not
even much of a catch for the ladies. All of these compounded with the fact that he was
incidentally given superpowers that he never really wanted. Now this drew a definite
divide between what it meant to be a Marvel superhero and what it meant to be a DC
hero. Spider-man was full of fault whereas every other superhero was confident and
always got the job done perfectly.
The most interesting thing about Spider-man, though, was how immensely
popular he became with the aging youth of the time. He was obviously very relatable to
young people; he was a new type of hero, almost like an anti-hero; and, perhaps most of
all, he was a revolutionary strike against traditional, conventional ideas of superheroes.
This is a great representation of what was to come later on in the decade with the
challenge by youth against their elders.
Doctor Strange, who was written into existence in 1963, carried a very unique art
style and concept that could be known as pre-Psychedelic. He appeared a couple of years
before the influx of hippies and acid trippers that would have influenced and/or created
this style of art, but that isn’t the case. Actually, Ken Kesey was reading Doctor Strange
as he went around the States with the Merry Pranksters, dosing the nation with LSD. And
to add even more on this case, their flyers that read, “Can You Pass the Acid Test?”
actually contained the image of the Marvel superhero Thor, taken straight from one of his
comic book covers. Thor could have been called a hippie at his time with his long blonde
hair.
Just to look at those three cases alone, you can easily see the impact that comic
books had upon the culture (and vice versa) at the time, but that isn’t even near the end of
it!
After seeing the influence of Spider-man, Doctor Strange and even Thor, one
must wonder what other possible there could be that were similar to this. Through the
Fantastic Four, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the very first black superhero that
went under the name “The Black Panther.” What makes this interesting is that there is
finally a black man of power in this setting and he was created a couple of months before
the Black Panther Party actually formed. This has to be coincidence, but it almost seems
that sometimes these comic book writers almost have a prophetic image at just the right
time. Another such coincidence is rather funny: originally, the Fantastic Four was going
to be called the Fabulous Four. Imagine them walking across Abbey Road.
To hearken back to the discussion of Spider-man, at around the time of his
creation, Marvel was producing a number of incidental heroes that more or less hated
their identity and saw their new abilities as though they were plights upon them or a cruel
twist of fate. The Thing who was irreversibly transformed into a man of rock form
especially loathed his ability gained through accident because it came at the cost of his
humanness.
Another comic book creation during the 60s was the famous Hulk, whose
character reflected a society’s concern over the production and potential use of atomic
weaponry and even gained his power through such an incident. This superhero was
different from many others, because, whenever he would transform, the first people that
would try to defeat was the US Army. This is unprecedented; to have our military be the
main villain? Absurd, right? Yet his character, like Spider-man and many other Marvel
superheroes, rang through to the youth of the 60s. He was the victim that unfairly being
attacked because of his appearance and presence. In previous decades and up until the
creation of the Hulk, publishers realized and geared their comic books towards children
because they were the main audience, but the Hulk changed that. Now, a growing
interesting by high school and even college students was formed by this anti-hero
mentality. So these superheroes were revolutionaries and see as such by the disgruntled
young people who identified immensely with all of them. This connection and popularity
with the counterculture youth actually helped Marvel to start out-selling the slightlywaning DC.
Speaking of DC, during the 60s, one of the most famous superhero had somewhat
of a reboot on their image. On 1966, Batman got his own live-action television show that
starred Adam West as the lead. It was a campy take on the Dark Knight that involved,
“Bam,” and, “Pow,” whenever a villain was beaten; Robin with his expected funny
remarks, “Holy Hanukkah, Batman…” and super-villains, like the Joker, that weren’t
ever taken seriously through the two-year run. This show had a great impact on sells and
the Batman storyline in comic books. The publishers decided to follow the campy feeling
similar to the TV show and it certainly helped to keep readers buying. Unfortunately,
when the show ran its course by the end of 1968, comic book sells dropped again.
At the late 60s and early 70s, the counterculture and racial discrimination was
being represented within comic books, especially by two unexpected heroes: Green
Lantern and Green Arrow who joined together into a limited run series. Green Arrow was
given the identity of the voice and ear of the streets and slums and the Green Lantern was
a flying general overseer. In one comic, Green Lantern spots a young hoodlum
disrespecting an older man and drives him off. Green Arrow rebukes Lantern, telling him
that the young man he drove off was actually a tenant and the older man was an unfair
and ruthless landlord that was throwing out his tenants without reason. Green Arrow
convinced Lantern to explore more deeply the slums he thought he was protecting. While
going through tenant buildings and interviewing residents, Green Lantern is suddenly and
without warning confronted by an old African-American man that recognizes his service
towards, “…the green skins, the purple skins and even the blue skins...but what about the
black skins? What have you done for us?” Heavy, heavy subject matter was covered in
this collection, all reflecting upon current issues happening within the cultural sphere.
They would cover race, environmental issues, and even drug addiction once the Nixon
administration stepped in. This new administration encouraged comic book writers to
show the dangers of drug addiction and the social ills they cause. Green Arrow’s sidekick
was turned into a heroin addict and The Green Goblin of Spider-man developed an
addiction to painkillers. One thing, though, was amazingly missing: Vietnam.
In the past, comic book writers were unafraid and totally transparent in their
severe contempt towards the Axis forces of WWII and even promoted American
propaganda during the Cold War and McCarthy era. This utterly changed with the rise of
the Vietnam War. No superheroes went off to war, not even the newly-rejuvenated
Captain America signed up to overthrow the Communist menace overseas. The changing
attitude towards war was surprisingly apparent. Whatever comics that depicted Vietnam
during the time were sympathetic portrayals of the unfortunate soldiers that had to put up
with the horrible conflict.
And so on, ranging from the late 50s to the early 70s, the impact that comic books
had upon culture, or, for this era, counterculture, and vice versa was an obvious thing.
Departing from the 60s, the US and the comic book industry were marked by the
political, racial and cultural strife of the time and could never return to what some would
call a simpler time.
That was my conclusion and, I know, it was pretty bad. But, hey, super good
paper, huh?
Works Cited:
Schumer, Arlen. The Silver Age of Comic Book Art. Collectors Press, 2003. Print.
"SILVER AGE COMICS lecture by Arlen Schumer." Web. 5 Dec 2010.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bknZmiIhn_M&feature=related>.
"Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked." Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked. History
Channel: Jul 2003. Television. 5 Dec 2010.