Gah, yeah. Might check that out, most of my details about the code come from various articles on the internet and a few books about the history of Marvel, mostly centered around Jack Kirby. Not sure why I thought Marvel ditched the code in the early 90s, though. Probably mixing it up with some of Marvel's creators leaving to go form Image.
For Marvel-specific stuff I'd recommend last year's
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, by Sean Howe. Pretty thorough and evenhanded, though he kinda seems to lose interest after the Image Exodus and the rest of the book feels like he's checking off boxes. X-Force/X-Statix gets a page or so as the book that killed the Code (Milligan, Alonso, and Mike Allred all get mentioned by name; Laura Allred does not despite the book calling special attention to her colors -- and IIRC while he mentions both X-Force and X-Statix he fails to mention they're actually the same comic under two titles), and he spends a head-scratching amount of time on Marville, a book no one remembers and which didn't push the envelope any more than, say, Alias (to be fair I think he DOES mention Marvel having to find another printer for Alias #1 due to its depiction of "rough sex"; IIRC the words "interracial" and "anal" are not used).
(And since no one asked: for a book about DC history, it's gotta be
Men of Tomorrow, by Gerard Jones (whose name is STILL wrong in its Amazon listing).)
(Both links are affiliate links.)
Probably the whole Todd McFarlane/Rob Liefeld craze? Turns out that was entirely in-code, imagine that.
They colored the blood black, duh.
