{"id":1099,"date":"2010-08-30T12:07:25","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T17:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=1099"},"modified":"2021-01-25T15:56:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T20:56:05","slug":"silver-age-comic-book-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=1099","title":{"rendered":"Silver-Age Superboy comic book (in)justice!"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis 8\/2010
\n[Click on any image to enlarge]
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

When it came to individual liberties (and the law in general) Silver Age comics could always be counted upon to dismiss such silly concepts as Miranda rights, due process, and fair protection under the law, not to mention all that bothersome and silly Bill of Rights nonsense. Here are two excellent examples of how the law really worked back in the Silver Age:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Adventure Comics 249, June, 1958: Clark\u2019s wallet and ID have been stolen, and the sheriff grabs him because MAYBE he\u2019s the sneak thief they\u2019re looking for. Noble Clark doesn\u2019t want the sheriff to phone his father because it would EMBARRASS Jonathan.
\nThat\u2019s damned noble. Go to jail so you don\u2019t EMBARRASS your foster-father.<\/p>\n

The sheriff, using sound legal precedent, arrests Clark as a vagrant because\u2026wait for it\u2026 HE HAS NO MONEY.<\/p>\n

No money = Obvious vagrant.<\/p>\n

Yep, no possibility of a mistake in that logic.<\/p>\n

That means most people in this economy\u2026 Are vagrants! Lock em up!<\/p>\n

Hey, wait — the Silver Age Superboy can travel AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT. You\u2019re telling me he can\u2019t speed away so fast that the sheriff doesn\u2019t even realize it? Clark could have caught up with the wallet thief as Superboy before the sheriff said \u201cJohnny Doe.\u201d But if Clark did that, the story would only be one page long, and we can\u2019t have that, so, logic (as always) goes out the window\u2026.<\/p>\n

…and the sheriff throws Clark into jail and gets him a prison uniform. Later in the story, during a ten second hearing, Clark is convicted of vagrancy and SENT TO PRISON. Of course, by the end of the story everything is back to normal.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in an \u201cimaginary story\u201d in Action Comics #305 (1963), Superman had to abandon his Clark Kent identity and find a new blonde-haired secret identify. He soon found that despite all his powers he couldn\u2019t create identification papers, birth certificates, driver\u2019s license, and so on — so the new identify would have no references\u2026 That led to this situation:<\/p>\n

\"Action<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Action<\/a><\/p>\n

And ex-convict Clark would soon be up the river again!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From Adventure Comics 301, October, 1962. Lex Luthor, a teenager and already a career criminal, makes an unfounded accusation against Clark Kent \u2013 he alleges that Jonathan Kent (who is on the parole board and has never had so much as a parking ticket) is blackmailing Lex into revealing where he\u2019s hidden his crime machines. The warden, who apparently doesn\u2019t remember the 4702 times Lex has broken out of prison and done all sorts of horrible things, doesn\u2019t just ignore Lex. He says he has no authority to detain Clark until the police act (that\u2019s right) but.. (HOORAY! FATE TAKES A HAND!) \u2026The bridge is washed out!<\/p>\n

So Clark offers to stay as\u2026 wait for it\u2026 wait for it\u2026 A REGULAR INMATE. Are you kidding me? No, really, are you kidding me? The warden\u2019s office doesn\u2019t have a cot or something? Clark can\u2019t bunk in the guard\u2019s quarters? Nope — Honor student Clark Kent who has done nothing wrong, um, EVER, offers to help straighten out the whole mess by staying as an INMATE in a PRISON. Because everyone in prison is so nice to each other, like on \u201cOz.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPut Kent here through the regular routine,\u201d the warden says. Clark, you SO don\u2019t want to know what that entails. And then\u2026 wait for it\u2026 the ONLY cell available\u2026 is the one where Lex Luthor lives. Oh, yeah, this is getting more plausible all the time.<\/p>\n

Sillyness aside, juveniles WERE unjustly accused and imprisoned back then, until the Gault Decision<\/a> (1967) give them the same due process rights as adults under the 14th amendment. Thank God some things HAVE changed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis 8\/2010 [Click on any image to enlarge] When it came to individual liberties (and the law in general) Silver Age comics could always be counted upon to dismiss such silly concepts as Miranda rights, due process, and fair protection under the law, not to mention all that bothersome and silly Bill of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comicbookhumor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7194,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/7194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}