Classic Comics That Had Some Totally Insane And Controversial Content

As a general rule comics that become really big and really famous refrain from including material that would be considered controversial, offensive or too adult to be enjoyed by a wide audience.

And the bigger the title the less challenging the material, so Mickey Mouse comic strips and the action packed panels of Wonder Woman are the last place you'd expect to find controversy.

But back in the day both comics included material that is seen as controversial these days but was always seen as totally bonkers- like hide inside a dead elephant bonkers.

When Wonder Woman learns that the elephants at a circus keep dropping like flies she suspects foul play is afoot, so she hides inside a taxidermied baby elephant to find out what's up and foil the bad guy's evil plan. And that's when things get really weird:

Ed King talks with Wonder Woman and Steve and expresses his fears that the dying elephants will ruin his show. Wonder Woman and Etta Candy dress up as a baby elephant to try to find out who is poisoning the elephants. They find themselves in the midst of a Burmese worship ritual, in which the Burmese say that they will use the elephants to trample the "foreign devils." Suddenly a large elephant appears and inadvertently blows Wonder Woman and Etta's cover. The Burmese take them prisoner and plan to sacrifice them to the Elephant Gods.

Meanwhile, the thugs return and take two of the Burmese men hostage. Steve Trevor follows them. Back at the circus, Dom Carney meets up with Elva, but Uncle Ed King also appears and fires Dom from the show under suspicion of being the person poisoning the elephants. An elephant, following orders from some of the other Burmese men, snatches Elva and makes off with her. Ed and Dom chase after them on horseback.

Elva is brought to the same Elephant Temple that the Burmese have brought Wonder Woman and Etta to. The three of them are to be sacrificed for the Elephant Spirits. San Yan admits that his people have been killing the elephants to set their spirits free. Wonder Woman notices that San Yan speaks with a Japanese accent, so she breaks free of her bonds. Steve, Ed, and Dom all arrive, and as a group they defeat the Burmese men who are actually Japanese spies. Now free of suspicions, Dom gets Ed's permission to be with Elva.

On the other hand the controversy found in the pages of the old Mickey Mouse comic strip can be summed up by these three panels:

Mickey kicking a character in the kiester who is clearly gay wasn't seen as that big of a deal when the strip came out in the 1930s, but Disney knew the part where he calls the character a "cream puff" was wrong- so they edited that bit to make it more PC:

See 5 Famous Comics That Got Totally Insane Out Of The Blue at Cracked (NSFW language)