HISTORY This Week The Great Comic Book Scare
Feb 2, 2026
Jeremy Dauber, professor and author of American Comics, offers historical perspective on superheroes and industry shifts. David Hajdu, cultural critic and author of The Ten-Cent Plague, traces the rise of the anti-comics movement. They explore the 1950s moral panic, courtroom showdowns, the Comics Code’s creation, horror comics’ collapse, and the culture that spawned underground comix.
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Format Shift Renewed Old Fears
- Comic strips were once controversial but normalized into mainstream culture.
- The comic book's cheap, unsupervised dime format reintroduced anxiety about youth influence.
Superheroes Raised Authority Concerns
- Superheroes raised concerns about vigilante justice and authority.
- Critics worried these stories modeled forceful order rather than due process.
Wertham: Civil Rights Clinician Turned Crusader
- Frederick Wertham ran a Harlem clinic and did notable civil-rights-era work.
- Despite that, comics historians treat him as the arch-villain of the comics debate.
