"It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s..." you know the rest. Superheroes have become a huge part of pop culture in the last 78 years, thanks to our favorite blue and red clad Kryptonian. Evolving from post-depression pulp fiction, to their own comic books, to Saturday morning cartoons, to feature films, our favorite superheroes have come a long way. Many of them have changed significantly since their humble beginnings and this leaves the question: Why?
Imagine a world without the influence of "Dracula" (and therefore "Twilight", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "the Vampire Diaries", and Anne Rice, etc.), "STAR WARS" (and therefore the popularity of trilogies, 3D Wireframe animation, dystraflex cameras, or mo-cap 3D imaging systems), or even superheroes. The things we watch, read and listen to not only shape pop culture at the time in which these things are famous, but successfully change history.
In juxtaposition, our history and our culture also affect what we see in pop culture. Superheroes are the perfect example of this. To understand our world today we must look back nearly a century ago to June, 1938…the day superheroes were born, and explore how these iconic figures we’ve grown to love have shaped us, and in turn, how we have shaped them.
As a huge part of western pop culture, everyone knows the story of Superman: the son of Kryptonian scientist Jor El, sent to Earth upon his home planet's destruction. Superman is adopted and becomes Clark Kent, becomes a reporter, falls in love with Lois Lane (though no one knows why) and becomes the world’s first pulp fiction superhero. In 1938, Action Comics ran Superman’s origin story by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and the world would never be the same. Saying something is your ‘Kryptonite’ has become akin to the old saying that something is your ‘Achilles Heel'; in fact, many people don’t remember the original saying anymore. Superman is a great example of how our culture has influenced the artists and writers at DC and MARVEL.
A lot can be said about Superman's origins, in relation to the time period in which he was created. Written by two Jewish teens from Cleveland, Superman appeared just after the depression as an immigrant of Earth. This caused some criticism from the people of Metropolis and, especially, his nemesis, Lex Luthor.
He quickly stopped fighting gangsters and wife-beaters and began fighting Japanese and German spies when America finally joined World War II. He was the patriot and the hero America needed in one of the world’s darkest moments.
In 1952, when the ‘American Dream’ and the Red Scare were at their peak, Congress ordered that Superheroes follow an ethical code of conduct. Thus, Superman was dubbed as the big blue Boy Scout. Action Comics, now DC, would integrate this belief of “truth, justice, and the American way” into the belief system of the Justice League. This code of conduct still continues with many DC superheroes. Superman, along with the rest of the Justice League, were largely against the use of weapons and actually killing their enemies.
In 1978, "Superman" became what many consider to be the first comic book superhero film. He shed his happy, campy "Super Friends" persona and became the strong, ethical, brave and - might I add - handsome Superman we know today.
The 1980s was a time where comic book collectors were becoming more and more popular, but then suddenly…the bubble popped. There was a slump in not only the comic book sales, but also the Superman film franchise. It was no surprise that DC decided they had to do something rash in order to bring readers back to the comic book scene. In 1992, they decided to kill Superman.
In that year, the world was introduced to the Doomsday and Death of Superman storylines, which would have never been introduced had there not been a drop in comic book sales and quality of comic book films. This move, along with DC’s decision to give their readers a vote in whether or not Jason Todd’s Robin would die in the Batman series, would help make DC (and Superman) controversial and relevant again.
Suddenly in the mid-1990s Superman took another turn. After 60 years, Superman and Lois Lane finally got hitched, both in the comics and in ABC's "Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman". The age of spin-offs and cheesy alternate universes began. It’s no surprise that the mid and late '90s became the nesting ground for the cheesy (and frankly, bad) Superman and Lois lovefest. By the mid-1990s ‘rom coms’ were given their own genre, and they were everywhere ("She's All That", "You've Got Mail", "Ten Things I Hate About You", "Pretty Woman", "Sleepless in Seattle"...you get the picture).
Once the 21st century began, Superman had to evolve with the times. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw a surge of teen television shows, many quickly rising in popularity, such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Dawson's Creek". DC’s response? "Smallville". The show ran successfully from 2001-2011, making it the longest-running comic book-inspired primetime television show to-date. This caused DC to expand its character backstories, "Superboy" comics, and ultimately, many aspects of its canon Universe. Had it not been for "Smallville" we would have missed some of the key elements in Clark’s relationship with Lana Lang and young Lex Luthor.
In the 2000s, America witnessed the rebirth of a plethora of old American pop culture artifacts. Some of these included the horrible patterns and color schemes of the 1980s, the ‘bump-it’ hairstyles of the 1960s, 8 tracks (thanks to "Guardians of the Galaxy") and basically everything hipsters are bringing back, like vinyl records, comic books and vintage cars. Superman also saw a chance at redemption with "Superman Returns", the film that pretended the third and fourth original Superman movies never existed (for good reason). Superman was brought back to his roots and audiences got to see a new Superman story with the same classic man of steel. Same time period, same bright blue and red spandex, but with a fresh new spin...plus, Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor (this one's my personal favorite).
Even more recently, America has seen Superman with a critical eye, as he was presented in the "Man of Steel" film as the immigrant we knew little about. In today’s 21st century America, post 9/11, many have come to fear outsiders as they’re seen as a ‘threat’ to our perfect American Dream, a dream that has been no more than a delusion since the beginning. We see this fear projected onto our newest Superman, who is taken as a prisoner of the U.S military to be handed back over to general Zod.
We can all see the way pop culture affects our daily lives and inspires us; perhaps we should start looking at it from the other way around and consider the way our society influences the things we read and watch. They have formed a symbiotic relationship. Without World War II, the Red Scare, drop in comic book interests, a rise in rom com and teen television popularity and even xenophobia, Superman wouldn’t be the same flying-faster-than-a-speeding-bullet superhero we all know him to be.
