Comics’ history no joke
Cartoon heroes tromp decades of decadence
Glancing over a shell in a comic
book store is like staring at a mixed
up mosaic based on our culture,
through the eyes of the dreaming
preadolescent.
Every current fad and controver
sial issue is represented in the funny
books: Vampires, Malcolm X, The
Avengers, Guns N’ Roses, Batman,
Led Zeppelin and a dead Super
man. On the shelves of Trade-A
Tape Comic Center, a comic book
about the L A. Riots sits next to one
about Swamp Thing trying to win
his daughter’s soul back from the
legions of hell.
Lying on the rack above them,
the Punisher solves the drug prob
lem with a raging Galling gun, the
Avengers avenge something, and
Spider-Man fights Venom for the
millionth “last time."
Hereon these racks, all the prob
lems of our society are solved in 22
illustrated pages, with a fist fight or
the blast of a laser gun.
Comic books are a glorification
of the Heroic: open, drooling wor
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just about everything. This need for
heroes is nothing new; it can be
traced back to the first stories hu
mankind has written.
Moses summoned the Angel of
Death to punish the Egyptians, and
later parted the Red Sea. Perseus
sliced off Medusa’s head, Beowulf
ripped off Grendel’s limb. And
Oddyseus poked out the Cyclops
Polyphemus’s eye.
In the Middle Ages, Arthur pulled
the sword out of the stone, George
killed the dragon, Galahad got the
Grail, while his dad, Lancelot, con
tended himself with Arthur’s wife.
Whether they gain power from Al
mighty God, under the order of the
Nazerite, from their birthright as a
divine bastard of Zeus, or from a
wayward radioactive spider, he
roes always slay the same.
They beat up monsters, destroy
villians, and triumph over evil, and
that’s it.
In the folklore of Americana, our
stories have been no different. John
Brown, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan
began the mythos of the American
demigod; slightly silly beings none
too bright, in a fashion much like
Hercules or Sa mson, who did a maz
ing things with brutestrength, crude
cleverness and an indomitable
will.
They faded away to make way
for the Western heroes, and the
Penny Dreadfuls. JesseJames, Billy
the Kid and Crazy Horse graced the
covers of what wou Id become pu lp
fiction, and later comic books.
After the turn of the century,
radio descended on America, and
with it a new slew of heroes. The
Green Hornet, the Lone Hanger, the
Shadow: all waged war on the
underworld from behind a cape or
a mask, obvious predecessors to
the Batmanishavengcrsthal would
soon make safe the night.
The true comic book, and the
comic book hero, originated dur
ing the 1930s. When Hiller was
trying to organize his race of super
men, two Jewish youngsters in
America were doing the same.
In the late 1930s, the two young
men, Siegel and Schuster, published
a hero named “Superman" in the
pages of their fledgling Action Com
ics.
Out of Superman, Action Com
ics, and the D C. Comics Company,
comic books were born.
Comic books caught on at an
exponential rale, all through the
pre-World War II, and World War II
days. Superman was joined by
Batman, ihe Flash, Wonder Woman
and ihe Spcclre in ihe pages made
by theD.C. Comic Book Company.
WI V/ Q I rnmmninc
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up to compete with D C., most
notably Marvel Comics, with its
new champions: Dr, Strange, the
Flaming Torch and the Sub-Mari
ner, all in the first pages of Tales to
Astonish. And it was Marvel who
had Captain America punch Hitler
in the mouth, before the United
Stateseven thought ofbeginning to
try to storm German soil.
It was in the Atomic Age that a
r .... '■ —-1
new era of comics began. Under
the twin shadows of the American
created Atomic Bomb and theCom
munist Threat, American super he
roes were given both an All-Father
and a nemesis. Bruce Banner was
hit by the full force of a "Gamma”
radioactive bomb blast, and turned
into the Incredible Hulk. Introverted
Peter Parker was bitten by a radio
active spider in a laboratory experi
ment and became the James Dean
of comic books, full of teenage
angst, a character who wondered if
he could ever be loved and ac
cepted for who he was, as he
punched Dr. Octopus in the mouth.
Mutants, of radioactive origin,
popped up by the dozen in the
pages of Marvel, becoming the X
Men, now the dominant force in
comics today. And while these in
dividuals were discovering the gi fls
endowed upon them by the power
of the atom, Batman, The Green
Lantern, and others were beating
the heck out of the incorrigible
U.S.S.R.
The late ’60s and 70s were an
awakening of America’ssocial con
science, and this was reflected in
comic books. Spider-Man, in his
civilian garb, went to college and
watched hisroommatealmost over
dose popping pills.
The Green Arrow’s sidekick,
Speedy, was found shooting up on
the cover of Green Arrow’s comic.
The problems of vigilantes, inher
ent in the super-hero type, were
explored with the machine-gun
toting Punisher, a man whose lust
for justice and vengeance drove
him out of control, and who needed
to be put away by other super
heroes for his own good. Sensitive,
albeit clumsy, portrayals of minor
ity individuals began to to creep
into the funny books: the Master of
Kung-Fu, the Black Panther, Power
Man, and Black Lightning most
notably.
But as Glitter-Glam exposed the
effeminatequaliliesof the Free Love
Movement, kids began to yearn for
something else. “Peace” was ex
changed for "Anarchy” and “Skate
and Destroy.” The Namby-pamby
altitudes ol tne 7us, were pul away
for the stern, authoritarian heroes
of the mid ’80s.
Batman was reborn as “The Dark
Knight," a 50-year-old man in a
bleak future, in which he broke
arms and legs of criminals, as the
Joker practiced genocide at the
County Fair.
Wolverine became the most
popular character to children of the
’80s, a killing machine with per
petually blood-stained extending
claws, slashing his way through his
adversaries. Judge Dred, a merci
less cop in the far future, who was
judge, jury and executioner, gained
an enormous following in the U.K.
andintheStates. And the Punisher,
whose extremist attitudes were
condemned in the ’70s, was
changed from a villain to a hero,
and became one of the best-selling
sensations for Marvel.
Comic Book heroes are ever
going through a process of renewal,
reflecting the current social issues
of the day. The Incredible Hulk has
been re-explained in Freudian
terms, the Hulk being Bruce
Banner’s repressed Id, repressed
ever since he was abused as a child.
Gay rights has also made an
impact in the kiddie comics:
Northstar of Alpha Flight, the Flash’s
friend the Pied Piper, and the po
lice chief of Superman’s town, Me
tropolis, all have come out of the
closet.
It’sironic that in the Post-Nuclear
Age, as the first modern president
elect who doesn’t have an origin in
World War II replaces one who
does, the Super hero who found his
making there, also found himself
ushered out.
But, for the same reason that
America looks to its president, he
roes, and the dollar-comic super
hero, will eternally be in vogue.
America is still a place that puts it
trust in the personality. Even though
the real power in our country prob
ably rests in the law-making Con
gress, the federal bureaucracy, or
the American voter, we still hold
our presidents responsible for vir
tually everything that happens
abroad, or domestically.
We, as America as, curse the presi
dent when oureconomyslips, praise
him when we win a war, and look
to him when we have problems
because we still have the myth of
the dynamic hero. We believe that
a single individual can triumph over
anything, be it an oil crisis or the
deficit, by sheer force of will, and
that we need individuals larger than
ourselves to do it for us.
Therein lies the heroic, the su
perhero and the spandex-clad
avengers. And that’s why you can
bet your right kidney that Super
man will reappear again inside of
two years.
Patrick liambrccht I* a comica fan
and Divcraiona Contributor.
9
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Courtesy of DC Comics
Superman died last month in this issue. His long-awaited
departure is clouded by rumors that Ik will return within the
year. This unfortunate rumor is, no doubt, because of the
regrettable penchant comic book companies have for doing
just that. We can only hope DC is above this kind of thing.