Was a Spider-Man Comic Published Without the Comics Code Due to a Sick Day?

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, find out whether the historic Amazing Spider-Man issue that was released without the Comics Code approval was due to the Code administrator being out sick the day the issue was put before the Code.

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and seventh installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

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COMIC LEGEND:

Amazing Spider-Man #96 went without Comics Code approval because the Code administrator was sick that day and so John Goldwater made the call instead.

STATUS:

I'm Going With False

1971's Amazing Spider-Man #96 being published without Comics Code Approval because of its depiction of drug use is one of the most famous stories in comic books, but I'll try to quickly recap the importance of the story (mostly re-using my own previous takes on the story).

One of the annoying aspects of the Comics Code Authority was that there was not necessarily hard and fast rules all of the time. For instance, as I discussed in a Comic Book Legends Revealed, there wasn't even technically a rule against the depiction of drugs in comics, but rather there was the following rule:

All elements or techniques not specifically mentioned herein, but which are contrary to the spirit and intent of the code, and are considered violations of good taste or decency, shall be prohibited.

The Comics Code then GENERALLY read that rule as saying "you can't depict drugs." Since it wasn't in the actual Code, though, Stan Lee was irritated when the Nixon Administration actually contacted him and asked for him to have a Marvel Comic do an anti-drug message. He brought the idea to the Code and they said no. There was a debate about changing the Code in the future.

Lee didn't want to wait, so he just decided to do the issues anyways and just not have the Comics Code on them. He later talked about it with Roy Thomas in TwoMorrows' Comic Book Artist #2:

Roy: Do you think that there were any bad feelings on the part of the Code over the Spider-Man drug issues?

Stan: That was the only big issue that we had. I could understand them; they were like lawyers, people who take things literally and technically. The Code mentioned that you mustn't mention drugs and, according to their rules, they were right. So I didn't even get mad at them then. I said, "Screw it" and just took the Code seal off for those three issues. Then we went back to the Code again. I never thought about the Code when I was writing a story, because basically I never wanted to do anything that was to my mind too violent or too sexy. I was aware that young people were reading these books, and had there not been a Code, I don't think that I would have done the stories any differently.

One of the interesting aspects of the decision, as reported at the time by the great Don and Maggie Thompson in their fanzine, Newfangles #44 (as well in the New York Times, but Don and Maggie had it first!), is that Leonard Darvin, who had been the administrator of the Code since 1965, was quite ill at the time and he had nothing to do with the actual decision. So instead, John Goldwater, the president of the Comics Magazine Association of America (the group that had formed the Comics Code Authority and funded it) was the acting administrator and Goldwater said at the time that he was opposed to “any stories dealing with drugs.”

This, naturally, has led to some debate about whether things would have gone much different had Darvin NOT been sick. In a great article on the topic for the CBLDF, Joe Sergi wrote, "[T]he decision to reject the book was not made by Leonard Darvin, the CCA administrator at the time because he was reportedly out sick when the Spider-Man issue came through for approval. As a result, Archie Comics publisher John L. Goldwater made the decision to reject the book. Several commentators have speculated that Darvin would have approved the issues. So, I can’t help but wonder that somewhere in the Blue Area of the Moon, Uatu is asking “What if Darvin had approved Spider-Man 96?”"

It's a great What If...? and I'll admit that it occurred to me over the years, especially when I read some interviews by Darvin over the years and he seemed so reasonable. However, I don't think it would have made a difference. You see, after reading more about it, on this one specific topic, Darvin was VERY MUCH against drugs being shown in comics.

Four months before this issue, New York magazine did an article about how comic books were getting "radical" (titled, appropriately enough, “The Radicalization of the Comic Books") and Darvin was interviewed and he said, that he would "frown on any change in the code with respect to narcotics,” but he could “foresee changes that would at least liberalize some provisions on sex to reflect, if only slightly, the new permissiveness in motion pictures.”

Darvin's views AFTER Amazing Spider-Man #96 were left unchanged, although the Code eventually came to allow the depiction of narcotics (that whole deal is its own legend). So I truly don't think anything would have been different had Darvin not been ill for Amazing Spider-Man #96's Code approval (or lack thereof).