Can Spider-Man Defeat Texas's Abstinence-Industrial Complex?

images via Andrew Farago

Thanks to my student J for tipping me off to this. Apparently in the late 60s or early 70s Planned Parenthood teamed up with Marvel to do a Spider-Man comic about an evil character trying to trick teenagers into having babies so he can use them for child labor on his planet. Sound familiar?

In the image above, the comic's alien villain, Prodigy, says this about his evil plot:

They'll have babies right and left from ignorance, just as I planned for my giant baby snatch. They're needed for child labor on Intellectia, so we superior ones can put our brain power to conquering other planets!

H.O.L.Y.S.H.I.T. If that doesn't remind you of abstinence-pushing family values neoconservativism I don't know what will.

Now that you know what they want, here's the why:



Spidey figures out what Prodigy is trying to do and hits the nail right on the head:

He wants them to be baby machines! Changing diapers, going nowhere in dead-end jobs...sitting home every night trying to find the time and money to go to a movie or buzz out to the burger stand. What kind of life can they have? No chance to develop, they'll never catch on to his crazy scheme, they'll just be his puppets. What a crafty creep!

Surely the 1970s-era Spider-Man didn't know that Prodigy's evil plan would be...a part of the Republican party's platform and still funded by the federal government in 2010 and a fundamental part of Texas's own educational and social policy.

Spidey's motto "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" couldn't be more appropriate to our contemporary sex ed panic and his approach in the comic is spot-on: provide information to people who need it and let them act accordingly. Spider-Man, please come to Texas and defeat our own evil Governor Good Hair!