During WWII, Comics were used to fire everyone up for war. People loved seeing the countries enemies being punished in the comics. The best example of this is Captain America’s first comic book cover. It is a picture of him punching Adolf Hitler in the face. Everyone began to love Captain America because of this. But after WWII there was no need for these types of comics. No more heroes were saving America from its enemies. The comic world needed to turn to something new. This is where the comics became responsible for societal failure. The comic book writers began to implore violence into their comics. The comics were very dark. Filled with horror and violence, the kids reading these comics became attached to violence. Kids love looking up to role models and when your role model is violent, the kid becomes violent. The youth is always the future and when the youth is becoming more violent, there is a problem. The government believed that the comics were making the children more violent so they came up with codes for the comic book writers. These codes limited what the comic book writers could write about. The censorship of comics hurt the comic book industry, but the government was in control. I really don’t believe that comics are the reason for societal failure at all. At the time of this incident, the economy was booming. Coming out of a war that we won and being done with the depression, America was in a good place. The comic book world did not ruin the society by any means.
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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