The Web of the 1960s was probably the most interesting of a not-very-interesting collection of revivals and revamps of Archie Comics’ superheroes.
“Here’s an idea; superhero as browbeaten spouse,” wrote Rik Offenberger and Chris Squires in The MLJ Companion.
“With a conceit lifted straight out of the day’s inane TV situation comedies (as in plots centered on dishonesty, secrecy and resentment), writer Jerry Siegel resurrected the Web as suburban, middle-aged husband John Raymond who begrudges his domestic duties and suffers the disdain of a stereotypically nagging mother-in-law. He also happens to consistently lie to wife Rosie, a marital partner who justifiably worries about the aging professor getting injured during his outings as a costumed crimefighter.”
John Raymond his own doubts about his aging, aching muscles. Just as we readers dreamed of a life of superheroic adventure, so did Raymond — the difference being that he’d actually had one 20 years before.
The Web had been one of several Nazi-punching masked bruisers published by MLJ Comics during the 1940s, but he was now confined to fighting inattentive students and crabgrass. His wistful longing for what he’d lost was understandable and relatable.
Superheroes are almost universally urban, and placing one among the placid, manicured lawns of the suburbs made for an interesting contrast that was also characteristic of the postwar era. In America, 1950 was the first year that more people lived in suburbs than elsewhere.
Yes, the Mighty Comics features were groaningly camp, but this one had an angle that might possibly have amounted to something, in other hands at another time.
“Nothing epitomized the conflict between concept and execution more than the Web,” observed John Wells in American Comic Book Chronicles. “The intent was surely to evoke the personal conflicts experienced by the likes of Spider-Man, but the ongoing nagging of Rose Raymond was more shrill than funny. That’s not to say the feature didn’t have its moments.”
Cheryl Spoehr:
ReplyDeleteProbably my favorite of the "Mighty Comics Heroes," but too often humiliating rather than heroic. When he was retconned, they changed his costume and his personality. I had even less interest in that version.
ReplyDeleteCardiff Piltdown:
Eh, I liked it.
Ryan Knight:
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this superhero before, I’ll have to find out more about him. Checked out your blog too, really cool stuff on there.
Mark Herr:
ReplyDeleteI agree out of the Mighty Comics, this was probably my favorite, because I had never seen it before. You know, I have a friend when he got married, his wife made him cut down on the amount of softball he was playing. What wife wouldn't try to get him to be a super-hero less and home more?
I replied:
I can understand a wife wanting her partner to cut out a dangerous activity. But softball? To hell with that, lady.
Richard Baron:
ReplyDeleteI remember him well, and yes, he was. Of course, that required more sophistication and a better sense of humor than the intended audience.
I replied:
Well, my friend Rod Harvey and I got it, anyway.
William P. Reaves:
ReplyDeleteThe best episodes are when his wife dons a costume and becomes Pow-Girl.
Johnny Williams:
ReplyDeleteI have a very powerful, specific memory about the mid-Silver Age MLJ run of the Web that really zooms in on the themes expounded upon above. I remember quite distinctly a page showing ‘John Raymond’ trying to brag to his wife about some of his former superhero exploits and she interrupted him with a command to take care of ‘something important’ first, which turns out to be a mundane chore. The last panel was our erstwhile crimefighter doing pushups on the floor next to he and his wife’s (marriage) bed surreptitiously so as to not wake her up thereby incurring her wrath.
There’s so much to unpack there and the essay above unpacked things beautifully.
I would only add this boyhood impression of my own. In the Silver Age with the possible exception of ‘Merry Man of The Inferior 5’ almost all male superheroes were physically well-built and strong, seemingly as a gift of generous genetics. Occasionally we’d be presented with a brief training panel or scene, but for the most part they were perpetually fit and were constantly combat ready.
Then came that panel.
It changed my life.
Because you see, you never saw a superhero doing pushups, that was something that normally happens in the real world. You might occasionally see one lifting a barbell or doing some type of gymnastic exercise but pushups? Rare. That one act, one panel etched itself into my mind and imagination and I never forgot it.
As to the ‘changing my life’ part; well a lightbulb went off in my head when I saw that panel. I was a skinny, bookish kid and had been having some bully problems. In fact comic books were an escape and superheroes were my personal ‘Walter Mitty’ surrogates. Then, Boom!!!! Here was a superhero ‘doing pushups’! That was something that perhaps ‘I’ could learn to do, and I’d be being superheroic-like, and getting stronger.
So I started. It was really tough going at first, but gradually over time I conquered them and grew a set of wiry, sinewy muscles over my skinny frame. I felt powerful, and gained the confidence to train in the martial arts — which has been a ‘rest of my life’ experience.
So, thank you ‘John Raymond’. Your henpecked status did ‘This’ Chicago boy some good.
Michael Uslan:
ReplyDeleteI LOVED that comic book!
Thomas Sciacca:
ReplyDeleteWould make a great series on Netflix.
Nick Noble:
ReplyDeleteI like what Archie Comics tried to do in resurrecting their 1940s MLJ heroes in the 60s. I've collected most of them. Paul Reinman and Jerry Siegel trying very hard to be Kirby and Lee. Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.
If there was a problem of the MLJ heroes, it was that too many of them were just guys who put on a mask and starting punching people. Truly super-powered one, like Mr. Justice and Steel Sterling, were rare. And the Shield began with powers, but lost them.
ReplyDeleteMatt Love:
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Brad Bird was a fan.
I replied:
I'd bet on it.
Ron Thomas:
ReplyDeleteThis movie How to Murder Your Wife had the strip within the movie where the spy hero becomes the hen-pecked hubby, as does the artist himself!
Paul Zuckerman:
ReplyDeleteI was SOOOO disappointed by the Archie superhero books. The Fly and Jaguar had been done straight. They may not have been the most exciting books on the market, but they took the heroes seriously. Jerry Siegel -- what was his pen name at Archie? — had done some good work at DC in the past few years and he could be quite funny, or serious, but these books were just awful. Even as an adult reading them trying to accept them in the spirit that they were intended, they just fall on their faces (if comics had faces, that is.) Reinman's art was far from his best work. The story and art was just flat and the henpecked hero — presumably emulating Peter Parker — just got tiresome and old pretty quickly. You are right about Rose — she was just a shrill voice in the background, not a sympathetic character at all. What was Jerry trying to tell us!
I replied:
I think one could wrong a long essay about how Siegel's later superhero stories reflect his profound disappointment with the course of his life.
Ron Kasman:
ReplyDeleteFirst I've heard of it. I enjoyed the one panel. A full story might be trying.