#comics code

Trigger Warnings: media censorship, homophobia, if things like the Hays Code are triggering this will be too

Batman has been around since May of 1939, and has gone through many changes since then. Two big changes reasons for this change have been, the introduction of the Joker in 1940, and the book “Seduction of the Innocent” written by a German Psychologist, Fredric Wertham in the year 1954. The Crown Prince of Crime, created a worthy opponent for Batman, and Wertham’s book created censorship for how this opposition would be portrayed. “Seduction of the Innocent” also brought about the Comics Code Authority. The Comics Code Authority created a seal of approval that let parents know if the comic was up to Wertham’s standards. This censorship created a large shift in comics’ content from mature to childish.

“Seduction of the Innocent” linked violence, sexual perversion, disrespect, and general rudeness to comic books. “The Batman type story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they be unconscious,” Wertham wrote on Sexual perversion in the Batman comics. In that quote, Wertham is referring to the relationship between Robin (Dick Grayson,) and Batman (Bruce Wayne,) in which they share a bed, and get tans, among other couple’s activities. Wertham believed that seeing relationships like Batman and Robin would create homosexual fantasies. When “Seduction of the Innocent” was published, many concerned parents started thinking that as well.

Enough parents were so concerned with comic books that there became a need to know how mature a comic was just by looking at the cover. This need created the Comics Code Authority. The Comics Code Authority, or CCA, had 41 provisions in what was allowed for children to read in comics, if a comic got the CCA seal of approval, it would be sold, if it did not get the seal, it would more than likely not be sold. This created a brand new age of comic books. Under the “Marriage and sex” article seven states, “Sec perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden.” The “same” being referred to is homosexuality. This rule created a similar result to the Hay’s Code, which made many monsters written as queer. These rules, made the villains more flamboyant if they were men and more butch if they were women. It also resulted in men, such as the Joker, wearing make-up.

The Joker is a man who originally got his clown like appearance entirely from a chemical mishap, but it was later changed to him simply wearing make-up. This change also had Joker occasionally wearing women’s clothing. He also started a pattern of flirting with men. This flirting even went as far as him kissing Bane. Joker also confesses that he’s in love with Batman, twice, to Catwoman. Harley Quinn also makes the realization that Joker loves Batman, not her, in her self entitled HBO show. A great example of this dynamic is when Joker is crying on his knees at his shrine to Batman while Harley is show on a bed in under-garments waiting for him, with a yellow box reads, “It just wasn’t with me.” Batman: Curse of the White Knight has been regarded as non-canon, but this is not the only time Joker has been described as in love with Batman by Dr.Harleen Quinzel, it also occurs in “Harley Quinn (The Animated Series.)” Joker is given a choice by the Riddler, to save Harley or Batman. Joker immediately chooses Batman. This causes Harley to have the realization mentioned earlier, that Joker cares more about Batman than her. She recalls a past event in which Joker had said “‘Til death do us part” and realizes that he had meant Batman, not Harley.

Batman is someone who never maintains a singular love interest for long, he is a perpetual bachelor. Batman much like the Joker, never seizes the opportunity to kill the other. Most people claim that this is because of Batman’s moral code, which says nothing about not letting his enemy starve, fall to their death and many of the other deaths that Batman saves Joker from. Batman even mourns Joker’s death in universes where he dies. In the words of Joker in “Batman the Dark Knight, “You complete me” which is actually quoted from the romance movie “Jerry Maguire.” “You complete me” is arguably the best quote to describe the famous pair, Joker is as quintessential to Batman as Robin. Many people argue that heroes and villains can not/would not date but that’s also false, Batman dates Catwoman, has a fling with poison Ivy, and Talia Al Ghul. Also in an alternate reality in which Bruce dies instead of his parents, his parents become Batman and Joker, and continue to pursue a romantic relationship.

In the end Joker and Batman need each other. Years of censorship created these circumstances, and now that the censorship is ended, it has only been made more explicit. In newer adaptations like “The LEGO Batman” made in 2017 it is made clear that hate is a substitute for love. Their “hate” for each other is the driving force of the movie.

holy shit did i have no friends in 8th grade or something mein gott

I miss smoking in comics. Kinda wild how the Comics Code was G with wolverine constantly lighting up but any queerness had to be snuck past with suggestion and innuendo.

Phantom Lady’s second incarnation was actually relatively short-lived, although the blue-and-red-costumed heroine became the default image of the character in later years, thanks to the distinctive “good time” girl art of Matt Baker. Under Baker’s version, Phantom Lady became younger, sexier, more shapely and wore a costume that left little to the imagination. She appeared in several stories in ten issues of her own title from August 1947 until April 1949, although she also appeared in nine issues of All Top Comics in the same period. However, it was Baker’s art that was, amongst others, showcased by Dr Frederic Wertham in his book Seduction of the Innocent, which became the foundational work for the moral crusade launched against Golden Age comic books in the 1950s, which culminated in the introduction of the Comics Code in the USA. Although the code was aimed principally at the lurid, and sometimes sadistic, imagery contained in the “true crimes” comics genre, sexualised female characters like Phantom Lady were swept up in the panic, with the result she effectively disappeared from print in the mid-1950s, until DC Comics obtained the rights to the character and felt brave enough to relaunch her in the 1970s.

Of course, by the standards of today, when so many costumed heroines are hyper-sexualised, clad in skin-tight spandex and possessing breasts that look like they should have come off a production line, Baker’s cartoony imagery looks like innocent fun, rather than anything corrupting. However, Phantom Lady, along with arguably a whole generation of 1940s tough super heroines simply disappeared and I do wonder if that had more to do with a general societal desire to reimpose prewar gender roles as much as it was to save the nation’s youth.

The pages featured above are from the Phantom Lady story, The World’s Meanest Crook, that appeared in Phantom Lady #15 (December 1947). It is a good example of Matt Baker’s work depicting Phantom Lady in full athletic mode and a sexy depiction of her alter ego Sandra Knight, in the final panel. This version of the character was undoubtedly designed to draw in older male readers as well as the target readership of young teenage boys and girls, but it was hardly civilisation shaking.

Tomb of Terror #17 - Harvey, September 1955. Cover art by Bob Powell... Was never published.

Instead it changed it's title to Thrills of Tomorrow with the advent of the Comics Code.

The title story itself was never published.

Content was watered down and it only lasted four issues.