The Times They Are A'Changin'...

 Here's a critical theory for you:  The most imaginative attempt at capturing the American youth counterculture demographic that the comic book industry made was also a spectacular failure at doing so....

Forever People #1 (DC Comics, March 1971)

I've always been of the opinion that Jack Kirby's THE FOREVER PEOPLE was not only Kirby's attempt to reach out to the counterculture demographic, but was also his attempt at doing a little bit of speculative social commentary.

House Ad for a 1988 revival of The Forever People

How it succeeded: Even though the Forever People of Supertown were oppressed and pursued by "the Man" (translation: Darkseid), they were depicted as a multicultural god-like evolutionary end result of youth stereotypes that resided in a world where the hippies won the Generation Gap. 

How it failed:  Kirby was in his fifties when he created the Fourth World and was just a little beyond the age range to seem relevant....I mean, he kinda understood, but couldn't quite identify with the audience.

Harvey #1 (Marvel, 1970)

Another spectacular failure at trying to do this is Marvel's short-lived Archie clone, HARVEY.

Archie #214 (Dec. 1971)

I love Archie clones...especially the weird, goofy, and more imaginative ones.  ARCHIE Comics itself had an odd take on the counterculture during it's heyday...it's main product was teen humor, attempting to sell to a roughly 13 to 21 demographic, but just couldn't figure it out.  Any depictions of youth counterculture were mostly exaggerated stereotypes used as comic relief.  The presentation reminds me somehow of how hippies were depicted on DRAGNET, flamboyant caricatures of laziness and ignorance.  It's like the editorial gang over at Archie were like, "We don't get these kids today, but it seems ridiculous enough to make fun of."  Humor driven by ridicule at their expense, so to speak.

Marvel's approach with HARVEY came from a different angle.  It worked because it appears that they decided to embrace the movement and create satire from within.  Marvel wasn't laughing at the hippies, they were laughing with them.  Harvey Hooper and his gang of friends live in a world where they'd won the revolution, brother....now let's make fun of how ridiculous it all seems.  This approach can be credited to none other than Stan Lee, who's credited for scripts and Stan Goldburg on art.

 Goldburg would soon join the ranks of the aforementioned Archie Comics and continue to work there in the Dan DeCarlo-influenced Archie "house style" that had become the norm there starting in the late 1960s.

One of the reasons why I think it failed as much as it succeeded, like Kirby's FOREVER PEOPLE, lays with the fact that Stan Lee, just like Jack, was a man in his fifties.  Unlike Jack, Stan couldn't make the connection due to not being able to identify with the target demographic, but because he thought he still was the demographic.  It comes across like an elderly man attempting to talk jive and sound hip and relevant to the youth.

It's an interesting and valid attempt, though.  It's just in my opinion Stan, the master of promoting and personalizing his relationship with his readership, which made him more identifiable creator (and the leader of a cult of personality), was just a little pretentious, a little delusion, and a little bit full of himself.  I find it hilariously ironic that a guy that had a very admirable mastery of hyperbole would fall victim to such character quirks.

HARVEY lasted six issues and was gone by late 1972 and now collects dust in comic shop bins.  I keep hoping that Disney or Marvel will somehow find a way to utilize the character.  We need characters like Harvey Hooper these days, satirically showing us how ridiculous we can be.