October 9, 2009 

Here’s a Fun Siegel and Shuster Story.

I love some of the non-Superman S&S stuff. Slam Bradley is awesome, of course, but Federal Men and I, Spy are gems too.

Take this Federal Men from Adventure Comics #39.


Wow, theft and thrill-killings. What could have turned such nattily dressed young-gentlemen into hooligans?


My word, the very idea. In case you haven’t guessed, this story is basically a “tamer”, Proto Reefer Madness. Let’s look at the rest, shall we.

Steve wastes no time in questioning our young scallywags:


Clearly, the kids are going to get off scot free. I mean, it’s the reefer what did it, yeah?


You all see where this is going, right? Be gentle – pot kills brain cells, y’know.


You have to love the subtle class issues here – it’s not the teaching staff or a fellow upper-class student, but a dirty, filthy custodian who is distributing the dreaded reefer.

Look, I don’t toke. Never have. It just doesn’t appeal to me. But the portrayal of Marijuana as something that will make you go off on a thrillkilling spree is just… laughable. Even more so when you consider that this is from an era when smoking regular cigarettes was considered good for you, and when a wetbar in the home was de rigueur.


  • Dr. Novakaine

    Never smoked, never will, but marijuana has been the subject of an inane double-standard for a long time. It's treated just as seriously as many drugs that do a lot more damage, which makes no sense given that it's really not that much worse than tobacco (if worse at all). It comes as no surprise to me that it's at the forefront of legalization considerations.

  • AuroraMoon

    So I guess they blamed pot for the evil-doing of youth back in the day when video games weren't invented yet. :P

    if those kids did such things today, GTA would probably be blamed. actually it's blamed already for a lot of things anyway. :P

  • Blurgle

    No, pot is still blamed.

    People are slow to change opinions, especially if the opinion has been bolstered through emotional appeals. One of the reasons why the older generation refused to believe the Surgeon General's report for so long was the ingrained belief (supported by years of advertising) that non-smokers were creepy weirdos you didn't want to know – either bitter, sanctimonious hags or effeminate neat freaks. The same thing has happened with pot smoking: despite the belief of privileged university students that “everyone” is cool with pot use, the average person over 40 still sees pot smokers as disgusting, filthy, communist criminals – basically, amoral hippies.

  • Naryldor

    Now that's what I call professional police work. He comes up with a ruse to make the bad guy come out of his hole and ome to you, and the he just waits for him sitting casually chit-chatting with the school principal? Come on! That fool and the poor principal would be so very dead in the real world!

    Anyway, I've never smoked either, not even ocasianally, but I'd lie if I told you I never tried a cigarettes (including the “special” ones mentioned in this post) in my younger years, and for goodness sake, the whole idea around this story is ludicrous, Marihuana is, in fact, a relatively potent relaxant, not very likely to see a marihuana stoned dude act violently, there're other (harder and a lot more dangerous) drugs out there a lot more dangerous in that respect. I'm perfectly OK with all this banning of smoking in public places tha's been imposed in most “western” countries including mine, but I think administrations are very hipocritical, Marihuana is illegal while tobacco is not with both being just about equaly harmful, and even if they ban it from public places, the plain fact is the administrations collects a lot of money out of tobacco taxes around the world. Some serious healh policy, huh?

  • http://Slayerlit.us Shiai

    I like how the local police immediately toss the whole case up to the Feds, just because pot is involved. Robbery and murder, sure, the fuzz can handle that. But demon reefer? Call in G-Man Carson, pronto!

    What a strange era…marijuana was painted to be as bad (if not worse) than cocaine, while kids could go into any package goods store and buy alcohol (so long as they had a note from their parent explaining that they were bringing it home for the adults, of course. Still, the mind reels.)

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar
  • madwoman

    @Blurgle: Actually, we in our 40s and 50s ARE the pot smokers. It's people in their 60s and over that think pot is so horrible. You know, the ones who turned the world into a cocaine playground in the 1970s.

    Now, you just know the G-man and the principal are going to celebrate their little victory with a good scotch. I swear, if the liquor lobby was not so strong in Washington, pot would at least have been decriminalized by now. I don't drink a lot of alcohol (I never really developed a taste for it and half of my family are alcoholics), so I smoke. I'm not going on a tirade about demon alcohol (even though I think it causes many more problems than pot), but imagine the tax revenues we could have if they treated pot like hard liquor. They could sell it in liquor stores and tax it to death. I know I'd buy it.

    Now, where can I sign up to attend the *high* school (hee hee) where the janitor sneaks pot into your locker?

    Finally, ALL HAIL BILL MAHAR!

  • PCImplosion

    Where was Superman to stop these kids from running over the pedestrian?

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    Who gave those youngsters a gun anyway? Not going into a discussion on the right to bear arms but still, why go out carrying a gun in what seems to be a quiet village (apart from the clearly criminal blue collar janitor).

  • Anderson

    Marihuana? That´s the way it was written back in the day??

  • http://flickr.com/photos/sedary_raymaker/ Naked Bunny with a Whip

    But the portrayal of Marijuana as something that will make you go off on a thrillkilling spree is just… laughable.

    Millions of Doritos and Oreos would disagree!

  • Michael

    Yes.

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    We still write it that way. I thought “marijuana” was a typo-error. :-D :-$

  • Kaitou

    Y'know, I saw a cop show on TV yesterday where the driver, upon being pulled over, immediately admitted he'd been smoking stuff like a half hour before. The cop was pretty weirded out, but had to do a sobriety test- and the driver PASSED. He was let off with a warning, because the marijuana hadn't done anything dangerous to him (other than make him more honest than he needed to be).

    But, you know, whatever. MADNESS!

  • Dierna

    Steve looks ALOT like Clark Kent…..

    So the Janitor was a pot dealer?! *rotflmao*

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    The janitor has a lousy shot. I guess that happens when you smoke pot, you lose your aim.

  • http://flickr.com/photos/sedary_raymaker/ Naked Bunny with a Whip

    Actually, he was caught because he accidentally sold kids sawdust and used the pot to clean up vomit. Oops!

  • Lisa A.

    *snerk*

    The problem I have with legalizing pot is that too many people I know who are otherwise strict vegetarians and refuse to have any chemicals enter their bodies, smoke pot, and they justify it by saying it doesn't hurt them at all, isn't addictive, and is natural. I don't buy any of those excuses. Pot may not be as bad as cocaine and meth, but it's still an drug people are unnecessarily taking. Not to mention, tobacco is on it's way out…it's being more and more restricted, so if tobacco may end up being illegal one day, why legalize pot? To take tobacco's place? What's the point? I'd rather people learn to do without drug crutches to deal with life.

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    I don't mind if people smoke pot, I did for a time on occasion. But I never bought the “it's healthy”-crap. It's a drug and it does have an effect on your body and mind.

  • Lisa A.

    *snerk*rnrnThe problem I have with legalizing pot is that too many people I know who are otherwise strict vegetarians and refuse to have any chemicals enter their bodies, smoke pot, and they justify it by saying it doesn’t hurt them at all, isn’t addictive, and is natural. I don’t buy any of those excuses. Pot may not be as bad as cocaine and meth, but it’s still an drug people are unnecessarily taking. Not to mention, tobacco is on it’s way out…it’s being more and more restricted, so if tobacco may end up being illegal one day, why legalize pot? To take tobacco’s place? What’s the point? I’d rather people learn to do without drug crutches to deal with life.

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    I don’t mind if people smoke pot, I did for a time on occasion. But I never bought the “it’s healthy”-crap. It’s a drug and it does have an effect on your body and mind.

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