Hey, remember that post about how comics were better in the Seventies? Well,just like an Anabaptist who doesn't want to give up my wife to my crazy leader, I recant!I want to return to the bosom of modern comics, where all the greatness lies! Yes, I have seen the dark, evil, black light of the 1970s, and it is shocking. Shocking!!!!

What am I talking about,good reader? This week I purchased Essential Spider-Man (Amazing version) volume 8. Here I was, ready to enjoy the adventures of Spidey in the late 1970s. Oh, those madcap days of "Afternoon Delight," Good Times,Jimmy Carter, and Peter Frampton. Was there ever a better time to be alive? And then I read the very first issue (#161) and stumbled across the. MOST. DISTURBING. PANEL. IN. COMIC. BOOK. HISTORY.

See what it is ... if you dare!

Yes, that's Wolverine laughing. Horrifically. Even more horrifically is the fact that he's actually mirthful, and not laughing harshly and ironically. But maybe you're not getting the full impact of Logan holding his side with glee. So let's zoom in on his face:

It's even worse!!!! Dear God, that's not something a grown man can handle. Can you imagine being an impressionable 8-year-old and picking this innocuous comic up in 1976 and seeing that? If he didn't run in front of a bus right away, he's probably sitting in a one-room studio apartment right now, stroking a rifle lovingly and thinking about all the puppies he's going to slaughter. It's that disturbing! I myself had to run outside and stick my head in the pool for three minutes to keep my eyes from exploding out of my head! Thanks, Ross Andru - I may never sleep again.

But that's not the end of the horror in this issue! A scant few pages later, Mary Jane Watson takes Peter Parker on a roller coaster ride, which Peter - the same person who swings from buildings - claims to dislike (he may have been pulling a "Clark Kent" and faking it, but he never thinks anything like "I have to pretend to hate this, even though I'm Spider-Man and swing from buildings all the time!"). But instead of that, we get this exchange when they get off the coaster:

Ha!Threatening violence toward women is so funny! What's up with Mary Jane's pose, anyway?Does she realize that Peter has a long history of smacking his girlfriends, and she's already pulling away from his backhand? We'll never know! It must remain a mystery.

If this isn't themost disturbing comic ever publishedby Marvel, I don't know what is. Those comics of the 1970s - they're all about crazy Canadians cackling and superheroes beating on their girlfriends! I'm sorry, modern comics! I throw myself on your mercy! There's nothing even remotely similar to this kind of evil in today's comic books!

Comics from the 1970s -they will destroy your innocence! Don't believe Greg Hatcher!