Comics as Propaganda: Cracked Counts Down Titles That Aimed to Program Kids - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

Here is a great post linking to an interesting countdown for the worse examples of Comics used to indoctrinate children. My favorite story is #6. Follow the link to find out more information.

Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and OfficeMax

The Comic's Intended Message:
Teachers are our nation's greatest resource! To the point that supervillains envy students' knowledge!
Its Accidental Message:
OfficeMax is our nation's greatest resource, as superheroes go positively apeshit over the store.
A 2006 promo comic released by Marvel and OfficeMax for Teacher Appreciation Week, Brain Drain! is probably the best-drawn entry in this list. It makes up for this by making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The story opens with Dr. Doom draining the brains of all of America's brightest middle schoolers. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four set out to stop Doom's nefarious plot but, before they can depart, the teachers of the "brain-drained" students show up for no adequately explored reason to help out. Their help mostly consists of barking non-sequiturs about OfficeMax.

Fuck your laptop, Superheroes are magic.

Instead of stifling a chortle at the dumbass citizens, the superheroes lose their minds over the whole idea. They hightail it to OfficeMax and grab pencils and rubber band balls and calculators and bring them back to the Baxter Building.

Mr. Fantastic then tosses all that shit in the corner and uses his supercomputer to locate Doom. Sadly, this marks the last appearance of logical thinking in the comic.

Spidey and the F.F. break into Dr. Doom's castle, where Doom womps them and reveals his villainous masterstroke: He will rob America's middle schoolers of their valuable knowledge!

That's right. Victor von Doom, Ph.D., invented an impossibly sophisticated machine in order to learn the secrets of basic algebra--the plot of R.L. Stine's Stay Out of the Basement--and that every boy his age is sprouting strange hair down there.
For brain-draining a bunch of kids whose collective fund of knowledge rivals his own cast-iron skidmarks, Dr. Doom deserves to have his plot foiled by an OfficeMax brand rubber band ball.

The comic ends on a bittersweet note; the children Doom kidnapped are permanently brain-drained. But the teachers are there, and they can re-teach their students!

Of course, they'll be teaching "How Not To Drool and Shit Your Pants 101" until the kids are 25, but that doesn't seem to faze the plucky educators.
Indeed, the saddest part of Brain Drain! is that the real students who entered an essay-writing contest to win a cameo in this comic book make a one-panel appearance as brain-drained imbeciles. Notice how Marvel was kind enough to label each child so bullies knew exactly whom to taunt into homeschooling.

Sorry for bringing this up again, Cody Rhoades.

Comics as Propaganda: Cracked Counts Down Titles That Aimed to Program Kids - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

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