The Senate put comics on trial to look into comic based on the work of Fredrick Wertham’s research. The United States was looking into the sudden outbreak of juvenile delinquency in America in the 1950’s and Wertham wrote a book on comic books having an effect on kids that would make them act out this way. A United States Senate subcommittee did a hearing in New York on April 21- 22 and on June 4, 1954, to look into the issue of comics they brought in all of the comic publishers to defend their own comics and the potential fate of the comic book world.(Nyberg) This was a big deal for the industry at this time because it put the spotlight on the publishing companies to make a change with the industry. The official report that came out by the …show more content…
According to the journal article “The Amazing Spider-Man and the Evolution of the Comics Code: A Case Study in Cultural Criminology” by Cary D.Adkinson, Amazing Spiderman had a three-issue run 96,97 and 98 that challenge the standards of the industry with crime, delinquency, law enforcement, and drugs which these were had rules on regulation on in the Comic Code. Nixon Administration under the department of health was dealing with a drug issue in America they approached Marvel comics requesting them to produce a story on the danger of drugs publish in one of Marvel's big comics. Stan Lee picked Spiderman since he is more like the “everyday man”. Stan Lee wrote a three-issue story in Amazing Spiderman with an anti-drug message. The story had many things in it which clearly violated the code and when they summited it they were denied approval the code. They published the story anyway without approval and it sold well without the seal. This did not cause Marvel any issues but the Comic Code Authority instead by pressuring them to change the code since it was outdated. They had to change the regulations and weekend the strictness of the code. (Adkinson) This was an issue because Marvel was wanted to do good but the code outright banned drugs in anyway and form so they could not speak out against the drug issue which is terrible. This book was a major game changer for the industry because it showed that the seal of approval isn’t what has once meant now it's almost obsolete. They change the rules to make it more lenient for things like this to happen but it did not help. In 2001 Marvel broke away from the Comic Code authority and created an in-house grading system similar to the way they rate video games and in 2011 DC and Archie comics were the last two to leave the Comic Authority. The code started to become in the way for many good