Originally published in the January/February 2003 issue of The History Channel Magazine

POW! THWAK! ZAP!

More than the Lone Ranger or Uncle Sam, Comic Book Superheroes 'R' Us.

by Kathy Monahan and Mike Hagen

The concept of the hero with more-than-mortal powers is as old as Western civilization; whenever we've needed someone to look up to, we've invented him. For the ancient Greeks, there was Achilles. For the Anglo-Saxons, there was Beowulf. For the American pioneers, there was Paul Bunyan. The hero gives the forces of good an edge over the forces of evil: We know there will be a battle, but we sleep better knowing that there'll be a ringer on our side.

America in the late 1930s was ready for a ringer. Caught between a protracted depression and the already audible drums of war, its faith in the power of human enterprise and the goodness of human nature was taking a beating. The fledgling comic book industry, born only a few years before, was doing its part to distract America with some inexpensive entertainment, but nobody expected rescue from a medium that starred Mutt and Jeff, Li'l Abner, and Joe Palooka.

'It's a bird! It's a plane!'

In 1938 a force emerged that would put the scruffy new medium on the map, carry its sales from the thousands into the millions, and provide Western culture with one of its most enduring icons. The cover of Action Comics No. 1, released in the spring of 1938, featured a man in a cape and tights holding a car over his head as a crowd of people fled in terror. The story inside was about a man of steel from outer space, with powers beyond those of mortals, fighting for truth and justice.

His name: Superman.

His creators, artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel, were Depression children and believers in progressive politics, factors they brought to the Superman narrative. Their original Superman stories were less about fighting crime than about righting society's wrongs. Superman's first good deed was rescuing an unjustly accused prisoner from a lynch mob, and for the next two years he tackled corrupt politicians, championed labor reform, and battled domestic violence.

'This looks like a job for ...'

Superman may have created this new paradigm of the costumed hero with sensational powers, but he would not be alone for long. Batman, the Sub-Mariner, Wonder Man, and the Human Torch debuted in 1939; Captain Marvel appeared in 1940. The politics of these new superheroes remained progressive, as they continued to fight injustice in society and subtly rein-forced New Deal ethics with their concern for common people and emphasis on reform. Corrupt local officials, predatory businesses, and supercriminals were the super-heroes' nemeses; the federal government was generally portrayed as honorable, though sometimes blind.

New Deal social justice soon lost its relevance as the events of the war in Europe marched grimly toward American shores. The Office of War Information endeavored to marshal America's media into a single patriotic voice beginning in 1942, but comic books were on the front lines long before that. Many of the artists and writers were young second-generation Jewish immigrants whose passionate feelings about the atrocities against Jews in Europe penetrated their story lines. The Sub-Mariner fought a Nazi submarine, Daredevil went after Hitler at Berchtesgaden, the Human Torch battled foreign saboteurs on the home front -- all before the United States entered the war. In the spring of 1941 Captain America debuted, dressed like the American flag and socking Hitler in the jaw. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, comic books had already prepared public opinion for American intervention overseas.

And if the comic book industry facilitated the war effort, the war was good for comics as well. Comic books boomed in the war years, in part due to their wide-spread popularity among American GIs; comic books made up a quarter of their periodical reading. Wartime paper rationing had compressed the market somewhat, but as Americans went back to work in the largest numbers since before the Depression, they and their children had discretionary income.

Still, it wasn't easy to balance the fantasy of superpowers with the reality of a struggle for civilization. Comic book creators didn't want to make light of the heroic job real soldiers were doing overseas, but it was equally unthinkable for America's superheroes not to at least try to enlist. Captain America was already in the Army; Captain Marvel spent time as a Marine. Superman was designated 4-F when Clark Kent mistakenly used his X-ray vision to read the eye chart in the next room during his medical exam at the draft board; he spent the war defending the home front and leaving the glory to the boys fighting overseas.

By the 1940s, comic books were sufficiently absorbed into the mainstream media that 50 million people were reading them each month, and by this time, almost half of them were female. In the superhero market, the standard-bearer of this demographic was Wonder Woman, the brainchild of psychologist William Marston. Marston conceived of Wonder Woman as a personification of feminist values; he was a key theorist in the women's liberation movement and wanted to create an example of strength and self-reliance for America's girls.

Wonder Woman and feminism

Girls read Wonder Woman by the millions, and as the war progressed, she and other female superheroes (Mary Marvel, Miss Liberty) gained in popularity. With so many men overseas, women were entering jobs as never before, and their newfound income and independence drew them to strong, dominant female superheroes.

As America marched triumphantly home from World War II and into the prosperous 1950s, its comic book tastes began to change. Though more people were reading comics than ever before, they read less and less about superheroes. The men and women in tights who had been saving the world in 64 pages were losing their charm for a nation that felt like it had saved the world perfectly well by itself.

The advent of the Cold War, far from giving superheroes new relevance, defied the good-versus-evil reductionism of World War II. Soldiers in Korea preferred anti-communist war comics, and their girls back home read romantic cautionary tales. Horror and crime comics grew more and more lurid, and with their shock appeal as well as their high production values and satirical, sometimes subversive story lines, they drew a wide audience from America's increasingly blase' youth culture.

But the culture -- and the politics -- of youth was coming under scrutiny in the 1950s. Teenagers were finishing high school and going to college in record numbers, rather than ending their adolescence early by going into the workforce or off to war. Their favorite reading matter matured with them -- more so than their parents may have liked. "Juvenile delinquency" was a buzzword of the day, and concerned social critics noted a disturbing similarity in the juvenile delinquents they interviewed: They all read comics.

Of course, almost all of America's young people read comics, and only a fraction of them became juvenile delinquents. But an Establishment backlash against comics had been building through-out the late 1940s, and it hit its crisis point in 1954 when psychologist Frederic Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a 400-page tome accusing comics of morally undermining the nation's youth. Wertham had been crusading against comics for years, but when he was subpoenaed by the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in the United States, his testimony led in large part to the branding of comics with the pariah status that rock 'n' roll would achieve a few years later.

The principal concerns of Wertham and the Senate subcommittee were the horror and crime comics, with their explicit violence and gore. Superheroes also came under fire. They too used violence to gain their ends, and their using superpowers to solve problems instead of resorting to the rule of law was deemed fascistic. Their simplified worldview, it was argued, fostered xenophobia, and Wertham suggested further that the adolescent-boy sidekicks gave the genre homoerotic overtones.

In self-defense, the comic book industry created the Comics Code Authority (CCA), which imposed standards on comics in the same manner that the Hays Code had imposed them on films. Comics that bore the CCA's seal of approval were deemed free of content that could "demoralize youth." Publishers who chose not to follow the CCA rules were effectively frozen out of the market when distributors refused to carry their product.

The result was a fundamental shift in the art, the business, and the culture of the comic book. Some of the issues already in production could be fixed by inking out gore and penciling in higher necklines over the heaving bosoms, but the very nature of many narratives was disallowed. As a result, the titles in print dwindled to less than half their pre-CCA number and 18 publishers left the field completely. Teen comics like Archie, children's titles like Richie Rich and Casper, and funny-animal titles like Mickey Mouse dominated the market that remained. In effect, the new code had ensured wholesome comics for children by making it impossible to produce comics for anyone else.

The strictures of the early code era, combined with the rise of television, brought on a grim few years for the comic book industry. Superman, kept in circulation by the TV show starring George Reeves, was actually aided by the new medium; most titles, however, suffered from television's virtual monopoly on 1950s entertainment. It was time for the industry to go back to its roots and turn to super-heroes for help.

Comics for country

Comic books could portray costumed superheroes performing physically improbable feats much more effectively than the developing medium of television could. DC Comics, home of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, elected to resurrect some of its 1940s characters, with considerable success. Finding itself once again with a sizable stable of superheroes, DC amalgamated them in 1960 into a team for its new title, Justice League of America.

The members of the Justice League, mostly holdovers from the 1940s resurrected in the late 1950s, stood firmly for country and for community. They worked within the law, reporting directly to local government, and their alter egos held responsible jobs in science, journalism, and law enforcement. American youth in the period just before the Vietnam War responded to the Justice League's solid values, and the thrill of identifying with a hero of more-than-mortal power was just as strong as it had been on Superman's debut in 1938.

Even in the late 1950s, comic book readers were aware of the moral ambiguity of American participation in the Cold War, and social change was already brewing. By the 1960s the concept of youth culture would take on a new and political meaning. The ideals of individualism and self-expression would surpass those of country and community, and the Justice League would not be articulating these ideals to the nation's youth.

In 1961, Marvel Comics' Martin Goodman, intrigued by the success of DC's Justice League, asked artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee to put together a superhero league of Marvel's own. They responded with the Fantastic Four, a concept that combined the science of the Atomic Age with a Cold War-era complexity. The Fantastic Four were a scientific team physically altered by cosmic rays at the outskirts of space -- but they were also the first superheroes to deal in a human way with the implications of superpowers.

Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Thing, and the Human Torch dealt with jealousy and infighting among themselves, but also with mistrust and resentment from the public. The Thing, a rocklike monster, endured crippling depression because of his hideous looks. The Human Torch, a teenage boy, had all the difficult behavior associated with his age. Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, engaged to be married at the time of their transformation, battled relationship issues both before and after their 1965 wedding.

The Fantastic Four ushered in what came to be known as the Marvel Age. The Incredible Hulk was born in 1962, offering the always-compelling conflict between the tormented conscience and its personified id. The X-Men, a group of young mutants, provided a metaphor for racial bigotry as they struggled to come to terms with their nature in an atmosphere of institutionalized fear and mistrust.

But it was Spider-Man who would become Marvel's iconic superhero and make Stan Lee into a household name. The character Peter Parker, himself an adolescent, lived in a real city and had the problems of any other high schooler. The Spider's special powers combined with acne, peer pressure, and girl trouble gave teenage readers a character they could relate to more literally than any other in history: "the world's most amazing teenager," as promotional material put it, "who could be -- you!"

Spider-Man, like the Hulk, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, dealt intermittently with society's prejudice against those it perceived as different. But this pale metaphor of racism would not long be enough for a country in the throes of the civil rights movement, especially from a medium that didn't even introduce people of color into street scenes until the 1960s. America was ready for a black superhero, and in 1966, Marvel introduced him: the Black Panther, an African prince with mystical tribal powers.The Black Panther's skin color and ethnic heritage were a leap forward for the industry, though the aristocratic prince was hardly an identification point for class-bound black Americans. The Falcon, introduced as a sidekick for Captain America, lived in a world much more like that of the average black comic book reader and soon left Captain America's side for his own series. His alter ego, Harlem social worker Sam Wilson, dealt firsthand with poverty, segregation, and the struggle for civil rights. Luke Cage in 1972, Black Goliath in 1975, and Black Lightning in 1977 sold less well but remain evidence of the industry's efforts at racial equity.

At the same time, comics with white superheroes introduced story lines dealing more directly with race. The Hulk, always demonized by mainstream society, could be seen identifying with the oppressed black man. Peter Parker, now in college, witnessed civil rights protests. The Green Arrow and Green Lantern, whose series was a passion play of conflicting politics, saw racial tension played out on the stage of socioeconomics. While nonblack minorities were (and remain) underrepresented in the superhero population, characters like White Tiger, Thunderbird, and Shang-Chi were introduced in the 1970s to help integrate the genre.

Spider-Man against drugs

But while the combination of superhuman powers with very mortal problems was an industry staple by the late 1960s, Spider-Man remained the benchmark, and the Nixon administration eventually turned to Spider-Man when it needed a mouthpiece to America's youth. The Office of Health and Human Services asked Marvel Comics in 1970 to produce an issue of Spider-Man dealing with the rising epidemic of drug abuse. Marvel obliged -- but ran into trouble with the ubiquitous Comics Code, which at that time prohibited any statement whatsoever about drugs.

The Amazing Spider-Man finally made the code less than ubiquitous. It appeared in early 1971 without its CCA seal, the first book to do so since the code was instituted in 1954. There was no question of distributors refusing to carry the bestselling Spider-Man -- especially with its federal mandate. Green Arrow/Green Lantern became the second book to forgo CCA approval when it ran its own antidrug issue later that year. Its cover picture of the Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy shooting heroin combined shock tactics with moral authority and forced the CCA to re-examine its mission statement.

The Comics Code, while it remains in effect to this day, would never regain its former influence over comic book content. (Marvel abandoned the code altogether in May 2001.) The converging circumstances of a formidable adult-fan culture, the rise of direct-market sales in the form of comics shops, and increased pay and royalties for writers and artists changed the shape of the comic book industry in the 1970s and 1980s. The superhero community was left much as we now know it, with a few immortals mostly dating from WW II, several influential but less iconic characters, and a revolving door of innovative but limited-issue miniseries.

The new landscape of comic book culture came with new freedom for artists and writers. Stars like Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Chris Claremont had sufficient name recognition and sales clout to expand comics as an art form. Mature themes, high aesthetic values, and postmodern sensibilities characterized such landmark miniseries as Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, a grim tale of a middle-aged Batman in a post-apocalyptic Gotham, and Moore's Watchmen, a darkly ironic take on alternate-reality geopolitics.

But while comics mirrored the 1980s cultural exaltation of the Rambo-style antihero by highlighting morally ambiguous vigilantes like the Punisher and Watchmen's Rorschach, there was little direct correlation between current events and comic book narratives. As the Cold War drew to a close, the highest-profile superhero story lines were the ones most dissociated from the real world: DC's apocalyptic Crisis on Infinite Earths series in 1985, which killed off several classic characters, for instance, and Superman's temporary death in 1992.

Tomorrow's history

We now know that history did not end with the Cold War, and that comic books' relevance did not die with Superman. America's superheroes could not ignore the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks any more than they could have ignored Pearl Harbor. Some dealt directly with the attacks and their aftermath; some grappled less specifically with homeland security and terrorist threats; few remained unchanged. For all their recently acquired aesthetic maturity, comics remain popular art, influenced by the world as they influence it in return.

After 70 volatile years, comic books -- though they reflect current events, politics, economics, and culture -- are still the perennial stepchild. Perhaps the most purely popular of the popular arts, comic books consistently have been undervalued both as contributions to human civilization and as historical record. There are still only a few comprehensive archives of comic books in academic libraries, and a mere handful of scholarly studies deal with comic book history.

But the comic book is a key to civilization unique among media. The costume-clad superheroes rep-resent our national identity, not as it truly is or even as it should be, but as it wants to be. Their growth and change over time reflect the growth and change of our self-image, our vulnerability, and our aspiration: Superman, perfectly strong and perfectly moral; Batman, the pinnacle of human endeavor; Spider-Man, plagued by his very exceptionality. They are all America.

Copyright 2003 The History Channel Magazine