For today's post, I'd like to pose a simple question to you, the reader:
Which of these two panels seems more likely to induce lasting psychological damage?
1. a standard "injury to the eye" number taken from a Jack Cole crime story
2. this representative image of Peachy Pet, Johnny Thunder's precocious wardI know which of the two images is going to cause me many a sleepless night in the weeks and months to come...
Frederic Wertham was right. His only mistake was focusing on the wrong targets.
Curve - Horror Head (from Doppelgänger, 1992) - Mining the same vein as Garbage, only earlier and, most importantly, better.
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2 comments:
Wertham was a jerk. The only positive that came out of his crusade was that he made William Gaines a very rich man. And ultimately, Mad magazine corrupted alot more kids than any of the old EC horror comics would have!
Cole was messed up.
There's the horrific violence one can see in the Plastic Man archives, but I've also discovered the character he created for Pep Comics, The Comet--an ugly dork who discovered that injecting a gas into his bloodstream (a) somehow gave him flight, (b) somehow gave him "disintegration vision," and (c) somehow didn't kill him with a stroke or poisoning.
The Comet wore a black hood with a special visor to keep from killing everyone he looked at--so yes, say hello to the original Cyclops. In his first outing, he didn't hesitate to open that visor up, either--blowing villains (and anyone who pissed him off) into atoms.
By his third appearance, though (Cole only did the first story, I think), The Comet was well on his way to Totally Screwedville. He was hypnotized by a bad guy and promptly slaughtered a bunch of cops; although he snapped out of it, wasted the villain and vowed to redeem himself, it was just a matter of time...
In Pep #17, The Comet became the first superhero to die in the line of duty, sacrificing himself to save his brother. Bro became another costumed kook--The Hangman--to avenge him, and then kept going while romancing his brother's girlfriend (ew).
Subsequent "Hangman" stories featured awesome EC-grade axe-to-the-skull murders, strangulations, and of course hangings--until a kid named Archie Andrews moved in and changed the course of Pep Comics...
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