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At the beginning of the Cold War, adults saw comic books as contributors to juvenile delinquency and bureaucrats saw them acting to subvert "American" values. This concern led to U.S. Senate hearings and the publishers' defensive creation of the Comic Codes Authority in 1954. Wrapped around this timeframe, Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962: Essays on Graphic Treatment of Communism, the Code and Social Concerns explores the change in comic books with atomic anxieties, the nuclear family and the communist threat. The book is a collection of essays edited by brothers Chris and Rafiel York.
While some of the comics told stories of direct confrontation between the forces of good (America) and evil (everybody else), some were much more subtle. Or at least some of the essayists want us to believe that theory. Frederick A. Wright's essay on the Flash comics, "I Can Pass Right Through Solid Matter!" suggests that the superhero was able to contain anything that threatened the American way of life, while also being free of restrictions. Bank robbers could be viewed as "the capitalist fear of communist system's redistributing the wealth." In the age of intercontinental missiles with only minutes between launch and death, who better to save the world than the strength of Superman or the speed of the Flash?
Even if you don't agree with the metaphors, the Cold War did lead to the revival of superheroes in the comic books. The Comics Code pushed publishers to the more wholesome tales of bravery, strength, and speed. Superheroes of the era battled supervillains and the Soviet threat. That revival led to the multi-36+billion dollar movie franchises currently filling the multiplexes.
Comic Books and the Cold War has more of an academic tone than a casual reader may want. As you might expect, some essays are better then others.
Most disappointing to me was the lack of comic book panels from the book. Maybe that is most revealing about the power of the comic form. Some essayists describe the panel passage for paragraphs and then a few more paragraphs about the implications. All of that was wrapped up in a few lines of dialogue with an ink drawing in the comic.
The publisher was kind enough to send me a review copy of the book.
