Table Of ContentWestern Kentucky University
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Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School
8-2014
Where Was the Outrage? The Lack of Public
Concern for the Increasing Sensationalism in
Marvel Comics in a Conservative Era 1978-1993
Robert Joshua Howard
Western Kentucky University,
WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE? THE LACK OF PUBLIC CONCERN FOR THE
INCREASING SENSATIONALISM IN MARVEL COMICS IN A CONSERVATIVE
ERA 1978-1993
A Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of History
Western Kentucky University
Bowling Green, Kentucky
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
By
Robert Joshua Howard
August 2014
I dedicate this thesis to my wife, Marissa Lynn Howard, who has always been extremely
supportive of my pursuits. A wife who chooses to spend our honeymoon fund on a trip to
Wyoming, to sit in a stuffy library reading fan mail, all while entertaining two dogs is
special indeed.
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank the staff at Western Kentucky
University. Dr. Anthony Harkins spent a great deal of effort into helping me perfect my
thesis and now has far more knowledge of comic books than he will ever need or most
likely want. Dr. Carol Crowe Carraco must be acknowledged for the levity she brings to
academia and also for lending moral support on the project. Dr. Jack Thacker has also
made himself readily available for questions and has made several suggestions that have
made this a better thesis. I would also like to thank several academics and comic book
professionals that I have met on the comic listserv. Danny Fingeroth worked at Marvel
Comics for several years and has been extremely supportive giving his free time to
answer several of the questions I had while writing this thesis. Charlie Boatner of the
International Guide to Comics shared several sources with me as well. Finally, I would
like to thank the University of Wyoming and Stan Lee for making the decades of fan
letters, manuscripts, and interviews available to the public.
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CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………. 1
Chapter 1: Comic Books a Source of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States?: 19301954 ……………………………………………………………………………………… 8
Chapter 2: “We would have to kill off Aunt May, or have Spider become a
homosexual…”: The Rising Sensationalism in Comic Books, 1978-1993 ………….… 34
Chapter 3: Careful of Creating Caricatures: Marvel’s Increasing Emphasis on Racial
Equality, 1978-1993 ……………………………………………………………………. 65
Chapter 4: Invisible Women: To be Seen and Not Heard; Marvel’s Approach to Female
Characters, 1978-1993 ……………………………………………………………….... 94
Conclusion: Do Comic Books have a Future?, 1993-Present ……………………….... 137
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………...152
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WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE? THE LACK OF PUBLIC CONCERN FOR THE
INCREASING SENSATIONALISM IN MARVEL COMICS IN A CONSERVATIVE
ERA 1978-1993
Robert Joshua Howard August 2014 159 Pages
Directed by: Anthony Harkins, Carol Crowe Carraco, and Jack Thacker
Department of History Western Kentucky University
This thesis explains the connection between comics and public reactions in two
separate eras of conservatism. Comic books were targeted by critics in the 1950s because
their content challenged conservative norms. In 1954, a U.S. Senate subcommittee
hearing on Juvenile Delinquency tried to determine if comic books were having a
harmful impact on children. The senators were concerned that comic books objectified
women, taught children to engage in violence, promoted bigotry, and perhaps even
encouraged homosexuality. The concerns caused outrage that was encouraged by the
press. As a result, comic books adopted a form of self-censorship through the Comic
Code Authority. The censorship combined with challenges from other media collapsed
the comic book market until the next decade.
Between 1978 through 1993, the United States entered a second period of
conservatism. During this period, comic books reflected far more sensational content
than that which had caused the public to react so strongly in 1954. And yet this time,
there was almost no public outrage directed at comics. The purpose of this study is to
find out why sensational content did not result in the same degree of public outrage that
had occurred in 1954. This thesis starts with an overview of the controversies about
comics in the 1950s era. Then, in the remainder of the thesis, comic books produced
between 1978 and 1993 by the most popular mainstream comic book company, Marvel
Comics, focusing on Daredevil, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Ghost
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Rider, and the X-Men. The thesis also draws extensively on fan mail from the Stan Lee
Archives in Laramie, Wyoming, and in the comic books themselves. Comparing comic
books and the period’s changing media landscape, I show that comic books were deemed
subversive and a source of scandalously sensational material out of step with much
popular culture in the 1950s, but blended so well into the media landscape of the 1970s
and 80s that they were safe from public outrage. Therefore, even though comic books
became more violent and engaged in escalating levels of sexual objectification of female
characters, fans approved of the new tone.
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Introduction
Comic books trace their origin to the comic strips found in newspapers in the
th
early 20 century. Max Gaines and Harry Wildenberg, both of whom are credited with
producing the first real comic books and being instrumental in the creation of some of the
first superheroes, discovered in 1933 that by manipulating the plates used for the Sunday
comics, they could create a cheap magazine which they could fill with archived comic
strips thereby giving comic books their standard size.1 The comic books created by
Gaines and Wildenberg were supposed to be a short-lived advertising gimmick, but they
became a sensation. The cheap price and small shelf space made them a hit with both
consumers and distributers. Further, since the funny pages had already been published by
newspapers, there was no perceived need for oversight.
The medium continued to mature in the 1940s. As comic books became more
established, publishers produced original, less censored content. However, the lack of
censorship led to problems. Since they came from comic strips, it was easy for critics,
who saw comic strips as a form of low culture, to apply the same criticism to comic
books. These critics derided the comic book and argued their sole purpose was to
entertain the masses rather than elevating its status. Comic books survived these early
skirmishes, however, due in large part to World War II.
During World War II, comic books promoted American patriotism by serving as
propaganda for the war effort. The government immediately saw the potential of comic
books. For example, the Office of War Information (OWI) created a media division
devoted to creating cartoons and comic books that allowed it to carry its message directly
1 Bradford Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press, 2001), 3.
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to the people through comic books. The OWI was only one of several government
entities that saw the propagandistic potential of comic books. Before the end of World
War II, the Department of Treasury, the Federal Security Agency, and the military had all
produced comic books.2 Thus, the U.S. government in large part helped to legitimize
comic books during World War II.3 The Second World War was also an enormous
opportunity for public comic book companies as well.
Several comic book artists and writers got their start in the Army. In keeping with
the war effort, mainstream comic book companies produced content dripping with
nationalism. For instance, the first edition of Captain America, produced by what is now
known as Marvel Comics, shows the title character belting Adolf Hitler across the room.
This may explain the incredible popularity comic books enjoyed at home and abroad.
For example in 1942, 15 million comic books were sold each month, and by 1943, sales
had climbed to 25 million copies.4 But these sales figures did not last long. Returning
GIs weary of war resented patriotic content forced upon them, and many GIs did not
embrace comic books when they returned to the United States at the end of the war.
The market for comic books was saturated since veterans no longer seemed
interested in buying comic books. For example, Captain Marvel Adventures only sold at
half the rate in 1949 that it did during the war.5 At the same time, many comic book
artists and writers were now unemployed. As a result, the comic book industry had a
2 Richard Graham, Government Issue: Comics for the People, 1940s-2000s (New York: Abrams Comicarts, 2011), 16.
3 It should be noted that the Army’s test of core knowledge focused on mathematical reasoning before the end of World
War II; however, afterward troops were given tests that included only a measurement of their literacy. Thus, comic
books served an important function in the World War II era since many of the troops were most likely less proficient at
reading than post-World War II Americans would be; Thomas G. Sticht and William B. Armstrong, Adult Literacy in
the United States: A Compendium of Quantitative Data and Interpretive Comments. National Inst. for Literacy,
Washington, DC. 1994, 38.
4 Wright, Comic Book Nation, 11.
5 Ibid., 52.
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