A Brief History of Super Heroes, Comic Books and Graphic

"Leaping over skyscrapers, running faster than an express train, springing great distances and heights, lifting and smashing tremendous weights, possessing an impenetrable skin - these are the amazing attributes which Superman, savior of the helpless and oppressed, avails himself of as he battles the 0forces of evil and injustice."

Such was the introduction of this new folk hero, Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, in Action Comics 1, June 1938. It launched a new cartoon genre, the superhero, and established the comic book a place in American popular culture.

America needed a superhero, on the eve of World War II, and Siegel and Shuster drew upon classical and mythological tradition to provide one. As Jules Feiffer noted, "advent of the superhero was a bizarre kind of comeuppance for the American dream. Horatio Alger could no longer make it on his own....Here was fantasy with a cynically realistic base; once the odds were appraised honestly,it was apparent you had to be super to get on in this world."

While Superman was a superhero in the guise of Clark Kent, an ordinary citizen, Batman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger the following year, was a mortal in the masque of a superhero. Batman soon acquired a young assistant, Robin, and comic's first super villain, the Joker, completing the symbolic cycle of good and evil. It became de rigueur for superheroes to have a boy protege and a cast of bizarre villains.

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