With the fallout of Vietnam, the continuing threat of mutually assured destruction, and other socio-political issues spilling over from the 70s into the 80s a darker tone in comics was inevitable. But that is just the backdrop for comics. Comics had to adapt their content for the direct market. Their readership was aging, and so, they had to adapt the content to reflect their aging readers. Inevitably, the comics grew darker. They became more violent. They grew more socially and politically aware of the world and would comment and parody it. Because of the aging readership, comics had to grow and adapt. So not only did they become darker, they became more self-referential, commenting on comics history and past issues. Instead of broadening their audience, comics selected and reduced their audience, focusing on readers that they already had.
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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