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Stan Lee’s contributions to the comic industry go beyond Spider-Man and his cameos in Marvel movies
Published : 28 Dec 2022, 10:00 AM
Dec 28 is the birthday of Stan Lee, the infamous American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer.
When we think of Marvel, we think of Stan Lee. The legend had been in the comic industry since 1939 and passed away in November 2018. This death was devastating to all comic fans.
Lee has left an enormously impactful footprint on the medium with his creation of characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, the Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, and more. Fans also recognise him for his funny and inspirational cameos in many Marvel movies. However, his contributions to the industry transcend the superheroes we now love.
As a stalwart of comics for nearly eight decades, Lee saw the medium develop and played a part in its progress. One standout moment was the moment he took a stance against censorship.
It was 1954. German-born American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham had just published his polemical Seduction of the Innocent, which argued that comic books instigated youth crime. The book led to public outrage over the graphic violence in comics like The Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt, and Crime SuspenStories. The US Senate even established a Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency to investigate the issue.
Wertham’s criticism of the comic book industry was shot through with sensationalism and has since been disputed, but the damage was done. Comic book publishers moved to form their own internal censorship group – the Comics Code Authority, or CCA – to prevent government intervention. The organisation’s remit? To make comics suitable for young readers.
This formation of the CCA marks the shift from the Golden Age of US comics to the Silver Age. With this transition, comic books lost much of the variety in topics and tones they had enjoyed until then.
The CCA’s guidelines held characters and genre writing back for years. Some of these rules seem reasonable, such as a requirement that female characters are depicted realistically without exaggerating any physical characteristics, and restrictions on mocking or ridiculing any race or religious group. However, CCA’s guidelines also extended far beyond that. It did not allow advertisements for fireworks and prohibited the use of words like ‘horror’ or ‘terror.’ There were also strict restrictions on what could be depicted in comics, including bans on werewolves and vampires, and illustrations of drugs, death and explicit violence.
The CCA developed its own seal of approval for comic books, printed on the front cover. Vendors refused to stock any comics without CCA approval on their shelves, in effect destroying the market for any comics not targeted at children. Businesses had to comply with these regulations or shut down. This heavy censorship had a profound impact on the industry, from artists to sellers.
In 1971, the CCA received a blow to their authority. The United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare approached Stan Lee about writing a story that highlighted the risks of drug use.
Lee created a three-part Spider-Man story illustrated by John Romita about Peter Parker’s friend Harry Osborn falling victim to drug abuse after a break-up with Mary Jane Watson. Lee was not blind to his surroundings. It was an open secret that college students in the 1960s were abusing drugs, whether for party thrills or to push through their studies. The comics’ panels show cases of pills and try to shift the blame for Harry’s drug abuse away from MJ’s decision to leave their relationship.
Lee was interested in addressing a significant social issue. Though the intention was to dissuade young people from using drugs, the CCA still penalised the story. But Martin Goodman, the publisher of Marvel Comics, agreed when Lee suggested publishing the comic book without the CCA’s approval.
The story, which appeared in issues #96 through #98 of The Amazing Spider-Man, became a best-seller thanks in part to promotion by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The popularity of the arc suggested the depiction of drugs as a dangerous habit resonated with the public. But this posed a dilemma with the CCA’s restrictions against the portrayal of drugs. Due to its immense popularity, the CCA was pushed to revise its guidelines and change its stance on anti-drug storylines.
Over the years, the CCA relaxed its guidelines further. Marvel took another step the following year with the groundbreaking The Tomb of Dracula by Gene Colan and Marv Wolfman, which ran from 1972 to 1979. The series brought monsters back to the comic book page and inspired a rise in spooky comics. As time went on, the Comic Code stamp shrunk in size, as if to represent its waning significance.
In the 1980s, mainstream comics made another jump in maturity, with several books aimed at older audiences, such as Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s horror-tinged dark fantasy The Sandman, both published without the CCA seal of approval. These adult-oriented works proved so popular that DC Comics eventually launched an imprint called Vertigo in 1993 to provide an easy way for readers to find them on the newsstand.
Publishers slowly abandoned the Comics Code over the next few decades, and by 2011, it was finally laid to rest.
The changes to the CCA can’t be specifically credited to Marvel’s success with its Spider-Man run, but Lee’s comics indeed heralded a waning of its power. Lee deserves credit for being among the first in the mainstream industry to make a comic without its stamp of approval. Because of his stance, the code was modernised and many were reminded that intelligent content creation was more useful and successful than a crude blanket ban on all content. Without Lee’s ambition in The Amazing Spider, the comic industry of today may not have been as exciting, nor would it be as fertile a platform for social commentary.
This article was written for Stripe, bdnews24.com's page for coverage of society and culture from a youth perspective.
