INTRODUCTION
The next time you are reading a comic and an adult comes over to lecture you about how your time would be better spent reading a novel or a textbook, remember this: comics, especially those of the superhero variety, are more than just a way to satisfy idle time. Their roots and storylines are a reflection of where we've been as a society and where we're heading. After all, today's science fiction is tomorrow's science. That was true in the 1930's when comics envisioned space travel, alternate forms of communication, and the harnessing of nuclear power, and it remains true today.
The exploits and powers of almost every comic book superhero or superheroine have a basis in reality. That grounding serves as a thread to the natural world around us and opens the door to our learning about science, history, culture and language. In fact, comics can routinely lead us to questions such as these: How does Superman's strength allow him to squeeze a chunk of coal into a diamond? What's the connection between Wonder Woman's golden Lasso of Truth and a lie detector (polygraph). How did her stirring 1941 debut helped propel the feminist movement forward? Why does the Black Panther speak so many different languages, and why is he such a proponent of education? What links the X-Men to the real-life practice of apartheid? Why does the Hulk owe so much to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? What do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have in common with a quartet of Italian artists from the Renaissance? And what's the integral connection between the superhero Thor and one of our days of the week?
In 1954, enough people in power believed that comics were poisoning the minds of American youth that the US Congress met to discuss taking possible action against the comic book industry. It was a dangerous time when the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which among other things guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, was being challenged by people who had their own vision of what American youth should and shouldn't read. Those hearings could have destroyed the comic book industry. But they didn't, and generations of new heroes and titles would find their way into the mainstream over the succeeding decades to inspire and educate their loyal readership.
Together, we'll examine the evolution of comics, from companion pieces in newspapers to the stars of their own publications called "comic books." We'll track the exploits of their lead protagonists and the emergence of "superheroes," characters with abilities and powers far beyond those of mere mortals. We'll consider how these Supers and their villainous foes reflect upon our hopes, fears and dreams in an ever-changing world of social and political upheavals, advances in science, world wars, cold wars and how we strive to live better day-to-day. In doing so, we'll closely examine the histories of our society's most cherished comic book superheroes, as well as an array of other protagonists and antagonists.
History, science, literature and language, including etymology (the study of the origin of words), will be our watchwords throughout this shared journey. And in learning about our heroes, our world and ourselves, we'll never lose sight of the incredible overall knowledge that a simple comic book can bring to our lives.
--Paul Volponi
CHAPTER ONE: SUPERMAN (1938)
Setting the Stage
Before there were comic books as we know them today, readers experienced the adventures and misadventures of their comic heroes in daily comic strips published in the newspapers of our nation. Among the most popular strips were Little Orphan Annie (1924), Popeye (1929), Buck Rogers (1929), Dick Tracy (1931) and Flash Gordon (1934). These daily strips, which were just several panels in length, were hugely influential on modern comic books. They introduced us to devices such as sequential panels, speech balloons through which characters communicated via dialogue, and thought balloons that allowed the reader and a character to share an internal feeling or idea.
The strips were almost always in black and white, except for the Sunday edition of a newspaper where they were usually inked in color. Often referred to as "the funnies," many of these strips had that as their goal, being funny. So when the first murder occurred inside a comic panel – one belonging to the strip of detective Dick Tracy, a character based on famed investigator Elliot Ness who took on organized crime – there was a substantial public outcry.
Though comic books first appeared in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, the stars of American comic strips didn't regularly appear in their own comic books until the 1930's. That happened during the latter-half of the Great Depression (1929-1939), a major worldwide economic downturn in which US stock prices fell dramatically and many people lost their jobs. The cost of a comic book back then? Ten cents.
In 1938, the world intently focused on Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, who was about to use military might to annex parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as persecute Jews living in Germany. His actions would lead to the start of World War II the following year. Hitler believed that Germans were the "Master Race," all-powerful, inherently better than everyone else and deserving of anything they wanted to take.
Hitler's absurd theory was dealt a crushing blow that year when US boxer Joe Louis, a Black man, scored a devastating first-round knockout of Germany's Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium to retain his Heavyweight Championship. Similarly, two years earlier the US's Jesse Owens had won four Gold Medals in track and field at the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, Germany, with Hitler in attendance.
Superman
Birth of the First Super
Popeye consumed a can of vitamin-filled spinach and gained incredible strength for a short period of time. But he didn't become superhuman. Both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon had interplanetary adventures; however, they needed rocket ships and jetpacks to soar through the skies, and couldn't actually fly themselves. Those limitations would change with the creation and evolution of the character Superman, widely hailed as the first true "Super," by writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joel Schuster.
The initial incarnation of Superman wasn't as a hero, but rather a villain. He wasn't named Clark Kent either. He was a homeless man named Bill Dunn, who falls prey to an evil scientist. An experimental drug gives Dunn an array of temporary powers, including mind control, which he uses for fun and profit to the detriment of others. Siegel and Schuster's second attempt at the character transformed him into a crime-fighter with superhuman strength and bullet-proof skin. Though again, he is a human who has had these powers forced upon him by an unscrupulous scientist. Their first vision of Superman wound up being self-published by Schuster in a magazine entitled Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Civilization (1933). The next version never made it to the printed page for distribution.
After a brief departure from working with one another, Siegel and Schuster, who frustratingly had not been able to land either a coveted newspaper strip or comic book for their character, reunited their talents. The duo then reformulated Superman into the character that would appear in DC Comics, becoming known and admired throughout the world. Assuming the guise of mild-mannered Clark Kent, a reporter for a metropolitan newspaper, this now otherworldly Superman, in love with fellow reporter Lois Lane, would serve as a shining beacon for truth justice and the American way.
The Iconic Origin
An infant named Kal-L is put into a small spaceship aimed toward earth by his scientist father Jor-L (Lora is the baby's mother) because their home planet of Krypton is on the brink of destruction. The ship safely makes the long journey and lands in the Iowa countryside, near the fictional town of Smallville. The infant is rescued and adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name the baby Clark. From a young age, Clark shows exceptional strength. His adoptive parents advise him to use his powers only for the benefit of humanity. As an adult, Clark moves to the city of Metropolis and gets a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet. In his secret identity as Superman, he fights crime wearing an indestructible outfit Martha Kent made from the Kryptonian blanket in which he was wrapped upon his arrival to this planet. There! If by some miracle of chance you've been disconnected from society and the media at-large since the time you were born, you're now up to speed on what the rest of the world already knew.
Powers and Strengths
In the very first comic in which Superman appears, Action Comics #1 issued in June 1938, he lifts a car full of villains above his head and tosses it like a toy. Over the character's more than eight decades, Superman has wowed us with tremendous feats of strength, including reversing the orbit of the earth. In 2016, this fictional action caught the attention of physics students at the University of Leicester in England. They calculated that in order for the superhero to spin the earth backwards, he would need to travel at "an angular velocity 46.296 radians per second," or approximately 660,000,000 miles per hour, which is nearly the speed of light. To accomplish this task Superman would have needed to "increase his mass 13.7 million times."1 The students also concluded that such an act would have produced cataclysmic changes in atmospheric pressure and wind speeds, probably completely destroying life on our planet. Now, aren't you glad Supers are fictional?
On more than one occasion, Superman has applied enough pressure with his bare hands to turn a piece of coal into a diamond. Free diamond engagement ring for Lois Lane? (The pair actually gets engaged on the pages of a DC Comics in 1990 and finally weds in 1995). But how does the process of turning coal into a diamond work in reality? Well, the coal or carbon would need to be squeezed under intense pressure, approximately 725,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Diamonds in the natural world are formed deep within the earth's crust, exposed to conditions of intense heat and pressure which cause the carbon atoms to crystallize. That's why a diamond, which comes from the Greek word adamas, meaning unbreakable, is the hardest substance on earth. The transformation normally takes between 1 billion and nearly 3.5 billion years to occur, around 25% to 75% of our planet's age.2 Today, scientists can create man-made diamonds in a lab over the course of several weeks by reproducing the natural conditions of heat and pressure exerted on carbon or "diamond seeds."
Human Flight?
Superman was strong, fast, and could leap tall buildings in a single bound. However, he couldn't fly. At least, not in the beginning. Superman didn't receive the power of flight until 1943, a full five years after the world was introduced to him. Since that time, many people have donned a cape and imagined that they too could soar like Superman. Is it scientifically possible? What would it take for humans to fly in a natural way, like birds? Mathematically, the scenario would appear to be impossible. Why? Because of the strength-to-weight ratio of a human, we would need a pair of immense wings measuring more than 20 feet across (known as a wingspan) to gain the type of lift needed to become airborne.3 That's not even taking into consideration the added weight of those newly-sprouted wings in our equation. In contrast to humans, birds, whose bodies have many natural aerodynamic features, possess both hollow bones and superior strength-to-weight ratio, enabling flight.
Sight and Hearing
X-ray vision has been a longtime staple of Superman's powers. Whether he's peering through a brick wall to check on the safety of hostages or inside a closed metal casing to view the timing device of an explosive, little can block the superhero's penetrating vision. However, Superman's x-ray vision is poorly named to say the least. Unlike an x-ray, Superman's vision reveals images as three-dimensional and in full color. The flat, black and white images on an x-ray are actually obtained when the rays pass through the object at which they are aimed and onto a film.
Superman is not the first fictional character to display such a power. In Greek mythology, Lynceus, one of the fabled heroes known as an Argonaut, could also see through objects that were both natural and manmade. In medicine, the use of x-rays, ultrasound and other imaging methods is referred to as "radiology."
Incredible hearing is one of Superman's most valuable assets. From great distances, he can hear a call for help that is barely above a whisper, a much-needed ability when you're in the business of saving people who are trapped in desperate and dangerous situations. Broadcasts of all types, made over any wavelength or frequency, are also discernable to Superman.
Obviously, no human can match those auditory (hearing) abilities. But which other inhabitants of our planet have an astounding ability to hear? As far as mammals go, bats (not Batman) are the auditory champions. Bats, who have extremely poor vision, send out soundwaves at very high frequencies. After these soundwaves hit an object and then bounce back to the bat that produced them, cells in their ears create a detailed interpretation of what's in the distance ahead, helping them to navigate and find their insect prey. That process is called echolocation.
Not to be outdone, the wax moth, a favorite snack of bats, can hear their predators coming. Wax moths can discern sounds at frequencies as high as 300 kHz (kilohertz). In comparison, humans can only hear sounds at 20 kHz, while dogs, depending on breed, can hear sounds at approximately 45-67 kHz4. I know what you're thinking: Create a new superhero named The Moth. Sorry, it has already been done. The Moth, created by Jim Mooney and making its comic debut in 1940, was a high-wire circus performer who caught criminals for bounties as a sideline. He had the power of flight, but not super hearing. Mooney missed out on that aspect.
Lung Capacity
Often referred to as "Super-Breath," Superman can generate hurricane-force winds to blow evildoers off-course or even extinguish raging forest fires. Hurricanes are categorized by the strength and speed of their winds, with Category 5 hurricanes being the most powerful. These winds can reach sustained speeds in excess of 157 miles per hour. During Category 5 hurricanes, people, pets and livestock exposed to the elements are in danger of their lives. Trees and power poles will either be snapped or uprooted, signs and fences will be destroyed, as well as a majority of framed homes.5
When needed, Superman can add a freezing element to produce an "Artic breath" that can actually encase objects in ice. Superman can also hold his breath for extremely long periods of time, allowing him to travel through space where there is no oxygen and swim great distances beneath the oceans. In real life, experienced free-divers can hold their breath underwater anywhere from eight to ten minutes. In 2010, Danish free-diver Stig Avall Severinsen set a world's record by holding his breath in a tank full of sharks for 20 minutes and 10 seconds.6
Speed
It is widely acknowledged that Superman is faster than a speeding bullet. How fast does a bullet actually travel? It all depends upon the bullet's caliber, which is the projectile's diameter. Smaller caliber bullets typically travel faster because they are lighter. A .222 Remington projectile can travel at 2,159 miles per hour. On average, though, a bullet travels at approximately 1,700 miles per hour.7
Elements of Story
Story elements surrounding the plotlines of Superman have made a strong impact on succeeding generations of superheroes. For example, Clark Kent keeps his Superman identity a secret so that criminals can't harm his family and friends, even though Lois Lane falls victim to this numerous times. Consider the immense number of Supers you can name who keep their true identity a secret, just like Superman.
Clark's simple disguise of a pair of thick-framed glasses, combined with his soft, self-deprecating manner, amazingly stops people from realizing that he is actually Superman. For this to work on the pages of a comic the reader must buy into the scenario. It's called the "willing suspension of disbelief." That's when the audience understands that something is either completely fictitious or supernatural, yet they still go along with the premise, mostly because the elements of a well-told story encourage them to do so. This phrase was originally introduced by poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the early nineteenth century. Coleridge is best known for his poetic masterpieces The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. If you've ever sat in a movie theater with your heart racing or wept over the lyrics of a sad song, then you have certainly experienced the concept of suspending your disbelief.
Kryptonite/Achilles' Heel
Realize this: One of the most famous elements in the world (no, not, gold or silver) happens to be fictional. I'm talking about kryptonite, a green crystal-like element that found its way to earth via a meteor (a piece of the ill-fated planet Krypton) strike. Kryptonite supposedly emits a form of radiation that drastically weakens Superman and can even kill him, though it's relatively harmless to humans who don't have long-term exposure to it. The element was not part of the superhero's original storyline. In fact, it didn't first appear in a comic. Rather it was introduced in the Superman radio serial in 1943, and didn't appear in a comic book until six years later. The idea proved to be very popular with fans of the Man of Steel, who rooted harder for their hero now that he could be injured. Not by a gun, a knife, a bomb or by a super weapon, but by a piece of crystal. Over time, the word "kryptonite" grew larger than its fictional borders and found a place in our real-life lexicon meaning someone's exploitable weakness.
Superman's kryptonite weakness undoubtedly finds its origin in Greek mythology's story of Achilles. Achilles was a great warrior, but as an infant it was foretold that he would die at a very young age. To prevent this impending tragedy, his mother, Thetis, took him to the River Styx. Its waters were supposed to make you impervious to injury. Thetis dipped her infant son into the water holding him by the heel, which never got submerged. At the height of his prowess as a warrior, Achilles was said to have died during the Trojan War when a poisoned arrow pierced his unprotected heel. In modern anatomy, the tendon at the back of the lower leg is referred to as the "Achilles tendon" because it matches the spot of Achilles' deadly wound. Today, a common expression is "That's their Achilles' heel," meaning someone's singular point of weakness.
Necessity/Mother of Invention
Radio writers created Kryptonite to give the voice of Superman a vacation. The Adventures of Superman (1940-1951) was a radio series independent from the comics. The voice of Superman, actor Bud Collyer, was obviously a vital part of the show, which often aired several times a week. When Collyer needed a vacation the writers came up with Kryptonite to explain why a weakened Superman couldn't speak for a number of episodes. The original radio Kryptonite was colored red. Kryptonite didn't appear in the comics until 1949 in Superman #61, and the element didn't take on its familiar green hue until 1951 in Action Comics #161.8
Breaking Commercial Boundaries
Superman became insanely popular far beyond the borders of a comic book, creating enormous amounts of revenue for DC Comics, Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster. There were radio and television shows, a Broadway play, a series of films (both shorts and feature-length) and all kinds of merchandising. The superhero appeared on lunchboxes, toys and games, while appealing to adults as well as kids. Superman's financial success would be the driving force for the ranks of Supers soon to come.
Arch-Villain Watch: Lex Luthor, a Guilty Pleasure
What's a superhero without an arch-villain with which to vie? Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor is one of the most enigmatic (mysterious) and well-conceived villains in the far-reaching comic book universe. He was created by Siegel and Shuster to be a compelling rival for Superman. That alone would lead you to believe Lex Luthor might possess superhuman powers of his own. But no. The writers understood exactly what they were doing when they made Luthor no more physically powerful than the average human being. Despite Luthor's penchant for evil, his lack of powers made him relatable to the audience. In part, that relatability has helped propel Lex Luthor through more than eight decades of being a fan-favorite.
Luthor's character has undergone a slew of incarnations, reflecting society's changing times. Luthor debuted in 1940 as a dictator-like architect of a small city that floated in the clouds, suspended by a dirigible (airship). So he is obviously an incredible scientist and a genius at technology. (Two centuries earlier, in the novel Gulliver's Travels, author Johnathan Swift portrayed a floating island city called Laputa, where the inhabitants moved about by magnetic levitation.) But Luthor is also power-mad, wanting to take over the world. An extreme narcissist who needs to feel superior to others, Luthor despises how society celebrates Superman, rather than him.
Over the decades, the villainous Luther has morphed from a scientist, to the ruthless CEO of LexCorp, to a space traveler, and even to a politician who somehow becomes President of the United States. To create even more internal intrigue, there have been situations when Lex Luthor fought alongside Superman and others Supers against evil, making him a classic anti-hero. It's simply been no accident that the character of Lex Luthor has been a guilty pleasure of comic book lovers for so long.
PROFILE: DC COMICS
DC Comics came into being in 1934 under the name National Allied Publications. The company's founder, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, was as a magazine writer before becoming an entrepreneur and going into business for himself. The "DC" stands for "Detective Comics." What set the fledgling comic book company apart from the competition? It published original material and not reprints of contemporary comic strips from newspapers. Over the course of just several years, DC Comics would become incredibly successful by introducing iconic superheroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. How successful was the company at doing business? It purchased Superman from the character's creators, Siegel and Schuster, for the sum of $130. That singular decision has generated billions of dollars for DC and its partners. Today, almost a century after its birth, DC Comics is still among the most recognizable names in popular culture.
DC Comics is responsible for bringing together the first superhero team called the Justice Society of America (1940), featuring an array of lesser-known heroes. Two decades later, however, DC refined the team concept by bringing together its major stars as a unit. The seven-member squad, renamed the Justice League of America, was comprised of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. The idea resonated so strongly with readers that DC's major competitor, Marvel Comics, had to formulate a super team of its own, Avengers (1963), to keep up.
But the journey hasn't been comprised of entirely smooth sailing. In 1984, a then financially struggling DC offered to sell its characters to Marvel. The deal allegedly didn't go through because Marvel, which represented approximately 70% of comic book sales at the time, was already being threatened by an anti-trust lawsuit.9 Owning an even bigger share of the market after absorbing DC's characters would not have looked good for them. DC's economic fortunes bounced back in a big way, though, when superhero-based films eventually began raking in big bucks at the box office.
Anti-Trust
What's an anti-trust lawsuit? It's normally filed by the government when one company owns too big of a share of a particular market such as phone services, producing gasoline or even comic books. It theoretically protects the consumer from price-fixing (artificially inflating the price of goods) and prevents other companies in that field from being squeezed out of the marketplace.
Return on Investment
The profitability of a business investment is measured by calculating its return on investment, often called an ROI. In simplest terms, ROI is measured by dividing the benefits or profits by the investment's cost. An ROI of 7% is generally considered a good business deal. Now consider that DC paid $130 for Superman and made approximately $2-billion from that investment. Like math? Divide $2,000,000,000 by $130. I know $130 was worth more back in 1938. But still. After you do the math, feel free to come up with your own superlatives to describe that deal, which far exceeds a 7% return.
1 Adam Holmes, How Fast Would Superman Actually Have To Fly To Reverse the Earth's Spin? cinemablend.com, December 7, 2015 (accessed on January 5, 2022).
2 How Does Coal Turn Into Diamonds? lisbdnet.com, December 16, 2021 (accessed on January 5, 2022).
3 Sindya Bhanoo, Greater Wax Moth Has World's Most Extreme Hearing, nytimes.com, May 14, 2013 (accessed on January 6, 2022).
4 Robert Traynor, The Incredible hearing of Wax Moths, hearinghealthmatters.org, January 19, 2017 (accessed on January 7, 2022).
5 Hurricane Classifications: What Are The 5 Hurricane Categories? News.yahoo.com, May 19, 2022 (accessed on May 23, 2022).
6 How To Hold Your Breath For Over Three Minutes, builtlean.com, November 17, 2020 (accessed on January 7, 2022).
7 John Wise, How fast Does a Buller Travel? fightthenoise.org, January 29, 2022 (accessed on January 7, 2022). #161
8 Robert Keough, Kryptonite was Created to Give Superman a Vacation, screenrant.com, May 20, 2020 (accessed on January 8, 2022).
9 Jan Dizon, 20 Things You Didn't Know About DC Comics, screenrant.com, August 7, 2016 (accessed on January 8, 2022).
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