The history of comic books goes way back into the 1800s so, in order to keep my presentation from lasting as long as one of your lectures, I focused on a certain type of comic book: superheroes. During my presentation today, I’ll flip through the pages of the different ages of s.h comics, pause to look at the major ups and downs of the industry, and complete the comic book with a short financial and societal impact comic have left (well, still leaving.)
We’ll start off with the pre-superhero age, a time where things were much simpler and eating obscene amounts of spinach wasn’t just a health fad: the era of the “pulps.” Pulps were small, 10 cent books filled with characters that traveled the world and went on interesting adventures. The character
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Fredric Wertham, M.D.A distinguished psychologist who tried to get all comic books banned. He studied “delinquent” children and believed that the violent comic books were the cause of disobedient children. In 1948 he did an interview in Collier's Magazine titled "Horror in the Nursery.“ and attended a symposium in New York City called "The Psychopathology of Comic Books" And the public reactions were immediate. Within 2 years, all traces of a booming comic book business were gone. He wrote a book, called “The Seduction of the Innocent: the influence of comic books on today’s youth; in which he stated “I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry.” With the allied powers defeating Hitler once and for all, America had found a new enemy: Comic …show more content…
After Marvel’s failure, DC tried and succeeded. This was called the silver age: an age where many old comic book heroes were brought back and revamped. This went on for a while, and then, in 1958, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby joined the Marvel time. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created over 90% of the superheroes in the Marvel Comics Universe. The silver age also became known as the “Marvel Age”. Following the silver age, came the Bronze Age. In the Bronze Age, the CCA’s influence begins its decline as stories get a bit darker, dealing with real life situations. "Grim and gritty" comics were very popular, as they dealt with real life. The age after bronze is the age we’re in now, Modern. Grim and gritty "realism" continues. A short boom took place in the early 1990s but after, that there is a steady decline in sales. Once again, old heroes are revamped, this time to show more diversity, “Marvel Now!”, Marvel Ultimate, etc. The superhero genre now has more diversity than ever, with LGBT characters, people of color, and people of different faiths all
Somewhere around 1939 and 1941 Detective Comics and its sister organization, All-American Publications, presented well known superheroes, for example, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, the Flash,
Chabon asserts that comic books used to be extremely popular among people of all ages, but children were the main audience. Through the years, authors aimed to get a larger adult audience interested in comics. They started changing
The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with an insight into the Super Hero Series Batman. This crime fighter originally appeared in Detective Comics issue #27 in 1939. It later became a comic book series, a TV series and a movie series. The character Batman is second only to Superman as a Super Hero. Amazingly Batman has no super powers, but he does have a lot of neat crime fighting gadgets. In this paper, we will explore the creation of Batman, his supporting cast of characters both good and bad and the gadgets he used.
Let’s discuss a little bit of comic book history for starters. The most iconic superhero in all of American comic book history has got to be Superman. He was created near the beginning of superhero comic books and debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938[1]. He would remain as the blueprint for many superheroes for years to come as the atypical white American male. But as the years go by there were comic book heroes that came out that go against this archetype such as Wonder
One way he influenced the comic book world was by revolutionizing the way characters behaved in his stories. Many of the characters in the older comic books were given makeovers to make the audiences like them more because they were flat and lacked emotion. This was called the Silver Age of Comics. The older characters lacked a personality. Stan Lee was an office assistant at Timely Comics in 1939 and soon after that he became an interim editor in the 1940s (Stan). When Martin Goodman, the publisher of Marvel Comics, Timely Comic’s new name, since 1939, asked Stan Lee to create a team of superheroes better than the Justice League of America, their rival in comic books, Stan Lee had his doubts. Mr. Goodman thought that comic books should be dumbed down because they were for “stupid children.” Stan Lee did not agree with Martin Goodman’s idea. Stan Lee already wanted to quit, so his wife advised him to go ahead and write the story the way he wanted to write it. If Goodman fired him it would be okay since he already was contemplating quitting. Lee decided to write a story about four people who got superpowers after an accident in space. They were completely different from other superheroes because they did not wear costumes. The story was also based in New York City instead of Metropolises or Gotham City like Superman and Batman. These characters also had a real personality along with a real job, no secret identity, or alter egos. This story was known as the Fantastic Four. It was extremely different than many other comic books. (Garcia)
The insurrection of the Sub-Committee and subsequent Comic Codes gave many comic book producers the opportunity to reinvent their previously successful wartime superhero comics. Even with the Comic Codes they had the opportunity to reinvent the classic hero vs villain fight, as long as there was no blood. This is clearly evident with these comics, which shows that even though Codes were not in full effect, the superhero genre could still followed the Codes rhetoric before their implication. Rodger Sabin comments ‘it was a genre which stayed within the codes’. They did this to somewhat appease the Sub-Committee and the American public; since they feared what they could and could not put in the storylines. The Human Torch in his insert in Captain America #78 show him dominating communism, not only with his whit, but his strength, with him wiping out an army of communist, whilst also comically bending the Tanks cannon the reverse way. Comic writers used these superhero comics to show the American public, the industry was socially responsible, and concerned about American values. Not only this, they
Perceptions of the superhero and supervillain are mainly based on subjective definitions of each concept. These observations often lead to a definitive dichotomy that precisely splits characters into two impermeable divisions. However, this stringent separation is unable to account for the characters that are not at the extreme ends of their respective side. Neither is this rift capable of classifying characters that flirt with both sides of the superhero-supervillain dichotomy. Therefore it is imperative to analyze the established criteria for both superhero and supervillain to derive a more adequate explanation. Most superheroes are not easily characterized, but rather fall somewhere between Superman, the bastion of moral purity, and Doctor Doom, the display of indubitable corruption. This solicits genesis of an entirely new notion about the differences between superheroes and supervillains. A more precise idea is that superheroes and supervillains are lined on a spectrum that spans from pure good to pure evil. Disparities between superheroes and supervillains are not black and white, but rather these characters are on a spectrum that radically changes based on individual cases.
Alan Moore successfully breaks down the effectiveness of superheroes portrayed in your average comic book with his use of Dr.Manhattan:Super-powers and the superpowers inside his graphic novel Watchmen. Dr.Manhattan is made out to be less than divine. The American’s “placing our superhuman benefactor in the position of a walking nuclear deterrent”(Dr.Manhattan:Super-powers and the superpowers.II), depicting him as the Vitruvian Man and having a God present among mere mortals all lead to Moore being able to break down the common conceptions about superheroes.
During those ages when we are just a little kid, we dreamt to be a superhero that could protect the world from being attacked or destroyed by enemies. We always worship to the superheroes that we liked when we watch the superheroes movies. Not only that, we also even act as them by using a scarf, tie on our necks and crazy around with our friends. Recently, I adored with two kinds of superhero movies after I watched them. Those movies are The Kick-Ass 2 and The X-Men 2 which mainly attract teenager’s attention nowadays when they plan to watch a movie. However, there are many differences between these two superheroes movie that we could see from their abilities, costume, and even their operation when they fight criminal.
In 1941, Stan Lee, the creator of the Marvel universe, released his firs comic book about the patriotic hero Captain America. This comic was released during World War 2 to give the Americans a sense of hope and to let people know that we’re not alone. Marvel does a good job with its comics because they want to show you that even when times get tough, as long as you have hope things will get better. A good example of this would be Spiderman. When his Uncle Ben died, his last words to Peter were, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Spiderman goes on to
II. Claim: Today’s superheroes emphasize competition, domination, and possession of wealth (WebMD Health News, 2010) and appealing physical appearances (Student Pulse, 2010).
Every child in the United States has heard or read the Marvel and DC comics books. If you have not then you have probably have heard of their characters like the famous star spangled hero, Captain America, or the Dark Knight himself, Batman. Both Marvel and DC has influenced the children and adults of American in its darkest times. The great wars affected many by its poisonous grasps, and its victims sought comfort with the antidote provided by the marvelous illustrators and writers of comic books. Now their cinematic counterparts are here to inspire the 21st century. The Marvel and DC cinematic universes have similar content, they both have unique characteristics that set them apart.
Comic books have been used in a number of ways. Besides as an entertainment source they also have been a way to introduce children to reading. This is proved true by the annual event held nationwide called “free comic book day”, which held on the first Saturday of May. With their well-drawn pictures and colorful characters, comic books have been successful in that area. Howev...
When one thinks about it, though it may be hard to believe, superheroes stem from God. This began as early back as Greek gods, then leading to Jesus. Jesus was a seemingly normal man who helped everyone, and led people. He was the ultimate superhero of his time. Once he was gone and became no more than a story passed down from father to son, people began to crave what was new, what was ‘in the now.’ That is when tales of knight...
“The precise era of the Golden Age is disputed, though most agree that it was born with the launch of Superman in 1938.” (PBS) The tremendous success that Superman had created many spinoff superheroes such as Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash, who had superpowers and secret identities. One of these spinoffs was Captain America. Part of Timely Comics and created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Captain America ended up being arguably the most popular superhero during the Golden Age.