Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America

Pow! Bam! Crash! Analysis! According to this insightful and highly entertaining political and cultural history of comic books, Superman was not just ""fighting for the American way""Dhe was inventing it. Comic books, perhaps the central staple of U.S. youth culture, have been fundamental in both shaping and reflecting the country's political, social, ethical and even sexual mores ever since Superman made his first appearance on the cover of Action Comics in 1938. Wright, a faculty member at the University of Maryland's University College, charts how these popular pulp stories (over 100 million comics were printed in 1949) mirrored myriad, often conflicting, political positions: Superman's first enemies were corrupt politicians and slum lords aligned against the New Deal; '50s books reflected national anticommunist hysteria as well as mixed messages about the Korean War; violent ""crime comics"" of the 1950s reflected the decade's social unrest; Iron Man in the 1960s found his earlier anticommunist politics shaken by the war in Vietnam. Wright explores how the politics of the writers and artists, usually liberals and often Jewish, were reflected in their work, while at the same time they had to conform to frequently more conservative cultural standards that often led to a backlash against the genre. By the late 1940s, comics were at the center of a full-fledged cultural war; claims that they corrupted youth and caused crime and juvenile delinquency, resulted in congressional hearings and laws that banned the books. Carefully placing comics in their broader social contexts and weighing seriously their critics' charges, Wright creates an intelligent study not only of comics but of shifting attitudes toward popular culture, children, violence, patriotism and America itself. (Apr.)