{"id":2450,"date":"2020-06-08T07:19:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T14:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/?p=2450"},"modified":"2020-04-25T14:19:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T21:19:44","slug":"405-bye-bye-star-spangled-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/405-bye-bye-star-spangled-kid\/","title":{"rendered":"405 &#8211; Bye-bye Star-Spangled Kid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"744\" height=\"970\" src=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/merry-takes-over.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2452\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/merry-takes-over.png 744w, https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/merry-takes-over-230x300.png 230w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 744px) 100vw, 744px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In October 1948, Star-Spangled Comics #87 has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/?p=2428\">Merry the Gimmick Girl<\/a> taking over for poor ol&#8217; Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy.  The story features Merry and Mr. Pemberton, her foster father &#8211; but Sylvester and Pat are nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The comic industry really seems to have declared itself done with boy sidekicks, with basically just Robin and Speedy left.  Timing-wise, this might have to do with Dr. Fredric Wertham&#8217;s attack on the comic book industry, begun in May 1948 in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lostsoti.org\/SaturdayReviewOfLiteratureMay291948Page1.htm\">Saturday Review of Literature<\/a>, though that article itself does not mention anything about homosexual subtext with sidekicks.  An article that made Stan Lee sit up and take notice, inserting a 1-page defense in all of Timely (Marvel) Comics of 1948:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"624\" height=\"508\" src=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/stan-lee-defends-comic-books.png\" alt=\"A fragment of Stan Lee's defense of comic books in late 1948.\" class=\"wp-image-2461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/stan-lee-defends-comic-books.png 624w, https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/stan-lee-defends-comic-books-300x244.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><figcaption>A fragment of Stan Lee&#8217;s defense of comic books in late 1948.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In October 1948, Star-Spangled Comics #87 has Merry the Gimmick Girl taking over for poor ol&#8217; Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy. The story features Merry and Mr. Pemberton, her foster father &#8211; but Sylvester and Pat are nowhere to be seen. The comic industry really seems to have declared itself done with boy sidekicks, with basically [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[418,14,386,437,147,220,387],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-418","tag-dc","tag-juvenile-delinquency","tag-sidechicks","tag-sidekick","tag-star-spangled-kid","tag-wertham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2465,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions\/2465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}