Comic Books: An American Mythology

Comic books have always been popular with the American people, but in recent decades their popularity has increased dramatically. The Christopher Reeve's Superman movies may have helped with the surge in popularity, but that just shows America's fascination with that character. Film seems to be America's choice of form for pop culture, and comic book adaptations seem to be limitless lately. Tim Burton, a prominent filmmaker, was interested enough with the Batman character to launch a series of films in the nineties. The three X-Men movies have done really well at the box office, and the Spider-Man movies have been a world-wide phenomenon. But there have been many adaptations of comics to film recently, including Daredevil, Spawn, the Punisher, Electra, the Hulk, and even more in production. Darker, grittier resurrections of both the Superman and Batman franchises have occurred in the last couple of years, and Ghost Rider and a new Spiderman are due out this summer. Wonder Woman is also in the works for a film, and there is talk of a Wolverine spin-off from the X-Men movies. The fact that all of these movies are being made shows how fascinated we are as a culture with these comic book characters.

Comics have always been a part of the American culture, but really gained in popularity in the twenties and thirties. These stories contained very iconic figures, and were appealing to many people. These comics dealt with moral issues, with good and evil being very clear cut, and were didactic in a way that fairy-tales and mythology were. The moral make-up of these comic book characters were part of their appeal, and why they gained a larger readership than just kids.