31 Years Later, Calvin and Hobbes’ Scariest Comic Is Still a Controversial Classic

A 1994 *Calvin and Hobbes* strip has endured as a controversial classic because it sharply parodied the graphic violence then common in American superhero comics. Its joke also turns on the contrast between that violence and the familiar advice that children should put down the television and read instead.

The strip shows an unnamed hero being shot through the chest by an “Amazon” rival, with his exposed spine visible; he remarks that it hurt “a lot”. Calvin is shaken and puts the comic down, only for his mother to complain about violence on TV and suggest reading. The piece places the strip amid early-to-mid-1990s storylines such as *The Death of Superman* and *The Age of Apocalypse*, arguing that Bill Watterson captured the era’s excess in a Sunday comic.