The seventies were a very different time. Flared trousers were a fashion statement rather than an abomination, people danced funny and following the sexual revolution of the previous decade, people had become a lot less coy when it came to discussing rufty. To wit, 1976 saw the publication of The Amazing Spider-Man Vs The Prodigy, a PSA comic book that was created as a result of the unexpected team-up between Marvel and Planned Parenthood, the organisation that campaigns for pro-choice causes and provides advice and practical help when it comes to safe sex. The Prodigy of the title isn't the nineties big beat pioneers but a dastardly alien who plans to kidnap teens, make them have unprotected sex and then use their offspring as free child labour on his home planet. Which is a pretty whacky scheme in any comic book, let alone on whose message isn't "watch out for aliens" but "put something on the end of it". Thankfully Spidey's on hand both to cease this nefarious baddie but also to re-educate the kidnapped teens who have been given some woefully inaccurate sex ed lessons. Which is pretty funny and surprisingly progressive from the conservative world of comic books, right? Well, it would be if it didn't make such a big deal of teen pregnancy ALWAYS BEING TERRIBLE and a weird bit at the end about homosexuality. Plus, as is the significant drawback of most of the PSA comics on this list, there isn't really much practical advice pertaining to safe sex other than it's done by buying "stuff from the drugstore". This purposeful self-censorship makes even less sense in light of the fact that the comic was only sold at Planned Parenthood, so it's not like kids would be reading it; in fact, why would anybody need to read a comic about how good Planned Parenthood is when they're already there...?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
