The Roots and Representations of Marvel Comics Silver Age Horror

footnotes in square brackets indicate a quoted source; these are listed at the bottom of this page
all dates given are cover dates unless specified

THE ROOTS OF THE HORROR COMIC BOOK

With a more or less direct line of descent from the 19th Century British Penny Dreadfuls [1] and the early 20th Century US Pulp Fiction [2] books, horror genre comic books first took off in a big way in 1950 (although there had been previous publications, such as Avon's Eerie Comics #1 in 1947) when publisher EC ("Entertaining Comics") launched three titles which would become iconic for the genre: Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear. The titles proved successful right from the start as their style of content - often grimly ironic - became hugely popular. The "Horror Craze" [3] peaked in 1953-54, with many publishers following the lead of EC and hoping to cash in (which they did), including Marvel/Atlas.

Growing numbers of publishers with more and more competing titles, together with the perceived market success, resulted in increasingly violent and graphic crime and horror comic books, whilst members of the public (mostly parents) and educators had been complaining about comic books for years - ever since the National Education Association Journal published an article in 1940 discussing "an antidote to the comic magazine poison" [4]. The backlash was inevitable, and it came with a vengeance in 1954.

DR FREDRIC WERTHAM AND THE SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT

Public indignation over comic books was already running high, but it virtually exploded when Dr Fredric Wertham published The Seduction of the Innocent in 1954. A German-American psychiatrist, Wertham (1895-1981) was drawn early on in his professional life to the concept that environment and social background had major effects on psychological development [5]. In 1932 he became the senior psychiatrist for the New York City Department of Hospitals, where his work with troubled youth soon turned his focus to the negative influences of mass media.

Next to movies and radio plays, comics were extremely popular among all youth at the time, including young criminals. However, Wertham increasingly began to perceive a sinister connection, and by the time he published The Seduction of the Innocent in 1954 he was convinced that comic books were quintessentially bad and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. Horror comics, he felt, were especially insidious.

The book was a minor bestseller which created alarm in parents and started a grass-roots public reaction, partly resulting in a campaign for censorship. Profusely illustrated with (uncredited) comic-book panels (mostly from EC publications, but also including other publishers) which allegedly offered evidence for his claims, Seduction of the Innocent is, from a purely scientific view, a terrible book. Lacking proof of his assertions and relying heavily on polemics, Wertham makes use of reasoning by analogy and anecdotal evidence, without quoting any sources in all but a few examples (as a matter of fact, every book Wertham wrote was met with criticisms of sloppy writing [6]). But despite being a completely unscientific publication, the fact that it had been written by a noted psychiatrist added weight to its arguments per se in the general public's view. Wertham became something of a media darling, writing for popular magazines and speaking around the country, and when Congress took an interest in his critique in 1954, he was the star witness, appearing before the Senate Subcommittee to investigate juvenile delinquency.

Nevertheless, Wertham was unhappy and considered the CCA inadequate to protect youth, and in early 1955 he was already testifying before a New York State Legislature committee hearing that the comic books were no better under the Code than previously [9].

Wertham has become the most hated person for comic fandom, and it is ironic that he would have fallen into oblivion had he not been kept alive in the memories of comic afficionados as the "McCarthy of Comics". But there again, this outright condemnation is both unfair and unjustified. In essence, Wertham's concern and desire to protect the young from exploitation and anti-social influence was an honest one, and it should not be forgotten that in the very same year in which he published Seduction of the Innocent, his conclusions on the psychological effects of school segregation was submitted to the United States Supreme Court as an important piece of evidence in the legal case that led to the 1954 ruling declaring racial segregation in schools to be unconstitutional [10]. Today, Wertham would probably focus on violent PC and console games, and given the sad list of high-school shooting incidents, he would probably find his case an easier one to argue for.

Actually, it wasn't Dr Fredric Wertham who shook the comics industry, but the industry itself. Wertham overstated his case in a ludicrous and unscientific manner, but some of the comic books in question really were as crude and gross as he claimed, with endless acts of graphic violence and mutilations. The comics industry wasn't helped by EC publisher William Gaines either, its only representative to (voluntarily) testify before the Senate Subcommittee in 1954. After wrongly claiming credit for publishing the first horror comics, Gaines defended the cover artwork for SuspenStories #22, which depicted a woman's severed head, as being in good taste. Gaines later admitted himself that this was a terrible blunder in the given circumstances [11]. So was it the crudeness of Gaines which brought it all down? Again, everything is much more complex than most of the one-sided partisanship views of the Wertham - EC events prefer to suggest. Gaines finally shut the door on the CCA when its administrator Judge Murphy demanded that the protagonist astronaut in a story published in Incredible Science Fiction #33 should not be an Afro-American. Upon this, Gaines is reported to having just said "f**k you" before hanging up the phone [12]. In this case, only the vocabulary of William Gaines may be judged to be crude, but nothing else - on the contrary.

THE ATLAS PERIOD

Marvel Comics' immediate predecessor Atlas started out in life in November 1951, when all of publisher Martin Goodman's titles sported the new name and logo for the first time. Working on the opposite end of innovation, Goodman would follow what he considered to be proven trends - or as Stan Lee put it:

"[Martin Goodman] would notice what was selling, and we'd put out a lot of books of that type" [13].

The cover of pre-Comics Code Atlas Strange Tales #28 displaying more than just a hint of EC influence

The success of EC with its horror genre publications was, not surprisingly, copied by Goodman in the form of horror titles turned out during this period such as Adventures into Terror, Amazing Mysteries and Astonishing. Other books would, later on, become household names, such as Strange Tales (#1 published in June 1951) and Journey into Mystery (#1 published in June 1952).

Initially modelled after EC's rather more gory style, all of Atlas's horror books took on a decidedly less gruesome tone following the 1954 introduction of the Comics Code. Over the years and true to his "style", Goodman shifted the themes more and more towards science-fiction stories, a genre enjoying growing popularity in the movie industry throughout the mid- to late 1950s.

This move was further founded in the fact that Goodman had to use Independent News as distributor in October 1957 after he had shut down his self-distributorship a year earlier and his chosen company (American News Service) went bust. Independent, however, was owned by rival DC Comics and only accepted eight titles per month - highly restrictive terms, but Goodman had to accept. This situation made "trend copying" even more important.

In late 1958 Jack Kirby returned to Atlas and started his work with a story titled "I Discovered the Secret of the Flying Saucers", published in Strange Worlds #1. Almost programmatic, it pointed the way for the next few years to come: science-fiction was the selling genre of the day, and weird creatures only mattered if they came from outer space.

MARVEL'S SILVER AGE - FROM MONSTERS TO SUPERHEROES

Hitting the newsstands on May 9 1961, Amazing Adventures #3 (cover date August 1961) was the first post-war comic book labelled Marvel Comics, a science-fiction anthology displaying the "MC" box on its cover. By that time, the general popularity of sci-fi themes had already subsided, and Goodman had switched to adventures in weird worlds involving monsters and creatures which had their roots in the 1940s to 1950s "B-movies" [14].

But there were other developments about to unfold, which would have an impact on the genre which would at least equal the introduction of the comics code: The "Marvel Comics Revolution" was about to be unleashed on 8 August 1961 (the fact that actual publication dates don't correspond with cover dates [15] - which generally were three months ahead for Marvel Silver Age comic books - is a constant source of confusion; generally, cover dates are given, and I will follow this established practice here).

When Fantastic Four #1 hit the newsstands with a cover date of November 1961, Marvel also published five horror & science fiction comics that month: Strange Tales #90, Journey into Mystery #74, Tales to Astonish #25, Tales of Suspense #23, and Amazing Adventures #6, featuring classic Jack Kirby monsters such as "the thing in the black box", "the creature from Krogarr" or "Orrgo" from outer space (somehow double consonants were a trademark of these creatures).

Strange Tales #90
(November 1961)

From an outside perspective, Fantastic Four #1 displayed obvious traces of Marvel's sci-fi and horror comic books, such as a flight into space and a monster-like opponent - the similarities between the covers of Fantastic Four #1 and Strange Tales #90 (both part of the November 1961 cover date production run) are quite striking.

On the inside, however, it already featured most of the essential and defining elements of Marvel's new approach, where superheroes would quarrel, worry about finances and generally be flawed human beings. Within only a few months, this Stan Lee and Jack Kirby formula became a huge success which would provide the basis for more and interrelated super-hero characters and titles.

Given Marvel's restricted possible monthly output through its distributor Independent, Goodman's only way of cashing in on this success was to assign new contents to existing publication slots. Rather than dropping titles, Marvel gradually changed their themes from sci-fi/horror to super-heroes.

Fantastic Four #1
(November 1961)

X-Men #40 (January 1968)

It was not until January 1968 that horror returned to the pages of a Marvel comic book in the form of the Frankenstein Monster - a classic horror figure not affected by the comics code restrictions as much as vampires or werewolves (which were banned outright) - when X-Men #40 featured an android version of Victor Frankenstein's creation.

Written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Don Heck (pencils) and George Tuska (inks plus cover), the core element of the storyline was that the Frankenstein Monster is - a robot, created by an alien race and deployed to Earth in the hopes of facilitating communications. However, the messenger was (surprise, surprise) mistaken by those who saw it for a monster, and after a malfunction which led the "monster" to menace humans, the aliens pursued it to the arctic circle where it was frozen in a block of ice.

Panel from the final page of X-Men #40, explaining the robot background

Eventually, the android was found by a museum expedition and brought to New York for study. As the robot was unfrozen, it smashed its way out of the museum lab but was intercepted and destroyed by the X-Men after they gleaned the android's origins through a telepathic scan by Professor X.

This rather sub-standard attempt at introducing some horror genre elements (which wasn't very well executed either) displayed obvious signs of the influence by the ruling restrictions of the comics code at the time, which in all practicability ruled out a "straight" monster (when the restrictions of the comics code were relaxed a few years later, the concept of having an android as explanation for the existence of a Frankenstein monster in the Marvel universe would be dropped).

Silver Surfer #7 (August 1969)

The Horror genre appeared again under the name Frankenstein in - of all titles - Silver Surfer #7 (August 1969) when a descendant of Victor Frankenstein attempts to create a monster of his own - just as the Silver Surfer is flying by. Deceived into helping the scientist animate his creation, the Surfer finds his powers duplicated into the form of an evil Doppelgaenger (later dubbed the "Frankensurfer") by Frankenstein. The Surfer finally becomes aware of his grave mistake and clashes with his evil spit image, eventually destroying it amidst utter destruction.

Scripted by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema, this was another fairly unbalanced and slightly oddball horror interlude, although noteable for the way it generated storyline interest by having a Frankenstein monster "inside" an outward appearance (a second Surfer) which was completely removed from all the classic Universal movies' monster images. In this respect, the approach by Lee and Buscema was highly unconventional both for its time and the comic book media, even though the final result didn't really live up to the amount of innovation the basic plot provided.

In short, the Silver Age was not a period for horror genre characters at all, as can be seen by the simple fact that even the classic monster par excellence only featured in two Marvel comic books throughout the entire 1960s period (other classic characters weren't present at all) and that even those two appearances were disguised one way or the other, i.e. as android or "Frankensurfer".

SILVER AGE ANTHOLOGY TITLES

Main rival DC had a well-established range of anthology horror titles, of which House of Mystery was perhaps the best known. Launched in 1951, the title experienced the same changes in 1964 as Marvel's sci-fi/horror books by becoming a superhero and /fantasy title. However, in early 1968 House of Mystery successfully reverted to being a true horror-mystery anthology title again. Towards the end of the decade of the superheroes, the horror genre was once again beginning to attract the interest of comic book readers.

Marvel, monitoring the market and noting that DC's horror titles were doing fairly well, decided to follow suit. Not to be output, Marvel's attempt to revive the horror genre started out with original material by some of their biggest talents, including writer-artists Neal Adams, Jim Steranko and Wally Wood, writer-editor Stan Lee himself, and artists including John Buscema, Gene Colan, Don Heck, Barry Smith and George Tuska. Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness - Marvel's new horror anthology titles - even harked back at the classic EC horror comics by having the stories hosted either by "Digger" (a gravedigger) or "Headstone P. Gravely" (an undertaker) or, in some instances, by one of the actual artists or writers of the story.

Marvel put in some real effort, as a closer look at one of the early issues of its two anthology titles - in this case Chamber of Darkness #2 - illustrates.

The spiritus rector of Marvel, Stan Lee himself, introduces "a modern-day mirror of a macabre masterwork" on page 22 of Chamber of Darkness #2. Left: Original art pencilled by Don Heck and lettered by Sam Rosen (scanned from the original in my personal collection). Right: the same page as it appeared in print (colourist unknown). The original artwork reveals that the idea to have Stan Lee as narrator came as an afterthought, as his image is a stat (probably from an original drawing by Marie Severin) which is pasted over the figure (Gravely) which Don Heck had originally drawn.

Marvel's efforts were rewarded- at least to start with - as Jim Steranko's lead story for the first issue of Tower of Shadows ("At the Stroke of Midnight") won an Alley Award at the 1969 New York Comic Art Convention for the best feature story and has over time become a classic piece of Marvel Horror. But in spite of all of the great talent invested, Tower of Shadows as well as its sister title Chamber of Darkness suffered, according to Roy Thomas, from Marvel's unability to provide effective editorship:

Tower of Shadows #1
(September 1969)

Chamber of Darkness #1
(October 1969)

"[Marvel] had tremendous sales during the early '50s, so it was a natural to try to get back into the genre again. The only problem was that, after the first issue or two, with our being too busy to pay a lot of attention to them, they didn't have the focus Joe Orlando could give to the DC books by concentrating on a handful of titles. Stan [Lee] would concentrate on the books for the first issue or two, but then they were supposed to run themselves. He wasn't going to be in on every plot conference, and I [Roy Thomas] had too many things to do to go over every little story, so we just tried to hire a bunch of people to do good stories. But they didn't ever have any unity (...) Even though we had Archie Goodwin working there part of the time, we really didn't have anybody that really concentrated on that editorially. Archie was a freelance writer, and I was concerned with other things, and couldn't do all of it, nor could Stan." [16]

Sales went from average to poor, further reducing the necessary commitment because the two horror titles were far more demanding in terms of editorship in comparison to superhero books, requiring three different sets of writers and artists for every issue, as opposed to one for a hero title.

"Stan [Lee] and I [Roy Thomas] were editing everything, and the writers were editing what they did, and we had a few assistant editors (...)We didn't have the right kind of a set-up at the time to make a hit of those books." [17]

As a result, Marvel stopped producing original material after the first few issues and started a run of reprints of 1950s monster and sci-fi stories from the Atlas archives. Eventually, as of issue #10, Tower of Shadows became Creatures on the Loose in March 1971, featuring a mix of reprints and occasional sword and sorcery and sci-fi series and introducing characters such as Kull or John Carter Warrior of Mars. The title was finally cancelled with issue #37 in September 1975.

Chamber of Darkness became Monsters on the Prowl with issue #9 in February 1971, turning much into the same direction of sword and sorcery as its companion title as of issue #16 in April 1972 before being cancelled in October 1974.

However, this obvious false start into the new decade (which would in hindsight also mark the end of the Silver Age era) would prompt Marvel to rethink its approach to the horror genre. The result would be a completely different school of thought which would produce Marvel's Bronze Age "Superheroes from the Crypt" [18].

Sources

[1] TURNER Ernest S. (1948) Boys will be Boys, Michael Joseph

[2] HAINING Peter (2000) The classic Era of the American Pulp Magazines, Prion Books

[3] WATT-EVANS Lawrence (1997) The other Guys, originally published in The Scream Factory #19, available on-line and accessed 12 July 2007 at www.watt-evans.com/theotherguys.html

[4] DECKER Dwight (1987) Fredric Wertham - Anti-Comics Crusader who turned Advocate, originally published in Amazing Heroes, available on-line and accessed 12 July 2007 at www.art-bin.com/art/awertham.html

[5] WERTHAM Fredric (1954) Blueprints to Delinquency, published in Reader's Digest (May 1954 issue)

[6] DECKER Dwight (1987) Fredric Wertham - Anti-Comics Crusader who turned Advocate, originally published in Amazing Heroes, available on-line and accessed 12 July 2007 at www.art-bin.com/art/awertham.html

[7] NYBERG, Amy Kiste (1998) Seal of Approval: History of the Comics Code, University Press of Mississippi

[8] VON BERNEWITZ Fred & GEISSMAN Grant (2000) Tales of Terror: The EC Companion, Gemstone Publishing and Fantagraphics Books

[9] DECKER Dwight (1987) Fredric Wertham - Anti-Comics Crusader who turned Advocate, originally published in Amazing Heroes, available on-line and accessed 12 July 2007 at www.art-bin.com/art/awertham.html

[10] DECKER Dwight (1987) Fredric Wertham - Anti-Comics Crusader who turned Advocate, originally published in Amazing Heroes, available on-line and accessed 12 July 2007 at www.art-bin.com/art/awertham.html

[11] CORLISS Richard (2004) The Glory and Horror of EC Comics, originally published in Time Magazine (April 29 2004 issue), available on-line and accessed 30 July 2007 at www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,631203,00.html

[12] VON BERNEWITZ Fred & GEISSMAN Grant (2000) Tales of Terror: The EC Companion, Gemstone Publishing and Fantagraphics Books

[13] DANIELS, Les (1991) Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Harry N. Abrams

[14] REID, John H. (2005) Hollywoood 'B' Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills, Lulu

[15] PAYNE, Britton. (2006) Comic Book Citation Format, originally published in Media and Entertainment Law Journal (April 7 2006 issue), available on-line and accessed 14 August 2007 at www.brittonpayne.com/Marvel/ComicBookCitationForm.html

[16] COOKE Jon B. (2001) Son of Stan: Roy's Years of Horror, originally published in Comic Book Artist (issue 13), available on-line and accessed 10 September 2007 at www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/13thomas.html

[17] COOKE Jon B. (2001) Son of Stan: Roy's Years of Horror, originally published in Comic Book Artist (issue 13), available on-line and accessed 10 September 2007 at www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/13thomas.htm

[18] WYMANN, Adrian (2008) Superheroes from the Crypt - Marvel's Bronze Age World of Horror, available online at www.wymann.info/DoctorMarvel/BronzeAgeHorror.html