Skip to main content

What is the future for the superhero?

The future of the superhero is very hard to tell, but I believe that the superhero archetype will remain prominent in the media and in our culture. Right now superheroes in the movies is a prominent genre. There has been a constant creation of superhero movies with characters that have been revamped to attract audiences in the modern era. Marvel and DC have been using old comic book characters and bringing them to a wider audience that might not have read the comics. Now more people are familiar with characters like Green Lantern and Thor than in previous decades. I believe that the future of the superhero in movies will remain prominent. It looks like superheroes in movies will continue into the near future just as long as audiences stay interested, which I believe they will. Although it is hard to say whether superheroes in all mediums from comics to movies will remain significant in our society. Part of what has changed the prominence of superheroes in our society has to do with the transformation of society in America. This is seen by studying different decades. For example prior to the eighties and late seventies, there did not exist the cinematic superhero in the form of movies. Most of this was owing to the fact that America was going through troubled times, such as the Cold War and Vietnam. When Reagan became president, society began to change and prosper. It was this change and transformation that brought about the creation of superheroes in movies, straying away from the campy television shows of the sixties. Therefore, it is hard to tell what the future will be for the superhero or whether society will remain interested.

In the modern post-9/11 society, the superhero became prominent because 9/11 was a time when society honored heroes, thereby, making superheroes significant in all mediums from television to movies. If society still regards heroes to a high standard in the future, there is a possibility that the superhero genre will remain prominent. In reality, right now it is a business that is making money, which is not only valuable to distributers like Marvel and DC, but it is valuable for the character because the character alive in society. The list of superheroes in comic books will not run out anytime soon. Even the superhero archetype will remain relevant for some time. Since comics have been around since the early twenty-first century, along with superheroes, it is safe to say that the future for the superhero looks positive for now. It would be very hard to get rid of something that has been embedded in our culture for many decades.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why blame comics for societal failure?

Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
2 comments
Read more

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

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...
2 comments
Read more

The 1950s are often portrayed as a period of social cohesion. Why is this misleading?

When we think of the 1950's, most people think of similar things such as "Leave it to Beaver", very conservative and cliched pop music, and high patriotism. Our view of that time is one of social conformity to conservative values, with a traditional nuclear family where the father worked and the mother stayed home, where a majority of people attended church, where crime was relatively low, where a majority of American citizens were extremely patriotic, and where entertainment media emphasized these same conservative values and were subjected to censorship if they did not conform. This is misleading because while these things were all true to a certain extent, the world was obviously not perfect and not everyone was conforming or upholding traditional values, even if it seemed like they were. The 1950's were actually a very tumultuous time period, with the end of World War II leaving Europe war torn and in debt, the outbreak of the Korean War and the clashes of opinion...
1 comment
Read more