DEPARTMENT OF COMICS CURIOSITIES #19: ANTI-WERTHAM EDITORIALS

This piece is from COMEDY COMICS #6 in 1948 Timely comic (which is signed by "the editors of Marvel Comics Group," which was apparently a sub-brand of Timely). At the time FW had yet to publish SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT, and the editorial is a response to a Sat Review of Literature piece by FW.

The next editorial, found in CC #8 (1949), does not mention Wertham, but I think it's clear that the writer is refuting FW's points. Where FW claimed that "crime comics," whether focused on crooks or on crook-catchers, encouraged kids to be disobedient, the editorial asserts that the heroic comics teach "respect for law and order" and "to protect weaker people." The editorial does not directly reference the genres that most upset parents-- horror stories and ACTUAL crime comics-- except to mention that comics do allude to "unhappy things," but adds that "they are things you know about anyway," which is something FW would never have admitted.

I have to admit that I don't think Timely/Marvel had a "high standard" for their comics in those days, even if one is only speaking of a standard for formula fiction. In 1948 I believe most of the superheroes were gone, and the only pre-Code Timely of that period that I've found above-average are a few of the horror comics. But I concur that their output was fundamentally harmless, and it's certainly not impossible that some comics-readers graduated from comics to other forms of prose literature.