DC Comics has announced it is leaving the Comics Code Authority and establishing its own rating system . So what do think will happen with Superman, Batman and the rest. Maybe a Batman who does use a gun, lethally?
It’s not unheard-of. Spiderman had a three-issue non-CCA run back in the 1970s in order to run an anti-drug story. Dell comics back in the 1950s had a “Dell Pledge to Parents” in lieu of a CCA stamp (although they got them later). Just because they’re leaving the CCA – an antiquated system put in after Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the Senate hearings on “inappropriate” comics back in the early fifties – doesn’t mean that they’re about to descend into depravity. Besidews, they already have outlets for that.
Yes, it’s always nice to have outlets when you want to descend into depravity. Batteries just won’t cut it.
I remember the Spidey issues were a big deal back in the day, but has the CCA had any relevance in the past twenty-five years?
I had no idea the CCA still existed.
Was that one (Marvel?) issue with the dude literally ripping someone else to shreds on-panel a CCA comic?
Marvel left the Code some time ago, so this isn’t quite the amazing thing some people are taking it as.
And DC hasn’t had the code stamp on most of their books for a long while, either.
The two main Superman books, the two main Batman books, and JLA I think are the last ones, outside of their kids line. Even the rest of their respective families (Supergirl, Batgirl, Superboy, Batman, Inc, etc) haven’t gone through the code for some time.
So is that the end of the CCA, or is Archie or something like that still in it?
Archie’s still there. Just Archie.
I have to correct myself, slightly - Supergirl does. The rest of the ones I listed, however don’t. Teen Titans was another long-lasting Code book - they only dropped it last year with issue 77. And they’re a good example of how toothless the Code was, and thus how pointless - Teen Titans was worse than, say, Wonder Woman, which hasn’t had the code stamp at least since it restarted, for potentially inappropriate material.
Ah, good old Archie, soldiering on unchanged. I imagine those Riverdale kids have cell phones now. And maybe negroes.
Well, they do have teh gays now.
That shows how behind the times I am. I remember when The She Hulk showed that the tags on her shirt were CCA tags, back when a bystander asked how her clothes could rip to shreds and they’d still always cover the important bits.
What a joke. I’m amazed it lasted beyond 1960. Today, parental advisory labels are practically REQUIRED for say, a rap album or certain genres of video game to sell.
I just went ahead and looked up the dates. Marvel dropped the Code (and went with their rather more logical ratings system*) in 2001. Good Lord, I hadn’t realized it was that long!
Also, an interesting thought just occurred to me Bob Harras, the new EIC at DC, was EIC at Marvel until 2000, just before they pulled out of the CCA. I wonder if there’s a connection, there.
- The CCA’s ‘all or nothing’ aspect is pretty much what killed it, IMO. If it had adopted a ratings approach, it may have been able to maintain its usefulness.
The Code was effectively weakened about 1970. You’ll notice that in the Wikipedia cite that antonio quotes, it forbids “…Vampires, werewolves, ghouls and zombies …” But after 1970 you had Marvel running Dracula without any apology or wiggle room (like their Morbius the Living Vampire had), Werewolf by Night, and Frankenstein.
At about the same time, DC ran its Green Lantern/Green Arrow series against drugs, without losing the CCA seal.
(Dell had run an adaptation of Dracula back about 1960, but, as I noted, they didn’t adhere to the CCA – they had the Dell Pledge to Parents. )
I hope DC’s rating system is as confusing and constantly changing as Marvel’s has been.
At one point a bunch of Marvel comics I was buying were “rated A”. Now what in the fuck does that mean to a random parent looking at the ratings? If anything they’d mistakenly think it meant “Adults Only” (like the elusive AO rating for computer games) but judging by the titles it was on, it was just the default rating for anything without controversial or offensive content.