Not every Space Hero uses a ray gun to save the day!
Sometimes, simply talking, the way Tarleton does, is the most effective way!
As Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, and Al Feldstein (who wrote this story) could tell you, one of the best aspects of science fiction is the opportunity to present commentary on social issues that you couldn't otherwise show due to censorship.
Most of this blog's audience is too young to know, first-hand, that the societal conditions shown on Cybrinia were, in fact, the way society in most of America was structured up to the mid-1960s.
(And there are aspects that continue to this day!)
This story originally-appeared in EC's Weird Fantasy #18 (1951) to mostly-positive feedback.
But that was pre-Comics Code!
When it was scheduled to be reprinted in Incredible Science-Fiction #33 (1956) it had to be submitted to the newly-created Comics Code Authority.
As explained in the superb book Tales from the Crypt: the Official Archives by Digby Diehl...
This really made ‘em go bananas in the Code czar’s office.
“Judge [Charles] Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us”, recalls [EC editor Al] Feldstein. “I went in there with this story and Murphy says, “It can’t be a Black man”.
But … but that’s the whole point of the story!” Feldstein sputtered.
When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line.
“Listen”, he told Murphy, “you’ve been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business”.
[Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to [EC publisher Bill] Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy.
“This is ridiculous!” he bellowed.
“I’m going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I’ll sue you”.
Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession.
“All right. Just take off the beads of sweat”.
At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic.
“Fuck you!” they shouted into the telephone in unison.
Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.
It was the final color comic book EC Comics published.
MAD was converted into a b/w magazine, removing it from
Comics Code approval, and reprints of
EC's comics (including this story)...
...in
Tales of the Incredible (1965). were published in standard paperback format by
Ballantine Books also exempting them from the
Code.
EC tried a line of four magazine-sized b/w titles known as "Picto-Fiction" with a more adult approach to storytelling, like pulp magazines, but with more illustrations.
Like
MAD, their magazine format bypassed the
Code's restrictions, but none of them got past the second issues.
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