Superheroes

Comics

Earliest Comics

14th century Pre-Columbian

Earliest Comics

Bayeux Tapestry, 13th Century

Earliest Comics

Rudolphe Topffer

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Immigration Act 1924

Depression & New Deal

SUPERMAN

Superman

• Name: Kal-El

• Born: Krypton

• Raised: Kansas

• Story mirrors the immigrant experience.

• Created by Bob Kane in 1939

• Opposite of Superman

• Underworld

• Villains armed with lethal laughing gas, mind-control lipstick, fear dust, toxic aerosols, artificial phobia pills

BATMAN

Golden Age 1938-1950sPioneered by Jewish writers and artists who pulled from their own experiences as immigrants and outsiders.

Superheroes of the Golden Age operated on a clear cut sense of good and evil. How is that theme expressed on the covers of Golden Age comics?

World War II & Superheroes

Golden Age Establishes 3 Categories of Superhero(in)es

1. Born with a superpower like Superman, Wonder Woman, and X-Men.

2. Acquired a superpower due to an accident like Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, and the Hulk.

3. No real superhuman power, but due to a tragic experience, are committed to a central purpose like Batman.

Silver Age (late 50s-1970s)

Along with anxiety over science and technology, especially atomic and nuclear energy.

Issues around IDENTITY take center stage in the Silver Age.

According to Jeff Yang, editor of Secret Identities..

X-Men OriginsWriter Ta-Nehisi Coates points out in The Atlatntic how, “the X-Men were conceived during the same year as the March on Washington, the same year Malcolm X gave his "Message To The Grassroots" speech, the same year Medgar Evers was shot, the same year white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church.”

X-Men, like most of use, are born into circumstances beyond their control, thrown into a world they did not choose. And their struggle, not simply to make sense of such a world, but to thrive in it, mirrors each of own searches for authenticity and self-hood.

Many people fear the X-Men, even the X-Men themselves, and they can NOT hide their difference. No secret identities for many of the X-Men.

Superman (Wish) vs. X-Men (Fear)

This American Life

Invisible Man vs. Hackman, 2/23/2001

X-Men Last Stand

What position do different X-Men take on the development of a cure? Why might some X-Men like Beast and Rogue be interested in a cure, while others like Storm are not?