Weird Tract Number 68: Collegiate Challenge Magazine, Fall 1973 by Campus Crusade for Christ

Troy Davis writes:

I previously wrote about my extreme distaste for the ideology and tactics of Campus Crusade for Christ.  I just received this Campus Crusade magazine in the mail; I bought it online.  It contains a short superhero story ("The Last Adventures of The Old Wonderman") that is surreal. I have included the entire two-page story at the end of this post.  It's a shockingly puerile, barely-coherent story--which makes it par for the course for Campus Crusade. It's the story of Wonderman, a washed-up superhero who is brooding in his apartment when Pleasureman crashes through the window and explains modern hedonism; Wonderman punches out Pleasureman, not for B & E but for wanting to have a good time (Wonderman should change his crimefighter name to WetBlanketMan).  Captain New (who apparently also broke into the apartment) gives encouragement to Wonderman and they form a crime-fighting team. That's it.

If you're appalled that someone considered this idiotic pabulum as reading material for college students, you have your head on straight. It's moronic drivel. I'm appalled but not surprised. I read John G. Turner's  biography of Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright and it mentioned that in the early 80s, Tim LaHaye's idiotic book The Battle for the Mind was a big hit with the Campus Crusade crowd.

Notes: On page two of the strip below, the footnote refers to "Captain New's secret" on pages 38 and 39; those pages contain Bill Bright's "The Four Spiritual Laws." . . . I have written about how Campus Crusade's tract "The Four Spiritual Laws" had an effect of religious tract history: Jack Chick saw the tract and decided to make Chick tracts pocket-sized . . . In the wake of the success of the comic book debut of Superman in 1938, there were several imitators. Comics legend Will Eisner did Wonder Man in 1939 in the book Wonder Comics for Fox Publications. DC sued and it was the only issue.

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