Comic books have the ability to profoundly affect their readers. They can instill a sense of morality or a sense of justice. They can begin to unfold complex circumstances that teach each reader that life is not simple, but it is survivable. Most importantly, they can offer an escape- a reprieve from many of life's difficulties and challenges. Comics offer some companionship and others hope. They are more than just useless tales and scraps of papers; they are literature and they are art. Comics have more meaning in our lives than people ever stop to examine, which is why this class is so great. It offers a real examination on the importance of graphic media, an examination which is long overdue.
Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...
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