In my opinion, comics were at the forefront of social transformation in the US in the 1960's. However, comics were not exactly the "go to" form of news about social issues, especially with the television being a new form for news and entertainment. With all that being said, some comics were able to stay up with the times. Marvel Comics was consistently good at this, creating stories that were directly related to major social issues that were current in the country. Although comics seemed to have been overshadowed by radio and television by this time period, the companies were still getting stories out about social topics because they were able to create new and interesting stories to keep their fanbase buying and coming back for more. One of the other main reasons comics were able to stay at the forefront of social transformation was because they were able to change the way superheroes were created, another change that was beneficial to the industry. Spiderman, for example, was a new way of developing a hero. Even when Peter Parker develops his powers, he is still reluctant to use them for fighting crime and instead uses them to make money. Only when his grandfather is murdered by a criminal he let go does he start to use his powers for good. By keeping up with the times, comics were able to stay at the forefront of the social transformation in the US.
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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