DEPARTMENT OF COMICS CURIOSITIES #21: "MEN IN BLACK" (MENACE #3, 1953)/"THE HIDDEN FACE" (TOS #25, 1962)

 I found this minor story looking at early works by the newly-deceased John Romita Senior. It's not symbolic enough to stand as a near-myth or a null-myth, but is pretty much a straight "social relevance" story by Stan Lee and Romita. I would guess that the anti-bigotry message is something Stan could have been emulating from EC Comics, though this story predates EC's best known story about the rebounding of vigilante justice, "The Whipping," from a 1954 SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES. Stan's story, interestingly, has the bigot even hating on foreigners of Caucasian ancestry, for when his wife leaves him, he rails against her for being "a Swede."

It's also of minor interest to see the now famous phrase "Men in Black" used with zero E.T. connotations. The reference is to the fact that the main bigot and his buddies don imitation KKK robes, but black instead of white. This leads to a Poe-esque orgy of self-flagellation, as the bigot punishes himself by imagining that he can't take off his black mask.

ADDENDUM: Stan Lee later recycled this story with a new SF-angle in "The Hidden Face," TALES OF SUSPENSE #25 (1962), with art by Steve Ditko.