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2019 Superheroes and "the American way" : popular culture, national identity, and American notions of heroism and leadership Lydia Dubois

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Recommended Citation Dubois, Lydia, "Superheroes and "the American way" : popular culture, national identity, and American notions of heroism and leadership" (2019). Honors Theses. 1380. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1380

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Superheroes and “The American Way”: Popular Culture, National Identity, and American Notions of Heroism and Leadership

by

Lydia DuBois

Honors Thesis

in

Leadership Studies

University of Richmond

Richmond, VA

May 1, 2019

Advisor: Dr. Kristin . S. Bezio 1

Abstract

Superheroes and “The American Way”: Popular Culture, National Identity, and American Notions of Heroism and Leadership

Lydia DuBois

Committee members: Dr. Kristin Bezio, Dr. George Goethals, Dr. Scott Allison

The goal of this investigation is to explore why are, and historically have been, received with such widespread attention among American , and why such prolonged popularity should be scrutinized more closely in relation to leadership studies and social science research. This thesis concludes that superheroes, an evolutionary offshoot of

American , have consistently reflected, perpetuated, and even shaped specific understandings of leadership and heroism in the throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.

3

INTRODUCTION: Superheroes and “the American Way”

“To view popular culture as vulgar entertainment without deeper meaning or purpose, is to profoundly misapprehend the value and role of popular culture to civilization and to leadership. Put simply, through of leadership, popular culture helps to both reinforce and question our understanding of who ‘we’—both as individuals and as members of a civilization—are and what we should strive to become or accomplish as citizens, leaders and followers.”

—Kristin M. S. Bezio, Leadership, Popular Culture, and Social Change, 2

Superhero Narratives and American Audiences

Storytelling is a universal human activity that reveals the evolution and consistency of social thought at large or within specific cultural contexts when studied across time and place. The formal definition of a story is “a short account of an amusing, interesting, or telling incident, whether real of fictitious” (OED Online). The dominant stories of a particular group can epitomize group identity at a given moment in terms of collective history, norms, values, ideals, and ideology, most notably when they are bolstered by patterns and characters that are retold and recast repeatedly in everyday speech, solidified in books, broadcasted by cinema and television, proclaimed through song lyrics, and circulated in other prominent cultural forms. That is why Maria Tatar, in the introduction to The Classic Fairy Tales, states, “ is a culture-building activity” (xxv).1 Stories and their storytellers reflect and partake in personal and cultural dialogue, and tracking how dominant stories shift can larger social and political change, whether such change pertains to popular notions of gender and sexuality, attitudes toward religious beliefs, or even the acceptability of material customs like fashion trends or children’s toys.

1 The Classic Fairy Tales is a text to the discipline of studies. 4

Writer and artist introduced , the very first superhero, to American audiences via Comics #1, cover dating 1938. This iconic spandex-clad, cape-wearing, super-strength hero from an planet fought to clean up crime in

American streets during the Great Depression, and in a mere 13 pages, he catalyzed a long- standing of superheroes in American culture. Comic book superheroes exploded with extreme popularity following Superman’s appearance and, despite various hiccups in the industry along the way, avid superhero consumption became the norm for decades to come.

From and to and Black Panther, superhero characters and iconography continue to a major role in the cultural landscape of the United States well into the 21st-century. Whether it be on screen, at Halloween parties, or in everyday clothing and conversation, superheroes and their stories retain an impressive in American life more than 80 years after their inception.

Such a phenomenon is made easily apparent by the industry. More than

60 superhero have been produced since the release of Superman starring on December 15, 1978. The Hollywood superhero staple has yet to diminish, and, if anything,

Marvel Studios and DC Comics have magnified the trend in recent years. In 2018 alone, eight superhero films (live action and animated) aired in theaters with great -office success: Black

Panther, : War, 2, Incredibles 2, Ant-Man and the , Venom,

Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, and . Black Panther, which premiered on February

16, 2018, broke $1 billion in sales worldwide and continues to hold the third-highest record for domestic growth. Avengers: Infinity War, which premiered soon after on April 27, 2018, currently holds the all-time box office record for opening , both domestically and worldwide, and also holds the fourth-highest record for cumulative world gross at 5

$2,048,709,917.2 Incredibles 2, an animated film about a family of superheroes that premiered on June 15, 2018, and Aquaman, which premiered on December 21, 2018, also both broke $1 billion in worldwide sales. All in all, 2018 superhero films crowded the box office and reached millions of viewers in and outside the U.S.

These four films are by no means an anomaly, either. Prior to 2018, six other superhero films broke the billion-dollar threshold and many more came notably close to doing so.3 Out of the top 20 films for all-time worldwide box office grosses, eight are superhero films. Beyond

Hollywood, a plethora of superhero television series such as (2012- ) Agents of

(2013- ), (2014- ), (2015- ), and The (2017-2019) occupy queues and networks on laptops and flat screens across the United States.45 Superhero culture also maintains a large social media presence, most evident by the overwhelming public response to Black Panther (2018) on . In a Forbes article, “‘Black Panther’ Breaks Yet

Another Record By Making Twitter History,” published on March 20, 2018, contributor Carey

Purcell notes that “having inspired more than 35 million tweets, Black Panther (2018) is the most tweeted-about movie of all time.” The top three hashtags associated with the , #BlackPanther, #WakandaForever, and # still circulate in tweets more than a year after the film’s premiere, often used as a symbol of identity and power among the black community.

In 2019 TIME magazine printed and released a special edition all about The World of

Marvel. The first article, “Why We Worship These Heroes,” quickly highlights the historical

2 Box office figures are provided by boxofficemojo.com and IMDb.com as of March 26, 2019. 3 See Appendix for comprehensive charts on superhero film box office stats. 4 Arrow aired on CW on Oct. 10, 2012. Agents of SHIELD aired on ABC on Sept. 24, 2013. Gotham aired on on Sept. 22, 2014. Jessica Jones aired on Netflix on Nov. 20, 2015. The Punisher aired on Netflix on Nov. 17, 2017. All but the last of these are still running in 2019. 5 A Collider article published on December 28, 2018, “All of 2018’s Superhero TV Shows, Ranked,” lists 16 superhero shows that were running in 2018. 6 popularity of Marvel characters. In it the author Rich Sands exclaims: “As the Marvel Cinematic

Universe (MCU) continues to expand, so does the fan base. The astronomical success of the

2018 film Black Panther—the studio’s highest-grossing domestic movie to date—highlighted the cultural impact of Marvel’s properties” (7). The goal of this investigation is to explore why films like Black Panther (2018) and superhero narratives in general (Marvel and otherwise) have been received with such widespread attention among American audiences for decades, and why such renown should be scrutinized more closely than it has been to date.

Implicit Leadership Theories, Romanticized Leadership, and Heroism

In the field of leadership studies, leadership is primarily understood as a relationship between leaders and followers as they attempt to achieve group goals. Borrowing heavily from the social sciences, leadership theorists study this dynamic through experiments and observations. For instance, past studies done by Roseanne J. Foti and Robert G. Lord indicated that people have preconceived notions about what and who a ought to be like, and because of these predetermined beliefs, leaders may be perceived and evaluated accordingly. Foti and Lord coined the name Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) to refer to this cognitive process. Essentially ILTs are “tacit beliefs about the traits, qualities, and characteristics leaders possess” (Forsyth and Nye

3). These beliefs are tacit (i.e., implicit) because people are not always conscious of the biases and preconceptions they have regarding leadership or how those ideas are influencing their behavior toward and reception of leaders.

Many aspects of life are said to affect what people internalize in their ILTs, and cultural context is considered to be one aspect that “influences the kinds of qualities that become 7 embedded in one’s ILT” (Forsyth and Nye 119). Research done by the Global Leadership and

Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) program has shown that while many leadership qualities translate well across cultures in terms of value and acceptability, others are specific to certain places and people groups.6 According to Forsyth and Nye, for example, the GLOBE researchers found discrepancies between highly collectivistic societies and more individualistic ones, and in some countries traits like taking was considered to be a leadership enhancement but in other countries a leadership hindrance. However, none of this is all that surprising given the ways by which we understand how social structures can dictate the (ab)normalcy of specific norms and customs that thereby influence the cultivation of one’s worldview and ideology, whether such ideas relate to leadership or something else (e.g., gender roles, religious beliefs, political views). Nevertheless the field of leadership and our understanding of leader-follower dynamics is still growing. Powerful leaders have time and time again affected the course of history (on a large scale) and group actions (on a small scale), and so the study of leadership has real-world urgency and implications.

In addition to concepts like ILTs, leadership studies has also focused on a phenomenon often referred to as romanticism of leadership. The concept was popularized by James R. Meindl,

Sanford B. Ehrlich, and Janet M. Dukerich in a research article, “The Romance of Leadership,” published in March 1985. Their research involved three archival studies that examined how leadership is reflected in society by scholarship, practitioners, and the media. According to

Meindl et al., “The results of these studies supported an attributional perspective in which leadership is construed as an explanatory concept used to understand organizations as causal systems” (78). In more simplified terms, courtesy of Martin M. Chemers’ 2000 historical

6 According to the GLOBE website, it is “an organization dedicated to the study of culture, leadership, and organizational effectiveness.” 8 overview of leadership theory and research: “Meindl showed that any remarkable group or organizational outcome, whether highly positive or highly negative, is likely to be attributed to leadership effects, while other reasonable causes are largely ignored” (32). Thus the concept became known as romanticized leadership whereby the power and control a leader has over outcomes is greatly exaggerated (i.e., romanticized). When outcomes are favorable, the leader is glorified, but when outcomes are ill-favored, the leader is ridiculed, regardless of other contributing factors and extraordinary circumstances.

Significantly, romanticism of leadership is closely related to notions of heroism and villainy. Good outcomes means the leader is a hero, but bad outcomes means the leader is a villain. Heroes are the “good” leaders who did the right thing, who fought the good fight, and who walked away victorious, even in (i.e., martyrdom). In the introduction to Handbook of

Heroism and Heroic Leadership, edited by Scott T. Allison, George R. Goethals, and Roderick

M. Kramer, it notably reads, “We tend to reserve the label of ‘hero’ for the best of humanity” (1).

Although who qualifies as the “best of humanity” is subjective—ask a class of high school students who their heroes are and the responses will range from parental figures, to public servicemen, to historical persons, to fictitious characters—our heroes are inspirational and admirable to an often unique degree. On the flip side of the binary, are the “bad” leaders who wreaked havoc in the lives of others, who pursued unjust causes, and who yielded power irresponsibly. Thus, in essence, heroism and villainy are the twin pillars of romanticized leadership.

Relating this idea back to ILTs, if Meindl et al.’s work in 1985 is any indication, social scientists should be wary of the fact that romanticized leadership (and thereby the ideas of heroism and villainy) is perpetuated in culture because of how it strips the complexities of human 9 nature and group behavior, reducing events and occurrences to one person. A classic example of this is the glorification of Martin Luther King, Jr. Although an extremely important figure to the Civil Rights Movement, critics have highlighted the problem with overemphasizing his leadership because of how it detracts from the countless other men and women who contributed collectively to the cause, as well as MLK’s success. The individualistic nature of hero-worship (i.e., romanticizing leadership) takes the focus away from the group and limits it to the individual. ILTs that rest substantially on notions of romanticized leadership pigeon people in problematic ways.

Superheroes and “the American Way”

World War II historian Jeffrey K. Johnson, in Super-History: Comic Book Superheroes and

American Society, 1938 to the Present, tracks the rise and longevity of superheroes in the comic book industry alongside the political and social history of the United States from the 1930s to

2009 (although the book was published in 2012). As Johnson explains in the introduction to his book,

Since Superman debuted in 1938 as a Great Depression hero, comic book superheroes have been linked to American hopes, desires, fears, needs, and social norms...They are an American mythology that is forever adjusting to meet society’s needs. Superheroes are not merely comic book characters; rather they are social mirrors and molders that serve as barometers of the place and time in which they reside. (2)

In order to address why superheroes have maintained a strong grip on American audiences, functioning as “social mirrors and molders” to an almost mythological degree, I will expand on the superhero culture work done by authors such as Johnson. My contribution to the conversation will chiefly be a critical examination of superheroes in relation to American history and social 10 thought not solely since the Great Depression but since the very inception of American nationhood. In this macro study of the current superhero phenomenon, I will argue that these cultural icons are not only deeply tied to the history of the United States, but are explicitly entangled with American identity and nationalism, making them an subject of continued fascination, reflection, and discourse for American audiences. This study will highlight how

Superheroes are essentially present-day cultural, political, and social artifacts being remodeled and recast to fit a modern, changing America; but they also nevertheless retain and must contend with long-standing historical baggage that perpetuates and shapes our understanding of what it means to be an American hero outside of the fictitious world of super-villains and supernatural abilities.

To elaborate, by referring to works such as social historian Daniel J. Boorstin’s The

Americans: The National Experience published in 1965, I will first establish a connection between the American tall tale—a popular narrative form in widespread circulation during early

American nationalism—and the pro-national superhero narratives still circulating today. Once established, the connection will demonstrate the ways by which notions of heroism and national identity in America have both evolved and cemented, and how these popular American narratives, despite their , have blurred the distinctions not only between hero and leader, but also between superhero and leader in potentially problematic ways beyond the page and screen. Like fossils exhumed and then placed on display for the current age to observe, distinct elements of popular, tall tale narratives from the birth of the American nation, that merged the real and surreal, the historic human and the mythological hero, were psychologically uncovered and enhanced in pre-war times during heightened and then widely disseminated in comic book form. Eventually those same stories were propelled into the 11 cinematic where they remain on display for millions of viewers across the U.S. (and now the globe, but that will be touched on later).

The question this longitudinal trajectory evokes is the following: what remnants of the

American past are still lingering in the present-day superhero stories so pivotal to American culture, and what should, for the good of the social order, be buried in the graveyard of history?

For instance, if modern-day superhero narratives, with the help of their American tall tale predecessors, confuse the lines between hero, superhero, and leader, what sorts of real-world beliefs and perceptions are members absorbing after they hear famously say to Peter Parker in Spider-Man (2002), “Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility”

(00:35:28). How about when the American tech-genius, billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey

Jr.) in an suit saves City in The Avengers (2012), while Black Widow

(Scarlett Johansson) watches from a supporting role? Or when Deadpool () flippantly slaughters a ton of “bad guys” while maintaining a steady stream of comic commentary in (2018)?

As will be explored in-depth, superhero narratives are inherently powerful in an

American cultural context, and they have potentially profound impacts on ILTs (i.e., leadership biases) because of the form’s relationship with nationalism and American identity. Digesting a film or a comic book is not a passive activity, and the constant intake of similar messages over and over, regardless of what costume it is packaged in, is not without consequences. Superheroes are cultural icons with distinct and identifiable characteristics (physical and otherwise) with years of experience on the American stage and in American minds. Howard Gardener notes in the introduction to Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership that,

12

Leaders and audiences traffic in many stories, but the most basic story has to do with issues of identity. And so it is the leader who succeeds in conveying a new version of a given group’s story is likely to be effective. Effectiveness here involves fit—the story needs to make sense to audience members at this particular historical moment, in terms of where they have been and where they would like to go. (14)

Capes, masks, spandex, and identities are only a small piece of the superhero pie that makes it so distinguishable to American audiences. Common tropes, plotlines, and conceptualizations about patriotism, militarism, and other matters of American identity get thrown into the super-mix as well, and after so many decades of the same pie with various flavors, it is important to critically consider what nutrients and/or harmful fats have been absorbed and will continue to be absorbed in the future.

Elaine L. Kinsella, Timothy D. Ritchie, and Eric R. Igou in the chapter “Attributes and

Applications of Heroes: A Brief History of Lay and Academic Perspectives,” contained in the

Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Worship, maintain that “We encounter positive caricatures and ideal forms of heroes in books, comics, television programs, movies or videogames.”

However, they go on to say “little is known about the priming influence of these superheroes:

How do these everyday heroic encounters shape our daily lives?” (23). Since the publication of the handbook, more research has been done on the specific effects of superheroes in American culture. For instance, near of 2018, Hope College’s department of psychology and

Virginia Commonwealth University’s department of psychology released their findings from two experiments focused on superhero priming. The study, “Heroic Helping: The Effects of Priming

Superhero Images on Prosociality,” published by Frontiers in Psychology, showed that the priming of superhero images (e.g., Superman, Spider-Man) increased prosocial intentions and behavior in participants. The fact that these American-made, historical characters actually 13 influenced behavior indicates the active nature relationship between culture and consumer, superhero and audience, leader and follower.

That is not to say that every superhero narrative follows the same recipe. As a close look at Johnson’s Super-History and Matthew Pustz comic-book anthology will prove, superheroes have undergone various transitions and iterations over the span of their existence. The comic book timeline itself is commonly divided into four ages, each with their own distinguishing features and superhero types: (1938-1950), The Silver Age (1956-1970), The

Bronze Age (1970-1985), and The Modern Age (1985-Present).7 Yet and fluctuation coexists with the change and shifts. The prototypical, 1930s Superman character as a strong- white-heterosexual-male American hero with a symbolic costume and a secret, mundane identity lingers behind every heroic offshoot. It is essential to understand what social and political norms the Man of and company have dragged through U.S. history and continue to display on screen for 21st-century audiences, even if their costumes and plotlines differ. The Great

Depression Superman of the comics, the uber-patriotic Superman of the 1950s TV-series The

Adventures of Superman, the Space Race Superman of the 1978 film, ’s revamped, conservative lone ranger Superman in The Man of Steel 1986 mini-series, and 's somber Man of Steel (2013), all compete and merge to create the Superman mythos—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

When I first started digging into the longitudinal history of superheroes in American culture, I actually did not begin by researching comic books. In fact, before I began this project, I had never even touched a comic book let alone had read one. No, my research began with

7 For a quick overview of these four demarcations, visit “Comics Timeline” provided by the J. Murrey Atkins Library at https://silveragecomics.uncc.edu/timeline. 14 superhero films, specifically with a focus on modern-day Marvel and DC films.8 As I explained in the introduction, superhero films have played and continue to play a huge role in Hollywood in the 21st-century, both domestically and worldwide–and I grew up, quite literally, watching this happen. In Pustz’s super anthology, he includes an article by Jessamyn Neuhaus titled “How

Wonder Woman Helped My Students ‘Join the Conversation’: Comic Books as Teaching Tools in a History Methodology Course.” Within the article, Nauhaus states,

I’m not a comic book fan but, as a scholar and teacher of popular culture and U.S. history, I am very interested in knowing how comic books function as significant cultural artifacts from the past, in understanding the enormous impact they continue to make on mainstream popular culture, and in exploring how comic books as a topic of study can facilitate successful students learning in my classes. (11)

Like Neuhaus, I am not a superhero fan, per say, but I am very interested in how modern-day superhero films are living-and-breathing artifacts of comic book culture that are having a profound, current impact on my generation, as well as the close to me.

Superhero films (and eventually TV shows) became more and more familiar to me the older I became, which is also the case for many of my peers. The first super-film I saw in theaters was (2011)—I went with my three siblings—but before that I had seen most of the early X-Men movies, the Spider-Man movies, and the Superman films on DVD. Freshman year of high school I dressed up in a costume for Halloween, and Freshman year of college my younger brother bought me a hoodie from The TV-series (2014-Present), because he knew

I had binge watched the series after loving its hit television predecessor, Arrow (2012-Present).

I share this little anecdote because of its relevance to what these next sections hope to highlight in terms of how fascinating and strange it is that superhero narratives have managed to remain so

8 In preparation for this project, however, I did manage to watch every single superhero film (as well as some westerns and cowboy-superhero crossovers) that has been released since Superman (1978). 15 popular among U.S. audiences (and now international ones) across so many generations and cultural mediums.

As a young adult who grew up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is my hope to display the sheer magnitude and influence of a current cultural phenomenon in which I have participated, and to ignite further study in the field of academia. To borrow the words from my for this project:

At its core, the study of popular culture is the study of social history through a society’s stories—an examination of the ideological dialectic between those with and those without power concealed within fictional and fictionalized representations of identity. When we analyze and interrogate popular culture with a critical eye, we focus on both the positive and problematic aspects of our socio-political milieu. (Bezio, 4)

America has embraced superhero stories time and time again as a popular, national narrative.

Superheroes are to the United States what the series is to the United Kingdom. Just because certain stories are labeled as “” or “popular culture” does not make them any less influential; rather, they enable a space for social discourse when the political stage is overrun with real-world barriers.

This paper is constructed in three large sections. “Part One: Cultivating a Heroic National

Narrative—Tall Tale Heroes and Early America” explores the development of the United States in conjunction with the development of the tall speech, which eventually translates into a national narrative form, the American tall tale. “Part Two: Inventing a Super-Heroic National

Narrative—Comic Book Superheroes and New Deal America” outlines the creation and ages of comic books and their inherent relationship with American nationalism and identity. “Part Three:

Reimagining a Super-Heroic National Narrative—Superhero Films and 21st-Century America” analyzes the trajectory of superhero films from 1978 to 2018 for trends, tropes, and shifts that keep pulse or with a changing America in terms of modern-day identity politics, 16 nationalistic views, and social discourse. Part three also presents my case for a new historical demarcation for comic book superhero culture: The Cinematic Age (2008-Present). A concluding section will tie together the longitudinal superhero arch with a discussion about the ethical responsibilities of content creators and audience members engaged in these powerful narratives produced by a world .9

9 See Appendix for a self-created timeline that situates U.S. history since the alongside American hero history all the way to the end of 2018. The timeline is the backbone to this entire project. 17

PART ONE: Cultivating a Heroic National Narrative

Tall Tale Heroes & Early America

“Ask any visitors to the United States what they have seen, and they are apt to laugh and reply that, whatever it was, it was the ‘biggest in the world’–the longest hot dog, the highest building, the largest store, the hottest . This is the land of superlatives, of ‘the best.’ Many countries have tall tales in their folklore, but only the United States has developed so many huge legendary heroes. Perhaps the vast frontier made settlers seem puny that they felt compelled to invent stories about superheroes. Whatever the reason, North American tall tales contain a glorious mixture of the humor, bravado, and pioneer spirit that was needed to tame a wilderness.”

–Barbara Kiefer, Charlotte Huck’s Children Literature, 258

The Land of Superlatives and Exaggeration

The American nation from its inception faced unprecedented circumstances that demanded an unprecedented (and expeditious) form of expression. As influential social historian and educator

Daniel J. Boorstin states in The : The National Experience, “Never before had so populous a modern nation lived in so ill-defined a territory” (221): a territory that was as inhospitable as it was vast, as promising as it was threatening, and as mysterious as it was sinister.10 “Mapped in ,” Boorstin explains, “mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, deserts, all became figments of optimism or of desperation: an Eden or a Hell–the Great American Garden or the Great American Desert” (221). Congress, like the landscape, was also a place of polarizing uncertainty, best exemplified by the relentless struggle between the Federalists and the

Republicans (or the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians) for the design and control of the U.S. government. After the American Revolution (1775-1783), the uncertainty of the new land compounded with the uncertainty of a fragile, recently-introduced and contentious governmental system, amplifying widespread sentiments of apprehension alongside an exciting sense of

10 See the entry on Daniel J. Boorstin in Encyclopedia Britannica for more information about his life and work. 18 national and independent potential. As a consequence, polarity became an essential feature not only of the American of the landscape or the political rift in Congress, but of

American identity itself.

Overall, the time between the Treaty of (September 3, 1783) and the start of the

American (April 12, 1861), was marked by audacious dreams and deep anxieties as statesmen attempted to stabilize the United States into an entity (or, at first, thirteen entities) that would rival its British predecessors, while, simultaneously, settlers ventured further and further away from the urban centers of the East Coast, expanding already-tenuous boundaries and instigating regional rivalries. It is from this era of early American independence, in a time ripe with confusion and vacillation interwoven with the exhilarating haste to start afresh, that new language patterns emerged, a new of speech developed, and humorously outrageous tall tale hero narratives surfaced and achieved extreme popularity. These stories embodied a common but also contradictory American identity of exaggeration, anticipation, and exceptionalism that would define the individualistic, hero-worship identity of a nation well beyond its infancy: An identity that would later translate from the form of a tall tale hero to a modern superhero.

The New World Calls for a New Form of Expression

As settlers ambitiously embarked across the ill-defined territory of North America throughout the early developmental stages of the United States, they were confronted with experiences, people groups, and conceptualizations that necessitated linguistic innovation and alteration. In addition to physically adapting to often unpredictable terrain (and inhabitants), American settlers 19 verbally adapted to their “New World” circumstances. “Physical and intellectual expansion became synonyms” (241), Boorstin explains, as the English language began to rapidly expand with the American population. The nature of this new language coincided with the nature of their experiences: “As grew by communities moving ‘beyond the jurisdiction,’ the language too grew not by ‘legal’ incorporation of new words into grammar books and dictionaries, but by the unauthorized, unnumbered, casual novelties of actual speech” (Boorstin 277). Left unchecked by any elite literati, the British language was increasingly subverted and overridden with slang and foreign words, morphing into the United States’ own distinct, organic dialect: what we now term American English.

One of the most notable qualities about the linguistic transformation that occurred in early American history is not only how it took root, but by whom it was planted. The language innovation that gripped the emerging nation came from the mouths of overwhelmingly un- or under-educated lower- and middle-class settlers in search of opportunity, rather than from the stationary social elite or an educated literary authority, which was a distinct reversal from the situation in . As Boorstin explains,

The new riches of an American language were not found in the pages of an American Shakespeare or Milton but on the tongues of boatmen, town boosters, fur traders, explorers, Indian-fighters, and sodbusters. While the greatness of British English could be viewed in a library, the greatness of American English had to be heard to be appreciated. (276)

Verbal ingenuity thrived among communities attempting to their way in the newly-founded

United States, and the colloquial-rich language became indicative of the freedom and constant change of early American life.

The journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) demonstrate the process by which the language shifted with New World encounters, and, as Boorstin notes, incorporates 20 almost two thousand vocabulary words that “were in one way or another American novelties”

(283), a thousand of which were entirely new to recorded history. Even though many of these terms did not survive in popular speech, others remain in popular use in the twenty-first century

(e.g., bear, ground hog, , sweet potato, yellow jacket). Furthermore, words acquired new meanings within the journals, such as buffalo, clever, gnat, pantaloon, settlement, split, and . Due to the fact that the development of American English was first and foremost an oral phenomenon and not a written one, the Lewis and Clark expedition journals serve as an important resource for marking this linguistic mutation.

Although many early American academics, writers, and grammarians scoffed at the increased usage of so-called Americanisms and tried to “keep the language ‘pure’” (Boorstin

277) from the of slang, settlers’ linguistic boundaries were as uncontained as their geographical boundaries, and slang-infused American English took root as the dominant form of communication, ultimately engulfing the continent, including Congress: “The grand invention of

American English,” Boorstin states, “was the new power it gave a churning, miscellaneous people to make a language of their own and to make the language their own” (285). Despite their eclectic pasts and provincial distinctions, the new and flexible lexicon reflected their new lives in

North America, and people across the nation found a sense of comradery in Americanisms.11

Americanisms included assimilated words from other languages, especially from indigenous languages and Spanish, but also from Dutch, German, French, and African languages; Americanisms included new words for new institutions and ideas; and, Americanisms included old, obsolete British English words or changed the grammatical function of familiar

11 Debates about linguistic preservation versus adaptation still prevail in contemporary times. An article from BBC News called “Viewpoint: Why do some Americanisms irritate people?” by Matthew Engel is a example. 21 words.12 Verbal extravagances such as scalawag, hornswoggle, slumgullion, hunkydory, and splendiferous abounded, and so did words about alcohol. Interestingly enough, “Whatever the explanation, Americans, more than others, seem to have enjoyed talking about their drinking”

(Boorstin 286). For instance, according to Boorstin, the first recorded use of cocktail was in the

Hudson, New York, Balance (and Columbian Repository) on May 13, 1806. Although we presently know that the term actually appeared three years prior in a U.S. agricultural handbook,

The Farmer’s Cabinet, on the 28th of April, and potentially in France before that in 1798 but in the form cock-tail (creating skepticism about its reference to a drink or a horse or both), Balance is the first time cocktail is explicitly defined as the drink familiar to our contemporary age.13 14

In addition to the rapid growth of new speech patterns during the time between the

American Revolution and Civil War, a new mode of speech was also digging its roots into the foundation of the new nation: tall talk. Tall talk, like the verbal extravagances peppering

American English, was as unusual and extravagant as the land Americans rushed to conquer and claim, making the mode of speech a compatible form for the developing language. As Boorstin explains,

The world “tall” in had long meant simply “high” or “lofty,” and in this sense ‘tall talk’ would have meant the opposite of “small talk.” In America, the word “tall” meant not only high and lofty, but “unusual,” “remarkable,” or “extravagant.” And these were precisely the distinctions of the American experience. No language could be American unless it was elastic enough to describe the unusual as if it were commonplace, the extravagant as if it were normal. (290)

12 Dictionary of Americanisms. A Glossary of words and phrases, usually regarded as peculiar to the United States published by John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886) in 1848 is among the first works of American lexicography and can be viewed in its entirety via the Internet Archives. 13 See “The History of the Cocktail” online at 31DOVER.com, “the UK’s leading online drink vendor” for a more in-depth breakdown of the etymology of cocktail, including information about the relevant primary sources. The OED entry for “cocktail” dates the drink term at 1803 from The Farmer’s Cabinet. 14 A more detailed and comprehensive list of early-American colloquialisms can be found in Boorstin’s book, but also in numerous collections of American folklore, with region-specific catalogues and commentaries. 22

Boorstin notably includes both historical Americanisms and tall talk in his chapter titled

“American Ways of Talking,” highlighting the relationship between them and, more importantly, their relationship to American identity. Like the verbal extravagances and compound words

(because one word did not suffice) that assailed British English, tall talk made the living language (and those who used it) bigger, more extravagant, and unapologetically American. It also had a similar effect on those who used it. Congress especially became “a grand arena for tall talk” (Boorstin 294) as the novel linguistic patterns reached up into the social elite. As Boorstin states, “Stirred by the greatness (real or supposed) of all issues, by the dignity of the environment, inspired by the captive audience before them and the boundless audience outside, plain Americans became flamboyant” (294). All over the continent tall talk was employed to turn the plain into the , including the orators themselves. With exaggerated speech as a weapon, an ordinary (white) man could be made extraordinary.

Consider one quintessential historical example of tall talk from David (Davy) Crockett, a

Tennessee backwoodsman who was born in Tennessee in 1786, ran for Congress in 1827, and died a legendary death at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 (more will be said about Crockett and his canonization as a in the next section of this chapter). The following is an excerpt of

Crockett’s own description of a conversation he had with a fellow candidate, Dr. William Butler,

Andrew Jackson’s nephew-in-law, at a campaign meeting in 1823:

He said I could beat him electioneering all hollow. I told him I would give him better evidence of that before August, notwithstanding he had many advantages over me, and particularly in the way of money; but I told him that I would go on the products of the country; that I had industrious children, and the best of coon dogs, and they would hunt every night till to support my election; and when the coon fur wa’n’t good, I would myself go wolfing, and shoot down a wolf, and his head, and his scalp would be good to me for three dollars, in our state treasury money; and in this way I would get along on the big string. (Qtd. in Lofaro 4)

23

Butler was a Jackson town commissioner, and Crockett was quick to ridicule Butler’s wealth while simultaneously raising himself up with colorful exaggeration about his unschooled backwoods , without saying much at all about actual politics; and Crockett’s audience loved it. As Lofaro explains, “He played up his reputation as a bear hunter, which to the people of

West Tennessee was a mark of his independence...The voters loved his humor, his offhand approach to the issues, his irreverent attitude toward the entrenched elite. His ability with a rifle proved a for his political stance: to his constituency, he was a straight shooter” (5).

Essentially, West Tennesseans cared more about who Crockett (and Butler) was and the relatable characteristics he embodied as a tall talker more than his (in)ability to govern.

Mary Pope Osborne begins the introduction to her modified collection of American Tall

Tales with an attempt to capture the flavor of such speech used by Crockett and other Americans of his time period: “Tall talk, or exaggerated storytelling, began in the 1800s as a way for

Americans to come to terms with the vast and inhospitable lands they’d come to inhabit—thick, dark forests filled with bears and panthers; treeless, arid deserts and plains; towering mountains; and seacoasts” (x).15 Yet Osborne’s description is ultimately incomplete because tall talk during expansionism was more than, as Henry B. Wonham notes in Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale, “a tendency toward what [Alexis de] Tocqueville called ‘giganticism’ in the

American imagination” (20). Tall talk was not only exaggerated storytelling, but also humorous exaggerated storytelling that teetered on the edge of ridiculous . As Wonham elaborates,

Tall humor was especially capable of inflating America’s promises to such an extent...that an inevitable contrast with real conditions suggested itself in the minds of those who knew enough not to be taken in by the promise. If a credulous swallowed the exaggeration whole, that only added to the pleasure of privileged listeners, whose laughter at the image of a supersheep constituted a tacit of real conditions obscured by the joke. (20)

15 Mary Pope Osborne is the author of the award-winning Magic Tree House series. 24

In light of Wonham’s claim, Crockett’s employment of tall humor to ridicule Butler’s wealth (“I told him that I would go on the products of the country”) would have been especially hilarious to

Crockett’s fellow Tennesseans because Butler would not have been privy to the embedded in it. Crockett’s tall way of talking directly tapped into the identity of his listeners in such a fashion that Butler could not. Crockett knew how to, quite literally, speak the humorously tall language of his audience that elevated his own status while situating his rich, educated, East

Tennessee landowning opponent as the perfect punchline of an absurd social joke.

In the first chapter of Wonham’s study of Mark Twain (1835-1910) called “The

Emergence of Tall Narrative in American Writing,” Wonham poses the following question:

“Why is American humor a humor of radical discrepancies and incongruities?” (20). While not discounting the magnificence of the land affecting the magnificence of tall talk, Wonham proposes that the ironic humor underlying exaggerated speech was perfect for commenting on the common discrepancy between the harsh reality of American life and the lofty nation-building ideals circulating in urban centers. Although not specifically addressing tall talk—calling it

“booster talk” instead—Boorstin has a chapter dedicated to how early American English was a language of anticipation:

Much of what struck foreign observes as bizarre in American description was a new linguistic confusion of present and future, fact and hope. This became a mannerism, or even a mode of American speech...The American booster often was simply speaking in the , asserting what could not yet be disproved. Even in colonial times men writing about America had found it hard to confine themselves to demonstrable facts. (35)

Earlier in his book, Boorstin also spends a lot of time talking about how American thinking and approaches to technology were also highly anticipatory (and hasty), just like the new language. 25

For instance, Boorstin outlines how early American newspapers would promote towns that had not even been constructed yet (in the same way the railroad was constructed according to places that did not yet exist) to prompt the creation of those very towns:

Again and again, ambitious migratory newspapermen aimed not at the known needs of an existing community but at the needs of some future community for which they desperately hoped. The first issue of Ignatius Donnelly’s Emigrant Aid Journal (1856), which urged the nonpareil virtues of the city of Nininger (still to be constructed) in Minnesota, was actually published out of . (127)

The enthusiasm of possibility blurred the lines between fact and fiction in early America, which

Boorstin shows was evident in both action and general speech, and the outrageous humor of tall talk existed in the gap between the anticipation and the actuality. According to Wonham,

Tall humor is American not because of its incongruous--all humor is that--but because it articulateds incongruities that are embedded in the American experience. A country founded, settled, and closely observed by men and women with extraordinary expectations, both exalted and depraved, could not help but appreciate the distance that separated the ideal from the real, the ‘language of culture’ from the ‘language of sweat,’ the democratic from the social and economic reality of the early American republic. (21)

Tall talk had become interwoven with the progression of a hyperbolic American identity that managed to capture via speech the tension between ordinary experience and extraordinary expectations. Both the humor and the exaggeration inherent to tall talk were social manifestations of an America that knew, sometimes to an absurd and reckless extent, that it would become larger-than-life, even in the of humbling experiences or a lack of concrete evidence. That is why understanding the social background of tall talk is essential to understanding the popular narrative form (and, more importantly, its massive characters) that emerged from it, a form that (although appropriated from a preexisting form) folklorists have commonly regarded as uniquely and reflectively American: the American tall tale.

26

Tall Talk Grows Legs: American Tall Tale Heroes

Every culture has its heroes, and as Tristram Potter Coffin and Hennig Cohen write in their introduction to The of Heroes: Legendary Figures in American Lore,

All heroes are exaggerations...Like the representations of men on the Greek stage described by Aristotle, they are markedly larger than life or smaller. They are distinguished from ordinary men and women by such qualities as their unusual strength...skill...morality...guile...or kindness to others. ...They are symbols, revealing through the songs, stories, and sayings based on their exemplary, if exaggerated, lives how ordinary people should behave. (xxiv)

Folklorists such as Coffin and Cohen have compiled countless volumes on the various and variant heroes across and within cultures around the world ( Campbell’s The Hero with a

Thousand Faces is partly to blame). However, despite the general consensus that hero lore is common to all, folklorists have also noted that hero lore found a special home in America, particularly via tall tale narratives.

Tall tales (like tall talk) are a form of exaggerated storytelling. In fact, both Boorstin and

Wonham agree that the only real difference between the two is that tall talk is a mode of speech whereas tall tales are “simply an application to narrative of the special characteristics of the new

American speech” ( Boorstin 295). As Boorstin explains, tall tales “turned a piece of tall talk into a kind of narrative” (295). Yet Boorstin appears to miss the national significance of this exaggerated storytelling in a way that Wonham does not. The translation of an American way of talking into a distinct narrative form with recognizable elements and patterns signified the solidification of a transferable (oral and written, as will be explored shortly) social narrative at a pivotal time of national uncertainty. As Wonham explains,

The tall tale as a form of oral narrative flourished in North America is it had nowhere else. Whether out of affection for a language as immense as the continent itself, or as an 27

ironic comment on their own inflated dreams, Americans adopted tall talk as a national idiom and the tall tale as a national form of humorous storytelling. (21)

The tall tale, in other words, became a unifying social for a disperse American population.

So much so, that it could be recognized as a national phenomenon by foreign travelers, which

Wonham later concludes in his chapter “The Emergence of Tall Narrative in American Writing.”

He explains that, “By 1850, several writers had learned that the tall tale names a form of social ritual as much as it names a style of , that to present a tall tale is to describe an interpretive game with important social consequences for its participants” (50). It is precisely because of its role as “a form of social ritual,” as well as a “style of narration,” that the tall tale form has been studied and indexed by numerous folklorists, especially in collections on

American folklore.

In The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction, Jan Harold Brunvand, an American folklorist and professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah, defines folklore as the traditional, unofficial, and noninstitutionalized part of a culture. Brunvand further explains,

“Folklore comprises the unrecorded traditions of a people; it includes both the form and content of these traditions and their manner of communication from person to person” (3), and folklore can be reviewed “‘as a historical artifact, as describable and transmissible entity, as culture, and as behavior’” (xvii). Folklore is not considered to be synonymous, although it frequently overlaps, with popular culture because folkloric materials are passed on traditionally, generation after generation, either by word of mouth or through custom and practice, whereas popular culture is by definition popular in the moment and can disappear or change substantially over time. Popular culture can become folkloric if it remains relevant but must also become detached from the person(s) who introduced it. It can no longer be solely owned by individuals but rather assimilated as part of collective culture, existing in different versions (i.e., derived from the same 28 original ) or variants (i.e., not derived from the same source but have many characters, elements, or motifs in common).16

Folklore studies, which is recognized as an established, independent, and academic discipline, “records and attempts to analyze these traditions (both content and process) so as to reveal the common life of the human mind apart from what is contained in the formal records of culture that compose the heritage of a people” (Brunvand 3). Folklorists are not simply preoccupied by the traditions that have been spread, assimilated, and transformed, but also by the processes by which these changes have occurred, why they have occurred, by (and for) whom they have occurred, and the overall cultural and social influences around these changes. In a critical essay titled “The Method and Material,” reprinted in The Classic Fairy Tales, Vladimir

Propp explains, “Folklore is not only a literary but also a historical phenomenon and the science of folklore not only literary but also a historical discipline” (502).17 So while the traditions themselves are an essential component of folkloric studies, the context in which they cross, diverge, change, and integrate is equally essential.

Significantly, although the U.S. is regarded as “a prime multicultural meeting ground of foreign ” (Brunvand 62), and, as Wonham explains, “although the form is undeniably international and belongs to no single period” (21), folklorists overwhelmingly agree that tall tales “did find a special home in the American imagination during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (Wonham 21).18 In Charlotte Huck’s Children Literature, Barbara Kiefer provides an overview of the defining characteristics of folktales around the world, including folktales of

16 Variant and version distinction from Barbara Kiefer. 17 The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, is a critical text in folklore scholarship. 18 “Of the 3,871 humorous types and motifs collected by folklorists in America and later compiled by Ernest Baughman, 3,710 were tall tales. By comparison, Baughman’s Type and -Index of the Folktales of England and North America records only 29 tall tales out of 3,966 types and motifs collected in England, lowland , Wales, and Ireland combined” (Wonham 21). 29

Canada and the United States.19 Kiefer attributes many cycles of folktales common to the United

States to Native American, Eskimo, and Inuit tales native to North and Central America; tales from other countries, primarily from West Africa that form the basis of African American folktales; and tales from Europe and their modifications; however, Kiefer places tall tales in a category of their own, explicitly calling it Americana (252).

In accordance with Kiefer and many others who have studied American folklore,

Brunvand maintains that, “Tall tales may not be original with Americans, but they are certainly popular in the United States and fully characteristic of American folklore” (Brunvand 247). Yet what, exactly, about tall tales is so blatantly American? According to Wonham,

Benjamin Franklin may have been among the first patriots to challenge foreign readers with an example of tall humor, yet by the end of the eighteenth century Americans were already notorious for their seemingly irrational and depraved love of exaggeration, and no account of travel through the western and southern settlements was complete without some anecdote intended to illustrate this idiosyncrasy of the national character. (17; emphasis added)

As has already been discussed, the vagueness and polarizing contradictions of the land and the government in early America enabled the development of American English and the prevalence of tall speech, both of which emphasized the American tendency toward anticipation and exaggeration, to the point of absurdity. Yet Wonham’s comment about anecdotes illustrating the

“idiosyncrasy of the national character” connotes a key feature specific to the tall tale narrative that also cultivated the new national identity.

Coffin and Cohen highlight the distinct and sociologically essential characteristic when they write: “Hack writers in the nineteenth century virtually appropriated the tall tale...making it over into something typically American and making its hero into such an outrageously

19 See more about Barbara Kiefer on the Ohio State University website under the College of Education and Human Ecology. 30 extravagant figure that the word hero itself shifted its meaning” (xxviii).20 No American tall tale is complete without its central character, its “outrageously extravagant figure,” its beyond-heroic heroes. Americanisms and tall talk may have encapsulated the attitude of early national development in the United States, but the tall tale stories gave the national spirit legs; an exceptional prototype for the Americans to emulate and unite behind.

Similar to the importance of who controlled the development of American English, it is also important to consider who became canonized tall tale heroes in order to comprehend the

American behind the American tall tale. Coffin and Cohen provide a quickly summarize the nature of early American heroes in general: “The bulk of legendary characters in this country are local eccentrics or local figures reshaped by the mass media and literary culture, or outright fictions” ( xxiv). This has been true since the beginning of American history, and can be traced back to the tall tale heroes. , , Mike Fink, George Washington,

Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson: all these American were ordinary people made extra-ordinary by tall tale narratives in early America, which successfully (and problematically) merged fact with fiction and historical figure with heroic myth, in the same way tall talk merged the real with the ideal.

It is not until later on in American history that entirely fabricated characters like Paul

Bunyan would walk onto the scene. As Coffin and Cohen explain, “Most American heroes are not gods, demigods, or former gods. Most are either known historical figures whose lives form a pattern others aspire to emulate” (xxv). The American pantheon of early, national heroes contains those who had lived among us and had set a concerning precedent for the idealization of

20 A “hack writer” is a “person who hires himself or herself out to do any kind of literary work; (hence) a writer producing dull, unoriginal work, esp. to order” (OED). More about the historical process by which tall narratives gained prominence is to come. 31 historical leaders. In many respects it normalized a secular form of hero-worship that would grip

American people for years to come, and the tendency can be traced by starting with the canonization of two popular, but very distinct American tall tale heroes: George Washington

(1732-1799), the truth-telling president, and Davy Crockett (1786-1836), the backwoods demigod.

George Washington and David Crockett (Davy is the name used by historians and folklorists to refer to the legendary hero, whereas David is in reference to the actual person) were popular cultural figures during the time of early American nationalism. They were both also elevated to the status of legendary hero at an alarming speed in ways that nearly erased their mundane (and, in the case of Washington, controversial) . Even before Crockett’s legendary death at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, fantastically fabricated anecdotes of him began to circulate with extreme popularity well into the 1850s, and by the outbreak of the Civil

War (1861), the worship of an idealized Washington “had acquired a full cultic apparatus”

(Boorstin 340), even though at that point there were still men alive who remembered

Washington’s death. Yet despite their trajectories into the heroic hall of fame and the exaggerated anecdotes tied to their names, the processes by which Washington and Crockett were canonized, as well as the nature of the tall tale legends they were canonized with, are notably distinct.

In his chapter “Search for Symbols,” Boorstin investigates the canonization of the

Crockett legends before the Washington legends, but chronologically the Washington legends circulated first with the 1806 publication of an 80-page pamphlet. It contained the famous story of George Washington and the cherry tree, and was written by (a.k.a.

“Parson Weems”), who was “an itinerant salesman of salvation and printed matter” (340) and “a 32 one-man market-research enterprise” (340).21 Weems continued to elongate his pamphlet and, in

1808, published a full-length book. The Life of Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally

Honourable to Himself and Exemplary to His Countrymen contained troves of (questionable) anecdotes that accompanied the cherry tree story, including one in which George’s mother, Mary

Washington, “dreamed a dream which foretold his greatness and the history of the Revolution”

(Boorstin 344).

Boorstin highlights the problematic construction of Weems’ work, explaining: “The great gap in our documentary knowledge of Washington, especially in his early life, Weems filled with materials borrowed, stolen, or invented, describing events which, from their very nature, were virtually impossible to disprove” (Boorstin 345). Boorstin spends almost twenty pages providing details about “The Mythologizing of George Washington,” including a thorough recount of the development and popularization of Weems’ Washington in all of his idealized glory, as well as an overview of the other “scores of acolytes of the Washington cult” (345), who helped keep

Weems’ anecdotes in circulation. Boorstin explores how the success of Weems’ legends came off the back of the failure of the first installment of Chief Justice John Marshall’s own history on the life of George Washington. Unlike the captivating booster vitality of Weems’ anecdotes, according to Boorstin, “The whole Volume One, called ‘Introduction,’ was consumed by a pedantic account of colonial history beginning with Columbus; toward the end were two casual mentions of Washington. Dull, laborious, rambling, and secondhand, the work lumbered into its third, fourth, and fifth volumes” (342), and, “Weems, seeing a public hungry for the readable story about the National Hero...repeatedly begged Carey to dispose of the Marshall venture and

21 Information on the publication is gathered from Boorstin, as well as from The Life of Washington book page on the Harvard University Press website. 33 provide something more salable” (342).22 Eventually Weems took matters into his own hands, instigating a cycle of Washington tall tales that would be widely read, and later, comically echoed in the cycle of Crockett tall tales instigated in the 1830s. In fact, as Boorstin notes in the conclusion of the chapter, Weems is actually featured in the third part of the “Autobiography” of

Davy Crockett.

Prior to discussing the heroic canonization or Washington, Boorstin writes, “Davy

Crockett was the most important and, for some time, the most widely known popular candidate for national hero-worship. The vehicles which spread his fame, like everything else about him, beautifully illustrate the peculiar American situation” (328). The “vehicles” that Boorstin references is a kind of subliterature, “the characteristic American printed matter...the newspaper, the pamphlet, the how-to-do-it manual, the sermon, and the letter” (330). According to Boorstin, two elements “mark the American making of a popular legendary hero” (328), like Crockett: one, “a fantastic chronological abridgement” and, two, circulation in American subliterature.

Coffin and Cohen the sentiments of Boorstin and American folklorists alike when they say,

America has been an exceptionally fertile land for the production of fictitious heroes. This is understandable in terms of geography and history. Commensurate with the vast land itself has been the inclination toward expansiveness, toward magnitude, toward stretching the truth into the realm of . In part this fecundity is a compensation for a relative failure to generate authentic folk heroes, a failure that can be explained on the basis of time. Compared with England or Germany or Spain, to say nothing of India, folklore in America has had insufficient time to germinate. But also important is the massive impact of the communications media: it has inhibited genuine folklore by the effectiveness with which it produces artificial substitutes. This process often starts with a historical figure about whom folk motifs are already beginning to cluster. (xxvi-ii)

Oral legends of David Crockett circulated while he was still alive (this was no doubt due to his popularity throughout his campaign colored with backwoods tall speech), and then around his

22 Weems was an agent for Matthew Carey and C.P. Wayne of Philadelphia, and was employed to sell subscriptions to Marshall’s work (Boorstin 341-2). 34 legendary death, more Crockett legends appeared in print, even before the multitudes of famous almanacs.23

In the the folkloric collection Davy Crockett: The Man, the Legend, the Legacy 1786-

1986, author Michael Lofaro explores both the fantasy and the reality of Crockett’s legend, digging into his historical rise to Congress, death at the Alamo, and establishment as a backwoods demigod through popular media, including the series of Davy Crockett Almanacks released about him in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. The earliest almanac, called Davy Crockett’s

Almanack, of Wild Sports of the West, and Life in the Backwoods. Calculated for all the States in the Union, was printed in Nashville in 1835 (Boorstin 329-30). In such tall tales, Crockett had been the biggest infant to be born, he was extremely clever, he rode a tame bear named Death

Hug, and he “died in hand-to-hand combat, fighting on even after his trusty rifle had been smashed, using its barrel as a club” (Lofaro 12). Yet in the real world, according to Lofaro,

“[Crockett] was a perfectly ordinary pioneer who had a brief flirtation with greatness. He was a minor hero and a colorful campaigner, but it is no secret that he was ineffective as a state legislature and national congressman...The stories of Crockett’s stand at the Alamo have been diluted by the discovery that he was captured and executed rather than cut down fighting”

(7).24 Recalling the previous discussion about the function of both humor and exaggeration in tall talk, the Davy Crockett legends were also a mixture of the two qualities.

23 “There was a quirk of Crockett’s character, in real life, which made frontier folk elect him and re-elect him to the state legislature and to the United States House of Representatives. That he was poor, that he was uneducated, made no difference to them: they thought he could get along because they guessed he had good horse sense. This fact suggests the paradox of Crockett’s renown. He won fame and office because he had horse sense; he remained famous because of the nonsense associated with his memory” (Coffin and Cohen 423). 24 “The Crockett almanacs...contained much information and misinformation besides the ‘true adventures’ of Davy Crockett. They included adventures of Mike Fink, Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, and of the more obscure backwoods supermen, and miscellaneous stories of plants and animals, as well as the pithy sayings, medical hints, and helpful facts of weather, astronomy, and astrology, which had long been the staples of the almanacs” (Boorstin 330). 35

In a comparison between the Crockett tales and the heroic roles of Achilles, Beowulf,

Siegfried, Roland, and King Arthur, Boorstin emphasizes the comic quality of Crockett that is missing from the others. As Boorstin writes,

“All heroes are heroic; few are also clowns. What made the American popular hero heroic also made him comic...In a world full of the , where all norms were vaguely or extravagantly defined, readers of the Crockett legends were never quite certain whether to laugh or to applaud, whether what they saw and heard was wonderful, awful, or ridiculous” (332).

Boorstin argues that such comical narratives were perfect for the subliterature readers of early

America, because the “literature was designed for people who did not read books. Intended for a predominantly masculine public, it was self-consciously unliterary and ungenteel, belligerently formless and unashamedly crude” (330).25 In the introduction to Osborne’s updated collection of

American tall tale stories, she describes her decision to alter the tales because of a more detailed set of the qualities Boorstin mentions: “As I combed through old material to select which yarns to retell, I found it disheartening to come across stories that derided African Americans, Native

Americans, women, and animals. And considering our environmental problems today, I was less than enthusiastic about the goal of conquering the wilderness at all costs” (xi).

Lofaro, who read thousands of Crockett tales in preparation for his collection, notes, “The crude specimens of the Crockett almanacs win my vote as the ugliest in the whole genre. If there is an absolute low point in the history of American humor, the yarn about the squatter and the cow pie is surely it” (14). The (white, male, crude, aggressive) target audience of the original tall tales is a social factor that should not be overlooked, even if “the processes that perpetuated the

25 “Perhaps the most important vehicle of the age for collecting and disseminating the subliterature about the Southwest and the West was published in . The Spirit of the Times was founded in 1831 by William T. Porter, a Vermont-born son of a horse-fancying family...By 1856, Porter had claimed a circulation of 40,000. The Spirit of the Times was to be a bible of the subliterature. Like many other ephemeral publications, it gave form to scattered anonymous tales” (Boorstin 334). 36 legend absorbed, and eventually diluted, the worst characteristics of this most disreputable of

Davy’s many images” (Lofaro 14), leaving instead “the popular American sympathy for the nobler qualities in the of the backwoodsman, who may rightly be regarded as having become a comic and heroic stereotype by Crockett’s time” (Lofaro 14). The eventual sanitization of the Crockett character in American memory highlights how, ultimately, the popular, comical frontier figures of American subliterature were overruled in the national narrative by the elite, serious governmental figures of American literature, as will be discussed.

The tall tales of Crockett circulating in the subliterature were blunt about its outrageousness to the point of comedy, but the exaggerated storytelling employed by literate

Americans to embellish the lives of the American elite (partly because of Weems’ Washington, but also due to regional rivalries that produced competing embellished biographies of their own, showcasing the local patriotism that gave way to a national patriotism with hero-izing tendencies26), masked its fabrications, packaging fiction as nonfiction, tall stories as historical anecdotes. Both forms turned ordinary Americans into extra-ordinary heroes, but while one did it humorously the other did it seriously with devoted zeal. Moreover, although both highly idealized, the nature of the Crockett legends were the complete opposite to those of Washington narratives. Highlighting the differences between the Crockett narratives and the Washington narratives, in their corresponding forms, Boorstin summarizes,

The legendary Washington was a kind of anti-Crockett. The bluster, the crudity, the vulgarity, the monstrous boosterism of Crockett and his fellow supermen of the subliterature were all qualities which Washington most conspicuously lacked. At the same time, the dignity, the reverence for God, the sober judgement, the sense of , and the of the distant future, for all of which Washington was proverbial were unknown to the -tailed Roarers of the West. (337)

26 William Wirt’s Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (1817), was an embellished biography seeping with Virginian pride, and in response, William Tudor’s Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts (1823), was an embellished biography seeping with Massachusetts pride. 37

Although Washington would ultimately gain a higher pedestal than Crockett in the hall of national heroes, the tall stock character of a truth-teller Washington was no different than the tall stock character of a noble backwoods Crockett.

It is important to emphasize the seriousness of the embellished Washington biographies

(again, they might as well have been called tall tales packaged as history), even amidst the more critical and factual ones being written simultaneously, versus the comedy of the Crockett tales.

In writing about tall tale heroes like Crockett, Boorstin states,

The American clownish heroes were supermen. They were flamboyant, gargantuan, and wonderfully efficient, but they lacked grandeur...The American supermen, the Davy Crocketts of the subliterature, showed Americans strenuously trying to idealize themselves, to make an ideal simply by exaggerating the commonplace. It is not surprising they did not succeed. The effort was amusing; its result was comic rather than . (337)

The Hero figure of Washington was anything but comical and normalized a form of the Puritan /

Protestant ideology of exceptionalism disguised by Weems as biography. Even though the

Crockett narratives, which were in part connected to the work of Whig Journalists, appeared to make fun of the form and its followers, it still preserved a national spirit and tall prototype of exaggerated, masculine, white, and exceptional heroes to imitate and worship. The Americans who read the cherry tree tale of Washington also read the Alamo tale of Crockett, and while one inspired devotion and the other humor, they both solidified the tall tale narrative in the memory of the United States.

It is no wonder that the American historian George Bancroft’s 10-volume History of the

United States—the first of which was released in 1834—was so influential in projecting a “City upon a Hill” mentality onto the American society and establishing its place in ecclesiastical 38 history; it was already happening with the tall tale form.27 For a people already heroizing its popular cultural figures, it was not a huge leap to do the same to its nation. While such a narrative might have been viewed as comical to many during the era of early American expansionism, as Boorstin notes, “After the Civil War, the comics and the heroics tended to separate” (Boorstin 337). The country had achieved unity, and the idea of an idealized United

States with its idealized heroes could no longer be funny but accepted. The nation, and those within it, would be exceptional.

As Howard Zinn states in A People’s History of the United States, “If you look through high school text books and elementary school textbooks in American history you will find

[Andrew] Jackson the frontiersman, soldier, democrat, man of the people—not Jackson the slave holder, land speculateor, of dissident soldiers, exterminator of Indians,” (130), or as

Coffin and Cohen state, “So Washington’s austerity, his military confusions, his opportunism, give way to a benign patriarchal image” (xxxiv). Such a romanization of leadership (with specific guidelines and characteristics) would become the norm in American culture, in terms of its people and its role as a nation. It is a tendency that can be tracked from the start of the nation with the popularity of American tall tale heroes to the present state of the nation with the popularity of American superheroes.

27 “Though his focus was on America, his standpoint was the world. ...He used the national past as a testimony of the national mission” (Boorstin 371-3). 39

PART TWO: Inventing a Super-Heroic National Narrative

Comic Book Superheroes & New Deal America

“Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! Yes, it’s Superman! Strange visitor from another planet who came to earth with and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who–disguised as Clark Kent, mild- mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper–fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!”

–The Adventures of Superman TV Series (1952-1958)

Cowboys and Capes: From Western Super Men to Comic-Book Superman

In early America, exaggerated speech was perfectly fitted to the prevailing of anticipation, self-determination, and national power. The transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century (which emphasized Emersonian notions of individualism and self-reliance), the “every man is equal” mentality of the Jacksonian Era, and the belief in “Manifest Destiny” that justified the eradication of indigenous populations, all contributed to a growing sense of special exceptionalism.28 And as the new nation expanded, so too did its heroic narratives. The early popularity of tall tale heroes was only the beginning of a long history of exceptional figures

(predominately white males) and exaggeration in the American mythos. Western cowboys would soon join the heroic parade as Western settlers encountered and co-opted the Mexican vaquero culture.29 These cattle wrangling, horse-riding mighty men of the West were essentially evolutionary (and geographic) offshoots of backwoods demigods like Davy Crockett and democratic legends like George Washington. Yet while Crockett and company were circulated in the subliterature of mass media, the lone rangers received their big between the 1920s and

28 Newspaper editor John O’Sullivan coined the term “Manifest Destiny” in New York Morning News on Dec. 1845. 29 The “Cowboys” page on history.com provides a quick overview of American cowboys. 40

1940s with the rise of Hollywood film. Actor John Wayne (1907-1979) typifies the genre as he famously “showed a heroic American ‘can-do’ spirit in over seventy-five films” (“John Wayne

Biography”).30

Although cowboys would continue to play a notable role in American culture for a number of years, these lawless straight-shooters would share the spotlight with another brand of celebrated heroes around : soldiers. For instance, The Big Parade, released worldwide in 1925, is the highest-grossing silent film of all time, making $22 million.31 It focuses on a young man (John Gilbert) who joins the army after the U.S. enters World War I and is sent to France, where he falls in love with a French woman (Renée Adorée).32 Many other war films occupied the Hollywood box office right alongside Western films, and the two would often share elements—and actors (e.g., John Wayne starred in a variety of both)—despite the genre distinction. Whether they occupied the domestic Western front or the European Western front, cowboys and soldiers embodied the brave, weapon-wielding masculine spirit the American public heroized at the start of the 20th century, a spirit which built off of the legendary history of the Founding Fathers and American tall tale heroes (with even older narrative roots than that).

However, as the 20th century progressed, and as the United States became more urbanized, industrialized, and isolationist following the Great War, an improved heroic narrative was needed.3334 This heroic need intensified with the Great Depression, which began in October of 1929 with the stock market crash and resulted in an extremely high unemployment rate and

30 John Wayne debuted in The Big Trail, released on Oct. 24, 1930, but Stagecoach, released on Mar. 2, 1939, was truly what catalyzed his fame. 31 Deutsch, James. “World War I: 100 Years Later…” 32 “The Big Parade (1925).” 33 “The combination of the Great Depression and the memory of tragic losses in World War I contributed to pushing American public opinion and policy toward isolationism” (“American Isolationism in the 1930s”). 34 “The 1920 Census revealed that more Americans lived in cities than in the countryside for the first time” (Rees 2). 41 the loss of homes and savings for many Americans.35 The introduction of Prohibition with the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1920 also “fueled the rise of organized crime” (“Crime in the

Great Depression”) that would plague American streets for more than a decade, increasing the general atmosphere of desperation. Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), the president at the time, became very unpopular in the eyes of Americans as he failed to deliver on his campaign promise

“to bring continued peace and prosperity to the nation” (“Herbert Hoover”). American faith in the nation and its institutions was faltering. So when the presidential election of 1932 pitted

Hoover against Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) and his “New Deal America” , there was truly no question; Americans a change, and Hoover was soundly defeated.

While a fifty-year-old new president from New York was taking office to combat the

Great Depression from the , two 20-year-old Jewish Americans from Cleveland were developing a new hero type to combat the Great Depression in the streets. As FDR introduced his New Deal programs in 1933 during his legendary first “Hundred Days,” writer

Jerry (Jerome) Siegel and artist Joe (Joseph) Shuster created Superman, the very first comic book superhero. Although the cape-wearing, spandex-clad, strong man would not make an official appearance in DC Comic’s #1 until June of 1938, his construction began on the tail of the Great Depression and in the midst of New Deal rhetoric and FDR’s “fireside chats.”

As Martin Lund, in “American : Reading America through Super-New Dealers and the

‘Melting Pot,’” argues, “There might, then, be an appropriate key to interpreting Superman in the immediate context of his creation: to wit, the first term of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt”

(83).

35 “By 1933...some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed” (“Great Depression History”). 42

For instance, Lund explains, “The first half of the Superman story focuses on the issues of ‘social justice’ and the ‘forgotten man’...that FDR promoted through his rhetoric” (89). Yet whereas FDR’s actions were often restrained by the governmental system, Superman was a social avenger who could put on a costume and use his fists to immediately address Great

Depression anguish. Unlike the present-day knowledge of the Superman character, the original

Man of Steel did not (his cape was a prop) and his concerns were with domestic crime and corruption (not international and otherworldly threats–those would come with time).36 The sixth panel on the second page of Action Comics #1 succinctly declares the nature of this new superhero: “Superman! Champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!” (Superman 8). In the comic, those in need are

“law-abiding, hard-working, white Americans” (Lund 91), and those who threaten such people, including corrupt governors, would-be assassins, wife beaters, and gangsters, draw the wrath of

Superman. Americans forget that Superman in his traditional form was rather violent and more of a than his present portrayals, reflecting the post-Depression fears which framed his invention.37

An important aspect of Siegel and Shuster’s creation was how much it pushed (albeit to a fantastical degree) in its time what it meant to be an American hero, regardless of Superman’s immigrant status as an alien from another planet. “Superman expressed the beliefs, values, and norms offered up by the Roosevelt White House and the long-held theory of assimilation that painted the country as a great cultural ‘Melting Pot’” (80), Lund explains. Lund highlights how,

36 “This early Superman was a superpowered street brawler who fought for the less fortunate and concerned himself more with social ills rather than cosmic threats” (Johnson 8). 37 The cover of Action Comics #1 depicts Superman smashing a car against a boulder after aggressively dumping its evil occupants out. In the comic itself he terrifies villains constantly by holding them at great heights with threats to drop them (Superman). 43

for many, the growing anti-Semitism in the 20s and 30s in America “strengthened the resolve to

be perceived as white, and as such inspired them to and express themselves in line with what

was perceived as ‘American’” (87). Siegel and Shuster, who were Jewish and “voracious

consumers of American pop culture” (86), created a super-immigrant who quickly and

effectively assimilated to and acculturated the American pursuit of justice and the greater good.

Shuster, who was an avid bodybuilder according to Lund, “was inspired by the very

white Tarzan ” (86), and his Superman artwork reflected it (see Figures 1- 2).

Superman and are depicted with the

common features of Hollywood movie stars. In

particular, Superman has “broad shoulders, chiseled

jaw, near-perfect posture, even when playing the

bumbling Clark Kent” (89), and Lois Lane is “slim,

beautiful, and toothsome, while remaining shy of

Figure 1: Cover page dated Figure 2: Cover page dated July 2, 1936 June 1938 being overtly sexual” (89). Subconsciously or not, Shuster gave Superman a physique and that matched the prototype of the strong-white-

heterosexual-male hero of American culture. Even as he evolved in the 80 years after, Superman

and his super-heroic spawn never lost this prototypicality that would make the comics all-too-

perfect for big-screen Hollywood, to an extent that even went beyond Western and war films.

Although Superman was, in many respects, a patchwork of other genres in circulation at

the time (e.g., pulp, Western, war, sci-fi, crime), according to Johnson’s Super-History,

What was unique was that the introduction of this character was the first time that all of these traditional , pulp, and fantasy elements had been combined into one hero. Superman was the first super strong, crime fighting, costumed hero from another world. In other words, he was the first superhero. While young readers had delighted over exploits of other heroes for years, the Man of Steel was the first avenger to offer all the thrills in one package. (11) 44

Superman was a beyond-heroic hero that dwarfed all who came before him. He was a superhero, and he came on stage at a moment in U.S. history when previous American heroes were failing to address society’s problems. When American greatness once again found its footing with a

New Deal president blazing the way and igniting the national, patriotic spirit leading up to and during WWII, comic book superheroes would support the effort, solidifying them in our cultural narrative for 80 years and counting.

The Greatest Generation and the Golden Age of Comics (1938-1950)

Soon after the publication of Action Comics #1 in June of 1938, DC Comics (originally called

National Allied Publications) released another well-known superhero: Bat-Man (the hyphen would be dropped later). This dark and stormy , crafted by young in collaboration with Bill , first made his debut in #27 in May 1939, a little less than a year after Superman’s arrival.38 Although Batman and Superman were distinct in that

Batman was human and had to acquire his super strength through gadgetry whereas Superman was an alien born with super strength, and the villains they fought differed, they both became lumped in the category of superheroes as crime-fighting, cape-wearing, identity-hiding strong men.39

At the time, these two superheroes, “the archetypal Great Depression superheroes both fighting for a society that needed their assistance” (Johnson 26), became very popular, and their

38 DC Comics actually stands for Detective Comics Comics, named after the popular crime series, which was published in 1937 (Bond). It is also worth mentioning that the company was founded by Major Malcolm Wheeler- Nicholson after he left the army. 39 “While the 1930s Superman was generally battling common criminals and rule breakers, Batman’s early villains were normally megalomaniacal madmen, scientists or supernatural entities” (Johnson 25). 45 stories catalyzed the creation of hundreds more . As Johnson notes, “Comic book historian Mike Benton claims that over 700 new comic book superheroes were created in the period from 1938 to 1954” (26).40 That fact is pivotal because it enabled a folkloric quality to the superhero canonization that is similar to how tall tales were popularized in early America.

The eclectic mix of costumed heroes–everything from Blackhawk to to Sandman to

Phantom Lady–that immediately followed the creations of Superman and Batman in comic books (i.e., American subliterature) quickly established a recognizable narrative formula and removed any sense of sole authorship.41

The same year that Bat-Man appears in DC Comics, (the company that would eventually become ) released Marvel Comics #1. Published on Oct. 1,

1939, the comic by writer Ben Thompson and artist Frank Paul featured the on the cover. However, it was not until the publication of Captain America #1 on March 1, 1941, that

Timely Comics managed to produce a hit title that could compete with the superstars of DC

Comics. DC superheroes like , who appeared in All-American Comics #16 on in

July of 1940, and Wonder Woman, who appeared in All #8 in October of 1941, dominated the comic book market, even as other companies like Timely Comics were cranking out their own superheroes.

In the introduction to Pustz’s anthology on comic-book culture, he notes “how comic book creators themselves sometimes function as historians, perhaps by engaging in discourse with national historical or by using comics to create personal narratives that connect to

40 Mike Benton is the author of Superhero Comics of the Golden Age: The Illustrated History published in 1992. The information comes from p. 65. 41 To this day, the company names DC Comics and Marvel are more widely known than the trove of writers and artists behind the superheroes (on page and screen).

46 key moments in American history” (4). Pustz’s assessment of comic books as history helps to outline how comic books like Captain America #1 and Sensation Comics #1, which featured

Wonder Woman as its lead for most of the series, became explicitly linked to America’s national narrative during WWII.42 While superheroes like Superman and Batman may have started out as

Great Depression social avengers, by the time the United States entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, superheroes had transitioned into what Johnson calls “super-patriots.”

One of the fascinating things about superheroes in the 1940s is that “some comic book superheroes entered World War II far earlier than the United States did” (Johnson 34), such as in

Timely Comics’ Captain America series. Created by writer and artist , along with writer , and published months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the front cover of

Captain America #1 features a -white-and-blue super-soldier punching Adolf Hitler in the face.43 In “Parody and Propaganda: and the Battle against Crime and

Communism in the 1950s,” author John Donovan notes that Kirby and Simon originally wanted to name Captain America “Super American,” but decided against it. Yet the sentiment behind the name remained in the narrative. Steve Rogers was as pro-American and anti-communist as he could be, not only joining the army and becoming a super-soldier for his country, but also by wrapping himself in an American flag.

Captain America may have been the first super-patriot to openly battle Nazis, but he was only the start. “By mid-1942,” Johnson writes, “nearly all comic book heroes had changed into

42 “One of the most important attributes of popular culture is that it quickly changes to meet a society’s needs. Popular culture often serves as both a mirror and molder in society and is frequently one the best gauges of a society’s current hopes, fears, wants, and needs” (Johnson 34). 43 “Captain America was uniquely fighting a real world before the politicians and even the public had decided to do so” (Johnson 35). 47 patriotic citizens...Just as the government asked Americans to adapt their lives to support the war effort, comic book publishers altered superheroes to better represent the new American society”

(37). The more vigilante-esque nature of Superman and Batman basically disappeared and was replaced with law abidance, and after the comics industry teamed up with the Office of War

Information and the Writers’ War Board, superheroes explicitly became a form of propaganda.44

As Johnson summarizes,

American World War II propaganda posters created an outline of the U.S. government’s social domestic guidelines that one can compare to the changes among comic book superheroes. These can be placed into four distinct categories: encouragement to join the military, the importance of supporting servicemen, the need to buy war bonds, and the guidelines of how patriotic Americans should act. (36)

From countless covers that promoted the sale of war bonds and sported the American flag to storylines that fostered “American hatred for the enemy Axis powers” (Mifsud 13), comic book superheroes became super proponents of nationalism and militarism, on the home front and the war front.45

For instance, although Superman never became a soldier in the war like Timely Comics’

Steve Rogers, he did try to enlist but failed to pass the eye exam when his x- vision malfunctioned, and instead decided to continue protecting the homeland. In that comic, he states,

“The , Navy, and Marines are capable of smashing their foes without the aid of a Superman” (Johnson 39). Superman #14, cover dated January-February 1942, is also a clear example of how patriotic found its home in the comics. As Johnson describes,

The image portrays the predominantly red and blue costumed Superman standing in front of a shield bearing the stars and stripes of the American flag. With his right hand on his

44 “Some of these changes in superheroes were in answer to public fears that comic books were too violent for young readers. Other changes were because of Americans’ interest in the war in Europe. As the real world became more violent, comic book superheroes became less so” (Johnson 30). 45 “Comics serve as a cheap source of entertainment during World War II. During the Golden Age, it is not uncommon for a single comic book issue to sell over one million copies” (“Comics Timeline”). 48

hip, the Man of Steel watches as an lands on his left arm. The silhouettes of tanks and aircraft occupy the image’s black background. (39-40)

Captain America may be costumed in the American flag, embodying the ideal of a super

American, but other superheroes embraced U.S. iconography and militarism, as well.

In fact, just as Superman made the decision to protect the home front, another superhero empowered countless women to fill the labor gaps left behind by all the new soldiers. As was noted earlier, Wonder Woman was the lead feature of Sensation Comics #1, released in January

1942.46 Borrowing Johnson’s description, “Wonder Woman dressed in the colors of the

American flag and fought for the American way of life (and her boyfriend Steve Trevor)” (46), the front cover of Sensation Comics #1 featured an American flag atop a building in the background, across from the Capitol building.47 Interestingly enough, 1942 was the same year that the famous Rosie the Riveter prototype was created by a artist named J. Howard

Miller and “featured on a poster for Westinghouse Electric Corporation under the headline ‘We

Can Do It!’” (“Rosie the Riveter”). Wonder Woman was only one example of WWII female superheroes–others included War Nurse, Black Cat, Pat Patriot, , Miss American,

Liberty Belle, and Black –many of whom supported the war effort in both their costumed and secret identities (Johnson).

So whether it be Wonder Woman or Captain America or any other costumed hero, superheroes joined the American war effort with an uber-patriotic spirit while condemning and

46 Notice how Wonder Woman was only a long-term feature in the so-named “Sensation” comics, rather than receiving her own comic book title like Superman and Batman. Johnson points out that “one of the few differences between Wonder Woman and other superheroes was the odd number of times that villains captured and bound her” (46). But I would also point out that, unlike her male counterparts, she wears makeup, a skirt, earrings, and heeled boots–all very clear gender markers. Maybe Sensual Comics would have made more sense. 47 “Sensation Comics Vol 1.” 49 combating Axis evils.48 But what happened when the battle was won, soldiers returned home, and the nation tried to move on? Simple: superheroes were no longer needed (or wanted). “The

1950s were a scary time for comic-book publishers” (13), Courtney Mifsud writes in “The

Origin of a Superhero Powerhouse,” an article in the 2019 special edition of TIME magazine focused on Marvel. Mifsud continues,

The fans had all but abandoned the genre’s heroes, taking to other genres such as crime and horror stories and Westerns. The public was growing more and more worried about communist spies, driven by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1953-54 Senate investigation. There was a panic about the comic industry’s reported promotion of juvenile delinquency, which led to congressional hearings. Rather than accept government policing, the comics industry censored itself and created the to ensure that content was more wholesome. (13)

Wanting to put the horrors from World War II behind them and return to normalcy, post-war

America in the ‘50s became preoccupied with calm, stability, and family life. Superheroes seemed to remind them of the existence of truly frightening villains and threatened the veil of peace in which the nation was trying to wrap itself, and, furthermore, many Americans believed that comic book violence could be negatively affecting their children.49

As a result of the new national mood, Captain America lost his popularity,

(the next name of the eventual Marvel Comics) churned out more monster and Western stories instead of superheroes, and DC Comics moved its superheroes to the suburbs:

In the postwar U.S,[sic] the once mighty social avengers and wartime heroes were reduced to cheery conformists. As American society became more structured and stratified, there was little room for the kinds of change for which Great Depression and World War II superheroes had fought. Postwar American society now reveled in its

48 I employ the term “uber-patriotic” instead of just “patriotic” in the same way the characters are called “super- heroes” instead of just “heroes.” In other words, they go above and beyond what is already considered to be abnormal—it is the hyperbolic tendency. 49 In Spring 1954, Dr. Fredric Wertham, a notable psychiatrist, published Seduction of Innocent, a book that attacked the comic book industry. This led to a series of hearings in NYC by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency on Apr. 21-22 and June 4, 1954. In October of the same year, publishes established the Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA), and adopted the Comic Code Authority, a self-censorship bible of sorts. Its of Approval that marked the front covers of comics would remain with the industry until 2011. See Nyberg citation for more information. 50

stability and demanded that nothing, not even superheroes, attempt to change it. American society now expected male comic book heroes to act like every other American man and settle down. (Johnson 71)

Unlike many publishers who turned away from superheroes just as America turned away from them, DC Comics managed to maintain strong sales for its super-stories by adjusting the narratives to fit this new American temperament. Although DC characters like Superman and

Batman had already transitioned from social avengers to law-abiding super-patriots, after the war they became even more conformist to American nationalism by becoming “ citizens that respected authority and aided law enforcement” (73) and adhering to the rigid social order that ensued in post-war times.

Johnson uses Superman to exemplify DC’s narrative transformation after WWII. “Like many of his corporate man brethren,” Johnson explains, “Superman becomes a white collar worker and many of his postwar stories focus on the domestic/non-work parts of his life” (74), including his early family life with the Kents and his romantic relationship with Lois Lane.50

More Fun Comics #101, cover dated January 1945, introduced , Superman’s teenage self, who would become a common feature in the Superman narrative over the next few years.

Then, in more than twenty different Superman stories in Action Comics and Superman between

1949 and 1955, marriage becomes a central topic as Lois Lane attempts to make a husband out of her costumed hero. Significantly, Superman is not the only character who underwent a series of transformations between the Great Depression and post-war times. Lois Lane’s character also shifted. She went from “a tough-talking independent woman” to “a jealous girlfriend obsessed with learning her boyfriend’s secrets and forcing him to marry her” (Johnson 76). The change

50 “As a hyper-symbolic American male, Superman needed to demonstrate both his heterosexuality and his independence. The strict postwar social code dictated that Superman should have romantic relationships with the opposite sex but also continue to maintain his freedom and bachelorhood…the Man of Steel needed to remain a bachelor while preserving the idea of the heterosexual ” (Johnson 76). 51 epitomizes the more general (masculine) desire at the time to return the working women of

WWII back to romanticized domesticity, and the war veterans back to the workforce. This was the new (old?) normal for Americans in the 1950s, but as Johnson foreshadows at the end of his chapter, the stability would not last, “change was coming, no matter if society wanted it or not”

(84). The Golden Age of comics would come to an end, and superheroes would have to answer the call for change yet again, or fade into the background noise of American culture.

Superman was the first superhero to enter American culture, and between him and other traditional supers like Batman, Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, and , DC Comics is commonly credited with the creation of the superhero sub-genre in the comic book industry. The time between the release of Action Comics #1 in 1938 up until the revival of The Flash in

Showcase #4, cover dated October 1956, has been dubbed the “Golden Age” of comics, which is chiefly defined by DC’s superheroes, despite the existence of other superhero publishers in the comics industry. Yet while the subsequent age, the “Silver Age” of comics, may have started with DC Comics’ reintroduction of an old character, followed by the revival of many other

Golden Age superheroes, overall the historical demarcation is defined by the rise of Marvel

Comics. In 1960 DC Comics had the largest share of the comic book market, and Superman was the most popular superhero (the comic sold an estimated 810,000 copies per month). However, in 1972, Marvel Comics would surpass DC Comics “as the best-selling comic-book company in the world” (Mifsud 15), making it a real-world super-foe for decades to follow. What was it that gave Marvel its new-found power over the American public? Well, one must simply take a look at what happened in the ‘60s.

52

Baby Boomer Counterculture and the Silver Age of Comics (1956-1970)

Although the 1950s in the United States may have looked postcard-perfect to outside eyes with its suburban homes and nuclear families, in reality, a deep anxiety pulsed beneath the surface– and overseas. On August 29, 1949, the USSR successfully conducted its first nuclear test. Code- named ‘RDS-1’, the test’s effects were publicly announced by President Truman less than a month later on September 23 and then were confirmed by the Soviet Union the following day.51

The nuclear test–which took place almost exactly four years after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 of 1945–was a clear signal to Americans that while the soldiers had returned home, war times were not over. Weapons of Mass

Destruction (WMDs) and communism loomed with menace somewhere on the other side of the world, and no number of babies or white-picket fences could diminish that threat (hard as

Americans might try). The Cold War was very much afoot.

The USSR’s nuclear test in 1949 was, in large part, most likely to blame for the shift in post-war American sentiment regarding nuclear power. As Johnson explains, “While the atomic bomb had been a savior during World War II and a postwar scientific marvel that promised a brighter future, by the 1950s it symbolized a possible nuclear nightmare” (56). Within the same month of the nuclear test, the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) approved and released a pamphlet called 100 Things You Should Know About Communism that also helped foster a fear of communists.52 Then, in 1952, the U.S. government released the famous duck-and- cover instructional film to teach children what to do in the case of a nuclear attack. The video featured Bert the turtle and was light-hearted in , despite the terrifying subject matter. In a sense, that description also applies to 1950s America at large. A terrible threat of nuclear

51 “29 August 1949 - First Soviet Nuclear Test.” 52 HUAC was formed on May 26, 1938, but was very unpopular until after WWII. 53 destruction was squashed underneath a strict social control. Yet what is ironic is that in the attempt to impose stability through rigid order, the Greatest Generation cultivated a new kind of threat.

After the American soldiers returned home in 1945, there was a massive jump in the national birth rate between 1946 and 1964, a time that became known as the Baby Boom. “The

U.S. Census Bureau estimates that over 78 million children were born” (Johnson 58) within the span of those 18 years. These children would grow up in the midst of American prosperity mixed with nuclear anxiety, and “by the early , Boomers were beginning to create trends and influence society in economic, social, cultural, and even political ways” (Johnson 59). They challenged their parents’ generation to a remarkable extent, transforming “the stuffy 1950s into the increasingly provocative 1960s” (Johnson 59). And just as the demand for change during the

Great Depression gave rise to DC superheroes, the counterculture impulse of the 1960s in the

United States enabled the rise of yet another brand of superheroes with social power that far exceeded that of their more conservative super-predecessors (as well as their creators). The ‘60s is when the legendary (1922-2018), in collaboration with Jack Kirby (1917-1994), would finally get his big break, influencing the trajectory of Marvel Comics well into the 21st- century.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Rewinding a bit, in March of 1960, DC Comics introduced the first superhero team, the of America (JLA), in The Brave and the

Bold #28. A few months after, in October, the team got its own title with the release of Justice

League of America #1. “During its first year,” Johnson notes, “Justice League of America was one of the top ten selling superhero comics in the nation and a resounding success” (89). It is because of JLA’s success that Martin Goodman, the publisher and owner of Marvel Comics 54

(previously Atlas Comics), “instructed his comic book editor, Stan Lee, to create a new superhero group that could cash in on this perceived trend” (14). Bob Batchelor, author of the article “Spidey Saves the Day” in TIME Special Edition 2019, writes that Lee once called Martin

Goodman “one of the great imitators of all time” (18), because it had not been uncommon for

Goodman to make similar requests in response to changing moods in the comic book industry.

However, as Batchelor writes, “Lee brought his concepts to [Jack] Kirby, and they got to work on creating a squad that was nothing like what Goodman had asked for” (14). The superhero team Lee and Kirby concocted, the , was super-human compared to the other superheroes in circulation.

The Fantastic Four already knew each other as friends and relatives before they became a super-squad, and their powers did not diminish their human interactions and imperfections. The group “fought super-menances and stopped criminals but they also bickered among themselves and faced personal problems that many readers could understand” (Johnson 92). At a moment when DC Comic superheroes were ultimately models of perfection, Lee and Kirby’s new crew exhibiting emotional depth and realistic flaws, right alongside fantastic abilities, was truly a

Marvel.53 The team was unleashed in America on August 8, 1961, via The Fantastic Four #1, and, to Goodman’s delight, the comic book was a huge success. In the wake of that success, Lee and Kirby would soon crank out a trove of new superheroes and super-powered squads for

Marvel Comics, all of whom would together define the Silver Age of comics and the popularity of DC superheroes.

53 “Reed was an arrogant intellectual bore who sometimes treated Sue coldly. Johnny was a young hothead who often acted before thinking. Possibly the most interesting of the group was Ben, who faced isolation and loneliness after becoming the Thing. Ben became as much monster as hero and had to learn to live in a world that feared him and was repulsed by his appearance” (Johnson 92). 55

What we cannot forget is that Marvel Comics’ new-found fame significantly coincided with the rise of the Baby Boomer generation, who grew up during the stress of the Cuban Missile

Crisis (Oct. 16-28, 1962) and the wonder of the Digital Revolution. While it is true that Lee and

Kirby were actually members of the G.I. Generation and were WWII veterans, they still tapped into the changing social norms of the ‘60s, unlike DC Comics’ staff, who remained (from what we see in the comics) stuck in the ‘50s mindset. For instance, one of the clear ways Lee and

Kirby adapted their superheroes to America (while DC failed to do so) was by directly engaging with nuclear anxieties. The Fantastic Four’s superpowers were an caused by cosmic radiation to which they were to during a space mission.54

The Incredible , who made an appearance a few months after the Fantastic team, also received his monstrosity from radiation, and, like Thing in the Fantastic Four, Bruce

Banner’s super-abilities often felt more like a curse than a blessing, alienating him from humanity in the same way “many adolescent and teenage readers...felt alienated from mainstream society” (Johnson 93). The uber-conformist DC Superman was a safe superhero for the Greatest Generation, but the angsty, untraditional superheroes produced by Lee and Kirby were better suited for the Baby Boomers. To use Johnson’s words, “The Marvel Age had begun, and it all started with a superhero family and a sympathetic green-skinned marker” (93), and the

Marvel character that would make the biggest cultural splash was, unsurprisingly, a teenager.

Spider-Man, the costumed-identity of a shy, young, Peter Parker, who was bit by a radioactive (note the atomic once again) and develops spider-related-powers (often referred to as “spidey-powers” or “spidey-senses”), is featured for the first time in Amazing

Fantasy #15, cover dated Aug. 15, 1962. Johnson explains, “When Marvel’s publisher, Martin

54 Keep in mind that the Space Race occurred between 1955 and 1975, and the Fantastic Four were in the drafting stage a little under 2 years after the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 craft made it to the moon on Sept. 13, 1959. 56

Goodman, first heard of Spider-Man, he thought the character was a terrible idea and would surely fail because it violated too many established superhero norms” (93). In the article “Spidey

Saves the Day,” Batchelor breaks down three major things Goodman disliked about Lee’s idea

(quoting the man himself):

‘People hate spiders, so you can’t call a hero “Spider-Man”’; no teenager could be a hero ‘but only be a sidekick’; and a hero had to be heroic, not a pimply kid who isn’t popular or strong. (20)

However, despite Goodman’s objections to the teenage Spider-Man, Peter Parker made his debut and was embraced by readers with overwhelming zeal. “Spider-Man was not just a hit,”

Batchelor remarks, “the issue was in fact the fastest-selling comic book of the year, and indeed the decade” (22). For this reason, -slinging Peter Parker would get his own title, The

Amazing Spider Man, written (of course) by Stan Lee, penciled by –with cover artwork by Ditko and Kirby–and published on Mar. 10, 1963. Contrary to what Goodman and other publishers at the time had assumed, teenagers were more than fitting to be superheroes– they were wanted by a youthful readership who wanted to be super themselves. They were the

Baby Boomers who were ready to counter the established culture of their parents.

“The early 1960s were but a prelude to the social and cultural change that would occur later in the decade,” Johnson states. From the assassination of JFK on Nov. 22, 1963, to the oppositional demonstrations to the beginning in 1964, to the Beatles’ on the Ed Sullivan Show in Feb. of 1964, to the assassination of Malcolm X, to the

Voting Right Act of 1965, to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, the next generation of Americans witnessed (and caused) a lot of national change.

However, it was Marvel superheroes who answered the new call to action, rather than DC 57 superheroes.55 For instance, in July of 1966, less than a year after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, it was Marvel that published the first comic to ever feature a black superhero: Black Panther in Fantastic Four #52.56 Now, it may be easy to connect the dots and say that the character name and the African-American group bearing the same name (that was founded in Oct. 1966) cannot be coincidental, but as Stacey Nguyen states in “The Complicated

History Between Marvel’s Black Panther and the Party,” an online article, “the history is more complicated than one might expect.” For instance, in the 1972 Fantastic Four #119, Lee and

Kirby switched T’Challa’s alter ego to the Black Leopard in order “to remove speculated connections with the political party” (Nguyen). Regardless of the potential connection (or lack thereof) between the party and the comics character, the historical moment within the Civil

Rights Movement was the same.57

Yet it would still take time for the ‘60s Marvel superheroes to fully overshadow the ‘50s

DC superheroes. This is a fact that Johnson emphasizes, because “while a large number of younger Americans became involved in protests, social movements, or the counterculture during the 1960s, this group was always by far a minority” (97). He elaborates, “Those of us who were born after the 1960s often focus on the relative few individuals that changed American society, while we forget that most people were either ambivalent toward or opposed to these social changes” (97). Marvel’s slow rise to the front of the comic book sales mirrors the steep climb counterculture youth had in store when it came to convincing other Americans (their parents,

55 “Marvel Comics stories were becoming increasingly daring and unconventional, while DC Comics tales continued to employ the conservative elements that had worked so well in the past. Marvel writers and editors used an audacious and self-deprecating style that appealed to many hip young readers...By contrast, DC employed rigid 1950s style professionalism and made certain that each comic book adhered to a strict code of quality control” (97). 56 DC Comics would not premiere its first major black superhero, Black Lightning, until April of 1977, more than ten years after Marvel introduced Black Panther. 57 Unfortunately, T’Challa never got his own headlining title by Marvel in the 20th-century, which the company rectified 50 years later (!) with the release of Black Panther #1...in 2016. 58 yes, but also their peers) to face the new music. “We now see the 1960s as the birth of the

Marvel superhero style, an idea that would soon revolutionize the comic book industry,” Johnson writes, “but [we] forget that throughout the 1960s most American[sic] preferred traditional and conservative superhero stories” (97). It would not be until the mid-1960s that counterculture would start to really gain momentum among the American youth.

Marvel would also remain rather conservative (even with a teenage superhero and monstrous outcasts) until the mid-1960s. Specifically, Marvel would not embark on its more progressive streak (which included heroes like Black Panther and the Guardians of the Galaxy) until 1968. As Johnson explains, “Marvel’s most popular hero, Spider-Man, continued to fight crime and express little social commentary. Captain America remained a symbol of American patriotism and honor” (98). The most conservative of the bunch, Johnson argues, at the start of the decade was Iron Man, who was introduced in Tales of #39, published Mar. 10,

1963. Unlike the high-tech, red-and-gold costume design people associate with Tony Stark in

2019, the cover artwork depicts an entirely iron-gray suite (Marvel.com). Johnson’s argument for

Iron Man’s uber-conservatism is as follows:

Iron Man often fought grotesque Soviet and Eastern European villains who initially challenged the American way of life but ultimately surrendered to the glorious supremacy of American values and ideals. Although by the mid-1960s Tony Stark began to question the American government and the Vietnam conflict, he remained committed to a traditional conservative understanding of the U.S.’s problems, both at home and abroad. Iron Man, and all of the other Marvel heroes, borrowed liberal cultural aesthetics to appeal to young readers but remained solidly conservative in and story. (98)

The description of a conservative superhero with “borrowed liberal cultural aesthetics” is an idea that should be kept in mind throughout the rest of this paper because, as will be explored in the modern-day film part, the statement never quite loses its relevance in regard to superhero narratives (for Marvel or DC Comics). 59

American exceptionalism is deeply ingrained in the genre, and although superheroes experience radical shifts at one point or another throughout U.S. history, I hope to show that they have yet to fully forsake the nationalistic, ethnocentric, hyper-masculine spirit so central to what makes a superhero the best of heroes. However, Marvel did begin to head in a relatively progressive direction in 1968. Between 1968-69, Marvel Comics “made it clear that most Marvel characters had liberal leanings but believed in centrist non-violent resolutions that avoided radical and aggressive social outcomes” (Johnson 101). In the roughly 15 years following—the comic book era called “The Bronze Age,”—Marvel superheroes underwent even more significant changes, and the genre itself (much like the American nation) was never to be the same again.

Crisis of Confidence and the Bronze Age of Comics (1970-1985)

On July 15, 1979, during a national televised broadcast, U.S. President Jimmy Carter faced the

American nation and, instead of focusing on the energy crisis (the original purpose for the speech), he soon stated: “‘I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.’”58 The President continued,

‘I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.’

58 The transcript to and footage of Carter’s speech can be found on the American Rhetoric website (see entry in the bibliography). 60

The broadcast became famously known as Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech, and, in many ways, it provides the perfect backdrop for the Bronze Age of Comics. Comic-book historians like Johnson and Pustz spend a lot of pages focusing on the in the comics industry because of how it reflected the overall mood of American malaise, which was the public temperament Jimmy Carter was attempting to address in his speech.

In his anthology, Pustz begins his chapter on the 1970s by stating, “The military defeat in

Vietnam, ‘stagflation,’ the Arab oil embargo, Watergate, and even the kidnapping of Patty

Hearst led many Americans in the 1970s to believe that their country was on a downward slide”

(136). A few paragraphs later, Pustz outlines how such events were also highlighted by Jimmy

Carter’s speech:

The assassinations of the 1960s rocked Americans’ faith in democracy, [Carter] explained. The Vietnam War raised doubts about the nation’s military invincibility. Watergate made Americans doubt the integrity of political leaders. Stagflation (the combination of high inflation and high unemployment) led to doubts about the , while the energy crisis made Americans realize that the nation’s natural resources were limited. (137)

But then Pustz moves beyond the President’s speech to say,

Looking back at the decade, two additional causes for this ‘crisis of confidence’ are clear. First, Americans spent much of the decade reeling from problem after problem; at times, the crises seemed never-ending and impossible to solve. Beyond that, many Americans– especially by 1979–were frustrated with the Carter administration and its often ineffectual leadership style. This would especially be demonstrated in the months that followed the speech as the President struggled to address the Iran hostage crisis confidently and effectively. (138)

Jimmy Carter may have pointed out a lot of the national occurrences that plagued the American people in the late ‘60s and throughout the ‘70s, but he was also viewed by many as part of the problem. The Watergate scandal had a resounding impact on how U.S. citizens viewed the White

House and its inhabitants. The heroic status that seemed to come with the Oval Office when FDR 61 was the president had greatly diminished, and that sense of disillusionment filtered through so much of American life, including how Americans viewed society at large.

Comic book superheroes also felt (and began to reflect) this disconcerting turn in the national atmosphere. “The 1970s,” Johnson writes, “generally witnessed and produced a darker and more despondent national tone and a citizenry that often questioned what had gone wrong with the United States. In classic comic book fashion, by the end of the decade many superheroes began to become as angry and dejected as the nation” (103). The middle-of-the-road passivity common for Marvel superheroes in the late ‘60s gave way to direct criticism, social discourse, and radical super-shifts, making the comic books much more politically engaged (while, again,

DC primarily stayed out of the fray with only the occasional shout of liberal support).59

According to Pustz, America’s malaise had its handprint on ‘70s comics in four main ways:

First, superheroes in this period frequently suffered from their own ‘crisis of confidence’ and often ended up abandoning their costumed secret identities. Second, it was common to find superheroes suffering from a lack of direction–much like Americans who were uncertain about the future. Third, superheroes in the 1970s were frequently faced with overwhelming power, problems and threats that seemed impossible to overcome. The final demonstration of malaise is personified by superheroes who lost their powers– clearly, a connection to Americans who felt like their power to change the government or control their own little part of the world had also disappeared. (138)

Comics writer and (1957-), who started to establish a popular “grim and gritty aesthetic” (“Comics Timeline”), also played a pivotal role in the super-changes, first at

Marvel but then (arguably more important) at DC Comics, which spilled over into the Modern

Age of comics. There are many examples of these four markers of the new (less?) super direction

59 To be fair, when DC did try to dilute the super-ness of Superman in a 1971 comic, “editors and public opinion quickly pushed the hero back into his more traditional state” (105). We should bear in mind that, just like how different demographics read different newspapers, so too do comics have varying readerships (especially, it seems, DC vs. Marvel). 62 but three Marvel plotlines that really exemplify the Bronze Age shift involved Spider-Man,

Captain America (no there), and Iron Man.

The 1970s witnessed a decrease in the confidence of Marvel’s red-black-and-blue teenage superhero, Spider-Man. For instance, in The Amazing Spider-Man #86, published July

10, 1970, and penciled by and with cover art by John Romita, “Spider-

Man thinks that he’s losing his powers” (Pustz 146) after a battle with Black Widow, which results in a mini existential crisis where he contemplates normalcy. However, much more challenging times were ahead for Peter Parker. Across two issues of The Amazing Spider-Man,

#121 and #122, published on June 10, 1973, and July 10, 1973, writer and penciler did something rather drastic in the world of comics. Conway and Kane killed off their superhero’s love interest–permanently. In an online article, “The Lasting Impact of ‘the

Night Died,’” Kieran Shiach states, “What starts off as a traditional superhero versus battle over the fate of the hero’s love interest takes a tragic turn when Gwen

Stacy dies despite the hero’s best efforts to save her – and in that moment, superhero comics grew up in a major way.” What was so significant about her death was that, in contrast to earlier superhero narratives in which characters die but are eventually resurrected, Gwen Stacy does not come back from the grave. She stays dead.

Gwen Stacy dies in Spider-Man’s attempt to save her when the (a.k.a.

Norman Osborn) knocks her off a bridge. Even though Parker’s web catches Gwen, her neck snaps in the process. Parker actually praises himself for the rescue immediately after (Marvel

Database), but then to his horror and the Green Goblin’s twisted delight, Spider-Man realizes that he not only failed, but also may have had a hand in Gwen’s death.60 The comic leaves the

60 Gwen Stacy’s death is undeniably an example of the ‘Woman in the Refrigerator’ . But more will be said on that trope later. 63 answer to this ambiguous, and this revolutionary story “gripped fans and expressed the era’s hopelessness” (Johnson 115). In a 2009 interview, Conway explicitly revealed the connection between “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” and American turmoil at the time:

We were in the midst of a real crisis of ideals. We were being disillusioned at every turn...Thousands of kids were being killed in Vietnam. People were dying in the streets in riots. We had a president who was being drummed out of office for committing illegal acts. You know, it was a horrific time and I think that story sort of reflected it. It was the first time that that particular fatalism, I guess, had been addressed in comics. (Johnson 115)

I wanted to highlight Conway’s comment about former U.S. president Richard Nixon because the “Night Gwen Stacy Died” coincided with the Watergate timeline. The impeachment proceedings commenced on May 9, 1974, but the trials began on Jan. 8, 1973, and the tragic spidey tale hit comics stands in the summer of 1973. What I find interesting but Johnson does not mention, is that (i.e., the Green Goblin) shares suspicious facial characteristics with Nixon. In particular, their haircuts, eyebrows, and slightly sinister expressions are rather similar (see Figures 3, 4, and 5 below). Osborn had been in the series since December 1965, issue 31, but I would be curious to know if his character design changed at all between his first appearance and when the Watergate scandal broke.61

Figure 3, 4, & 5 (Left to Right): Panels from Amazing Spider-Man #119, President Nixon Speaking to the American Public, Panels from Amazing Spider-Man #121

61 I do not get into it here, but two issues after “The Night Gwen Stacy Died,” Marvel introduced The Punisher, who had an extremely violent nature that plunged the Spider-Man series into worse waters. 64

The second Marvel story arc that exemplifies the Bronze Age superheroes involves the uber-American man himself, Captain America. In what was perhaps the most radical superhero storyline that Marvel disseminated into the hands of U.S. citizens, Steve Rogers operates against the U.S. government, forsakes his Captain America alter-ego, and becomes , a man without a country. The narrative, which ran from July 1973 to August 1974 in Captain America and the #163-176, is known in the comic world as the Secret story. The gist of the plot is that Captain America realizes that a has infiltrated the U.S. government and is slowly taking over. Captain America ultimately eliminates the infestation by defeating

Moonstone, a Captain-copycat, on the White House lawn while the leader of the Secret Empire,

Number One, watches. At the conclusion of the battle, Number One flees into the Oval Office where Captain America corners him. Number One commits , and the reader never learns his identity, but as Johnson states, “Writer Steve Engelhart was clearly basing the Secret Empire members on people within the Nixon administration” (114), and it is not a to assume

Number One was, in fact, Nixon himself.

Yet what makes the Secret Empire plot so radical is not its parallel to Nixon, per say, but what Captain America does after he eradicates the infiltrators. “In the past,” Johnson writes, “the triumphant hero would have reveled in a job well done and would have moved on to his next battle” (114). But that is not what Steve Rogers did. Instead, “1974’s Captain America decided to quit” (Johnson 114). Specifically, he discards his patriotic suit (as depicted on the cover itself in

Figure 6), and decides to become Nomad, “the man without a country,” and, in fact, the next Figure 6: Cover of Captain Figure 7: Cover of Captain America #176 America #177 65 issue of Captain America, #177, is actually called Captain America Falcon, and the cover declares, “The Falcon Fights Alone!” (Marvel.com; see Figure 7). Then, on December 10, 1974,

Marvel publishes #180 with a cover that declares, “The end of Captain America! The awesome origin of Steve Rogers new !” and “Look out world-beaters! Here comes the

Nomad!” (Marvel.com). “Although Steve Rogers would regain his Captain America identity before too long,” Johnson explains, “his quitting made a clear and powerful statement” (115).

Through a Captain-America-turned-Nomad plot, Marvel in 1974 quite literally portrayed

America’s identity crisis in its comics. For seven issues, Steve Rogers would truly question what it meant to be an American and to live in the United States, and comic-book readers would do the same right alongside him as the Watergate scandal dominated the news.62

The final Marvel superhero narrative to typify the Bronze Age of comics stars (as stated earlier) one of its historically most conservative male leads: Iron Man. The tale “Demon in a

Bottle” from The Invincible Iron Man #120-128, published between March and November 1979, showcased the fallibility of Tony Stark’s invincibility. “During this story,” Johnson explains,

“Tony Stark begins to lose control of his Iron Man armor as it suffers numerous apparent malfunctions, seemingly kills a foreign ambassador, is forced to resign as the leader of the

Avengers, is required to relinquish the Iron Man armor to the police, is kidnapped by one of his foes, and develops a severe drinking problem” (123). Similar to Steve Rogers, Tony Stark loses his superhero identity, but, unlike Rogers, Stark picks up a bottle instead of a new identity.

Furthermore, the depressed, self-loathing, alcoholic billionaire genius does not point fingers at the government or an outside force, but, instead “he realizes that all of his problems

62 Spoiler alert: The Secret Empire plotline (like so many early super-stories) gets recycled on the big screen starting with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). Yet instead of a Watergate backdrop, other politics loom . But more on that to come... 66 have been caused ultimately not by some outside force or supervillain but rather by himself”

(Pustz 139). The slight difference is actually a good segue into the modern age of comics, because while the bronze age experienced more identity crises in its heroes than the two ages before, the fourth age digs even deeper into what it means to be a superhero, especially an

American one. In the modern age of comics, would enter the superhero world and shake up its form once again. And the question would not solely be answered by the country in which superheroes were created, but by outside perspectives seeing the genre as it moves beyond the domestic space and into the global realm.

Violent Vigilantes and the Modern Age of Comics (1985-Present)

The four ages of comics, although helpful in attempting to group the large changes in comics since the ‘30s, are not without problems in terms of accurately portraying when certain trends started in the comics industry or when American temperament experienced alterations. The modern age of comics is commonly held to have started in 1985 when DC Comics rebooted its universe with Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, the overall nature of superheroes in the mid-

80s onward in many respects, was simply a series of aftershocks produced by the quakes that occurred in the Bronze Age. To elaborate, the Watergate scandal, which rocked America’s faith in its government and institutions, forever shifted the superhero genre down a road of imperfection and political discourse. In the ‘40s and ‘50s, Superman and his fellow DC originals came to represent the United States in all its powerful glory, but as the country faltered more and more, comic book superheroes faltered, as well. Nixon’s presidency—and scandal—changed the nation tremendously, and the changing nation changed the comics industry indefinitely. 67

Then during the Reagan administration, superheroes did something strange: they became unprecedentedly violent. What distinguishes the bronze age and the modern age of comics the most is that increase in violence, and the extent to which between heroes and villains became blurred. But while the demarcation between the ages is 1985, that trend actually started with the new decade and increased during Reagan’s time in office. Johnson has a theory about the correlation:

Although many superheroes turned introspective and apologetic, like much of the nation’s populace, during the 1960s and 1970s, the qualities of individualism, conflict resolution through strength and physical engagement, and American exceptionality remained at the characters’ core. Reagan’s America would seem to align with superheroes’ historical characteristics and would allow many of those characters to return to their roots. (129)

Johnson attributes the new superhero trend to “Reagan’s America,” but a lot was happening around the ‘80s and ‘90s in America, so I am hesitant to assume causation between the two. If anything, I would argue that the sunny Superman (Christopher Reeve) of the original Superman films are closer in character to Reagan’s own sunny disposition than the kind of superheroes that crawled out the mid-to-late ‘80s.

Causation aside, if we recall, before DC Comics became entangled with the war effort in the ‘40s, Superman was essentially a violent vigilante. Much like lawless cowboys, the spandex- clad mighty man used force and his fists to address crime and corruption. And it is that kind of superhero that resurfaced with force in the ‘80s, except to a greater degree–and the comic book readership did not object. “Interestingly,” Johnson writes, “the industry began to change and grow not by becoming more liberal, as it had during the 1960s and 1970s, but by creating a new type of neo-conservative tale in which the superhero is the last force of good in an amoral and lawless society” (130). That is why Johnson titled his chapter on the ‘80s “Super-

Conservatives and Neo-Cowboys (1980-1989).” In the ‘80s, super-history would repeat itself, 68 and, in the years that followed, ultimately the superhero genre would experience a weird combination of new and old, reboots and revivals.

In regard to the violent, vigilante direction of ‘80s comics, Frank Miller’s “grim and gritty aesthetic of mainstream comics” (“Comics Timeline”) is a key feature. First, Miller and artist revived , a Marvel character whose first self-title was published on

April 10, 1964 (Marvel.com). “In Daredevil’s New York City,” Johnson explains, “the government fails to protect its citizens, average Americans no longer believe in law and justice, and only the enlightened individualistic Daredevil can return society to its rightful state” (131).

The way in which Daredevil does so, of course, is with gruesome violence. According to

Johnson, “Violence had been a superhero staple since Superman’s first appearance, but Miller ratcheted up the vicious content and often portrayed violence in a realistic manner rarely seen before in comic books” (131). Miller took superheroes back to their violent roots, but escalated that violence, and Daredevil would not be the only superhero to be rewritten with this new intensity.

On Sept. 10, 1982, Marvel published the first issue of a mini-series in which

“Wolverine slaughters an extraordinary number of his enemies and...displays that his primary superpower is killing” (132). Miller drew the comic alongside ’s storyline, and it was (and still is) a super-violent hit. Like Daredevil, Wolverine existed and fought (or, slaughtered, more accurately) crime outside legal bounds as a lone, individualistic ranger of sorts. The Punisher, yet another super-violent vigilante figure (but not one of Miller’s), would also get his own mini-series in 1986 with a subsequent full-title series in 1987.

When DC comics writer rebooted the DC universe in the 12-issue series

Crisis on Infinite Earths, which started in April of 1985 and released an issue every month, 69

Superman also experienced a lone-vigilante makeover in The Man of Steel mini-series produced after the end of Crisis. The writer and artist John Byrne (who actually came from Marvel)

“erased many of Superman’s friends and allies and returned the Man of Steel to his status as the sole survivor of a doomed planet” (Johnson 139). Byrne also intensified Clark Kent’s American roots in the Midwest, despite his foreign past. Superman would not be the only revamped DC superhero either. Miller, who also came from a Marvel background, reworked Batman in

Batman: , which DC published from February to June of 1986. “In

Dark Knight,” Johnson details, “the super-conservative Batman is the only force of justice left in a society that has succumbed to voyeuristic, mindless media and a corrupt government that keeps citizens happy by appealing to their patriotism and consumerism” (140). So whether it was

Marvel or DC Comics, in the ‘80s superheroes like Daredevil, Wolverine, Superman, and

Batman embraced a life of solitary (white, male) vigilantism in the midst of dark and broken societies.

And if the connection to national disillusionment was not clear enough, between

September of 1986 and October of 1987, DC Comics published the critically-acclaimed

Watchmen series by writer Alan Moore and artist on the heels of Miller’s Dark

Knight. Yet what made Moore’s and Gibbons’s work stand out against all the other titles was its blatant critique of the superhero genre itself with superheroes who exacerbated the ‘80s vigilante types to the point that the characters could not comfortably be called heroes at all. As Johnson writes, “Moore’s characters illustrated the consequences of classic superhero traits like self- absorption, violently enforcing one’s personal morality, and individualism...The characters are Moore’s warning against society believing too much in heroes’ abilities to solve our problems” (147). One of the central concerns of the series, which gets at the problematic 70 nature of superheroes themselves, is the “war-as-peace” conundrum that the militaristic narratives cannot seem to escape.

Take for instance, a fictitious essay presented in the series in relation to the super- character Dr. Manhattan, who is the embodiment of the atomic bomb. The essay is called “Dr.

Manhattan: Super-Powers and the Superpowers, by Professor Milton Glass,” and it appeared in part four of the 12-part series:

It is the oldest that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace. This dichotomy is not an invention of the twentieth century, yet it is in this century that the most striking examples of the phenomena have appeared. Never before has man pursued global harmony more vocally while amassing stockpiles of weapons so devastating in their effect. The second world war – we were told – was the War to End Wars. The development of the atomic bomb is the Weapon to End Wars. (Watchmen 141)

By creating a supposed superhero that was quite literally the atomic bomb, Moore highlighted the weaponized nature inherent to American superheroes (and not just the ‘80s superheroes).

Vigilantes used violence to address violence, and Reagan increased military spending to combat communism. But even the tamer, group-oriented superheroes of the ‘60s and ‘70s promoted the use of superpowers to conquer evil. The “” story of Iron Man was a timid acknowledgement of the “Weapon to End Wars” dichotomy in the world of superheroes, whereas Moore’s Watchmen unabashedly showcased the dilemma with dire warnings of severe consequences.

It is easy to forget that superheroes, at the end of the day, are weaponized humans. We expect them to use their forces for the greater good, but, as Moore asks again and again in

Watchmen (accompanied by clear references to Vietnam throughout), “WHO WATCHES THE

WATCHMEN?” After the U.S. dropped the bomb, and to this day, Americans have asked themselves whether the technology should have ever been created in the first place, and Moore 71 poses the same question to his readers in regard to superheroes. However, if Moore was attempting to create discomfort with superheroes, he failed, but he did manage to increase the negativity and fatalism of the genre and even contributed his own characters to the mix with his

1988 publications of V for Vendetta and Batman: The Killing Joke. Moore intensified Miller’s

“grim and gritty” intensity, and together they added a flavor to the superhero stockpile that would mingle with every other brand of superheroes past and present.

The 1990s for comics was more of a transitional period between the ‘80s and the 21st- century wherein comic book narratives did not undergo any huge shifts (part of that is probably due to the translation into multimedia forms, which will be explored in Part Three). The X-Men series saw a huge amount of popularity though and in #105, published in February of 1992, X-Men character came out as gay and is considered to be one of the earliest, if not the first, openly gay superhero in mainstream comics.63 The issue gained a lot of sales, but, unfortunately, in “The U.S. HIV/AIDS Crisis: And the Negotiation of Queer Identity in

Superhero Comics, or, is Northstar still a Fairy?,” author Ben Bolling, who explores the connections between the HIV/AIDS Crisis and X-men mutants, specifically Northstar, explains,

“Marvel quickly grew mum on the subject of Northstar’s sexuality; the topic was not substantially broached again in the pages of Alpha Flight before the series’ cancellation in 1994”

(212). This is speculation, but given that Marvel was experiencing a lot of financial troubles at the time, the story could have proved to be too progressive and risky. Marvel filed for bankruptcy in the ‘90s, but ultimately survived because of a merger deal between ToyBiz and

Marvel Entertainment.64

63 The new X-Men #1 by Claremont and Lee sold 8 million copies after its release on Oct. 10, 1991. 64 “How Marvel Went From Bankruptcy to Billions” article from Den of Geek! is a quick and breezy read about the whole debacle. I’ll suffice it to say that it was complicated. 72

Northstar and bankruptcy aside, though, the turn of the century for the comics industry was predominately boring. That would soon change (by this point you should expect as much) when America once again experienced profound change in what has often been called the

“Decade of Fear.” The terrorist attacks in September of 2001, the US invasion of Afghanistan,

George W. Bush’s signing of the Patriot Act, and other related events resulted in associated superhero stories, many of which featured insider-threat tropes and heightened militancy, while still holding on to some of the grim-and-grit style of the ‘80s. Interestingly, unlike the Great

Depression social avengers and WWII super-patriots who fearlessly went toe-to-toe with foes, the post-9/11 superheroes repeatedly acknowledged their inability to stop terrorist events, especially ones that mirrored the twin-tower attacks. That tendency is a clear indication of how the superhero genre forever shifted in the aftermath of Watergate. Superheroes, it seemed, had their limitations just like the rest of us, and sometimes tragedy could not be prevented. As

Johnson emphasizes on multiple occasions in his Super-History, our comic book superheroes are mirrors and molders of American society, and as the United States has been forced to recognize its own mortality and vulnerability, superheroes have followed suit—or have helped lead the way

(though correlation is much easier to illuminate than causation).

But what happens when the super-genre leaps from the pages of comic books and onto the screens? The next part of this project will attempt to answer that question, exploring how super-history gets super-complicated when it has a new start in a new media with access to so many new audience members. Expanding on Johnson’s careful look at U.S. history in relation to the history of comic books, I will venture to discuss the trajectory of superheroes on film, and how it has a strange, backlogged relationship with its comic predecessors, while also keeping pulse with modern-day American sentiments. Marvel and DC Comics are known for their 73 parallel universes, but when those universes become split across different entertainment mediums, superheroes evolve (and sometimes de-evolve) differently, making for some odd (and problematic) cases of recycled and revamped super-history.

74

PART THREE: Reimagining a Super-Heroic National Narrative

Superhero Films & 21st-Century America

“[Uncle Ben] Peter, these are the years when a man changes into the man he is going to become for the rest of his life. Just be careful who you change into. ...Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility.” –Spider-Man (2002), 00:35:20

“[] Silly, I know. Propaganda. . Trumped up B.S. to scare the U.S.S.R. Hank, will you tell our guests what you told me every single time I asked you, was the Ant-Man real? [Dr. ] Just a tall tale.”

–Ant-Man (2015), 00:12:01

The Cinematic Age of Superheroes (2008-Present)

Comic books have been around a super long time–more than 80 years, to be exact. Through the different decades, the iconic superhero characters have experienced various changes (some more drastic than others) as well as repeats and revamps as the wants and heroic-needs of American audiences vacillated with national triumphs and failures. Yet when the superheroes leaped off the pages of comics and onto the screens of TVs and public theaters, the genre became more accessible (and, arguably, successful) than ever before, and comics companies like DC Comics and Marvel suddenly had the chance to engage a new, larger audience in a vastly different medium. Series that were in print years earlier had a chance to be reborn under a new set of eyes

(sometimes more than once). The rules of the game were different in the cinematic world, and so were the stakes.

To give an example, “Comic book fans are notorious for their concerns with continuity”

(Payne and Spaeth 186), and comic book readers are known to keep up with the entire duration of a series that may span a month, a year, or many years, while simultaneously crossing over with other series existing in the same universe. Casual movie and TV viewers, however, can take 75 more of a one-and-done or a every-once-in-a-while approach. Comic superheroes need to keep readers engaged for a long period of time, whereas cinematic superheroes only need to keep audience members engaged for an hour or so. Television falls somewhere in between those two needs, often including a minute or two of recap or repetitious opening to (re)orient new or returning viewers to the story basics. Superheroes may exist in different forms with similarities, but each form comes with its own consumptive norms and rules of engagement, and that should not be overlooked. So bearing in mind how comic book media compares and contrasts with cinematic media, I want to briefly discuss the trajectory of superhero narratives on screen before making an argument in favor of a new historical demarcation in the superhero timeline.65

The start of Part Two included the famous opening lines to the black-and-white 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman, which ends on the declaration that Superman (George

Reeves), who poses proudly in his costume getup in front of a waving American flag, fights for

“truth, justice, and the American Way!” The same introduction ran at the start of each episode in the series as it ran between Sept. 19, 1952 and April 28, 1958 on syndication, and it remains to this day a touchstone quote in superhero lore. In fact, twenty years after the TV series,

Christopher Reeve in the Hollywood film Superman (1978), also states (to Lois Lane, a.k.a.

Margot Kidder), “I’m here to fight for truth and justice and the American way” (1:25:20). The

‘50s TV series and the late ‘70s film may have been separate genres of video viewing, but they still exhibited overlap that is common in the 21st-century superhero world, as well.

Returning to the past, superhero narratives also made appearances in the form of early on in American television culture. For instance,

65 A timeline for comic books already exists, as I have mentioned, but since superhero narratives have long-ago assimilated to a number of mediums besides its historical birthplace, it makes way more sense to have a general superhero timeline. The one I created (see the Appendix) is a good place to start, but still has some ways to go. 76 animated series ran between Sept. 1, 1966 and Dec. 1, 1966 on local TV stations. According to

Tom Stockman in “MARVEL SUPERHEROES – A Look Back at the 1966 Cartoon,” they appeared five nights per week for 30 minutes, and the featured superheroes were Iron Man, the

Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and Thor. Stockman also explains,

The show was a collaboration between two TV companies: Krantz Films was the producer and the Grantry-Lawrence animation studio, which consisted of three men; Grant Simmons, Ray Patterson, and Robert Lawrence, was the production house. A year later, Grantry-Lawrence would produce the first season of The Amazing Spider-Man cartoon with improved animation.

Interestingly, DC Comics started and continued its video debut in the realm of live action whereas Marvel started with animation. Months before The Marvel Super Heroes aired, a second

DC favorite, the Caped (i.e., Batman) starred in a live-action series just as Superman had a couple of years prior. However, unlike his lone super predecessor, Batman () had his trusty young sidekick Robin (Burt Ward) to accompany his screen time.66 The series aired on Jan. 12, 1966 and ran for two years.

In the 1970s, Marvel’s superheroes would finally join the live-action franchise with the release of its TV series The Incredible Hulk, which aired on Nov. 4, 1977 and ran until May 12,

1982 on CBS. As Marisa Roffman writes in “The Evolution has been Televised,” the green- monster-scientist (Bill Bixby) feature series “was a success by remaining truer to the comic-book character while also knowing when to adapt to its new medium” (74). Roffman’s comment is made in comparison to the lack-luster response to the Amazing Spider-Man series. Marvel was once again a step behind DC, however, as Superman made a pioneer appearance on the big screen as the first theatrical superhero. Superman (1978) came out a little over a year after the

66 It is not much of a stretch to think Batman’s youthful sidekick was part of DC’s response to the success of Marvel’s teenage web-slinger super. 77 first (1977) movie; like Star Wars, it had a heavy space theme, and, also like Star

Wars, it was a great box office success (although not to the same degree).

Piggybacking on the success of Superman (1978), Christopher Reeve appeared in many more Superman films (the John Wayne of super-films): Superman II (1980), Superman III

(1983), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). A (1984) film was also thrown into the mix between Superman III and IV, but the lead actress, Helen Slater, never garnered a like her male counterpart. Then, in 1989, DC mimicked its comic book and its TV series trend by bringing in Batman. The Caped-Crusader-turned-Dark-Knight of made his debut on the big screen on June 23 and stayed on the big screen for a number of subsequent films

(but with different actors): (1992), (1995), and Batman &

Robin (1997). The female superhero () made an appearance in the second Batman feature, but she would not get her own title until 2004 (also with a different

Hollywood star, Halle Berry).

The Batman on screen was quite distinct from of the ‘80s comics, regardless of the name change from the TV series Caped Crusader to Miller’s Dark Knight label, or the fact that the movies come out after the dark shift. Batman (1989) and its companion films sat comfortably at a PG-13 film rating, and while the villains do exhibit some rather violent and gross–for instance, when the Penguin (Danny DeVito) bites off someone’s nose in Batman

Returns (1992)–tendencies, ’s Batman is mildly moody, like a more angsty version of

Superman. It would be a long time before Hollywood superheroes would catch up to the R-rated violence in comics that was common in the ‘80s (a delay that can be noted among many comics- to-Hollywood delays that superheroes would experience). 78

Marvel superheroes finally joined DC superheroes on the big screen in the 21st-century, but because of the dicey situation Marvel Comics faced before the end of the century, they are not the superheroes my fellow moviegoers seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) of the

2000s and 2010s. As Emily Joshu, in “Outside of the MCU,” explains, when Marvel into bankruptcy in 1996, “the company used licensing deals to help get back on its feet, selling the rights to the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil to 20th Century Fox, Spider-Man to and the Hulk to Universal” (66). The X-Men characters, which received widespread readership in the 1990s and gained much more attention via X-Men: The Animated Series (that aired on Oct.

31, 1992, and ran until Sept. 20, 1997), were the first Marvel superheroes to join the Hollywood industry.6768 On July 14, 2000, X-Men, directed by , premiered in theaters.

Compared to the Superman and Batman films, it did moderately well in terms of box office stats.

When Spider-Man (2002) premiered two years later, on the other hand, it made far more returns than any superhero film before it, making more than $403 million in domestic gross and more than $821 million in total worldwide gross.69

Thus ensued the superhero box office battle of the 21st-century. More X-Men and Spider-

Man movies followed, as well as a Daredevil (2003) film, a new Batman film, a Catwoman film, and a new Superman film. Then something “super” happened in 2008 that set a remarkable path for the cornerstone. It is because of this shift that the superhero timeline needs a

67 Recall that X-Men character Wolverine had a popular (and violent) mini-series in 1982. X-Men #1, published on Oct. 10, 1991, sold over 8 million copies, and X-Men Unlimited #1, published on June 10, 1993, sold over 7 million copies. 68 “Arguably the defining animated Marvel creation was the five-year run of X-Men on Fox Kids in the ‘90s. The show, which included the team-up of Wolverine, , , and , proved to be a commercial hit and pushed the boundaries of what was expected from a series geared toward a younger audience” (Roffman 72). 69 Exact figures are $403,706,374 domestic gross and $821,708,551 world gross. The highest grossing superhero film before Spider-Man was Batman (1989), which had $251,188,924 domestic gross and $411,348,924 world gross (IMDb.com). See the Superhero Film Stats Sheet in the appendix for other film grosses. 79 new historical demarcation starting in 2008, which would break the Modern Age of Comics down to 1985-2008, instead of all the way to the present. The new demarcation, which I am calling the Cinematic Age of Superheroes (superheroes instead of comics because by now the narratives no longer belong exclusively to one medium) is necessary for two reasons: one, on

May 2, 2008, (in connection with and Marvel Enterprises) released Iron Man (2008) into theaters, which was the first film in the Marvel Cinematic

Universe; and, two, on July 18, 2008, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight premiered in theaters and was the first superhero film to make more than $1 billion in world gross and more than $500 million in domestic gross.70

The Dark Knight and Iron Man were also the top-two grossing movies of 2008 overall, and The Dark Knight sold almost twice as many tickets that year as any other film in theaters

(“Top Grossing Movies of 2008”). The two films beat out popular titles like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Skull (2008), Hancock (2008), WALL-E (2008), and Twilight (2008).

The year before Spider-Man 3 (2007) had taken home the top box office slot but The Dark

Knight (2008) grossed almost 25 percent more worldwide, a significant one-year margin. The film’s narrative elements may have been in circulation a decade and some years before with

Miller’s and Moore’s work, but it was via cinema that they became so widely celebrated. Many books and significant research has been done to investigate the response to Nolan’s film, which emphasizes the impact of the character on audiences (more so than Batman). I will not focus much on The Dark Knight, but I do want to emphasize it as an essential landmark in the superhero cinematic landscape. It taught producers a number of lessons, including the fact that

70 Please see the appendix for exact figures. 80 audience members cared about , and, sometimes, they wanted not-so-super heroes that faced failure like the rest of humanity.71

Iron Man (2008) was not as big of a box office hit as The Dark Knight (2008), but its own importance in the superhero cinematic landscape is derived from its role as the first MCU film. Marvel Comics had been wanting to make a series of films for some time, but studio after studio saw the idea as one with potentially big payoffs, but also the daunting risk of crushing losses. , the soon-to-be president of Marvel Studios, was not to be dissuaded and decided that, if no one else had his vision, he would realize it himself. “In 2004,”

Anthony Breznican, in “The Man Behind the Movies,” writes, “the film arm of the comic-book company launched its own studio” (32). Breznican continues, “No longer interested in licensing their characters to others, the Marvel execs planned to use the heroes they still owned to build a five-movie bridge from Iron Man to The Incredible Hulk to to Thor, then Captain

America and finally The Avengers” (32). As we now know–although no one expected at the time–Marvel Studios’ gamble (and Feige’s determination) payed off to an almost ludicrous degree. Marvel’s The Avengers (2012) passed even The Dark Knight (2008)’s domestic and world grosses, and encouraged the production of a new and improved movie bridge—and also a simultaneous television bridge we should not ignore—that dwarfed the original five.72

The first installation, Avengers: Infinity War, which premiered on April 27, 2018, made a staggering $2 billion-plus in worldwide gross, and it is anyone’s guess at this point just how grand of an effect the second part will have on the multitudes. The release of Iron Man (2008) is

71 It is somewhat odd that Watchmen (2009), another Moore-inspired superhero narrative that came out on the heels of The Dark Knight (2008), flopped. To me it might illustrate that viewers may have been ready for darker supervillains and superhero setbacks, but they were not ready to completely demonize their heroes like Watchmen did with a brutal intensity. 72 As I am writing this sentence, the release of Avengers: Endgame (2019) in less than a week looms in the background of my mind, and signs of anticipation surround me on social media, in class, and among peers. 81 noteworthy, but for a different reason than The Dark Knight (2008). Together, the two represent the dawn of a new age of superheroes in American culture: The Cinematic Age (2008-Present).73

It is within that framework that I venture to illuminate key features of the modern-day superhero phenomenon. Some of the trends I will present are as old as (and older than) the superhero genre itself, whereas others are unique to the current moment. And while there are a number of tropes and patterns I could discuss, I focus on the ones that I believe (though others may very well disagree) call for a timely discussion about the function and ethical implications of the current superhero phenomenon relative to social equality, cultural sensitivity, and ILT priming. These narratives play a significant role in American life (for some more than others), and it still remains to be seen just how much they may positively or negatively impact our collective understanding of heroism and leadership. What follows are the things that I have personally noted as cause for increased scrutiny and deliberation.

Hypermasculinity and Bachelorhood

In my introduction, I wrote about the prototypicality of the

1930s Superman character as a strong-white-heterosexual- male American hero with a symbolic costume and a secret, mundane identity. In Part Two, I further explained that Figure 8: Panel from Action Comics #1 (1938)

Shuster designed Superman (and Lois Lane, for that matter) with “the very white Tarzan comic strip” (Johnson 86) and Hollywood movie stars in mind. Superman, “even when playing the

73 One of the historically important things to note about The Dark Knight (2008) and Iron Man (2008) is that both feature superheroes that are super because of their wealth and expensive gadgetry, and in 2008, the U.S. was deep in the throes of the Great Recession when many Americans were experiencing severe financial hardships. I do not think this is coincidental. At the time, rich superheroes were a wish-fulfillment for American audiences. 82 bumbling Clark Kent” (Johnson 89) is the original

“physical marvel” (see Figure 8) who lingers behind every super-heroic offshoot with his “broad shoulders, chiseled jaw, near-perfect posture” (Johnson 89).

Superheroes on film, like their comic book ancestors, are also (predominantly) white, male, physical marvels with

Hollywood-perfect bodies. From Thor (2011) to Man of

Figures 9 & 10: Chris Hemsworth as a shirtless Steel (2013) to Logan (2017) and Black Panther (2018), Thor in Thor (2011) and Thor: (2017) strength and sculpted muscles are a must for cinematic superheroes (see Figures 9-10).74 The

Incredible Hulk is the most exaggerated form of these mighty men—his superpower is to smash everything with his monstrous strength—and even less Hulk-like supermen compensate with armor to bulk them up (e.g., Iron Man) or fantastical abilities to demonstrate strength against their aggressors.75

The message these superheroes have overall perpetuated is clear: to be super is to exude physical prowess. Who can forget the radical transformation of Steve Rogers in Captain

America: The First Avenger (2011), when he is given the Super-Soldier serum? Rogers changes from a scrawny, military reject to a super-toned (and oily) Avenger fit to kill Nazis for the

United States (see Figures 11-12). Peter Parker goes through a similar transformation in both

74 T’Challa still adheres to the muscle-man rule but he is black, unlike the others. 75 What comes to mind when I think about the Hulk are two similar moments in different the Avengers movies. The first, is in Marvel’s The Avengers (2012): says to Tony Stark, “I have an army,” and Stark replies, “We have a hulk.” The second, like it, is in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) when Loki repeats Stark’s line to . Then in both, the green monster shows up to start smashing. 83

Spider-Man (2002) and The Amazing

Spider-Man (2012) after he is bitten by

the radioactive spider (though the first

of the two focuses less on his body and Figure 11: Steve Rogers before the Figure 12: Steve Rogers after the Super- Super-Serum Injection in Captain Serum Injection in Captain America: America: The First Avenger (2011). The First Avenger (2011). more on his new-found strength and new, perfect vision). In the first of the two, while Parker undergoes his transition into his Spider-

Man alter ego, Uncle Ben famously says to him: “Peter, these are the years when a man changes into the man he is going to become for the rest of his life. Just be careful who you change into. ...Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility” (00:35:20-8). The father-figure pep talk about changing into a man with great power and great responsibility is a fundamental trope emphasizing hypermasculinity, and it shows up time and time again in superhero films.

For those unfamiliar with the sociological term, hypermasculinity denotes “exaggerated forms of masculinity, virility, and physicality” (Craig). The important word in this definition is exaggerated. Claire Cain Miller, in an article for titled “Many Ways to Be a Girl, but One Way to Be a Boy: The New Gender Rules,” discusses the results from a recent survey done by PerryUndem, a research and polling firm, that polled 1,000 youths nationwide between the ages of 10 and 19. “In a new poll,” Miller writes, “girls say they feel empowered, except when it comes to being judged on how they look.” Miller then goes on to argue that “boys seem to have been largely left out of the conversation about gender equality. Even as girls’ options up, boys’ lives are still constricted by traditional gender norms: being strong, athletic, and stoic.” The article was published on Sept. 14, 2018, and it manages to highlight why superhero hypermasculinity can be problematic for the real world. Athleticism and physical 84 strength are not inherently problematic traits, per say, but when they become the end-all-be-all qualification for what it means to be a (heroic) man, that is when it becomes a cause for concern.

Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013) together are a quintessential example of the trope. The plotline in both revolves around Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom

Hiddleston) vying for the throne as the chosen heir of their father, (Anthony

Hopkins). In his first film, Thor goes to the realm of the Frost Giants and confronts their leader, who taunts him by saying, “You are nothing but a boy, proving himself to be a man. Run back home, little ” (00:20:00-21:00). The lines, of course, are clearly gendered and similar language litters cinematic superhero films frequently. Toward the end of the second Thor movie,

Thor returns to Asgard and tells Odin (who is actually Loki in disguise), “I’d rather be a good man than a great king” (1:40:00). Odin (Loki) responds, “Is this my son I hear or the woman you love?” (1:40:05). Notice the gendered “good man” comment and the assumption that a female love interest is what keeps Thor from becoming a king (a.k.a., a more powerful man).

Furthermore, () is referred to not by her name, but as “the woman”

Thor loves (thankfully, after a few more exchanged words, Thor does insert Jane’s name into the conversation).

There are a couple exceptions to the super-strength rule. The X-Men films have a better track record than Marvel Studios and DC Comics films when it comes to superhero portrayals.

Wolverine aside (who is the opposite of an exception), the team does not adhere to the one-super-size fits all trend, but features super-humans (male, female, and creature) of various shapes, sizes, and colors (e.g., is blue, the is inhumanely large and furry, and

Professor X is wheelchair-bound). It is in part for this reason, I think, that people debate whether the X-Men can be categorized as superheroes—and why I also think they should be counted as 85 such. Unlike the physical marvels of the MCU and the DC Universe (DCU), the mutants (again, ignoring Wolverine and the obviously inhuman characters like Beast) are relatively “normal” in appearance (as normal as Hollywood stars can look, anyway) and remain that way (unlike

Spider-Man). Plus, the X-Men member who is arguably the most powerful of all the mutants is

Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath.

Deadpool, another X-Man, is extremely scarred beneath his super suit and proudly embraces his role as an anti-superhero. “I am super,” Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) declares in

Deadpool (2016), “But no hero.” The X-Men characters originally belonged to Marvel Comics and came into existence during the Civil Rights Movement. They are “characters who are

demonized by the public as the terrifying Other” (Ciampaglia),

and, it seems, the same can be said about them in the superhero

world. Their appearances are as eclectic (albeit they are still Figure 13: New Mutant Recruits in human form in X-Men: First Class (2011) stuck for the most part in the Hollywood white-washing machine) as their mutant powers, and many of them are younger than the rest of the superhero family, attending a mutant school but also going on missions when necessary. In X-Men: First

Class (2011), Mystique () turns to the new mutant recruits and yells, “Mutant and proud!” after their discussion about being social misfits and outcasts.

The men of X-Men (but all of them, for that matter) do not fit comfortably in the same superheroic boat as the muscle- Figure 14: New Mutant Recruits in mutant form in X-Men: First Class (2011) men Dark Knight and Star Lord (i.e., Peter Quill from the Guardians of the Galaxy team), just as they do not fit comfortably among humans. They allegorically represent diversity, and we should be talking about why that is a good thing. 86

There is one other super-exception to the mighty-man rule to which I also want to give credit. The lead superhero in Marvel Studio’s Ant-Man (2015) is closer in character to Deadpool and the mutants than to the other Avengers. He is not super-buff and kind of ends up as a superhero as a last resort. The Ant-Man suit does not actually belong to him, and he is an ex- felon whose greatest ability is theft. The difference between him and the rest of the Avengers becomes quite clear in Captain America: Civil War (2016). Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) sides with

Captain America, and the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) nicknames him “Tic-Tac” to make fun of his superpower: becoming small. The jibe is no doubt due to the events in Ant-Man (2015), in which Scott Lang (Ant-Man’s human identity) gets the upper hand against the Falcon when they go head to head.

It is common in the MCU for the male superheroes to insult and call each other’s manhood into question like Falcon does to Ant-Man (and Loki does to Thor). Tony Stark (Robert

Downey Jr.) is particularly notorious for doing this. For instance, in Marvel’s The Avengers

(2012) he says to Thor, “Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?” and then to Captain

America, “Of the people in this room, which one is A, wearing a spangly outfit, and B, not of use?” As funny as these lines can be, Iron Man’s tendency to emasculate fellow superheroes highlights the problematic mighty-man impulse underlying the films.

In addition to the manly-strength-as-super-heroic trope exacerbated by superhero films, another characteristic they share is an emphasis on dangerous missions and avoidance of domesticity. Most superheroes are bachelors. They have no children, they are not confined to a single household or location, and their romantic partners often wind up dead (Gwen Stacy,

Rachel Dawes), kidnapped (Lois Lane), or separated from the realm in which the superhero lives and conquers evil (Jane Foster). Relationships are often portrayed as liabilities for superheroes, 87 whether they be with a partner, parental figure, children, or friends. Women especially seem to become baggage for the male heroes or isolated episodes that can never blend into the full narrative arc of a superhero’s journey. In many respects, this scenario is reminiscent of the traditional gender norm of men (or boys) going off to war while the women stay safe at home, but if the homeland is attacked, the of the household has to return quickly and defend what is his—or seek vengeance if he loses it.76

In a Vox article “‘Fridging,’One of Storytelling’s Most Noxious Tropes, Explained,” authors Aja Romano and Alex Abad-Santos discuss Deadpool 2 (2018), and the controversy over whether Vanessa, Wade Wilson’s (i.e., Deadpool’s) wife, was “fridged.” As Romano and Abad-

Santos explain, the term “fridged” (short for “put into a refrigerator,” or, more accurately, a refrigerated morgue drawer) stands is for “a comic book trope in which the girlfriend or wife of a hero dies to further said hero’s motivations and story.” Sometimes the love interest does not completely die but is put at risk, pissing off the superhero who then seeks retribution. They continue: “The trope reduces the girlfriend or wife to a . They have no business existing aside from being a source of pain for the hero.” The trope occurs both in and outside of superhero narratives, but it has an especially comfortable home in comic books and in superhero films. Romano and Abad-Santos focus on the trope in Deadpool 2 (2018) in which Wade loses his pregnant wife and, as a result, becomes more degenerate than he ever had before, using his anger as fuel against his foes, but there are a plethora of examples in superhero cinema. “Was

Gamora Fridged in Infinity War,” a quick type in the Google search bar, generates a slew of articles on the subject, and Avengers: Infinity War, like Deadpool 2, came out less than a year ago in 2018. The trope diminishes and objectifies women and suggests that violent vengeance is

76 In regard to the vengeful tendency, a footnote in Part Two talked a little about the “woman in the refrigerator” trope used in “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” story arc that I want to explore further here. 88 super-heroic; as Romano and Abad-Santos state, “Women in Refrigerators…shows superhero movies still have a long way to go.”77

Everybody Wants to be a Hero: Super Under- and Mis-representation

Out of the sixty or so superhero films past and present, merely a handful feature female leads:

Supergirl (1984), Catwoman (2004), Wonder Woman (2017), and (2019). There have been four films—that’s it. In all of the other superhero films, the male to female ratio is also extremely unbalanced, which is especially apparent in the super teams. In the Avengers organization, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is the sole woman until Scarlett Witch

(Elizabeth Olsen) joins later. Justice League only has Wonder Woman (), Guardians of the Galaxy only has (), and the only has

(). When female cast members are not superheroes, they play the love interest

(e.g., Lois Lane, Mary-Jane, , Pepper Pots, Jane Foster, Dr. Christine Palmer) or one of the villain’s sidekicks (e.g., , , , ).

Lily Rothman, in “Unsung Heroines,” an article for TIME Special Edition 2019, discusses Marvel’s “All-New, All-Different” branding launched in 2015 for its comics, which now feature women like the new Ms. Marvel: , a Muslim teenager. “As beloved as many of the new characters may be,” Rothman writes, however, “your default superhero is still likely to be male” (89). Rothman then references the research done by Carolyn Cocca, author of

Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation (2016). Rothman explains, “Cocca’s research indicates that, among superhero TV shows airing that season or in development as of early 2019,

77 Pause and think just for a moment why the MCU team is called the “Avengers” of all things. 89 about 10% star women. The ratio is about the same in comics, and it’s only 15% in the movies.

Other research backs up her findings” (89). The truth of the matter, then, is that superhero films are male-dominated narratives—but the problem runs deeper than that. Making it on screen is only half the battle women face in superhero cinema. Contending with sexualization and gender stereotypes is the other half.

While male superheroes have to live up to impressive bodybuilding culture, female superheroes have to have sex appeal. Rothman explains that this trend has historical roots:

In 1989, the Comics Code dropped the requirement that female bodies be depicted realistically. Combine that change with the rise of bodybuilding and the mainstreaming of pornography, Cocca says, and you end up with a notable sexualizing of the superheroine. The comics economy was changing too. Books were increasingly purchased in specialty stores…without the need to appeal to the newsstand audience, producers often narrowed their offerings to those designed to appeal to that particular, often male, crowd. (89)

One of the ways in which “sexualizing of the superheroine” shows up on the big screen is in costume design. Frequently women superheroes, unlike their male counterparts, do not wear pants (or, if they do, wear skintight ones), show a lot of skin (despite the clear necessity for body armor), and fight in heels and/or with their hair down. Diana (i.e., Wonder Woman) in Wonder

Woman (2017), checks the boxes for all of these sexualized gender markers (see Figures 15-17).

Figures 15, 16, & 17: Diana running through unscathed in Wonder Woman (2017); Diana among her fully-armored in Justice League (2017); Promotional photo for Wonder Woman (2017)—notice the heeled boots.

Her leather skirt leaves the majority of her legs exposed, her breast plate armor is sleeveless (and accentuates her breasts, which would actually direct projectiles or weapons directly into her 90 sternum instead of away from it). Her high-rise boots are heeled wedges, and her stunning black hair is always free-flowing in battle (except when she is training with the Amazons).

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) in Suicide Squad (2016), another DCU film, does have her hair up, unlike Diana, but like Diana, she too does not wear pants (see Figure 18). There is a moment in the film when Quinn, in front of a big group of men (the squad and military personnel), strips down to her shiny booty-short underwear and red bra, and then puts on a baseball-tee (but still no pants). All motion stops around her as the men watch. Quinn looks

around, asks “What?” and then the motion around her

continues. The rest of the (male) squad had also been

changing clothes but their bodies do not result in the same

reaction. Moreover, throughout the entire film, she flirts with

Figure 18: Harley Quinn standing in her underwear among the Suicide Squad all of the men and uses her looks to lure them into getting her way. Yet it is not just DCU films that fall into female-sexualizing traps.

Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in the Avengers films also fights with her hair down, wears heavy makeup, and plays the role of femme , using sex appeal against men. She is far more covered than DCU heroines, but, at the same time, her top is almost always unzipped (Figure 19), her costuming apart from that of the male superheroes. In terms of the X-Men, another superhero brand, earlier versions of

Mystique show her without any clothes at all, just full-body blue mutant “skin.” However, since the reboot film X-Men:

First Class (2011), almost all of the X-Men, usually including Mystique, wear identical uniform suits. Figure 19: Two separate shots of Black Widow in Avengers: Age of (2015) with her suit unzipped. 91

Then again, despite the new X-Men costuming equality, in X-Men: First Class (2011) and X-Men: (2016), the male villains are accompanied by super-sexualized female companions and sidekicks. In the first of the two films, Emma Frost (January Jones) is at the beck-and-call of (Kevin Bacon). One of the things Frost does for Shaw is

“entertain” a Russian general. Although she is a villain character and does only project the

“entertainment” into the general’s mind while she actually sits in her lingerie across the room with an expression of disgust, the scene still enforces female subordination to male characters and illustrates sexual objectification of a female body. In the second of the two films, the ancient

En Sabah Nur has two mutant women at his beck-and-call: a young Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Psylocke (). Storm is less sexualized than Psylocke when it comes to costuming but they both are ordered around by the villain throughout the film—luckily not to the same degrading extent that Frost was five years prior (or in the future, according to the X-Men timeline).

In addition to the physical appearance of women in superhero films, their roles also leave much to be desired in terms of super-equality. Fridging and bachelorhood norms aside, the few superhero women on screen predominately play minor parts in the crossover films. Justice

League (2017) received a lot of negative backlash about the way Wonder Woman lost her narrative power to the men of the film, especially to Batman who flirts with her throughout it. In fact, in a promotional video sponsored by AT&T, a clip shows Bruce Wayne “mansplaining” to

Diana.78 The argument scene was tweaked in the actual film—sort of. Both Captain America:

The First Avenger (2011) and Marvel’s The Avengers (2012) fail the Bechdel Test, “a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who

78 View the video at: https://www.inverse.com/article/37806-justice-league-video-wonder-woman-batman- mansplain. The article itself mentions the “mansplaining” problem. 92 talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man” (bechdeltest.com). Deadpool (2016) and

Deadpool 2 (2018) also fail the test, and I have no doubt that other superhero films do, too. A website called The Pudding features the largest ever analysis of film dialogue broken down by gender: in The Avengers (2012) 87 percent of the lines belong to men; in The Dark Knight

(2008) it is 90 percent; and in Spider-Man 2 (2004) it is 75 percent.

So when it comes to female representation in superhero films, in the words of Romano and Abad-Santos, “superhero movies still have a long way to go” (but, as a side note, I will say that the representation of women in Black Panther (2018) is a great step in the right direction).

Superhero movies also have a long way to go when it comes to representing other types of identities, as well. As of yet the only explicitly LGBTQ+ character on the big screen appears in a brief snippet of Deadpool 2 (2018). In the film, Deadpool meets the mutant Negasonic Teenage

Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and her girlfriend mutant (Shioli Kutsuna), although they do not have much weight in the plot of the movie. Other films have moments where the straightness of one character or another is questioned but never clearly stated like it is in

Deadpool 2 (2018). According to various news sources on the Internet, however, Kevin Feige revealed that Marvel Studios is in the process of searching for an openly gay actor for a genderqueer superhero role in The (2020).

Continuing on the subject of identity, as I discussed in my introduction, the overwhelming success and public response to Black Panther (2018) showcased the widespread desire to see more black characters with prominent roles in superhero films. In “The Black

Panther Phenomenon” article for TIME Special Edition 2019, author Evan Narcisse spends five pages discussing the huge cultural impact of the film before, during, and after its release. The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. “Wakanda offered the opportunity 93 to create a revolutionary experience that reflected the African diaspora and black culture,” (83)

Narcisse states. “Black Panther,” he also says, “is a hero who can simultaneously speak to where black people came from, where they are in the present and where they might go in the future.

The beauty of the film is that it creates a fiction that anchors the black diaspora’s broken bloodlines in allegorical glory, while still acknowledging the tragedy that disconnected them centuries ago” (85). The film demonstrated that, despite its Anglo-Saxon- and male-centric historical background, superhero narratives can be used to uphold and celebrate different forms of identity that are often under- or mis-represented in Hollywood and dominate cultural stories in the United States. 79

Superheroes Go Global: An American Narrative on the World Stage

Zack Snyder’s Superman in Man of Steel (2013) shares many elements with the Superman of

John Byrne’s The Man of Steel six part mini-series published in 1986, despite the 27-year difference. In the film, Superman (Henry Cavill) decides to protect Earth (well, America, to be more exact) from his invading alien brethren, who want to wipe out humans and take the planet for themselves. At the end of the film, after Superman has defeated the threat, a military general says to Superman: “How do we know one day you won’t act against America’s interests?” to which Superman responds, “I grew up in Kansas, general. I’m about as American as it gets.

Look, I’m here to help, but it has to be on my terms” (2:09:30-5).

79 In the TIME special edition on the world of Marvel, producer Nate Moore is quoted saying the following: “One of my good friends, she has a 11-year-old son. They’re a white family, and he went to see Black Panther opening weekend. He came home and was talking about the film and how much he loved it. And when my friend asked, ‘Who’s your favorite character?’, he said General . And my friend didn’t know until she saw the film that his favorite character was an African American woman. The film tries to examine representation across not just cultural lines but also gender lines and gender stereotypes. Kids are now embracing heroes and heroines that were not of their own gender, and I think that’s really powerful” (85). 94

Superheroes are historically an American-centric creation. They were born in comic books, and over time, became a distinct feature of a distinct genre. Superman started as an

American isolationist, dedicated to cleaning up crime and corruption on local streets. Batman was chiefly tethered to Gotham city, and the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man focused on New

York City. Captain America fought in WWII but he bore the colors of his country wherever he went. Other superheroes also went abroad every once in a while, but the United States was clearly home and where crossover narratives consistently converged. The United States is frequently referred to as a world “superpower,” but we do not often stop and think about where that language comes from? Our military is the largest in the world, and our superheroes are essentially hyper-weaponized humans. Their narratives boast that they are the only things that can protect the world from total because they are the exceptional heroes.

However, in Captain America: Civil War (2016), American superheroes became international property—at least in the fictional MCU. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo and starring (Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson

(Black Widow), and other super favorites, Civil War is an extremely political film. The plot revolves around the Sokovia Accords, “a set of legal documents designed to regulate the activities of enhanced individuals, specifically those who work for either government agencies such as S.H.I.E.L.D. or for private organizations such as the Avengers” (“Sokovia Accords”). In the film, the Sokovia Accords are administered through the United Nations and given to the

Avengers by a U.S. official, Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hunt), who tells them that the document is in response to the events of previous missions. Specifically, Ross shows the super crew videos from the collateral the team caused every time they saved the world. 95

Ross explains that people are afraid of superheroes and the mass destruction they can cause, and that while some people see them as heroic and good, others see them as vigilantes that need to be governed. The Avengers are told to either adhere to the UN’s jurisdiction over them

(and other superheroes) or to quit being superheroes all together and go into retirement. The drama of the film then becomes a rift between team Captain America, who refuses government regulation, and team Iron Man, who sides with the Act. Although this fictional division among superheroes has ties to political polarization in the real world, that is not what I am most interested in about the film (but it is something to note in terms of historical U.S. context).

Central to the debate is the concept I highlighted earlier in regard to Alan Moore’s

Watchmen—the conundrum of War-as-Peace and Weapons-to-End-Wars. Iron Man (2008) was significant not only because it kicked off the MCU in Hollywood, but also because it encapsulated this central element in superhero narratives that has yet to disappear after 80 years of audiences. In the film directed by , tech-genius, billionaire, , philanthropist Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) manufacturers impressive and dangerous weapons, including his own Iron Man super suit. It is because of these weapons that he is taken captive into “an Afghan cave” (exact words used in the IMDb description of the film) and ordered to build a Jericho missile (following a demonstration of that same missile to the Afghan government). After Stark escapes captivity and returns to the United States, he declares that he is shutting down Stark weapons manufacturing. When Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) confronts

Stark about the declaration, Stark states: “Obie, I don’t want a body count to be our only legacy”

(00:47:00). To which Obadiah replies, “What? You a humanitarian or something now?”

It is common superhero knowledge that powers can be wielded for good or for evil, making the wielder either a hero or a villain. But what is often overlooked is that the majority of 96 super-powers are essentially high-tech or fantastical versions of weapons. Stark’s Iron Man suit is an obvious example, but what makes other heroes super are abilities (technological, mutated, or magical) that (can) inflict harm on other people. A lot of scenes in modern superhero films are action-packed, featuring an array of superheroes who are phenomenal fighters. Even the superheroes who are not as good with their fists compensate with offensive magic or technology.

In the MCU, Dr. Strange is the only hero who is arguably more interested in healing than inflicting pain, although even he learns combat techniques in the film. To accept the superhero narrative, audience members also have to accept a world in which weapons and violence are normalized (even if their use is disputed).

Stark’s storyline—throughout his own headline films and then the different Avengers films—revolves around his constant desire but inability to retire the iron suit. The beginning of

Iron Man 3 (2013) features a voice-over from Stark as his various suits explode, where he states the line, “We create our own demons,” which is repeated at the end of the film (1:56:20) during another voice-over. The comment is a clear declaration about the problem with creating and wearing the Iron Man suit. On the one hand, it does a lot of heroic good, but on the other hand it puts a target on his back and encourages the use of weapons and violence. It is important to note that Stark struggles with a form of PTSD throughout the film from the attack on New York City in The Avengers (2012).80 Despite the super fantastical elements of his character, Stark is essentially a veteran soldier—Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were literal veterans. Militarism and war elements are embedded in superhero narratives.

Bearing the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) debate in mind, Marvel’s move to universalize its superheroes by fictitiously attempting to hand them over to the UN (with mixed

80 Recall the “Demon in a Bottle” storyline from the comics. In a way, the PTSD storyline of the film replaced Tony Stark’s alcoholism. 97 responses from the heroes in question) is both positive and negative. In theory, it reduces some of the American-centricity ingrained in the narrative form, insofar as the superheroes are no longer (in theory) America’s superpowered world police (i.e., protectors) but an intergovernmental organization’s superpowered world police. However, these movies are produced, written, and performed predominantly by Americans, so who would actually be in charge of the UN’s supers, even as fictitious as they are, might be way more problematic than if they stayed under hypothetical U.S. jurisdiction. While universalizing superheroes creates an imaginative space for audiences (Americans, especially) to view other countries and people groups as super, too, if Marvel is to continue on the track of embracing more cultures in its narratives, it needs to learn from itself and do what it did with Black Panther (2018)—meaning, have those cultures (or representatives from those culture) represent themselves (otherwise stereotypes and misrepresentations are bound to happen).

More and more superhero films are branching out of the American homeland, and it is not just Marvel. DC and Twentieth-Century Fox are doing it, too. The Wolverine (2013) is set in

Japan; X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) partially takes places in Egypt; and the final battle scene in

Justice League (2017) occurs in . Yet Marvel does seem to be more invested in establishing events in made-up places (with not-so-made-up characteristics) than other superhero films. For example, Sokovia (the place after which the UN Sokovia Accords is named) and

Wakanda (home to the Black Panther) are fictitious, but are located in recognizable geographical regions. It will be worth seeing whether more of such places will appear in the MCU or if the narratives will continue to focus more on space and parallel dimensions where producers and designers have the freedom to create their own people groups and places (Peter Quill, from the

Guardians of the Galaxy movies, was born in America). Regardless, anytime superheroes 98

(especially those born in the U.S.) leave the realm of America and become involved in wars or conflicts around the world (and outside of it), we should be conscious of what that may signal to audiences beyond the realm of fantasy and science-fiction. As I have pointed out already, the

United States is often called a world “superpower.” That language does not come from nowhere.

99

CONCLUSION: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

“Comic book superheroes are an important part of America’s social fabric. Since its creation in the late 1930s, the superhero has become the United States’ dominant cultural icon. Superheroes quickly expanded from their comic book origins to became a part of nearly every portion of American culture and society. Superhero films have become a Hollywood staple, numerous comic book related television shows fill the airwaves, and hundreds of other outlets are fictional spandex-clad guardians…Superheroes have become a part of the structure of American life.”

—Jeffrey K. Johnson, Super-History, 1

The Super-Cycle: A Never-Ending Battle Between Empowerment and Heroic Skepticism

If watching and researching superhero films alongside Johnson’s Super-History made anything clear about the overall nature of the superhero genre, it is how these narratives are perpetually stuck in what I refer to as the super-cycle. In the super-cycle, superheroes tend to fall on a spectrum between two extremes: super-empowerment and heroic skepticism. Where a superhero falls often coincides with a large slice of public sentiment in America (especially in regard to national pride) at the time of his or her creation.81 There is an easy illustration of this: on the left side of the scale, we have WWII propaganda superheroes, the super-patriots; on the right side of the scale, we have our Watergate superheroes, the identity-crisis supers; and the violent vigilantes, the neo-conservative super-cowboys of sorts, are an odd combination of the two extremes. The four ages of comics—the Golden Age (1938-1950), the Silver Age (1956-1970), the Bronze Age (1970-1985), and the (modified) Modern Age (1985-2008)—witnessed every superhero on the super-cycle spectrum, but with the new possibilities to engage new audiences in

81 When you think about the interaction between public opinion and the content of comics, it is rather intuitive. Publishers are interested in what sells, and what sells is what readership is interested in. What readership is interested in is heavily dictated by cultural context. Superheroes are chiefly interested in issues of law, order, and retribution. They defeat the “bad guys” of culture. So as the bad guys of culture shift, so too does the type of narratives necessary for defeating them–otherwise, readers lose interest, and publishers lose sales. 100 the world of film, the Cinematic Age (2008-Present) has exhibited a disconcerting combination of superheroes in various stages of the super-cycle.

Part of the inconsistency is due to the sheer volume of players in the superhero film game and the number of iterations (that span decades) of superhero characters and narratives that directors and writers have at their fingertips. As I explained before, superheroes have a folkloric quality about them because they do not belong to any one author or creator, despite the dominant publishers, DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Though a certain film may most adhere to one version of Superman over another, it may still be pulling elements from the diverse lore surrounding the same cape-wearing mighty man. That being said, I do think—given the popularity of some films over others—that current American audiences are inclined toward a certain kind of superhero in the super-cycle: the super-normal, super-diverse kind that showcase an eclectic (American) society where anyone can be a superhero. The cultural impact of Black

Panther (2018) is an obvious indicator but the reception of Marvel’s avenger crossover films, as well as Spider-Man: (2017), are further indication. Audiences want to see more dynamic and vulnerable superhero casts that bicker and bond just like the Fantastic Four characters did in the ‘60s, and they want to see themselves represented at the proverbial superhero table.

In the ‘60s, Marvel Comics in the ‘60s had started changing the superhero narrative in progressive ways, and it seems that they are reviving that historical spirit—without backing away this time. Avengers: End Game (2019) has the potential to dramatically shift the MCU, and

Marvel Studios is hoping to herald in a new group of super-stars that may redefine the genre and shift some heroic paradigms in groundbreaking and socially powerful ways. Yet as we this significant cultural moment, we should be keeping a critical eye out for super-history 101 repeats. We must keep asking ourselves what kind of superheroes we should and should not be celebrating in the same way we must state what we expect from our heroes in the real world.

Nowadays it is not always easy to distinguish fact from fiction, superheroes from heroes, and like Stan Lee wrote so many years ago in Amazing Fantasy #15, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”

102

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APPENDIX

There are two charts contained in this appendix. Chart One is a complete list of superhero films. Box office information comes from IMDb.com as of April 26, 2019. Chart Two is a self-created timeline of major U.S. events next to major (super)hero events. It includes American tall tales as well as a couple other important narrative works and cultural products that I thought were important to include to help understand the historical moment. The timeline is by no means complete but is a great start to mapping out the cultivation of a superheroic narrative in America. 1 $219,851,172 $370,569,774 $1,519,557,910 $757,930,663 W. Gross $166,200,000 ------$411,348,924 $282,800,000 $152,500,000 $238,207,122 $296,339,527 $821,708,551 $179,179,718 $179,265,204 $407,711,549 $113,107,712 $783,766,341 $82,102,379 $374,218,673 $175,424,795 $142,400,065 $459,359,555 $191,000,000 $554,341,323 $289,047,763 $585,174,222 $263,427,551 $1,004,558,444 $185,258,983 $373,062,864 $623,933,331 $449,326,618 $353,624,124 $116,601,172 $176,654,505 $623,357,910 $262,030,663 D. Gross $134,218,018 $108,185,706 $59,950,623 $13,600,000 $15,681,020 $251,188,924 $162,831,698 $184,031,112 $107,325,195 $157,299,717 $403,706,375 $102,543,520 $66,465,204 $214,949,694 $132,177,234 $373,585,825 $40,202,379 $206,852,432 $154,696,080 $46,464,023 $234,362,462 $200,081,192 $336,530,303 $131,921,738 $318,412,101 $134,518,390 $534,858,444 $107,509,799 $179,883,157 $312,433,331 $181,030,624 $146,408,305 $53,174,303 $65,058,524 $207,438,708 $62,004,688 OW (USA) $7,465,343 $14,100,523 $13,352,357 $5,738,249 -- $40,489,746 $45,687,710 $52,784,433 $42,872,606 $54,471,475 $114,844,116 $45,033,454 $23,075,892 $85,558,731 $62,128,420 $115,817,364 $17,155,000 $48,745,440 $56,061,504 $16,328,506 $122,861,157 $52,535,096 $151,116,516 $58,051,684 $98,618,668 $55,414,050 $158,411,483 $55,214,334 $85,058,003 $128,122,480 $65,723,338 $55,101,604 $200,000,000 $140,000,000 $220,000,000 $230,000,000 Bud. (est.) $55,000,000 $54,000,000 $39,000,000 $35,000,000 $17,000,000 $35,000,000 $80,000,000 $100,000,000 $125,000,000 $75,000,000 $139,000,000 $78,000,000 $78,000,000 $110,000,000 $137,000,000 $200,000,000 $100,000,000 $150,000,000 $100,000,000 $75,000,000 $210,000,000 $209,000,000 $258,000,000 $130,000,000 $140,000,000 $150,000,000 $185,000,000 $130,000,000 $150,000,000 $200,000,000 $150,000,000 $160,000,000 Producer(s) Columbia Pictures Corp., Marvel Enterprises, Laura Ziskm Pro. Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, DiNovi Pictures Warner Bros., Syncopy, DC Comics Twentieth Century Fox, Constantin Film, Marvel Ent. Columbia Pictures Corporation, Pro. Inc., Amblin Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Enterprises, Donners' Co. Warner Bros., Legendary Entertainment, Peters Ent. Columbia Pictures Corp., Marvel Studios, Laura Ziskin Pro. Twentieth Century Fox, Constantin Film, Marvel Ent. Paramount Pictures, Marvel Enterprises, Marvel Studios Universal pictures, Marvel Enterprises, Marvel Studios Warner Bros.,Legendary Entertainment,Syncopy Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Legendary Ent. Twentieth Century Fox,Marvel Enterprises,Dune Ent. Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, Dune Ent. Warner Bros., De Line Pictures, DC Entertainment Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures Columbia Pictures Corp., Marvel Ent., Laura Ziskim Pro. Dovemead Films, Film Export A.G., International Film Pro. Dovemead Films, Film Export A.G., International Film Pro. Dovemead Films, Film Export Major Studio Partners Dovemead Films, Cantharus Pro., PLC, Major Studio Par. Artistry Limited, Investors In Industry Productions Cannon Films, Warner Bros., Golan-Globus Co, PolyGram Filmed Ent. Warner Bros., The Guber-Peters Entertainment Warner Bros., PolyGram Filmed Entertainment Warner Bros., PolyGram Filmed Entertainment Warner Bros., PolyGram Filmed Enterprises, Donners' Company Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Enterprises, Laura Ziskm Pro. Columbia Pictures Corp., Marvel Pictures, Horseshoe Bay Pro. Marvel Enterprises, New Regency Angry Films, International Production Company, JD Productions Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Enterprises, Donners' Company Universal Pictures, Marvel Enterprises, Valhalla Motion Pictures Stars Tobey Maguire, Kirsen Dunst, Alfred Molina Halle Berry, , Benjamin Bratt Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rufus Sewell Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry , Kevin Spacey, Tobey Maguire, , Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Samuel L. Jackson Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Margot Kidder Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder Christopher Reeve, , O'Toole Helen Slater, , Peter Margot Kidder Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Kim Basinger Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, , , Clooney, Chris O'Donnell , George Ian Mckellen Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Tobey Maguire, Kirsen Dunst, Farrell Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Sean Connery, Stuart Townsend, Peta Wilson Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot Director Tim Story Jon Favreau Louis Leterrier Christopher Nolan Zack Snyder Gavin Hood Jon Favreau Kenneth Branagh Matthew Vaughn Martin Campbell Joe Johnston Joss Whedon Marc Webb Joel Schumacher Bryan Singer Sam Raimi Mark Steven Johnson Bryan Singer Ang Lee Sam Raimi Pitof Christopher Nolan Tim Story Martin Campbell Brett Ratner Bryan Singer Sam Raimi Richard Donner Richard Lester, Richard Donner Richard Lester Jeannot Szwarc Sidney J. Furie Tim Burton Tim Burton M 92 90 126 112 152 162 107 124 115 131 114 124 143 136 121 125 104 121 103 110 134 138 127 104 140 106 129 104 154 139 143 127 125 124 126 126 Rat. PG PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 R PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG PG-13 PG-13 PG-13 PG PG PG PG PG PG-13 PG-13 Day 28 Oct. 26 May 28 June 4 May 15 June 2 May 13 June 18 July 6 Mar. 1 May 7 May 6 May 3 June 17 June 22 July 4 May 3 July 21 Nov. 24 July 23 June 19 June 16 June 20 June 14 July 3 May 14 Feb. 11 July 2 May 20 June 30 June 23 July 15 June 8 July 15 Dec. 19 June 17 June 2005 2006 2006 2007 2007 2008 2008 2008 2009 2009 2010 2011 2011 2011 2011 2012 2012 1984 1987 1989 1992 1995 1997 2000 2002 2003 2003 2003 2003 2004 2004 2005 2005 1978 1980 1983 Year Film Marvel's The Avengers The Amazing Spider-Man Green Lantern Captain America: The First Avenger Thor X-Men: First Class X-Men Origins: Wolverine Iron Man 2 The Dark Night Watchmen Iron Man The Incredible Hulk Spider-Man 3 Fantastic 4: Rise of the X-Men: The Last Stand Fantastic Four The Legend of Catwoman Hulk Spider-Man 2 The League of Extraordinary X-Men 2 (X2) Spider-Man Daredevil Batman Forever Batman & Robin X-Men Batman Returns Supergirl Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Batman Superman II Superman III Superman 2012 20 July PG-13 164 Christopher Nolan Christian Bale, , Anne Hathaway Warner Bros.,Legendary Entertainment,DC Entertainment $250,000,000 $160,887,295 $448,139,099 $1,084,939,099 Iron Man 3 2013 3 May PG-13 130 Shane Black Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, DMG Entertainment $200,000,000 $174,144,585 $409,013,994 $1,215,439,994 Man of Steel 2013 14 June PG-13 143 Zack Snyder Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon Warner Bros., Legendary Entertainment, Syncopy $225,000,000 $116,619,362 $291,045,518 $668,045,518 The Wolverine 2013 26 July PG-13 126 James Mangold Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Tao Okamoto Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Ent., Donners' Company $120,000,000 $53,113,752 $132,556,852 $414,828,246 Thor: The Dark World 2013 8 Nov. PG-13 112 Alan Taylor Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures $170,000,000 $85,737,841 $206,362,140 $644,783,140 Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014 April 4 PG-13 136 Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures $170,000,000 $95,023,721 $259,766,572 $714,766,572 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 2014 May 2 PG-13 142 Marc Webb Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx Marvel Enterprises, Avi Arad Pro., Columbia Pictures Corp. $200,000,000 $91,608,337 $202,853,933 $708,982,323 X-Men: Days of Future Past 2014 May 23 PG-13 132 Bryan Singer Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Ent., TSG Ent. $200,000,000 $90,823,660 $233,921,534 $748,121,534 Guardians of the Galaxy 2014 Aug. 1 PG-13 121 James Gunn Chris Pratt, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper Marvel Studios, Moving Pictures Co., Marvel Enterprises $170,000,000 $94,320,883 $333,176,600 $774,176,600 Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015 May 1 PG-13 141 Joss Whedon Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures $250,000,000 $191,271,109 $459,005,868 $1,405,413,868 Ant-Man 2015 July 17 PG-13 117 Peyton Reed Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Corey Stoll Gary Sanchez Pro., Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures $130,000,000 $57,225,526 $180,202,163 $519,445,163 Fantastic Four 2015 Aug. 7 PG-13 100 Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan Twentieth Century Fox, Constantin Film, Marvel Ent. $120,000,000 $25,685,737 $56,117,548 $167,977,596 Deadpool 2016 Feb. 12 R 108 Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, Kinberg Genre $58,000,000 $135,050,000 $363,070,709 $783,112,979 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 2016 Mar. 25 PG-13 151 Zack Snyder Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams Warner Bros., Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films $250,000,000 $166,007,347 $330,360,194 $873,634,919 Captain America: Civil War 2016 May 6 PG-13 147 Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson Marvel Studios, Vita-Ray Dutch Pro. (III), Studio Babelsberg $250,000,000 $179,139,142 $408,084,349 $1,153,304,495 X-Men: Apocalypse 2016 May 27 PG-13 144 Bryan Singer James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Ent., TSG Ent. $178,000,000 $65,000,000 $155,442,489 $543,934,787 Suicide Squad 2016 Aug. 5 PG-13 123 David Ayer Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie Atlas Entertainment, DC Comics, DC Entertainment $175,000,000 $133,682,248 $325,100,054 $746,846,894 2016 Nov. 4 PG-13 115 Scott Derrickson Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures $165,000,000 $85,058,311 $232,641,920 $677,718,395 Logan 2017 Mar. 3 R 137 James Mangold Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen Twentieth Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Ent. $97,000,000 $88,411,916 $226,277,068 $619,021,436 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 2017 May 5 PG-13 136 James Gunn Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures $200,000,000 $146,510,104 $389,813,101 $863,756,051 Wonder Woman 2017 June 2 PG-13 141 Patty Jenkins Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Warner Bros., Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films $149,000,000 $103,251,471 $412,563,408 $821,763,408 Spider-Man: Homecoming 2017 July 7 PG-13 133 Jon Watts Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr. Columbia Pictures Corp., Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures $175,000,000 $117,027,503 $334,201,140 $880,166,924 Thor: Ragnarok 2017 Nov. 3 PG-13 130 Taika Waititi Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett Walt Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios, Screen Queensland $180,000,000 $122,744,989 $315,058,289 $853,977,126 Justice League 2017 Nov. 17 PG-13 120 Zack Snyder Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Comics $300,000,000 $93,842,239 $229,024,295 $614,729,668 Black Panther 2018 Feb. 16 PG-13 134 Ryan Coogler Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o Marvel Studios, Moonlighting Films, Korean Film Council $200,000,000 $202,003,951 $700,059,566 $1,347,071,259 Avengers: Infinity War 2018 April 27 PG-13 149 Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo Marvel Studios, Jason Roberts Productions, South Pictures $321,000,000 $257,698,183 $678,815,482 $2,048,709,917 Deadpool 2 2018 May 18 R 119 David Leitch Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin Donners' Company, Kinberg Genre, Marvel Entertainment $110,000,000 $125,507,153 $324,574,517 $743,638,764 Incredibles 2 2018 June 15 PG 118 Brad Bird Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell Walt Disney Pictures, Animation Studios $200,000,000 $182,687,905 $608,581,744 $1,242,770,554 Ant-Man and the Wasp 2018 July 6 PG-13 118 Peyton Reed Paul Rudd, Lilly, Michael Pena Marvel Studios $162,000,000 $75,812,205 $216,648,740 $617,260,330 Venom 2018 Oct. 5 PG-13 112 Ruben Fleischer Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed Avi Arad Productions, Columbia Pictures, Marvel Ent. $100,000,000 $80,255,756 $213,515,506 $855,013,954 Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse 2018 Dec. 14 PG 117 Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfield Ent., Columbia Pictures, Marvel Ent. $90,000,000 $35,363,376 $190,241,310 $326,249,641 Aquaman 2018 Dec. 21 PG-13 143 Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe DC Comics, DC Entertainment, Panoramic Pictures $160,000,000 $72,573,522 $335,061,807 $1,138,890,756 Captain Marvel 2019 Mar. 8 PG-13 123 Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck , Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn Walt Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios, Animal Logic -- $153,433,423 $401,380,764 $1,064,525,102 Avengers: End Game 2019 Apr. 26 PG-13 181 Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Brie Larson, Robert Downey Jr., Karen Gillan Marvel Studios

2 U.S. Timeline Dates (Super)Heroes Timeline Dates

American Revolutionary War April 19, 1775 Sept. 3, 1783

Start of Am. Industrial Revolution 1790

Death of George Washington Dec. 14, 1799

Louisiana Purchase 1803 Mason Locke "Parson" Weems' Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen, v. 1 1804

Lewis and Clark Expedition May 1804 Sept. 23, 1806

Life of George Washington 6th ed. 1808

War of 1812 June 1812 February 1815 Lewis and Clark Journals Published 1814

Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry by William Wirt 1817

Economic Collapse 1819

2nd Great Awakening 1820

Transcendentalist Movement 1830s 1860s

Railroad building boom 1830s 1860s

Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts by William Tudor 1823

Indian Removal Act May 28, 1830 Mike Fink popularity 1830 1860

The Spirit of the Times by William T. Porter and brother started 1831

George Bancroft 1st vol. of History of the United States 1834

Crockett Almanacs in Circulation 1835 1856

Battle of the Alamo Feb. 23, 1836 Mar, 6 1836 Death of David (Davy) Crockett 1836

Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes Self-Reliance 1841

"Manifest Destiny" coined by John L. O'Sullivan New York Morning News Dec. 1845

American-Mexican War 1846 1848

Seneca Falls Convention / First-Wave Feminism 1848

First-Wave Feminism 1848 1950s

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Published 1852

Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden; or, Life in the Woods Aug. 9, 1854

40,000 Copies of The Spirit of the Times in circulation 1856

1st Published by Beadles Publication 1860

American Civil War April 12, 1861 April 9, 1865

Reconstruction Era 1865 1877

Second Industrial Revolution 1870 1920 Tales 1870s

Jim Crow Era 1876 1965 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain 1876

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche 1883

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain 1884

1 2 1960 1950 Dates 1903 1906 1920 1934 1934 1938 1938 1939 July 1940 May 1939 Feb. 1940 Oct. 1941 Jan. 1942 Jan. 1945 June 1938 Spring 1940 Feb. 8, 1915 April 4, 1923 Mar. 2, 1939 Mar. 1, 1941 Oct. 16, 1923 Oct. 24 ,1930 October 1939 Joe Shuster and #101 #16 #1 #8 #2 released Jack Kirby Jerry Siegel and More Fun Comics The Big Trail Sensation Comics DC Comics was short for Detective Crimes All-American Comics The Clansman) The Clansman) revolutionizes the Western / Popularity of Western Films ( Joe Simon The Great Train Robbery The Great Train #1 published (Human Torch) #1 by Batman gets own title Warner Bros. founded The Golden Age comics Stagecoach Walt Disney Studios founded Superman character development John Wayne debuts in Shazam appears in 1st Western Film: 1st Western Marvel Comics "Round River" first penned tale first penned Paul Bunyan "Round River" All-American Comics founded by Max Gaines Detective Crimes #27 -- The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Wonder Woman shows up in Wonder Woman feature in published by DC Comics, created by Land-mark Green Lantern appears in Captain America DC Comics founded by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson DC Comics founded by Malcolm (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes Timely Comics (eventually Marvel Comics) established Classical Hollywood Era Superboy backstory of Superman in Action Comics #1 Batman shows up in 1970 Nov. 11, 1918 Dates 1924 1929 1933 1940 1942 Dec. 7,1941 May 7, 1945 May 26, 1938 Sept. 1, 1939 July 28, 1914 April 12, 1945 Aug. 6/9 1945 WWl Hitler invades Great Depression Begins Scientific-technical revolution U.S. Timeline Rosie the Riveter prototype created FDR Inaguarated; New Deal program FDR Inaguarated; New Deal Pearl Harbor Bombed; US enters WWll Death of FDR, Truman assumes Presidency Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima / Nagasaki Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders Exclusion Act prevents further immigration from Japan Exclusion Act prevents further The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) formed The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) 3 2011 1970 April 28, 1958 Dates 1956 1950s May 1954 Oct. 1956 Oct. 1960 May 1963 Sept. 1963 March 1960 Nov. 8, 1961 May 1, 1962 Aug. 1, 1962 Oct. 28, 1954 Jan. 10, 1962 Feb. 19, 1961 Aug. 10, 1962 Mar. 10, 1963 Mar. 10, 1963 April 10, 1964 Sept. 19, 1952 Sept. 10, 1963 #28 #15 #39 #1 #27 #83 #1 Jack Kirby #1 and The Brave and the Bold airs on Syndication #1 Showcase #1 #1 #1 The Digital Revolution Amazing Fantasy Jack Kirby Tales to Astonish Tales of Suspense Joe Simon and Daredevil Crockett Craze #1 by The Avengers Incredible Hulk Uncanny X-Men Stan Lee The Amazing Spider-Man #1, one of the top ten selling superhero comics in the nation #1, one of the top ten selling superhero comics in the Adventures of Superman Revamped Young Flash in Revamped Young Flash in Sgt. Fury and His Ant Man introduced in Thor introduced in Iron Man introduced in Spider Man introduced in The Silver Age comics / The Silver Age comics / Comic Code Authority adopted, restricting content Comic Code Authority adopted, (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes Fighting American TV series #1 published, the series most credited for kick-starting the , by #1 published, the series most credited for kick-starting Justice League of America (JLA) introduced in Justice League of America Marvel Comics (successor of Atlas Comics and Timely Comics) founded by Martin Goodman Marvel Comics (successor of Atlas Comics and Timely Fantastic Four 1975 1990 1964 1954 1968 1970s Apr. 30, 1975 Oct. 28, 1962 Dates 1964 1945 1946 1953 1954 1955 1960s Feb. 1964 Oct. 4, 1957 Nov. 1, 1955 Jan. 20, 1961 Oct. 16, 1962 Aug. 28, 1963 Nov. 22, 1963 Aug. 14, 1945 Sept. 13, 1959 Ed Sullivan Show Cold War Space Race Vietnam War JFK inaguarated Japan Surrenders Sputnik 1 launched Cuban missile Crisis Assassination of JFK March on Washington Civil Rights Movement Second-Wave Feminism U.S. Timeline Soviet Union's Luna 2 on the moon Soviet Union's Luna 2 on The Baby Boom 78+ million children The Baby Boom Investigation of Senator Joseph McCarthy Investigation of Senator Joseph Beatles' first appearance on Opposition to Vietnam War demonstrations begin 4 1985 July 1973 Dec. 1, 1966 Dates 1970 1970 1972 1975 July 1966 Jan. 1969 Feb. 1974 April 1977 Dec. 1967 June 1973 Nov. 1974 Dec. 1974 Oct. 26, 1974 Sept. 1, 1966 Dec. 22, 1971 Aug. 20, 1976 May. 25, 1977 #121-2 #52 #18 #124 #181 #12 Fantastic Four in theaters The Shootist animated series Marvel Super-Heroes The Amazing Spider-Man Incredible Hulk Dirty Harry released in theaters Marvel Super-Heroes The Amazing Spider-Man The Mark Zorro / Licsenced Superhero products introduced from Marvel to DC Star Wars Jack Kirby returns to Marvel #180, Cap becomes Nomad, a man without a country 1st Last John Wayne film -- 's The Marvel Super Heroes editor . Switch to . Jack Kirby jumps editor Mort Weisinger. Switch to Julius Schwartz. Jack Captain Marvel in Wolverine introduced in The (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes Black Lightning, DC's first major black hero introduced Punisher introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy appear in Guardians of the Galaxy appear Black Panther, the first black superhero, in Black Panther, the first black Superman Captain America The Bronze Age comics In "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" story arc in Marvel passes DC Comics as the best-selling comic-book company in the world Marvel passes DC Comics as the best-selling comic-book Departure of 1974 Present July 1, 1969 Nov. 1, 1968 Aug. 16, 1965 Dates 1973 1975 1975 July 1977 Apr. 4, 1968 Aug. 9, 1974 April 4, 1975 May 4, 1970 Mar. 2, 1965 Aug. 6, 1965 June 5, 1968 Jan. 20, 1969 July 24, 1969 Jan. 27, 1973 Oct. 15, 1966 Jan. 31, 1968 Aug. 11, 1965 Feb. 21, 1965 June 28, 1969 June 17, 1972 Watts riots Tet Offensive Riots Microsoft Founded First Moon Landing End of Vietnam War Assassination of MLK Voting Rights Act of 1965 Voting Rights Operation Rolling Thunder Operation Rolling Richard Nixon Inaguarated Assassination of Malcolm X Assassination New York City 2-day blackout Black Panther Party Founded U.S. Timeline Nixon resigns after Watergate Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Assassination of Robert F. Paris Peace Accords ends Vietnam War Five men arrested for Watergate breakin Kent State shooting of unarmed students Information and telecommunications revolution OPEC Embargo; Recession / Stock Market Crash 5 Present Feb. 1987 Jun. 1986 Oct. 1987 Dec. 1, 1986 Mar. 1, 1994 May 12, 1982 November 1979 Dates 1988 1982 1985 1985 1980s 1980s Feb. 1986 Oct. 1986 Nov. 1989 Sept. 1985 Sept. 1986 March 1989 March 1979 July 1, 1987 Feb. 3, 1986 Nov. 4, 1977 Aug. 1, 1981 Jun. 23, 1989 Dec. 15, 1978 June 28, 1985 published published mini-series airs on CBS in theaters six part mini-series Wolverine title debuts Batman: The Killing Joke released in theaters w/ great success released in theaters Pale Rider Warner 12-issues published and MTV Debut Pixar founded features cowboy superhero Jonah Hex The Incredible Hulk The Incredible The Man of Steel in theaters (starring Tim Burton) Hex The Punisher The Modern Age comics Superman, loathing, alcoholic Iron Man loathing, alcoholic Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Watchmen by and illustrated by Dave McKean Age of the / teen movies Age of the blockbuster / teen Clint Eastwood's Frank Miller's "grim and gritty" aesthetic Frank Miller's "grim and gritty" Batman V for Vendetta DC Comics Crisis on Infinite Earth reboot TV series #120-128 features "Demon in a Bottle" plotine with a depressed, self- plotine with a depressed, "Demon in a Bottle" #120-128 features Extreme violence in popular Extreme violence in popular John Byrne's (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes Frank Miller's DC Comics series Alan Moore's 1st superhero movie, 1st superhero Warner Communications merges with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary to Time Warner Communications merges with Time Inc., making The Invincible Iron Man The Invincible Mar. 4, 1987 Jan. 31, 1990 Jan. 20, 1981 Jan. 20, 1989 Feb. 15, 1989 Dec. 15, 1983 Dates 1982 1984 1989 1980 1990s Oct. 1987 June 1981 March 1979 Nov. 4, 1979 Jan. 20, 1989 Oct. 25, 1983 July 15, 1979 Jan. 20, 1981 Dec. 20, 1989 Aug. 20, 1985 Dec. 25, 1979 U.S. recession Iran-Contra Affair Iran Hostage Crisis Soviet-Afghan War Stock Market Crash Third-Wave Feminism U.S. invasion of Grenada First AIDS cases reported U.S. Timeline Boycott of Olympics in Moscow George H. W. Bush inaguarated NEC UltraLite (1st "laptop") released Operation Just Cause - invasion of Panama Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence" Reagan Administration / increased militarism Reagan Administration / increased IBM 5155 Portable Personal Computer launched Accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Mile Island Nuclear Accident at Three 6 May 1996 Sept. 20, 1997 Dates 1992 1993 1996 Mar. 1991 Jan. 1993 April 1996 Aug. 1990 Dec. 1998 March 1992 Dec. 7, 1993 Oct. 31,1992 Oct. 10, 1991 July 14, 2000 June 10, 1993 Summer 1993 Sept. 11, 1993 movie #75

X-Men #106 (considered to be one of #106 (considered to be one Superman in theaters Alpha Flight crossover comic series released in theaters #1 -- sells over 7 million copies X-Men: The Animated Series X-Men Marvel applies for bankruptcy And the Band Played On TV series DC versus Marvel #1 by Claremont and Lee -- sells 8 million copies and Lee -- sells 8 million #1 by Claremont founded by ex-Marvel illustrators Image Comics founded by X-Men Unlimited Superman killed by Doomsday in Superman killed by Doomsday Merger b/ween ToyBiz and Marvel Entertainment Comic book sales totaling $800-850 million in 1993 Comic book sales totaling (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes "Superman's Song" released by Crash Test Dummies Song" released by Crash "Superman's X-Men Marvel Studios founded by Marvel Entertainment, Avi Arad Marvel Studios founded by Marvel Entertainment, Avi Arad makes deal with 20th Century Fox to make an #1 by Todd McFarlane, Chris Claremont, and Jim Lee -- sells 2.5 million copies and Jim Lee -- sells 2.5 Chris Claremont, #1 by Todd McFarlane, the earliest, if not the first, openly gay superheroes in mainstream comics) the earliest, if not the first, Spider-Man comes out as gay in Northstar X-Men character Oct. 2001 May 4, 1992 Feb. 12, 1999 Feb. 28, 1991 Dates Dec. 1999 June 2001 Nov. 1991 Oct. 7, 2001 Nov. 7, 2000 April 1, 2001 Aug. 2, 1990 Mar. 3, 1991 Dec. 8, 1993 Jan. 26, 1998 Jan. 20, 2001 Oct. 11, 1991 Apr. 29, 1992 Jan. 20, 1993 Dec. 19, 1998 April 20, 1999 Feb. 26, 1993 April 19, 1995 June 12, 1994 Sept. 11, 2001 Sept. 18, 2001 Lewinsky Y2K Paranoia Attacks of 9/11 Anthrax Attacks Persian Persian Gulf Riots Columbine Shooting Clinton Impeachment Fall of the Berlin Wall Testimony of Anita Hill Testimony of Beating of Rodney King Beating of Rodney US Invades Afghanistan Oklahoma City Bombing Simpson primary suspect Election Day Bush v Gore George W. Bush inaguarated President Clinton inaguarated U.S. Timeline Bill Clinton signs NAFTA into law The World Trade Center bombing State execution of Timothy McVeigh Netherlands 1st country to legalize gay marriage Clinton denies sexual relations with WH intern Monica Clinton denies sexual relations with WH intern Monica Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman murdered -- O.J. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman murdered 7 Jan 2005 Dec 2004 June 2006 May 13, 2011 Feb. 28, 2010 Dates 2005 July 2004 June 2004 Dec. 2005 March 2007 May 3, 2002 May 2, 2003 May 4, 2007 May 2, 2008 Oct. 16, 2001 Oct. 28, 2005 May 26, 2006 Jun. 28, 2006 2008-Present July 18, 2008 Feb. 14, 2003 Mar. 17, 2006 April 11, 2007 June 30, 2004 June 15, 2005 June 13, 2008 Sept. 25, 2006 #25 by in theaters in theaters in theaters airs on WB airs on NBC in theaters in theaters Captain America in theaters in theaters mini-series in circulation in circulation in theaters mini-series in circulation Civil War

Heroes (cumulative) JLA in theaters (starring Brandon Routh) Daredevil Spider-Man 3 Spider-Man 2 V for Vendetta New: The Cinematic Age Batman Begins Infinite Crisis TV series The Incredible Hulk The Legend of Zorro TV series X-Men: The Last Stand released in theaters, kicking off MC universe ) in theaters; anti-mutant plotline (connection to AIDS virus) ) in theaters; anti-mutant plotline Marvel makes a deal with Merrill Lynch Marvel published X2 Identity Crisis ( Captain America killed in Avengers Disassembled (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes Iron Man Superman Returns released in theaters, 1st superhero film to break $1 billion in world gross released in theaters; producers have to remove scene w/ twin towers released in theaters; producers Spider-Man X2: X-Men United The Dark Knight 2008 Aug. 29, 2005 Dates 2007 2002 Oct. 2006 Oct. 2002 Oct. 26, 2001 April 16, 2007 Nov. 25, 2002 Mar. 20, 2003 Aug. 25, 2005 June 29, 2007 February 2004 worldwide Katrina Iphone introduced founded D.C. Sniper Attacks U.S. invasion of Iraq Virginia Tech Shooting U.S. Timeline Financial Crisis / housing crash The Patriotic Act signed into law The Patriotic Department of Homeland Security founded Department of Homeland North Korea announces successful nuclear test Estimated 40 million people infected w/ AIDS / HIV virus million people infected w/ Estimated 40 8 Present Present Present Present Dates Jan. 2011 July 3, 2012 Oct. 7, 2014 May 7, 2010 May 6, 2011 May 4, 2012 May 3, 2013 Nov. 8, 2013 April 4, 2014 May 2, 2014 Aug. 1, 2014 Mar. 6, 2009 May 1, 2009 June 3, 2011 July 22, 2011 July 20, 2012 Oct. 10, 2012 July 26, 2013 May 23, 2014 Aug. 31, 2009 June 17, 2011 June 14, 2013 Sept. 24, 2013 Sept. 22, 2014 in theaters in theaters in theaters in theaters airs on ABC in theaters in theaters in theaters X-Men: First Class airs on CW airs on FOX in theaters in theaters airs on CW in theaters in theaters in theaters; destruction of SHIELD plotline in theaters Arrow Gotham The Flash (cumulative) Thor in theaters -- tanks financially in theaters -- Agents of SHIELD Iron Man 2 Man of Steel The Wolverine Green Lantern Approval from their covers TV series TV series TV series Thor: The Dark World reboot with release of Guardians of the Galaxy The Amazing Spider-Man X-Men Origins: Wolverine X-Men Origins: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 X-Men: Days of Future Past Watchmen TV series released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross (cumulative) released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross (cumulative) released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The First X-Men (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes released in theaters -- second Marvel movie to break $1 billion in world gross released in theaters -- second Marvel movie to break acquires Marvel Entertainment for $4.24 billion Entertainment for $4.24 Company acquires Marvel The Walt Disney Captain America: The Winter Soldier Iron Man 3 The Dark Knight Rises Publications, Inc., and DC Comics remove Comic Code Authority's Seal of Inc., and DC Comics remove Comic Code Authority's Archie Comics Publications, Marvel's The Avengers Present Dates June 2013 Aug. 9, 2014 May 2, 2011 July 13, 2013 Jan. 20, 2009 July 20, 2012 April 13, 2014 Mar. 15, 2011 Dec. 11, 2011 Dec. 14, 2012 Batman Syrian Civil War Black Lives Matter Founded inaugurated Barack Obama U.S. Timeline U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq Edward Snowden scandal breaks Navy SEALS kill Osama bin Laden Navy SEALS kill Osama bin Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting Michael Brown shot by officer Darren Wilson Overland Park Jewish Community Center Shooting , Colorado Movie Theater Shooting at premiere of Aurora, Colorado Movie Theater Shooting at premiere 9 Present Present Present Mar. 1, 2016 Sept. 7, 2018 Oct. 19, 2018 June 22, 2018 Dates July 7, 2017 May 6, 2016 Aug. 5, 2016 Nov. 4, 2016 Mar. 3, 2017 May 5, 2017 Jan. 6, 2015 May 1, 2015 Aug. 7, 2015 June 2, 2017 Jan. 21, 2016 May 27, 2016 Jan. 15, 2017 Apr. 10, 2015 July 17, 2015 Oct. 26, 2015 Feb. 12, 2016 Mar. 25, 2016 Mar. 17, 2017 Nov. 20, 2015 Sept. 30, 2016 airs on CW in theaters in theaters in theaters airs on ABC airs on Netflix in theaters airs on CBS airs on Netflix airs on Netflix in theaters in theaters airs on Netflix in theaters in theaters in theaters in theaters released (does horribly) Supergirl (cumulative) production begins in Atlanta Daredevil Agent Carter Agent Carter Logan Jessica Jones Ant-Man Deadpool Suicide Squad released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross Doctor Strange Wonder Woman DC's Legends of X-Men: Apocalypse TV series in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross (cumulative) breaks $1 billion in world in theaters -- TV series TV series TV series TV series Spider-Man: Homecoming TV series Fantastic Four Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Black Panther Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice TV series (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes Avengers: Age of Ultron Avengers: Age Captain America: Civil War Dates July 1, 2017 Jan. 6, 2017 Dec. 2, 2015 Jan. 20, 2017 Jan. 21, 2017 July 16, 2015 Nov. 29, 2015 June 16, 2015 June 17, 2015 June 26, 2015 June 12, 2016 Sept. 23, 2016 San Bernardino attack Cascade Mall shooting Chattanooga shootings Orlando Pulse shooting promises to build a wall Donald Trump inaugurated Little Rock nightclub shooting U.S. Timeline Same-Sex Marriage Legalized Fort Lauderdale airport shooting Women's March on Washington, DC Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting Colorado Springs Planned Charleston church shooting by white supremacist Charleston church shooting Donald Trump announces candidacy for president and announces candidacy for Donald Trump 10 Jan. 18, 2019 Dates July 6, 2018 Oct. 5, 2018 Nov. 3, 2017 May 18, 2018 Nov. 17, 2017 Nov. 17, 2017 Feb. 16, 2018 April 27, 2018 Dec. 14, 2018 Dec. 21, 2018 in theaters in theaters airs on Netflix in theaters in theaters in theaters in theaters The Punisher Venom Aquaman Deadpool 2 Justice League and record for opening weekends Ant-Man and the Wasp TV series released in theaters -- breaks $2 billion in world gross (cumulative) released in theaters -- breaks $2 billion in world gross Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse (Super)Heroes Timeline (Super)Heroes released in theaters -- breaks $1 billion in world gross (cumulative) and $700 $1 billion in world gross (cumulative) and $700 released in theaters -- breaks million domestic gross, becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time million domestic gross, becoming Avengers: Infinity War Black Panther Aug. 12, 2017 Dates 2018 April 2018 Oct. 1, 2017 Oct. 5, 2017 Nov. 5, 2017 May 18, 2018 Sept. 4, 2018 Oct. 15, 2017 Feb. 14, 2018 Mar. 24, 2018 Aug. 11, 2017 Immigration Crisis March for Our Lives U.S. Timeline Parkland High School Shooting Santa Fe High School Shooting Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing Las Vegas Music Festival Shooting Las Vegas Music Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally Charlottesville Harvey Weinstein accused of sexual assault Harvey Weinstein Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church Shooting Sutherland Springs First Baptist Actress Alyssa Milano encouraged spreading of #Metoo Milano encouraged spreading Actress Alyssa Trump launches "zero tolerance" policy at US southern border Trump launches "zero tolerance" policy at US southern 122

MEDIA

Figure 1: “Tip Top Comics #3.” ComicVine.com, CBS Interactive Inc., n.d., https://comicvine.gamespot.com/tip- top-comics-3/4000-156447/.

Figure 2: "Cover of Action Comics 1 (June 1938 DC Comics)." Wikipedia.org, Wikipedia, 20 Apr. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Comics_1#/.

Figure 3: “The Death of Gwen Stacy.” The Green Goblin’s Hideout, n.d. http://www.thegreengoblinshideout.com/the-death-of-gwen-stacy.

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