Comics in the 1960’s dealt with social issues and changes significantly. The sixties in the United States were full of change. There were civil rights movements, women’s rights movements, and issues going on with the Vietnam War. Women and blacks were done with being less than white men and started to act upon it. In the media, women and blacks were not depicted as equal to white men, blacks especially. The African Americans were depicted in a very racist view. Luke Cage for example, gained his powers in prison and is very strong and violent, a typical racist view on blacks. A long with these media problems, comic underground began to emerge. This was a company that made comics on whatever they wanted. It was usually about doing drugs and showing how wrong our government was. These people were laid back and just living their life during the sixties. They decided to make a comic company that wrote whatever they wanted too. For once they could be free without the comic codes. Comic Underground dealt with a lot of social norms and showed how they were happening during the time. Since the government at the time was dealing with a huge drug crackdown, the Comic Underground wrote mostly about that. They showed how characters would react if they were taking drugs. The comics were very amusing and were REAL. There were no codes enforced and the comic underground showed reality in comics during the 1960’s.
Throughout the 60’s, comics were at the forefront of social transformation. Possibly the best example of this is through comics reflection of the public’s view of the Vietnam War. At the beginning of the war a majority of Americans fully supported the cause. The idea that communism, the most evil idea conceived, could spread first through South-East Asia and eventually to the US lead Americans to accept the need to occupy Vietnam. However as the war progressed it became more obvious that it was less to defend democracy and actually just a proxy war against Russia. As support for the war diminished, comics greatly altered their position on the war to question the causes of the war, and whether the US should actually be there. The comic Iron Man accurately represented this shift in support as he stopped dealing arms, and took a moral stand against their use. As well as Vietnam War culture, comics also accurately portrayed youth culture in the US throughout the 60’s. Comics suc...
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