EP254: How American History Created the American Superhero

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I have a PhD in American studies from Michigan State University.

I was always drawn to comic books since I was I guess about 10 or 11 when I stopped reading them and that I pick them back up during the late 80s and early 90s. And then when I started my PhD in 2004 I started reading them again and it really struck me just how cohesive the narrative is very much speak to the American experience in a way that King Arthur does for England and those for the ancients and Greek gods for the Greeks and got this mythological force in their narrative driver of the general speaks to these heroes that a certain society needs a certain time, speaks to their hopes and their dreams and their fears and their mirror to what is always going on in the greater US mindset and the background of how we live, which is an amazing thing to have to track basically how the American society changed superheroes. The first coming of super hero Superman viewed in June 1939 was the cover date of action comics number one came out there were comic strips and comic books. Before that, the first comic strip, which was a newspaper strip came out in 1896 Colby yellow kid is a different artform than what comic books are because comic strips were different for comic books.

Because comic strips cannot daily in the newspaper they were 345 panels strip every day, and they often touched on politics or things of the day at the early start it and then they would follow the daily adventures of somebody and they were from the beginning really highly respected in the people created him became pretty famous and pretty wealthy pretty quickly because they were read by so many people in the newspaper every day and most of the people who went into that sort of artwork the kind of cartooning artwork really wanted to get in comic strips but in the early 1930s there were these magazines and in the early precursors to the comic books with these little pamphlets that were put out at newsstands. That's were very much cheap paper very quickly made stories and often they were reprints of the comic strips that have been put in the paper but the real first major difference of what a a comic strip and a a comic book could be was in 1938 action comics number one came out and the super hero was introduced was the first appearance of Superman and creators of Superman were two teenage boys leaving Ohio. The names were Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Jerry must evoke the stories and show mostly to the art and they work together on Superman and they came up with the idea just wall that they were trying to think up a comic strip for the newspapers because they really wanted to be his comic strip guys because they had. That was where all the money on the framework. These were two teenage boys who felt like they were outcasts.

They didn't really do particularly well in school. They wanted to have girlfriends, but they didn't. They were a little bit nerdy. They were two people really felt like they needed champion for them. Someone who can stand up for people like them and when the real interesting things is that some Jerry Siegel's father had been murdered during a robbery and he had always carry that with them and so in some ways he said later that he created Superman because he didn't want people to feel like he felt in this fictional world that he created and he couldn't do anything about his father's murder he couldn't do anything actual time, but you can create this world in which the superpower hero can actually fight for the common man. It could be this larger-than-life force will actually work for real people and try to finish the wrongs and tried to stop crying and makeup things are wrong. It's fascinating that two teenage boys created Superman.

This first superhero created this in higher industry that were still talking about today. I mean it came out of nowhere and yet it is this amalgamation of all of these different background things and you have Superman who receive no dressing this costume. It's very much taken from way these circus acrobat performers and strongmen very bright and colorful, instant costume, then you have all of these difficult heroes like Doc Savage in the Phantom Tesoro Tarzan shadow will have these secret identities and they fight crime and there in the shadows, but they were really Superman because they didn't put it all together. I mean you had strongmen like Popeye and you had adventures like Tesoro or you had people when adventures like John Carter from Mars and you had all of the elements were there.

Whatever put them into one person because it was too fantastical when she was Shuster first came up with the idea they first tried to make it into a comic strip, newspapers, and nobody wanted. Then they went around and they try to get every comic the publisher to take it and nobody wanted because we believe that anybody would want to read something that was this unbelievable.

That was the super and so they finally found a comic publisher that was run by two guys named Harry Dunfield and Jack Leibowitz statement was at that time called the national comics, but later became known as DC comics and they were looking for filler for this new comic book.

They were creating called action comics number one and you been listening to Jeffrey Johnson tell the story of comic books and where it all really began superheroes because they been around Greek mythology to the present.

But in 1938. Couple of young guys, teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and they had more than idea.

They wanted as Jeffrey said to created champion resort of nerdy outcasts like themselves and by the way the book is super history, comic book superheroes in American society where ever you get your books Amazon are the usual suspects and when we come back more of the life of comic book superheroes and how they mirror American life here on our American story during our American stories we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love stories from a great and beautiful country need to be told we can't do it without you are stories are free to listen to with her not free to make you love are stories in America like we knew please allow American stories.com and click the donate button give a little give a lot help us keep the great American stories coming our American stories.com and went back down American stories and Jeffrey Johnson was a World War II historian at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii is also the author super history, comic book superheroes and American society. We left off with him talking about two teenagers in Cleveland Ohio.

In this idea for character and I cartoon and a comic book called Superman. Let's pick up where Jeffrey last left off, was action comics number one is the first appearance of Superman there were multiple stories in there about detectives and crime and there was a magic story and there was all of these different formats were basically pushing this one episode Superman was basically added to this first issue because they needed something to put in there. There was a story and this was Siegel Shuster's last chance.

So when action comics came out with the coveted 219 38.

They did put Superman on the cover and there's this incredible cover of Superman picking this car finished nationally see these guys in the background year on their faces running around is not what people think of Superman now is this in no person fights crime is nice to children a safe catching trees and that sort of thing. This is somebody was terrifying to people discover this first issue and the story inside is much the same way any of Superman goes around eating the fights these kind petty street criminal type crime in the fight for corrupt politicians is pushing of action comics number one with the villain is a lobbyist is corrupted. Superman basically holds an upside down on a wire and tries to scare him to death. That's very different from the sacrament. Most people think of pushes planets around. The guy was worried about a lobbyist is to make a bad deal. I mean that's what Superman was in the beginning someone stopped Patty believes any stop corrupt slumlords took on gambling dens that separate slot machines for our children.

The user mean he worried about street-level crime because that's what Siegel and Shuster were worried about.

They were worried about the things that they sell every day. This was 1938. This was in the nest of Great Depression things with going terribly in the US economy to crash back in 1920 9C of almost a decade of redlines in soup lines and massive amounts of people out of work. So when it came out Harry Dunfield inject legal with printed 20,000 copies and they printed it as an over print they thought they have a lot extra sent back that it immediately sells out India retailers are asking for more. So they crave more for issue to and they select that and more efficient. Three but nobody knew that it was Superman selling the issues because with so many different stories and invite issue six finally got numbers and they were able to figure out Superman anyone around in a talk to a news stand dealers and they said the kids don't know action comics that they asked me for the one that's got Superman and by action comics number six they were selling about 500,000 top each, which was up from that 200,000 print run for the first one that they thought was wildly optimistic. I mean Superman took off in a way that I don't know if American cultures ever seen before. It became a mania of just how popular, how quickly became. He got a Macy's day Parade balloon like within a couple years. Pretty soon he gets his own show on the radio and she's got radio adventures and I mean it, and then really quickly. In the summer 1939 he gets his own comic book Superman number one comes out basically a year from the first issue of action comics number one I mean this was grassroots. This wasn't marketing. Nobody went out and asked people what they wanted. Are you trying to do the surveys agenda help come up with something people wanted this was a vision of these two kids who change the entire world in some way by secreting superheroes soon dozens and dozens of knockoffs Superman and the first Superman knockoffs was actually done by DC itself I mean when that they saw how popular Superman was the quickly talk to riders and try to figure out if they could get another superhero to make more comics about and so they talked to a guy named Bob Kane is the story and he came back after a weekend with this idea for Batman and Batman couldn't be any different from Superman. They wanted a Superman knockoff but I mean Batman is not superpowered she's a millionaire Playboy who is everything that Bob Kane, the writer greeted him, wanted he wanted to be rich and popular and be able to do all these things he's wish fulfillment for Bob Kane in the way same way that Superman was Siegel and Shuster, but in the exact opposite way. So you have this really interesting dynamic. Now that you have these two decent superheroes that couldn't be any different if Superman eventually shown is being this Kansas farm boys from a place that's so quaint and so little America that is called small Ville is adopted by days. Wonderful couple who teaching the values and you teach him that he supposed to fight for right for truth and justice and all the stuff and I see the other stuff because they can start seeing the American way into the adventures of Superman TV show with George Reeves came about in 1953 and in your Batman sees his parents murdered and he's got all of this money and all of the things that he could want buddy buddies in the city basically the crime of the city killed his parents and now he has to start this war on the city and the crime that that's in it, so I mean you have these two heroes but they do reflect these two sides of this American mythology. It's been around since the very start of who we are.

What's fascinating about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster is they were of immigrants as were almost all of the early creators of comic books. They both had parents who fled different countries because of the anti-Semitism of where they were from a lot of the early creators mean Bob Kane was of a Jewish background and his parents fled where they were from. Because of problems I talked about the publishers is a national comics.

They both came from different countries to the states when that they were young and they fled because their parents thought that they could have a much better life in this country and when the critters want to talk about later Jack Kirby. He was from New York and his parents were also immigrants and they came to America because of a better life and Stanley was born Stanley Lieber that he was of Jewish background to so I mean really large portion of the early creators were from Jewish backgrounds and were really understood how things go wrong in places other than the US and they came to the US really wanting a better life by the end of the 1930s and early 1940s. There were literally dozens if not hundreds of knockoff comic book superheroes and people like the black hood Man subzero man hydro-man Voltron the human generator. The phantom lady major victory, the human bond and faithful man are some of the great names, that era, but mean there were also some really successful mother successful.

One is on shazam or Capt. Marvel is known sometimes it was comics number two and 1940 and gives a Superman ripoff but it was done in this very safe very cleansed and a very easy read. So shazam who was created to look just like Superman but he's given is much more child friendly adventures with her was nothing violent or nothing at that parents could feel bad about their children reading and it was highly popular. He outsold old superheroes including Superman for a while but then he was such a Superman knockoff that the DC suit faucet and they won eventually.

But by the time the courts had dragged out. This was in the 1950s when that is sales dropped so much that the effective DC when the court case related matter served by Lake God. 1940 and end early 1941. You have this massive superheroes right dozens of publishers who are publishing hundreds of different superheroes who all share some the same elements being superpowered and wearing bright costumes of fighting crime they're selling millions of copies across the boards of these issues and then you have World War II come about and you been listening to Jeffrey Johnson tell the story of how well how are comic books came to be in America and again it started with two teenagers in Cleveland and the next thing you know Superman.

We had a very different character from the same company Batman. When we come back more of this remarkable historical look at America through the lens of comic books here on our American story, and we continue with our American stories and with Jeffrey Johnson was a World War II historian at Pearl Harbor. These also the author of super history, comic book superheroes in American society.

Let's pick up where Jeffrey last left off and then you have World War II come about and everything within American society. As a general and for comic book superheroes of secular changes and I mean you know you have this war effort where that everything becomes about the war. I mean American start to ration service mentor sent to war and so because of this. These superheroes necessarily have to change you can have Superman taking on the police alerted the government at some time as he did 30s now that you're at war sending these heroes become super patriotic and become part of the war effort in a sell war bonds on the covers of their issues and then on the coverage you see them fighting Hitler.

One of the early issues has Superman trying to enlist in the military and his x-ray vision, malfunctions, so he reads the eyechart in the room next to their room through the wall and is not actually allowed to join because he's 4F so he decides that the American service person to actually fight the war far better than he can. And they don't need them, and so he'll stay at home and will fight the wars and the crime that is here at home so the resolute magazine article in the early part of the war within 90. Basically it's like to a three page story in which Superman basically goes any captures Hitler and Stalin takes them to the league of Nations and returns the man in ends the war, which is a great story but it's hard telling that story when that you have your people actually prefer a up on time and then on 20 December 1940 of this other comic book come out is called Capt. America number one.

Let me stress this is December 20, 1940. This is a year before Pearl Harbor. Basically, this is before the US is officially entered the war and you have this cover of Capt. America punching Adolf Hitler in the jaw taking on the Nazis, which doesn't seem that incredible now because we know how the war ended, and we understand exactly what everything was. But the year before the US entered the war. You have a comic book character whose punching a world leader in the face in a magazine meant for children it's pretty incredible and it shows you how creative and also how fearless a lot of these comic book creators were the people who created that Capt. America one were Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

He was Jewish and he had grown up in the streets of New York, but he was this rough-and-tumble street kid I used to get into fights. There was this little bitty guy but he was fearless and rough-and-tumble theirs is great story that while they were working at what was then called timely, but would later changes made to Marvel comics. They got a phone call that there was somebody down in the lobby said that she didn't like what Capt. America comics was saying about Nazis.

He was gonna bomb the building and that Kirby immediately picked up in the phone and he said weight down there to come down there and beat the stuffing out of that's Jack Kirby fearless and it's really telling that on you must like Superman and looks like the other creators. Kirby was this immigrant whose parents knew about oppression and about all of these terrible things that happen to them in the place they came from, but the problem was after the war there really was nowhere for a lot of these comic books to go as I mean, you have these incredibly powerful heroes were fighting societies, wrongs, and they became very patriotic during the war and the lesson was over. People want to move on. I knew you had this generation basically from 1929 to 1945 only known depression downtimes in war similar was over in the US is the one country because of the war, really prosperous, suddenly for the first time and a lot of these people's lives. They have stability. They have quiet.

They have peace.

They have all of these things they dreamed about in their whole life, which is really great for the country and really great for a lot of people but it's bad for the people have to write stories for the and sales dropped tremendously. A lot of these publishers go out of business. Capt. America they tried to turn into this anti-Communist hero. His comic book is changed from Capt. America to the title of Capt. America comics masher bite.

You know it doesn't work. So in the early 50s Capt. America is canceled as of though, a lot of these heroes Superman and Batman still continue to sell well what Superman and Batman begin to do is stay start to mirror this 1950s stereotypical workingman now has a family in the suburbs and you.

They certainly don't have a job in the way of talking, but I mean they take on extended families in that make us Robin and then Superman gets this incredible extended family will email Scott Lois Ln., Jimmy Olsen gets cousin from krypton and Supergirl and he gets us whole zoo of pets prepare the super dog streaky the super cat comment. The super horse and my favorite D a super monkey that's very different from the 1938, 1939 version of the social ventures were trying to affix society.

Now they want to make sure that nothing changes in society, especially from the end of World War II to the early 1960s, just have an era of whether people really just want their comic books to be child friendly and safe enough to make everybody feel good about how life is going US so this is great story that the person was head of DC at that time Jack Leibowitz was playing golf with Martin Goodman who was the head of Marvel comics.

At that time, and Jack Leibowitz says to Goodman that he just started this new superior, called the Justice league of America where they put all of the superheroes together on one team and they were super surprised at how well it sold so once Martin Goodman gets finished with his golf game and then he goes back to Marvel and he talked to his nephew who had been working for them since the early 40s who had been this guy would been there the whole time and would basically, The company running in this nephew of his famous Stanley Liebert by birth, but he changed his name to Stanley because he didn't want people to know what his real name was because he thought that he could be this great American writer at some point and he very much wanted to save his real name for the real novels he was going to write goes back to Stanley and he says I want us to do superheroes again and didn't Stanley use at this time. Just tired of it all. She says superheroes are no good every superheroes.

I don't want to do superheroes and Martin Goodman's like no there's money in superheroes runner doing for a couple years and they will move on to the next. Stanley decides then that he's gonna quit because it had seldom goes home to his wife and he says door, quit can't take this anymore, go in advertising on the right my novel like I can do something else. She says just this one time like a superhero story that you would like to read the Stanley said. Yeah, that's what I'll do, I'll blow it up on my way out and then I'll be finished with it. Stanley goes back any rights, fantastic four, number one, it's almost impossible to overemphasize what a seachange. This was an chemical storytelling. Stanley created these characters along with Jack Kirby that had real problems that fought among themselves that actually had things that really made their lives terrible at some point in my goodness, what storytelling, and to think that Stanley was out the door and it was his wife just like Steve McQueen who convinced Steve McQueen to do the Thomas Crown affair and didn't really interesting ways. Stanley's wife is brighter setting out the door. Just write that comic book you would've always wanted to write before you write the Great American novel, and indeed that's how fantastic four number one comes to creation. When we come back more of this remarkable look in American history through the prison of comic books in our society changed in the writers while they changed right along with us more with Jeffrey Johnson and the story of comic book superheroes here on our American story, and we continue with our American stories and author Jeffrey Johnson in his book is super history, comic book superheroes in American society. Let's pick up again where Jeffrey last left off Superman and Batman and all of the DC heroes. They fought crime and they had these really fun lives and you would love to be them.

The Marvel heroes always had such problems and such often horrific things happen to them that you feel bad for them. These were heroes who had flaws and were human in a way that heroes have never been before and need is a popular culture commentator pure contents who says of the fantastic four is the booklet neatly divides the history of comic books in the two era everything that came before and everything that came after fantastic four, became a hit, sold hundreds of thousands copies and then pretty quickly.

Lee and Kirby create other superheroes to fill out the Marvel universe you had the Incredible Hulk comes out in May 1962 got Spider-Man who that is some scrawny teenager who has all these home life issues and there are no problems in a fascinating about Spider-Man is that Martin Goodman, the head of Marvel absolutely did not believe this vitamin will work. Stanley had to beg and many times the public Spider-Man because he was a teenage hero in that teenagers were heroes even think kids wanted to read about teenagers and wanted to read about adults something you know you have all those and have you know Antman for Ironman. The accident eventually come out and then at some point he puts together a Justice league of America type team called the avengers and then they go back. Capt. America becomes a member of the avengers. The Marvel comic books of the 1960s were often really irreverent and really fun. And then towards the end they start to take on some of the social issues of the day.

Some of the 1960s in the Vietnam protests like that, but they begin to get more more serious and then as the 1970s hit.

There's a seachange not only in America, comic books, but also in the American society in general it seems like there are these films to come out of the daylight in a death wish or the 20s would dirty Harry movie's right or that shows a slight backlash against what seemed as crime being granted and this lack of structure that can take care of it right and you know that's the late 1970s and then you write about that same area. You also have the punisher exists Vietnam veteran who doesn't have superpowers just you know he shoots and kills a lot of people and you know he goes after drug lords goes after street crime. He does all these things there is a great quote by one of the people who wrote them) that I want to read Darren in 1988 when he was talking about the punisher boat. The punisher embodies the voice of conservative Americans who see their quality of life threatened by criminal behavior and the confused thinking of liberals.

This average citizen is concerned with getting through the day and protecting his family, the police and the courts may constantly disappoint us, but the punisher never does. So read and enjoy. And don't let liberals make you feel guilty. The punisher knows what's right. It's quite simple when you think about it.

Just don't forget to shower afterwards. Now heroes aren't just protecting society within societal rules directly setting their own and the point of this becomes the most apparent is when by the mid-1980s Frank Miller race. This four issue miniseries called Batman dark Knight returns in its his take on this older Batman, who had been retired for a while then comes back to this Gotham city that's overrun by crime and so Batman is the only one who can take care of this and so this keep going in the 90s and there are a lot of different stories trying to figure out what comic book should be for a while. Marvel asked to go into bankruptcy actually in there on the brink of closing down. It was a real dark time both in the storylines comic books and the way the commitments are produced with that they were sold they did they do catch little more than 14 by the 2000s. As far as the 9/11 attacks and in the a post-9/11 world Congress become a very fearful place where that it's hard to trust heroes and then the people around them. There is a storyline called on Civil War by Marvel or that some Capt. America and Ironman basically disagree about. Should heroes have to register with the government Americas against it.

Ironman is for it in life. We fight it out in the basement bring heroes on their sides and then at the very end. American basically loses he's in the I rested at the end so you have this image of Capt. America in handcuffs and theirs is great quote by one of the writers were that she says you know basically what this story is about is when we draw the line between safety and freedom we hear stories like that you have the death of Capt. America were that he briefly dies and you know he dies is the sort of a story about who can be trusted in America and I think shifted so much that things don't make sense anymore immuno stores are really a lot of creators trying to come to grips with what the world that after the 911 attacks, and that all of the aftermath that it's hard to talk about comic books now as just comic books in the last decade or so because you have this merging of outside media and comic books, 1978.

You got this on Superman movie that's probably the first time with it. People really took superheroes seriously as a storytelling device as a way to tell stories and then you also after that have this 1980s Tim Burton Batman movie which is the budget with big start movies right me so you will definitely have that in you know the a 2000 actually move the 2002 Spider-Man movie and middle punishment for Texas for but the really big changes as far as how American society views comic books is this large mythology seem to be the Christopher Nolan Batman films in 2005, 2008 2012, which were in a critically acclaimed and huge box office numbers and then in 2008 have this Ironman film that comes out from Marvel and it's the first of what's called the Marvel cinematic universe. Now you know that there were Marvel films before plant all the Marvel filter for have been produced by studios that were Marvel Fox or Sony had bought the rights back when Marvel was bankrupt and then they would want to put on the films, but Marvel starting Ironman at 2008 and then the Iron Man two 2010 and that Thor and Capt. America in the avengers, and so on. Created this universe of storytelling that really mirrors what comic books each story is a unique story but they also fit together to create this bigger universe so I mean you can add films and like guardians of the Gaussian Black Panther and Antman and it all becomes part of the same universe, there were really no films that are done that before and it's really following one of the tropes of calico storytelling so you now have this reality where the superheroes are comic books anymore. If 40,000 people read an issue of you name the hero, but they watch as film he's a film start now instead of the comic books are. That's a really interesting development is now created. This will popular culture that now has seen this art form that started in the 1930s as the street-level characters that were mostly produced by these immigrant kids who you wanted to be part of society who are outcast and didn't know how to get the things that they thought they wanted, so they created these narratives with these ciphers of theirs could do it for them have now become the worldwide industry.

In this mythology that I daresay I think I think most people know a lot about the Marvel universe about the DC universe now in a way that I think maybe superheroes have outgrown comic books and maybe comic books really exist as a neat short form for a long time but if you like film and television is now their new outlet and feel like a lot of people like that and a lot of people really responded that it is created. This mythology that now is just keeps growing and growing growing and a terrific job on the production by Greg Hagler and a special thanks to Jeffrey Johnson was a World War II historian at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii is the author super history, comic book superheroes in American society that it at your local bookstores or ever you buy your books and it all started with two Cleveland teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the fantastic four. As Jeffrey noted, that was the dividing line everything before and everything after this we got much more complex characters and then came the trilogy, the Batman trilogy by Christopher Nolan which changed everything in those films. My goodness, three of my family's favorite, and soon thereafter Marvel steps in to make their own movies Warner Bros. to the Nolan films, but Marvel stepped in and said these characters are ours now comic books are sort of like secondary.

The movie business itself and the superheroes brought onto the big screen.

The story of comic book superheroes here on our American story