The Eve of Judgment Day
By Robert L. Reiner, sequential art historian, exhibitions curator and defender of banned books
In the March-April 1953 issue of the comic book Weird Fantasy, an astronaut named Tarlton is sent to evaluate a planet for inclusion in the Great Galactic Republic. He finds a world which is designed based on Earth’s history, values, and legacy, and populated by sentient robots segregated by color. The robots are identical in every other way.Image © William M. Gaines, Agent
After a thorough review of the education, living conditions and treatment of the “inferior” blue robots, he concludes that this society needs to evolve further to join. The orange robots protest, not understanding where they fell short. But Tarlton assures them that there is reason for hope. Tarlton explains that his world had had a similar history but in time was able to move forward and mend its ways. When the astronaut returns to his spaceship and removes his helmet, we see that he is a Black man. The story, Judgment Day, was a bold and potentially suicidal move for a comic book publisher. In a medium which more often would feature a muscular white super-hero or a funny cartoon animal, Entertaining Comics (EC) placed in one of its science fiction comics a tale in which the only human being is a Black man.
University of South Carolina Professor of English and African American Studies Qiana Whitted writes in her Eisner award winning book, EC Comics: Race, Shock & Social Protest (Rutgers University Press, 2019), “While the comic book appeared during the months in 1953 when the US Supreme Court was hearing arguments debating the constitutionality of racial segregation laws in education, the story depicted a future on Earth in which Brown v. Board of Education was already the norm1.” The publishers were hopeful that readers could see where our future might be headed.
The reaction to this story was immediate and visceral. Some, such as science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who had allowed his own stories to be adapted by the publisher, exclaimed that it “should be required reading for every man, woman and child in the United States.” Others promised to cancel their subscriptions with bold face racial epithets.
Comic books were still in their golden age in 1953. More than 50 million comics were sold each month in the US, and it wasn’t only children reading these magazines.
Adults were estimated to comprise more than 54% of readers, and as many as 40% of all Americans aged eight and above were regular consumers. Comics had been sent to those serving in the US military during World War II and the Korean War, and many would credit these for helping to teach reading and writing at a time when less than one-third of Americans held a high school diploma. Television hadn’t yet become a distraction, so comics remained a popular entertainment medium.
It was with this in mind that publisher Bill Gaines and editor Al Feldstein saw an opportunity to introduce stories which might appeal to a more mature audience. An underlying theme in many of these dealt with issues of justice couched in good storytelling. Described as “preachies,” the twist endings were meant to reveal something basic in humanity.
In the story The Patriots! (Shock SuspenStories, April/May 1952), an angry mob attacks and kills a bystander at a parade for Korean War veterans, calling him a commie for not honoring the flag when it passes by and for his dark, sneering face. His wife attempts to rescue him but it’s too late. She admonishes the brutes, exclaiming that he didn’t salute because he couldn’t see the flag and that the “sneer” was the best the doctors could do in rebuilding his face. He had been blinded and disfigured during his service in the war. Other stories excoriated the Ku Klux Klan (a hate organization in the US that employs terror in pursuit of a white supremacist agenda), revealed the horrors of the Holocaust and addressed gender issues previously ignored and certainly unseen in comics.
It wasn’t long before attempts were made to censor EC and the rest of the comics industry. A popular psychologist, later discredited for falsifying his research, had condemned comic books for contributing to juvenile delinquency and antisocial behavior. Organized book burnings became more frequent, and a US Senate Sub-committee was formed to investigate the influence of comic books on children.
Organized comic book burning by schools, churches and social organizations took place throughout the U.S. in response to condemnation of their contents.
The reputation of comics and their creators fell dramatically. Even Ray Bradbury asked that his work no longer be adapted. But one writer, Otto Binder, stepped forward and offered his services. Binder had written for the popular characters Captain Marvel as well as Captain America and later Superman. He had often used science fiction metaphors to describe the human condition, beginning with a prescient story about artificial intelligence, a piece about the first sentient robot.
Otto Binder was among the most prolific science fiction and comic book writers, with more than 3000 books and stories catalogued. He wrote several stories that dealt with bigotry, discrimination, and censorship. But one story he wrote in 1953, the same year as Judgment Day, was rejected and went unpublished until this year.
“THE UNWANTED” is Otto Binder’s response to Judgment Day and the events he witnessed as the McCarthy Era in the US unfolded: the rise of political demagoguery, a global pandemic, racial assaults, festering antisemitism, gender discrimination and war. Couched in science fiction, his short story focuses on a civilization of “Mastermen” who rule a galactic empire. They come to Earth to evaluate citizens to determine eligibility for membership based on the empire’s priorities and values. The visitors are shocked by what they find. Described as a modern mini-masterpiece, the graphic novel has been published by Fantagraphics, and is illustrated by Angelo Torres and Stefan Koidl.
Robert L. Reiner’s graphic novel adaptation, Otto Binder’s THE UNWANTED, Fantagraphics Underground, is now available at Amazon, Fantagraphics and bookstores worldwide.
Professor Qiana Whitted's Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of Comics (Rutgers University Press) is available from Amazon and major bookstores.
1. Brown v Board of Education is the 1954 case taken up by the US Supreme Court in which the justices ultimately declared that separate educational facilities for white and Black students are inherently unequal.