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the era of the Comics Code Authority (1954)

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was impacting publishers, editors, writers and artists of the comic characters

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considered by many in the comic book industry to be the the Dark Ages of comic books in the 1950s

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interview with Stan Lee (1922-), former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics

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Fredric Wertham

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went on a campaign to convince people that comic books were the cause of the post WWII rise in juvenile delinquency

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wrote a book "Seduction of the Innocent"

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Stan Lee had been a fan of Frederic Wertham

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Lee had written a book called Dark Legend

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he had someone who went around and made speeches for him

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he took a cover Stan Lee had made with a giraffe sticking his head through a hole eating an apple, and suggested that it was something unethical

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interviewed one hundred juvenile delinquents

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all said they read a comic book

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the causal connection was questionable

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Fredric Wertham on Superman

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"Superman needs an endless stream of new sub-men, criminals, and foreign looking people, not only to justify his existence, but even to make it possible. It is this feature that engenders in children one or the other of two attitudes. Either they fantasize themselves as supermen, with the attendant prejudices against the sub-men, or it makes them remissive and receptive to the blandishments of strong men who will solve all their social problems for them by force."

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the Comics Code Authority

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they were looking for things that were too violent or too sexy

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in general, one didn't have to worry about it

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they had a comic book that had a western theme

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they had a picture of a man who was shooting a gun with a bullet coming out of the gun

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it was sent back as being too violent and it had to be redrawn

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Stan Lee call the Comics Code office

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the man said that the puff of smoke was too big