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Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age
[Part One]
It was a youth-oriented medium, firmly under the guidance and control of Very Old Men.
They were, almost without exception, uniquely and exceptionally talented old men, to be sure; men who had proven themselves as artisans and craftsmen for ten; twenty; and (in some instances) thirty years prior to that point in their chosen field(s) of endeavor...
... but: old men, nonetheless.
When the changes came -- when American society was rocked back onto its heels by a generational youthquake the likes of which it had never before experienced; a crushing, onrushing tsunami of radically altered perceptions and permutations in the societal compact -- they caught the old men completely unawares.
Vietnam. Civil Rights. "Tune In; Turn On; Drop Out." Psychedelia. "Flower Power." Kent State. The Chicago Seven. Mini-skirts. The Pill. "Power To the People." The Black Panther Party. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jefferson Airplane. Jim Morrison. Woodstock. Altamont. Hair and Oh Calcutta! on Broadway. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex. Easy Rider. "Tricky Dick." Ho Chi Minh. Lt. William Calley. Abbie Hoffman. Angela Davis. Bobby Seale. Timothy Leary. Twiggy. "Pop Art." Andy Warhol. Charles Manson.
In the space between heartbeats: everything changed.
Everything.
Give the old men their due. Although they were almost inconceivably slow to grasp the enormity of the sweeping cultural and societal changes erupting everywhere they turned...
... once they finally comprehended the magnitude of it all: they did attempt, at least, to address the issues and concerns of their adolescent readership.
Not that such attempts were always successful ones, mind.
The cover to BROTHER POWER, THE GEEK #1 [see cover reproduction, above], published in September of 1968, bore the lurid legend: "Here Is the Real-Life Scene of the Dangers In HIPPIE-LAND!"
("Hippie-Land." Sounds like one of the cheesier attractions over
at Disney World, doesn't it...? "It's a far-out worrrrlllllld
after all... it's a far-out worrrrlllllld after all..." Featuring
Snow White and the Chicago Seven Dwarves. It's fun and educational
for kids of all ages, by golly!)
"Life (so they say) Is Pretty Darned Cheap out on the mean, rain-slicked streets of "Hippie-Land." Our Story (such as it is) opens up with a group of cartoon-ishly caricaturized "bikers" called "The Mongrels" -- their leader, a particularly unsavory sort operating under the nom du guerre of "Hound Dawg" -- barreling their chopped- and-channeled "hawgs" into a group of peaceful (and ineffectual) "flower children."
Nursing their truly awe-inspiring assortment of wounds and abrasions and whatnot, two of our pacifistic pals -- "Brother Paul" and "Brother Nick" -- manage to limp-stagger-crawl their joint way back to their simple, homey "pad": an abandoned tailor's shop.
("The abandoned shop once did a brisk business" -- the
accompanying caption thoughtfully informs us -- "before the unkempt
brood moved into the neighborhood/ Now [...] it is a haven
for young hippies." Oh, God... why don't the police
do something...?!?)
The disheveled duo drift off into pain-wracked slumber, heedless of the facts that:
a.) an abandoned tailor's dummy is sprawled, bonelessly, in front of an opened window; and --
b.) it's thundering and lightning outside like you simply would
not believe.
Lightning Streaks Through Open Window. Lightning KaZaps Tailor's Dummy. Cue Special Effects Department... annnnnnnnnnd:
... well. Maybe it's better if I simply let you see the hideous results for yourselves.
Oh, yeah. And we're only on Page Seven,
folks.
The EvilNastyBad Bikers show up at the tailor's shop later that same evening, intent upon visiting some more blunt instrument trauma upon Nick and Paul. The newly-animated dummy -- possibly recognizing, in his hapless roommates, a certain indefinable likeness of kind -- wordlessly opens up that big ol' can o' whupass he's been toting around in his hip pocket for an occasion such as this one, and heaves the leather-clad louts through a plate glass window.
"Brother Paul!" a gleeful Nick exclaims, as the dummy proceeds to pummel his terrified, squealing opponents into so many piles of mint jelly. "That's power! BROTHER POWER!"
Later on that same evening, Nick and Paul debate the true nature and origins of their newfound "brother"-cum-bodyguard:
NICK [the "existential" Beatle]: "It's for real, all right... but 'real' what? [...] Is it evil? Good? Or just a... a geek?"
PAUL [the "pragmatic" Beatle]: "Whatever, Brother Nick... it's our thing. Let's think that it was sent here to protect us. Like... who needs protection more?"
On that self-serving note, the Groovy Golem (hey... I kinda like
the sound of that, actually...) is quickly hustled off to the nearest
grade school, in order that he might learn to express himself with all
the admirable clarity and precision of... well... Nick and Paul, I suppose.
A comely (and similarly anti-establishment-leaning) young miss by the
name of "Cindy" takes Brother Power in hand, personal grooming-wise (an
appreciably less tattered ensemble; hair parted neatly to one side;
stuff like that, there), and -- voila! -- the Groovy Golem (go
ahead; just try and stop me) ends up resembling nothing so much
as a cross between the young Ron Howard [a la HAPPY DAYS] and Boy
George.
"Man," Nick sighs. "All that action was a drag! Now we can get back to our old life and ways!"
"Like protesting against The Establishment!" Paul readily agrees, idly strumming one of the Cowsills' "heavier" tunes on a beat-up guitar. "Mainly, doing nothing!"
(O-L-D M-E-N. Old, ollllllllllllllld men. I
made a big, hairy production number out of explaining all
of that, earlier... remember?)
"That's not for me!" the Groovy Golem sniffs, haughtily.
"I'm going to make something of myself! Somebody a girl could
be proud of!" (Although not, apparently, somebody
who knows better than to end a sentence with a preposition. I'm
just sayin'.)
"I could be anything I set my mind to! With the right girl to inspire him, a man could be... could be PRESIDENT!"
Okay. Now would be an entirely appropriate moment for the
screaming to start.
For reasons which -- really and truly; trust me on this one --
do not not not bear explicating in any great detail, Brother Power
does not achieve the office of the Presidency. (Another
brain-dead geek won that year, instead. You could look it up.)
Let's move on
to the events of Issue #2, and...
... hmmmmm?
Why, yes... yes: I suppose the phrase "money down a rat hole" does
kinda sorta spring to mind, all unbidden, now that you mention it.
Because I truly do love you, one and all... I steadfastly will not attempt to explain how the Groovy Golem (a character, you might well recall, who was intended to appeal to the politically disenfranchised, stridently anti- war youth of the 1960's) ends up happily humming the hours away whilst working on the assmbly line for "The Acme Missle Parts Factory." (!!)
... or, for that matter, how he ends up in the position of plant foreman, a mere twenty-four hours after that...
... or the Chairman of the Board, but a scant week after THAT...
... and don't even think about sitting there with those wobegone, puppydog expressions plastered all over your pretty little faces and begging me to tell you all about the villainous "Lord SlideRule," neither.
Because. I. Just. Won't. Do. It.
Suffice it to say: a political demonstration takes place outside the gates of the Acme Missle Parts Factory, a little while later...
... and -- oh, look! There are our old friends Nick and Paul, again!
"Brother Nick! They're burning our papier-mache missles!" one protester shrills, as snarling, short- haired plant workers bearing flaming torches (!!) stampede towards the youthful dissenters.
"They can't do that!" Nick bellows, by way of response. "Clobber them with your peace signs, men!"
(No... it isn't "ironic." It isn't even "forced whimsy." It's just plain ol', garden variety bad writing, is what it is. By an old, old man [the otherwise wholly estimable Joe Simon, in this instance; the co-creator, along with Jack Kirby, of the iconic Captain America], the entirety of whose misanthropic "take" on the dissent movement of the '60's and early '70's seems to have been derived from repeated re-readings of And None Dare Call It Treason and The Best of READER'S DIGEST: 1957. I'm just sayin', is all.)
"Why, it's my old hippie friends" a pensive Brother Power muses, observing the melee through a factory window, "in a typical non-violent demonstration." (For a guy who shambled about mewling "peace" this and "love" that, Herr Golem was a remarkably judgmental little prig, all told.)
Dashing out and placing himself bodily between the two warring factions, the Geek mumbles a few unconvincing something-or-others about "our missles" being "for outer space... not WAR" (The entire plant? In the 1960's...?!?), and...
CUT TO: the jaw-dropping sight of "hippies" and hard-hats happily toiling away on the missle assembly line together, side by side! [See panel reproduction, below]
"This 'working' bag is a new thing for me, Cindy," a smiling Nick observes, tooling over a complicated-looking frammistat of some sort.
"They'll miss you at the unemployment bureau, Brother Nick," Cindy replies, smiling serenely.
(BROTHER POWER, THE GEEK: "The Comic Book Recommended By Nine Out of
Ten Corporate CEOs and War Profiteers. Ask For It By Name!")
Tragically, however: the Groovy Golem's pledging of allegiance to the sweet, siren song of the military-industrial complex is (apparently) not a radical enough about-face for the duly elected Powers That Be. We see "The Governor" of whichever state this happens to be telling the Chief of Police: "The Geek could have been in league with those demonstrators!"
(Well... yeah. And he "could have"
been responsible for the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping, too, I suppose.
He "could have" been the real brains behind the Manson cult,
come to think of it. Was editor Joe Orlando even bothering
to read the scripts for this thing, f'chrissakes...?)
The National Guard surrounds the munitions plant with enough Heavy Weaponry to run roughshod over the Third World nation of your choice, and orders the Geek to "come out peacefully!" (As opposed, I guess, to coming out with Uzis blazing away in either hand; bandoliers criss-
crossed over his chest; and a high-pitched, demented cackle. Look:
I just work here, all right...?)
"They'll never believe a Geek!" the always-sensitive Cindy reminds Our Hero.
"I'm just a third-class citizen!" the Geek wails, in response.
"Well, I won't let them take me!" (Oh, great; now
he's doing bad Edward G. Robinson impressions.)
In a desperate, last-ditch bid for freedom, the Groovy Golem scrambles
aboard one of those "space"-type missles on which Brothers Nick, Paul
and Company have all been industriously laboring. (... and "desperate"
is pretty much the word for it, really. I mean: would you
willingly climb into something those two nitwits had hammered and
nailed together...?)
The missle is -- by means too tortuous to relate -- launched into Deep, Deep Space...
... and the Geek (whom I always like to imagine, at this juncture in the narrative, pounding frantically against the adamantine doors of his rocket-fueled prison and shrieking something to the effect of: "I'm gonna @#$%ing KILL the @#$% who hit that "launch" button when I get back! D'ya HEAR me? I'm gonna KIIIILLLLLL HIIIIMMMMM -- !!")
... is gone.
"Will we see the Geek again?" the final caption teases. "We will!
We will! Why should we kill off a good thing?!!"
(Oh, please... let me take that one, all right...?)
As an initial (and staggeringly wrong-headed) foray into the trackless wilds of the youth counter-culture of the day, BROTHER POWER, THE GEEK was (obviously) nothing short of an unmitigated disaster...
... but: how did later attempts at mining the same storytelling vein fare?
Page Two of our POLITICAL DISSENT IN THE COMICS OF THE SILVER AGE entry:
comin' right up.
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age:
PAGE TWO
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE THREE
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE FOUR
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE FIVE
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE SIX
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE SEVEN
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE EIGHT
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE NINE
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