CASE While in Japan, France or Italy the comic is better established and have greater acceptance is the United States of America, with its global cultural invasion and all that, who imposes his vision of the environment to the rest of the world, especially in Hollywood making movies full speed bandwagon superhero fashion. And I must say, without half-measures: the superhero genre is, in essence, quite silly (and I say, I am a lover of the genre). Ie a human being acquires superhuman powers so bizarre (how to become invisible or cast rays through the eyes) and decide to get brightly colored tights and fight crime jumping on the roof is quite rare and even surreal. However, as I said above four lines, superheroes are fashion, they generate a lot of money and the girl (and the thirties and forties) are (still) enjoying these adventurers of papier mache and moral bicolor basic reasons: to defend peace, justice and the American way of life. But superheroes are really all that?
The golden age of comic book super-heroes: birth of a genre.
The golden age of comic book super-heroes: birth of a genre.
Who was the first superhero? Superman, of course. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1938, based on the story "Gladiator" by Phillip Wylie. And how comes a super-hero? For historical context. The world was on the brink of World War II and this inevitably marked cultural products of pure escapism of the time. The idea of \u200b\u200ba super-human being as good as the bread defender of the weak capitalist democracies and was a very comforting for children and adults. The first occurrence of the last son of Krypton was on the comic book Action Comics No. 1 and the super-hero was dressed in street. As this was the most boring, its creators designed an attractive and uniform molón based on the costumes of the strongmen and circus trapeze. Thus was born a genre that hit amongst the young. Also swept the shamelessness of the publishers because, first, the creators of Superman denied copyright for many years did not receive a dollar for all the dough generated by his character, on the other hand, other publishers, seeing the bargain, were devoted to make multiple copies of Superman verbatim with little or no originality (with the exception of Captain Marvel, a child that just say the word "Shazam" became a super-tall boy with all pantheon skills Greco-Roman) 
cartoonist Bob Kane was a younger son with little creativity that had the idea of \u200b\u200ba million when it decided to make your copy of Superman: instead of copying it as such, decided to create a character that was just the opposite. If Superman was powerful, his character would have no powers, if Superman was with his face uncovered, his character would be a masked man, if Superman was good, noble and altruistic, his character would be mysterious, sullen and ambiguous; If Superman was the symbol of Light, Batman would be the symbol of darkness. In this way, Bob Kane, with the invaluable help of Bill Finger, created one of the most lucrative in the history of comics. But Bob Kane caught him the bull as the creators of Superman, he left all tied up and well tied to perceive the copyright. However, as the man was also a rascal, he deceived the co-creator of the character, Bill Finger, to renounce the rights to the character.
Other icons of comic book super-heroes were born in the 40's. From the hand of William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman, Princess of the Amazons with her lasso of truth and stunning legs that revolutionized the teenage hormones. And the last great figure of the golden age of comic books was Captain America, the sentinel of freedom created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, with his uniform, flag and with his inimitable shield (which at first was triangular). Many other super-heroes were born and they all fought against the Axis forces, Japan Germany and Italy. The publishers won a lot of money (both sales and for violating the rights of artists and writers) and became convinced that the business would never end, but one day the unthinkable happened: the Second World War ended and the super-heroes , all of a sudden, they were no enemies to fight. The era of big foreign enemies was over, replaced by a new was darker and miserable: the enemy within, the Communist infiltration of the witch-hunting. And the super-heroes, noble and selfless, and had no place in this kind of struggle. The comic book superheroes lost favor with the public and other genres took the witness, as the Western, romance and science fiction.
The Silver Age of superhero comics: Marvel and DC impose their vision of the market.
All fashions come to an end, and gender that for fifteen years passionate readers bored now. Seeing a bleak future in terms of sales is concerned, the editorial comics National (now DC Comics) decided to use a very popular tactic today: nostalgia appeal to readers in their thirties who had left the service of comics offering their childhood heroes and so conveniently modernized the way, catch new readers among children and adolescents. In the second half of the decade of the 50 collections of Flash are born (created by Gardner Fox, Bob Kanigher and Carmine Infantino) and Green Lantern (created by John Broome and Gil Kane
). Flash was a cop with a bright red suit running at breakneck speed, and Green Lantern was a fighter pilot with a magic ring able to realize all your imaginative brain. Well However, the two collections were a hit, among other reasons because the worst years of the witch hunt had passed and the enemy was once again outside, this time Russian and Chinese communist Maoist in faraway Europe and Asia . Even the Kennedy assassination, false conclusions of the Warren Commission and the Cuban Revolution reinforced the patriotic spirit of unity against the external threat. And that goofy and Manichaean spirit was the breeding ground for the proliferation of superheroes. National Comics decided to unite all cannon characters (including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman) in one group, The Justice League of America repeating acclaim. And as history repeats itself, the rest of editorials devoted to chapter and verse to copy the formula for Coca-Cola to see if they could catch chub. One of these editorials was Timely Comics, which was on the brink of ruin. Its sole writer, Stan Martin Lieber feared for their jobs (even though the chief was her brother) and so, when Stan made his copy of the Justice League tried something totally different, unique and revolutionary, skipping all rules of the genre but without straying too far from the basic scheme. Stan tried to give credibility to the genre through the dialogues of his characters. Until now a superhero had to be an example to follow, irreproachable, just, moderate, sensible and, if possible, handsome. Everyone talked about the same, with an instructive and moralistic tone quite annoying. Well, Stan did his characters with all the faults of the world, selfish, foul-mouthed, rude, rude and unfriendly. However, in the end, all were noble and good, like super-heroes before, but what mattered was not what they seemed. So, Stan Lieber (better known as Stan Lee) and Jack Kirby created The Fantastic 4, forever changing the gender and the environment in the United States, for better and for worse.
The superhero genre imposed an absolute limit monopolizing the market and other genres. The two major comic book companies, Marvel and DC, used the strategy of flooding the kiosk with many monthly collections at low prices to be charged to smaller publishers could not keep pace with production. Another negative aspect of the monopoly of superhero comics in the United States was the progressive environmental childishness (as in Spain). While in Japan or France, comics are an art that has no age (since there are comics for kids and adults of all subjects) in the United States and Spain, the comic is something for children, weakening the medium itself and imposing a childish image in public opinion. The biggest problem with this is that if an author in the United States wants to make an adult-themed comics bring more violence and sex than usual, it is likely to be denounced by any association Puritan or bookstores that sell these comics are material reported by selling "pornographic" because all children and 
l Everyone knows that comics "are just for kids." And so the two companies shared the cake. DC had the great icons of comic book superhero, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, and around these three characters turn their collections to a greater or lesser extent. Marvel had a lot of super-heroes very imaginative and very hearth (Spiderman, Hulk, The Avengers, The X-Men, Daredevil, etc.) and, above all, very brash and shameless copying the ideas of DC but improving them, giving them a fun, lighthearted touch to the taste of the chavalería.
Bronze Age of comics: crisis and boom.
Although financially the business of super-heroes was very well established, creative level gender was badly burned. A publisher has to take some 20, 30 or 40 collections every month and it is inevitable that wear and scripts become repetitive topics. One thing that plays to publishers is that the average age of readers of superhero comics going from childhood to adolescence. That is, more or less at age 18 the kid stop reading comics and do other things, such as fornication and drunkenness, or the publisher can repeat arguments for a new generation of readers and ad infinitum . However, this theory is wrong. It is true that many children stop reading comics when they reach the youth, but the harsh reality is that most readers of super-heroes do not leave the service over the years, unless they give them new stories. If you repeat the same arguments, the old and loyal fans will get bored and will stop buying the collections that are very geeks. Thus, ten years or so, the comic book industry suffers superhero creative and economic crisis which is saved by the hair through an artistic revival. 
is, ultimately it is the authors who sell comics and to relaunch the business. Too bad companies rarely see it that way. A mid 70's, Chris Claremont and John Byrne revolutionized the genre with its X-Men (The Uncanny X-Men), existentialism and providing greater credibility to the characters (especially female characters) and saving the superhero comics industry a deep crisis. Ten years later, the rescuers were Alan Moore and Frank Miller, DC, with a more dark and adult superheroes of all life, Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and "The Dark Knigh" (Frank Miller .) 
However, in the early 90's, the comic book superhero suffered the worst crisis of its history, and this time was no creative crisis, but speculative. An example: A reader bought 10 Spiderman comics: one was for him and the other 9 were to be sold within a few years and make a paste on the theory that eventually revalue the comic and collectors pay big bucks for it. The idea is good but only has one flaw: the business works only if it is you who does, or if so few people. But if 100,000 or 200,000 readers do the same, these nine copies you have to sell is not worth a shit. Well, the publishers made millions exploiting this pull rolls speculative and Marvel went on to sell 6 million copies of a comic book X-Men But in fact there were 6 million readers, but some 100,000 speculators when they realized that the comic book business had no future, stopped buying and of course, publishers have suffered a great time getting to the red and bankruptcy. DC did not suffer too much this crisis, because it belongs to the powerful Warner but Marvel never completely overcame this crisis and to survive had to be sold to the highest bidder, being bought by different companies (being the latest Disney).
Another consequence of this crisis was the proliferation of independent companies, with Image Comics to the head. The best artists of Marvel Comics got tired of not receiving all the image rights of his drawings and decided to set up a publisher on his own, creating new characters and retain all rights. The move was a shock for a lot of artists in similar circumstances who decided to take the plunge and separated from the two big companies. There was a small revolution and all quisqui was part of one or the other, continually attacking through insults and slander, that if you are about selling, if you are a ball, if you only care about money, etc. A sad spectacle that ultimately came to nothing, because over the years the waters subsided and those who vowed never to big companies returned to the fold in a timely manner and claiming that would never work for Image Comics at the end they did collect a hefty paycheck. In the past decade, the main objective of the two great
s company was to take the comic book super-heroes of the getto of infantilism freak and have partly achieved thanks to the generous help of Hollywood. DC did it in the 80's with the specific successes of Superman (Richard Donner) and Batman (Tim Burton) but has been in the past decade when the superhero genre reached its peak, both Marvel (X-Men Brian Singer, Spidem of Sam Raimi, Jon Favreau Iron Man) and DC, but less, because but triumphed with Batmans (Begins and Dark Knigh) his other movies are very poor (Superman Returns and Catwoman do not give neither hot nor cold). Today, superhero comics are targeted to attract the general public that ignores or despises the comics, and to do the stories try to be as simple and accessible as possible (removing the burden of 40 years continuity) and focused on the spectacular picture and the brevity of the story (with the use and abuse of large bullets that reduce the narrative to absurd limits masks and story lines of history and are based on hits and ultraviolence effect free). A pity of evolution, but anyway ...
The decade of 2010 will be key to the comic book superhero in the United States: either be accepted by the public through continuous film versions or become obsolete and fall from grace, suffered a new setback which may not be able recover.
The decade of 2010 will be key to the comic book superhero in the United States: either be accepted by the public through continuous film versions or become obsolete and fall from grace, suffered a new setback which may not be able recover.
Postscript: superhero comics are fascists?
mid 80's, in Spain there was a fratricidal war among the readers of comic books: one was (were) the readers of American superheroes, in the front trench comic book readers were European. Those of my party said that the European comics (except Asterix, Spirou, and little else) were bored to The Faint. The European side of saying that superhero comics were an example of Yankee imperialism and, ultimately, were made by and for Fascists, and it was here when my side lost the papers and shat on everything. I did not experience this fight (have 8 or 9 years) but that contest was immortalized in several articles, emails and journals. Well, every so often recurs controversy and there are the two sides throwing guns without reasoning or reach agreement. Anyway ...
One of the main causes of this controversy is the use of the word "fascist", which in this context means "reactionary." Many did not understand well, and believed that they were calling them fascists in the face (ie, a follower of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini or any other similar bastard ilk) and of course, the anger was logical. Therefore, I think the question that heads this outcome should be formulated differently so as not to hurt feelings: are superhero comics reactionaries? 
Well, in my opinion, the basic concept of the super-hero it is reactionary. What is a super-hero? A masked vigilante outside the law, following their own moral code, uses force and violence to solve problems. However, although the basic concept of gender is reactionary, the super-hero comic itself need not be, depends on the character and, above all, of the authors. For example, the comics of the punishment if they are reactionary (the Punisher is a guy who is devoted to kill criminals in Charles Bronson plan but no mustache). Spiderman or Fantastic 4 need not be reactionary, depend on the author's approach. While "Dark Knigh" by Frank Miller itself is reactionary elements, the "Watchmen" by Alan Moore is just the opposite, a denunciation of the authoritarian attitudes of these masks. It is very unfair to generalize (perhaps that is used both to attack something or someone), so, the question of whether the comic book super-heroes are reactionary, the answer is no, although there may be cases (like than any other genre), depend on the approach of the authors .
