The First Superhero... wants you to die for the Emperor!

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this new article by @Fenwick here.

 

[Yokai Man]

FANTAMAN

Great article,thank you for it Fenwick.

 

[Alex Richards]

Everything comes back to Atlantis eventually doesn't it.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I knew a bit about Golden Bat but these greater details are amazingly nuts.

Also the guy sent forward in time to stop great mechanical destruction deciding to support Imperial Japan in WW2 is worryingly perfect. Poor Golden Bat, unaware he's in one of those stories about prophecy/time travel

 

[Fenwick]

What always interests me is how seemingly universal a superhero was in the Great Depression. Almost every single country made some fellow with superhuman powers and a mask fighting magical or scientific monsters and villains.

 

[Ciclavex]

What always interests me is how seemingly universal a superhero was in the Great Depression. Almost every single country made some fellow with superhuman powers and a mask fighting magical or scientific monsters and villains.

Reading about things like this where these concepts makes me wonder if to some extent the “masked hero with impossible powers that saves people” concept may be not only common, but a universal trope. Robin Hood of course is the classic one in English language folklore — the master of disguise who, protects the common people using his practically supernatural ability with a bow, who always gets one up on the schemes of the evil villain and the corrupt regime that either supports him or is too incompetent to stop him, etc. I know there are very similar ideas in a lot of cultures, as well. Is the modern superhero just the natural late to post-industrial evolution of that same historical folklore trope that several different societies arrived to at the same time, and began influencing one another, or is there some particular media origin point that these different ideas are drawing from?

 

[Charles EP M.]

I don't think there's a common media origin, but the march of science being used to update folklore/mythical tales and set them "now".