HUBERT "WERTHAM"
Real Name: Hubert "Wertham" (see comments)
Identity/Class: Human
Occupation: Unknown
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Stan Lee, pigeons (in general)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: "Raving Maniac" (in story title only)
Base of Operations: Mobile in New York City
First Appearance: Suspense#29/4 (April, 1953)
Powers/Abilities: None, Hubert was an irrational man who suffered from paranoid delusions.
History: (Suspense#29/4 (fb) - BTS) - Hubert's past is unknown, but a few days earlier he had apparently escaped from a mental sanitarium. He eventually went to the mayor to complain about the pigeons in the park.
(Suspense#29/4) - In search of another wrong to right, the crusading crackpot went to the headquarters of Atlas Comics, and stormed into the office of editor Stan Lee. Hubert began spewing a diatribe of complaints to Stan about the books the company published. He vehemently objected to the horror comics, which featured vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and zombies. But all the while, Stan kept his composure, explaining to the cigar-smoking screwball that it was a free country and nobody was forcing him to read the books. Nevertheless, Hubert continued ranting and raving.
His patience beginning to wear thin, Stan angrily picked up a newspaper and showed Hubert the headlines regarding famine, war, and murders--Stan pointed out that there were far more frightening things happening in real life!
Then a pair of hospital orderlies entered the erudite editor's office. They explained that they'd been looking for Hubert for days and were relieved to finally catch up with him.
As the nice men in the white jackets escorted Hubert away (probably to Bellevue, where he'd be getting a "white jacket" of his own), he kept insisting that it was all a conspiracy, and that everyone was against him...
...And after a long day at the office, Stan Lee went home to his family. When his daughter asked him to tell her a bedtime story, Stan promised her a scary one: "Once upon a time, an excited little man, with nothing more important on his mind, ran into an editor's office to complain about some magazines..."
Comments: Created by Stan Lee and Joe Maneely.
Hubert's last name was never revealed in the story, so I took the liberty of giving him one... in honor of real-life comic book adversary Dr. Fredric Wertham (who shared Hubert's view, that comic books would bring about the downfall of modern civilization).
This story would seem to be Stan Lee's response to the anti-comic book furor sweeping the nation in the early 1950s, much of it brought about by Dr. Wertham and his classic manifesto of censorship, "Seduction of the Innocent".
Wertham's book came out a year after this story.--Leonard Rifas
Though Wertham had published a series of magazine article detailing his criticisms before his book was published and it looks like he started in 1948.
--Darci
(Ironically, this story appeared in the last issue of this title.)
And a BIG Thank You to The Horrors of It All for the scans!
Profile by John Kaminski
CLARIFICATIONS:
Hubert "Wertham" has no known connection to:
images:
Suspense#29/4, p1, pan1 (Hubert storming into Stan's office)
Suspense#29/4, p4, pan4 (head shot)
Appearances:
Suspense#29 (April, 1953) - Stan Lee (writer/editor), Joe Maneely (artist)
First Posted: 10/28/2006
Last updated: 09/19/2018
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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