NOTES
1. W. R. Robinson, “The Movies, Too, Will Make You Free,” Man and the Movies, ed. W. R. Robinson (Baton Rouge, LA, 1967), 117–18.
2. Quoted in Jim Harmon, The Great Radio Heroes (Garden City, NY, 1967), 203.
3. Quoted in Jules Feiffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes (New York, 1965), 26.
4. Quoted in David Manning White and Robert Abel, “Comic Strips and American Culture,” The Funnies: An American Idiom, eds. David Manning White and Robert Abel (New York, 1963), 33.
5. Feiffer, 19.
6. Norman N. Holland, The Dynamics of Literary Response (New York, 1968), 74–75.
7. Holland, xiii–xiv; Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 103, 116–17.
8. “Our Serious Comics,” The Funnies, 109.
9. In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, gen. ed. M.H. Abrams, rev. ed. (New York, 1968), 1, 3.
10. Heinz Politzer, “From Little Nemo to Li’l Abner,” The Funnies, 51.
Masked Heroes
RICHARD REYNOLDS
Reprinted by permission from Superheroes: A Modern Mythology (University Press of Mississippi, 1994), 7–25.
BATMAN, SUPERMAN, SPIDER-MAN, AND WONDER WOMAN ARE AMONG THE most widely known fictional characters ever conceived. Created as comic-book heroes, they remain more widely known through television, the movies and (in the case of Batman and Superman) through a vigorous presence in American and European popular culture that ensures their recognition by millions who have never read a Batman comic or seen a Superman film. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman1 have remained continuously in print and involved in an unbroken sequence of new adventures for over fifty years [now seventy—eds.]. Yet the medium from which they spring—the 6” x 9” four-color comic book—continues to be (at least in North American and British culture) a marginalized channel of communication held by many to be an irredeemably corrupt and corrupting form of discourse, or else suitable only for children and the semi-literate.
In consequence, the adult superhero readership (a sub-section of the adult comic readership as a whole) has come to identify itself as a small and very cohesive subculture. Specialist comic-book retailers, “marts,” and full-scale conventions are the outward signs of this cohesion, as is the highly organized marketplace for buying, selling, and collecting old comics. If connoisseurship and value to the collector alone gave access to the privileged world of high culture, superhero comics would have been there long ago.
For the cultural student, superhero comics present a number of immediate paradoxes: a popular art form traditionally known for its apparently hegemonic and sometimes overtly authoritarian texts; a publishing genre which began to gain a degree of cultural respectability by ducking “underground” at least partially for its distribution; an art-form which has been handled (if at all) with disdain by the literary establishment, and yet has built up its own lively and heuristic critical discourse through what is still rather misleadingly known as the “fan press”;2 and, finally, a body of contemporary mythology from which television and Hollywood have plundered material as diverse as the campy 1960s Batman TV show, the apparent artlessness of the Christopher Reeve Superman cycle, and the overwrought gothic bravura of the 1989 Batman movie.
The superhero genre is tightly defined and defended by its committed readership—often to the exasperation of writers and artists, many of whom have proclaimed it to be a worn-out formula from as long ago as the 1970s. But the dinosaur refuses to keel over and die, and dominates the economics of the American comics industry. The chief superhero characters remain its most widely understood and recognized creations—to the annoyance of writers and artists who would like to bring the wider possibilities of the comic book (or graphic novel)3 to the attention of the general public.
An attempt to define the limits of the genre can best be made as part of a broader exploration of the heroes themselves—differing as they do from each other sometimes as much as Gandhi and the Lone Ranger. The costumed superhero burst into seemingly fully fledged existence in June 1938, with the appearance on American newsstands of Action Comics #1, featuring Superman’s first ever appearance in print. The new arrival proved enormously popular, and quickly led to a host of imitations and new ideas along similar lines—from Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Sub-Mariner—all with us to this day—to such obscure creations as The Arrow, Shock Gibson, and the Masked Marvel.4
America’s entry into World War Two gave the superheroes a whole new set of enemies, and supplied a complete working rationale and worldview for a super-patriotic superhero such as Captain America.5 This so-called Golden Age6 of comics and superhero comics in particular lasted up to the late 1940s, when the bulk of the costumed superhero titles folded as a result of falling readerships. Only Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman came through the lean years of the early 1950s without a break in publication. The spotlight had shifted elsewhere—to crime comics, western comics, horror comics.
As is well known, it was the excesses of the horror comics that led indirectly to the renaissance of the superhero genre. The bloody guts and gore of Entertaining Comics’7 Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror,8 and other titles both from EC and rival publishers led to the censorious publication Seduction of the Innocent9 by Dr. Fredric Wertham and the 1954 Congressional hearings on juvenile delinquency and comics.10 [While Reynolds understandably stresses the notoriety of EC and other horror comics, it should be noted that objections to comic books predated the horror boom of the early fifties, and indeed predated Wertham.—eds.] The comic publishers responded to the adverse publicity of the report and the hearings with the self-censoring Comics Code. The Code involved a voluntary ban by the publishers themselves on violence, explicit sex, gratuitous gore, and the triumph of evil or antisocial behavior. In a move against the “true crime” comics that had peaked in popularity in the late 1940s, the Code stipulated that law enforcement officers should never be shown in a disrespectful or unsympathetic light.
Clearly, the climate had changed. Detective Comics (DC) decided to expand their small list of superhero comics that had, in the early 1950s, shrunk to no more than Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. A re-born and re-costumed Flash (1956)11 paved the way for the return of the Green Lantern (1959),12 a new heroine, Supergirl (1959),13 and then a whole superhero team in the shape of the Justice League of America (1960).14 Under the editorship of Stan Lee, Marvel Comics re-entered the superhero market with new titles such as The Fantastic Four (1961),15 Spider-Man (1963),16 and the X-Men (1964).17 Norse Gods were added to the genre with The Mighty Thor,18 and horror wedded to the superhero format in The Incredible Hulk.19 Golden Age characters such as Captain America and the Sub-Mariner were brought back out of retirement.20
This is the period usually referred to as the Silver Age, dating from the revival of The Flash in 1956. Marvel dominated the scene in the 1960s and early 1970s, its writers and artists creating a wealth of exciting new titles that mixed protagonists more in tune with the mores of the period, and kept an eye for the visual and verbal ironies inherent in situating superpowered characters against a background that purported to represent the “real” world. It was the Marvel line of this period which first began the expansion of comics into a teenage and college readership. DC, however, remained the leading publisher of superhero comics in terms of sales, benefiting from the enormous appeal of the 1960s Batman TV series. Batman and Superman titles made up nine of the ten best-selling comics in the U.S.A. by 1969. DC also developed innovative titles of its own, such as the Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up of the early 1970s, which featured artwork by exciting new talent Neal Adams.21 [Adams was not quite new to comic books, having begun working for DC in 1967—and he made his debut as a comic strip artist with Ben Casey in 1962.—eds.]
But by the 1980s, the Marvel phenomenon had gone stale. DC reasserted itself as the leading comic book publisher, by means of a shrewd and imaginative revamping of its classic titles, and the promoting of exciting and innovative work both in the super
hero genre (such as Watchmen) and in the linked genres of fantasy and horror, with titles such as Hellblazer. By the mid-1980s the Comics Code, once a force powerful enough to bring even EC’s William Gaines to heel, had become a spent force, with both Marvel and DC insouciantly advertising many of their comics as “Suggested for Mature Readers.” Such confidence in the labeling bespoke the strength of their adult readership. There is currently a feeling amongst some comic publishers that the “adult” trend may have gone too far, and that comics may be running the risk of provoking another Wertham-like backlash against explicit violence and sexuality.22
Superman, the first superhero, was conceived by the teenage Jerry Siegel as early as 1934, lying sleepless one night in bed:
I am lying in bed counting the sheep when all of the sudden it hits me. I conceive a character like Samson, Hercules, and all the strong men I have ever heard tell of rolled into one. Only more so. I hop right out of bed and write this down, and then I go back and think some more for about two hours and get up again and write that down. This goes on all night at two-hour intervals, until in the morning I have a complete script.23
But the concept of a character with superhuman strength and invulnerability was simply too unfamiliar for the comic book publishers of the early 1930s. Siegel and artist Joe Shuster established themselves in the comics business with the private-eye strip “Slam Bradley” (1934). Superman finally made his debut in Action Comics #1 (1938),24 using material hastily adapted by Siegel and Shuster from a story which had originally been intended to form part of a newspaper strip.
Superman’s arrival created a wholly new genre out of a very diverse set of materials. Today, many aspects of the first Superman story and its narrative approach have the appearance of cliché: it is necessary to keep in mind that the origin of what later became clichés lies right here.
Page one introduces the reader to the dying planet Krypton (unnamed) and explains that “a scientist” has placed his infant son in a spaceship, launching it towards earth. The “sleeping babe” is discovered and grows up in an orphanage (Clark Kent’s parents in Smallville are a later addition to the mythology). On reaching maturity, the young man discovers that he can “leap ⅛th of a mile, hurdle a twenty story building … raise tremendous weights … run faster than an express train. …”25
Moreover “nothing less than a bursting shell” can penetrate his skin. Considerable powers, though modest when compared with the godlike abilities Superman would acquire later in his career. Clark decides to dedicate his strength to the benefit of mankind and elects to assume the identity of Superman—all this in the first page of the story, which concludes with a “scientific” explanation of Clark’s superhuman abilities, comparing his strength with the proportionate strength of ants and grasshoppers. Pure hokum, but anticipating by twenty-five years Stan Lee’s Spider-Man and that character’s “proportionate strength of a spider.”
Pages two to four relate how Superman prevents an innocent woman going to the electric chair. On page five Clark gets an assignment from the (unnamed) editor of the paper that employs him, the Daily Star (later to be renamed the Daily Planet):
“Did you ever hear of Superman?”
“What?”
“Reports have been streaming in that a fellow with gigantic strength named Superman actually exists. I’m making it your steady assignment to cover these reports. Think you can handle it, Kent?”
“Listen Chief, if I can’t find out anything about that Superman, no one can!”26
Pages five and six see Superman intervene in a wife beating (“You’re not fighting a woman now!”). Next, Clark encounters his smart and stylish colleague Lois Lane (“What do you say to a … er … date tonight, Lois?” “I suppose I’ll give you a break … for a change”). At the roadhouse, however, Clark is hustled away from his date by brawling Butch Matson, who has nothing but contempt for Clark’s pacifist attitudes (“Fight … you weak livered polecat!” “Really, I have no desire to do so!”).
Lois leaves the club in disgust, but finds herself bundled into Matson’s car. But even as they hustle their captive away, Matson and his cronies find the road blocked by the imposing figure of Superman, who tips both Lois and the roughnecks out of the car and then trashes the automobile, in a panel which also provides the subject matter for the comic’s famous car-throwing cover. Superman carries Lois to safety, and on page ten we find her telling the Daily Star’s editor of her meeting with the Man of Steel. Clark in the meantime has been given an assignment to visit the South American republic of San Monte to stir up news for the Star’s front page. Instead, he travels to Washington DC to investigate a case of corruption in the U.S. Senate (“The bill will be passed before its full implications are realized. Before any remedial steps can be taken, our country will be embroiled with Europe”). A cliffhanger has Superman and the captured foreign agent failing to complete a leap between two adjacent skyscrapers.
Much that would become central to the superhero genre is established in these thirteen pages. As a first step towards a definition of the superhero, some of the features of the story could be listed as follows:
1. Lost parents
A key preoccupation. Superman is separated from his natural parents, and so his extraordinary powers are not represented in a straightforward parent-to-child relationship. Few superheroes enjoy uncomplicated relationships with parents who are regularly present in the narrative.
2. The man-god
The language of the story’s first page mimics the King James Bible. A “passing motorist, discovering the sleeping babe within” echoes the Magi on the road to Bethlehem, or Moses among the Bulrushes—both clearly appropriate notes to strike. The sky-spanning spaceship crashes into the Earth, leaving—in later versions of the myth, at least—a deep gash in the soil. So Superman is born from a marriage of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). In due course, Superman will acquire his Father on Earth (Kent senior) to go with Jor-El of Krypton, his Father in Heaven.
3. Justice
Superman’s devotion to those in need involves coming to the help of those victimized by a blind though well-intentioned state. Superman’s first ever exploit involves breaking into the State Governor’s bedroom in order to save an innocent woman from the electric chair. Superman does, however, leave the real murderer bound and gagged on the Governor’s lawn.27
4. The normal and the superpowered
The momentary (illusory) power of the individual who threatens the superhero with a gun, knife, or speeding car leads with deliberate inevitability to the astonished realization of the superhero’s invulnerability. This is a note that most superhero stories strike from time to time, lest the contrast between superpowered hero and the average individual becomes lost—and the sense of wonder blunted by showing nothing but superpowered characters slugging it out with each other.
Page three of Action Comics #1 includes a fine use of this contrast linked to the structure of the panels and the necessity of turning the page to follow the story. The final panel of page three shows the Governor’s butler firing a revolver at Superman from point blank range. Page four, panel one, shows an unharmed Superman reaching out to grab the revolver.
5. The secret identity
Why doesn’t Clark let Lois know that he’s Superman? The discourse of the story, the soap-opera continuity that investigates the Clark/Lois/Superman triangle, would be shattered if Lois were to realize Clark and Superman’s unity. The Clark/Superman duality needs a constant supply of new dramatic situations to reveal new facets of the hero’s split personality. The explicit reasons given within the story—such as “they could use my friends to get at me,” reasons which have become common throughout the genre and do not need to be spelt out when establishing a new character—are only secondary to the structural need for characters to have secret identities.
This first-ever Superman story establishes the convention by using it as if it already existed. The reader is called upon to adduce adequate reasons for the
disguise. And Lois’s extreme scorn for the “morning-after” Clark establishes the width of the Clark/Superman gulf by way of a one-sided conversation:
I’m sorry about last night—
please don’t be angry with me.28
But Lois coldly stares in the opposite direction. She has become a different person from the warm and yielding individual Superman held in his arms just two panels before: panels which occupy opposite ends of a three-panel sequence in the center of the page. The visual distance between Superman and Lois in the left-hand panel is similar to the distance that separates them on the right, but the emotional relationships implied by the figures are wholly different.
What has been established is in the nature of a taboo. Refraining from a certain act (in this case, revealing oneself to be Superman) wards off a potential disaster. Illogical perhaps, but the situation strengthens the appeal of our hero by establishing certain specific restraints which are peculiar to him and him alone. He pays for his great powers by the observance of this taboo of secrecy—in a manner which is analogous to the process in which warriors in many traditional societies “pay” for their strength in battle by abstaining from sex, eating special foods, and other taboos designed to isolate and protect the “masculine” in their characters.29 Such concern with what amount to the rites of passage from adolescence to manhood is clearly of interest and concern to a teenage audience.
6. Superpowers and politics
The theme of restraint and limitation leads rather nicely to the question of the superheroes and the politicians. In fact, this theme is only lightly touched on in Action Comics #1. All that is established is Superman’s ability (and willingness) to act clandestinely and even illegally if he believes that national interests may be at stake. His loyalty and patriotism are above even his devotion to the law. This entails some important consequences for a superhero such as Superman, who is beyond the power of the armed forces, should he choose to oppose state power. Endless story possibilities can be designed around the theme of the superhero wrestling with his conscience over which order should be followed—moral or political, temporal or divine.
The Superhero Reader Page 16
