In The Comic Book Justice System...

We've chatted recently about Lev Gleason Publication's crime comics, and their attempt to avoid criticism for extreme violence by claiming that they were really fighting crime by showing this much carnage!

Usually this slogan was featured on the cover, and across the top of the first page of each story:

Well, that makes it OK, then.

But across the top of every other story page?

That appeared on Every. Single. Page.

Don't believe me? Here we go:

Suddenly, I have the urge to obey the law!!

Orwellian diktats from Crime And Punishment #32 (1950)

Manic Monday Bonus--The Black Diamond Is Coming!!

In the middle of Desperado #8 (1949), there was a double-page spread announcing that next issue, the title would be changing it's name, and getting a new star (click to embiggen):

The gang at Lev Gleason Publication was pretty keen to give this new book and hero a big push (and themselves a pat on the back:

You could say the same about Fantastic Four, and we still can't get a comic book of that!

Man, this is making even Stan's hucksterism look shy and unassuming...

Well, he really was just another cowboy hero, as we'll see in a few moments.

EVEN THE STAPLES ARE PERFECT!!!

Yes, I'm sure that all western heroes, if they were alive, would vote for your new clown to lead them. Sheesh...

So who the hell is the Black Diamond?

Bob Vale's parents were killed in in a massacre of white settlers by Native Americans which was instigated by an evil white man. Later, his adoptive father is killed by the same guy--take that, Batman, even Joe Chill didn't kill two sets of your parents!

So, to protect his girlfriend and all his friends, he puts on a mask and fights crime. Just like every other Western hero (ahem).

But there's not just money involved!

Wait--you're offering him a job as a U.S. Marshall--and you don't even know his identity? No background check?!?

Look, an official federal law man, and nobody knows who he really is? That's not going to go well in court, is it?

And I'm sure the townspeople are comforted by the fact that their sole protector is a masked idjit who leaves messages stuck with a knife in random locations. 

Does he even have an office? How do people get in touch with him when they need help? What about all the paperwork the job requires? Does he have body cameras? What if he's really evil, and just clearing out the competition? What about...

From Desperado #8 (1949) and Black Diamond #9 (1949)

Manic Monday--The 12 Commandments!

Even before the famous 1954 Congressional hearings, crime comics were drawing increasing attention in some quarters as being over violent, and a bad influence on our youth.

So in 1948, Lev Gleason Publications announced their own preemptive proto-Code (click to embiggen):

Of course, this was largely PR, and not actually followed too faithfully. For example:

And in the very same issue in which this was published:

Man, someone didn't get the memo.

Of course, you could make the argument that insisting that all of your ultra-violence be blood-free is worse for the kiddies than showing blood.

A closer look at a few of the other prohibitions in comics devoted to showing people get killed, and then the killers get killed:

Ah, the Frank Cho rule!

"Relatively varied in bone structure"?!?! WTF?!? Is that some kind of code word for "make some of them realistic heavy-set?"

Don't tell that to Geoff Johns or Dan DiDio...

So much for Joker stories...

From Desperado #1 (1948)