May 1, 1971: Marvel Comics takes on their most insidious bad guy yet: Drugs.
Previously, the Comics Code Authority forbade the depiction of illegal drugs, even as a warning as to their dangers. But President Richard Nixon wanted to wage war on drugs -- a great idea that turned out to be spectacularly poorly carried out.
Elliot Richardson, then the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, wrote to Marvel boss Stan Lee, and asked him to publish an anti-drug message in one of the company's leading titles.
Lee, already 48 years old, but always willing to stay on the cutting edge, agreed. And so, with The Amazing Spider-Man #96, with a list date of May 1971, he began a 3-part story arc involving drug use.
Smilin' Stan Lee. Excelsior, true believers!
At this point in his life, Peter Parker, secretly the New York-based superhero Spider-Man, is in college, with a side job as a photographer for a newspaper, The Daily Bugle. He shares an apartment with Harry Osborn, and they've been friends for a long time, in spite of the fact that Harry's father, industrialist Norman Osborn, is Spidey's arch-enemy, the Green Goblin, and the Goblin knows Peter's dual identity.
As the 2002 film Spider-Man would eventually show, having the Goblin die would devastate Harry. On top of that, Smilin' Stan was one of the few people in American public life in the 1960s who addressed the issue of mental illness, writing that Spidey knew that Norman's split personality between Harry's dad the genius scientist businessman and the arch-criminal wasn't his fault. So he had to subdue the Goblin without really hurting him with his strength, proportionally that of a spider.
The last time before this that they had fought, Spidey had defeated the Goblin, and Norman developed retrograde amnesia: He didn't remember anything he experienced after becoming the Goblin, including Peter's secret identity.
But Norman's troubles, and his treatment of Harry, led Harry to seek solace in prescription drugs. Peter sees him taking them, and says, "When did you become a pill-popper?" When the pill makes Harry fall asleep, Peter suddenly realizes that Harry had been doing this for a while: Pills to help him sleep, and pills to help him stay awake.
So Lee wrote a monologue for Spidey, as he swung through the City, talking about how drugs could hurt people. And then he sees an example: A black kid on the edge of a roof, stoned out of his gourd. Spidey fails to save him.
That night is the premiere of an Off-Off-Broadway show, starring Peter's girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson, who says, "If it were any more off Broadway, it would be in Hoboken!" Also friends of Mary Jane, Norman and Harry attend together.
So does a black man about Peter's and Harry's age, who knew the younger guy who fell. This man knows that Norman is rich, and has influence to go with his money, and demands that he use it to help ghetto kids. They argue, and this triggers Norman's split. At the end of the issue, Peter and Norman are both in costume, and they know who each other is.
At the end of the 2nd issue, #97, Harry overdoses. At the start of the 3rd, #98, Peter is standing over Harry in his hospital bed, when the Goblin hovers on his glider at the window, ready to kill the uncostumed Peter. Peter shows the Goblin his son, and, in a moment of clarity that he is also Norman, he backs off. They fight later in the issue, Peter wins, takes an unconscious Norman home, and burns the Goblin costume, hoping that will put an end to the Goblin personality. Harry recovers. All is well. With them, anyway.
Until Peter's original girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, returns, during one of Peter's periodic breakups with Mary Jane. And Norman's Goblin personality kicks back in, and he makes a new costume and new weapons. In Spider-Man #121, June 1973, there is no title on the title page. Instead, the last panel shows the title, with Spidey holding Gwen, killed by the Goblin: "The Night Gwen Stacy Died!" In #122, the Goblin dies, in a scene recreated for the 2002 Spider-Man film.
The Comics Code Authority heard about the anti-drug story, and refused to issue its seal of approval, which had been a must for any comic book wanting to stay in business, ever since the publication of the anti-comics screed The Seduction of the Innocent by Frederic Wertham in 1954.
Lee decided that publishing these 3 issues, especially the 1st one, was more important that staying in business. He rolled the dice that people would buy The Amazing Spider-Man #96 without the seal of approval. His roll came up 7: It sold so well that the Authority revised its Code.
DC Comics, Marvel's rival, accepted that they also needed to publish an anti-drug message. So they published Green Lantern #85, with a list date of August 1971, and a headline, "The shocking truth about drugs!" #85 had the title of "Snowbirds Don't Fly," and #86, the conclusion of the story, was titled, "They Say It'll Kill Me... But They Won't Say When."
Green Lantern, in civilian life a test pilot named Hal Jordan, often teamed up with Oliver Queen, a businessman without powers but with great archery skill, who fought crime as Green Arrow. Queen had adopted a teenage boy named Roy Harper, and, giving him a red outfit similar to his own green one, made Roy "Robin" to his "Batman."
Why would a superhero with an archery theme, rather than a speedster, be called "Speedy"? With the 1940s "Golden Age" versions of the characters, Roy once got into costume and out of their hideout while Ollie was still getting his costume on.
But Roy had a secret beyond his crimefighting identity: He had become addicted to heroin. Fans of the 2012-20 CW Network TV series Arrow, which shows Oliver as a more Batman-like, haunted, brooding figure, might be surprised to know that the comics' Green Arrow was, like the 1st Robin (Dick Grayson) and Spider-Man, a quipster, dropping bons mots while taking bad guys down. This time, as Hal suggested, Ollie did not have the answer, aside from taking down the gang that had gotten Roy hooked, and getting Roy to "go cold turkey."
DC had done it well, even taking it a step further by showing a superhero getting addicted to an illegal drug, not just a prescription. But Marvel had done it first, and better. As Smilin' Stan himself would have said, "'Nuff said!"
Nixon would eventually appoint Elliot Richardson to be U.S. Attorney General, but he resigned that post in 1973, rather than fire the Special Counsel investigating the Nixon Administration over "the Watergate matter," leading to a series of moves that became known as "The Saturday Night Massacre."
In 1980, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) was split into 2 separate departments: The Department of Education (DOE) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
*
May 1, 1971 was a Saturday. This was also the day that Amtrak began service, and the film Billy Jack premiered. I have separate entries for those events.
Football was out of season. The NBA Championship had been decided the day before, when the Milwaukee Bucks completed a 4-game Finals sweep of the Baltimore Bullets. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, with the Montreal Canadiens waiting to see who they would play in the Finals. It turned out to be the Chicago Black Hawks, who beat the New York Rangers in a Game 7 the following day.
These Major League Baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Milwaukee Brewers, 1-0 at Yankee Stadium. It was a typical Yankee game for the period between the retirement of Mickey Mantle at the start of the 1969 season, and the closing of the original Stadium for its renovation at the end of 1973: They got a great pitching performance, in this case from Stan Bahnsen, they couldn't back him up.
They got only 5 hits off Brewer starter Lew Krausse: A triple by Roy White in the 3rd inning, but there were 2 outs, and he was stranded; back-to-back singles by Bobby Murcer and Danny Cater to lead off the 4th, but they couldn't bring them around; a single by Jake Gibbs to lead off the 6th, followed by White drawing a walk, but they couldn't be brought around, either; and a double by Gene Michael in the 7th. In the 8th, Bahnsen lost the game on a solo home run by Tommy Harper. (I wonder if Harper told Bahnsen, "'Preciate it. Thanks.")
And, in spite of it being a beautiful Spring weekend, only 7,384 fans showed up.
* The New York Mets did no better than their Bronx neighbors, losing to the Houston Astros, 3-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-3 at Fenway Park in Boston.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-5 at Atlanta Stadium. (It was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1974.) Hank Aaron hit 2 home runs.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Diego Padres, 5-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Bob Robertson led off the bottom of the 11th with a walk, was bunted over to 2nd base by Manny Sanguillen, and driven in by a single by Gene Alley. Willie Stargell went 3-for-5. Roberto Clemente only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not get a hit. The Pirates only got 6,068 fans to come out, but went on to win the World Series.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. For the Reds, Pete Rose went 1-for-3, and Johnny Bench went 1-for-4. For the Giants, Willie McCovey went 0-for-3, while Willie Mays only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not get a hit.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The St. Louis Cardinals and the Montreal Expos were tied, 2-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, when the game was called due to rain. It was never replayed. For the Expos, Steve Renko outpitched Bob Gibson, allowing 3 hits to Gibson's 7.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.
* The California Angels beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-1 at Anaheim Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California. (The ballpark is now named Angel Stadium of Anaheim.)
* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Ted Ford hit a home run off Diego Segui to make the difference for the Tribe. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4 for the A's.
Also, Arsenal beat Stoke City, 1-0 at Highbury in North London. Their next 2 games would win them trophies: A 1-0 win over arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane in North London, to clinch the Football League title; and a 2-1 extra-time win over Liverpool at the old Wembley Stadium in West London, in the FA Cup Final.
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