NYT - The Superhero as Society’s Mirror, From World War II to Iraq

[esquirecomics]

The New York Times

July 14, 2007

The Superhero as Society’s Mirror, From World War II to Iraq

By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES

 

MONTCLAIR, N.J., July 11 — Michael E. Uslan is a lifelong comic-book fan, but “crusader” might be more accurate. For years, Mr. Uslan, a film producer (“Batman Begins,” among others), has collected comics and original art, written books about the industry and produced movies about his muscled and macabre childhood heroes.

 

So it is of no little excitement to him that part of his collection will be included in a bona fide art exhibition that opens Saturday: “Reflecting Culture: The Evolution of American Comic Book Superheroes,” at the Montclair Art Museum.

 

“Since I was a kid, I’ve been fighting to get comic books recognized as a legitimate American art form, as indigenous as jazz,” Mr. Uslan, 56, said in an interview. “After all these years, that recognition is finally happening.”

 

The show is about as up-to-the-minute as a comics fan could hope. It begins with the birth of Superman in June 1938 and ends with the death of Captain America in March 2007.

 

In between is an array of colorful covers, original black-and-white art, character sketches and videos that trace the evolution of the medium and the events and concerns they have echoed over the decades.

 

Visitors to the show are greeted by a handsome life-size statue of the Man of Steel, flanked by a video presentation on comic art by Joe Kubert, an industry legend (and, with his sons, the subject of a concurrent exhibition at the show) and an original page from the newspaper strips “Little Nemo in Slumberland” and “The Spirit,” illustrating links between strips and comic books.

 

But the most striking piece of eye candy, one from Mr. Uslan’s collection, is a re-creation of the cover of Action Comics No. 1, drawn by Joe Shuster, who created Superman with Jerry Siegel.

 

With Chip Cronkite, Mr. Uslan is also producing a documentary about the few surviving writers and artists from the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, roughly stretching from 1938 to 1950 and from 1956 to 1970. The one-hour film — which includes interviews with Joe Simon, who created Captain America with Jack Kirby, and Jerry Robinson, who created Batman’s archnemesis, the Joker — is to open at the museum on Sept. 16.

 

Mr. Uslan definitely talks the talk of comic books. Gail Stavitsky, the museum’s chief curator, also speaks with a true believer’s authority when describing a display case containing issues of Action Comics No. 1 and Detective Comics No. 27, the first appearances of Superman and Batman respectively, which she calls “the holy grail of comics.”

 

One of the exhibition’s goals, Ms. Stavitsky said, is to reveal how comics have mirrored social history. To that end, the works are grouped by era but also by theme. For example, “Superheroes Go to War,” covering the years from 1938 to 1945, pits the caped forces of good against the Axis powers. Among the highlights are the covers of Captain America No. 1, in which the hero socks Hitler, and Batman No. 17, which depicts Batman and Robin on a giant eagle, pleading, “Buy war bonds and stamps!”

 

By the 1950s, the heroes had turned their attention to the perceived threats of Communism and nuclear war, with side trips involving friends and foes from outer space and brief flirtations with romance.

 

The issues become a bit grittier in a section titled “Questioning Authority,” which examines the 1960s and 1970s. The Fantastic Four made their debut in 1961, but Spider-Man (1962) set the standard for a new breed of champion from Marvel: in his adventures, the wall crawler was often seen as a menace despite his good deeds. His private life was a mess, as he struggled to support his aunt and pay for school. Unlike Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker was no millionaire bachelor.

 

Stories from this era tackled racism, drug abuse and political corruption and introduced minority heroes, a shift that the exhibition addresses by highlighting characters like Marvel’s Black Panther (1966), perhaps the first mainstream African superhero, and DC Comics’ Blue Beetle, who was reconfigured last year and who in his secret identity is Jaime Reyes, a Mexican-American teenager.

 

Twig Johnson, the museum’s curator of Native American art, tracked down comic-book representations of American Indians for the show. “When I really started to look, most of the native characters weren’t really Indian characters; it was usually a white kid raised by natives,” she said.

 

The examples Ms. Johnson found run the gamut from the cringe- inducing to the praiseworthy. A 1992 issue of NFL SuperPro from Marvel depicting villains clad as sacred kachina figures proved offensive to the Hopi tribe; “A Hero’s Voice” (2006), the real-life story of six 19th- and 20th-century tribal leaders, published by the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians in northern Minnesota, has been popular in elementary schools.

 

In the parlance of comic books, the Montclair exhibition is the equivalent of an 80-page giant, overflowing with factoids and art, including original pages from The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, two series from 1986 that signaled a new level of emotional maturity in the medium.

 

More recent developments continue to underline how superheroes reflect political realities, whether it’s the Justice League’s questioning President Lex Luthor’s decision to invade the fictional nation of Qurac in 2003 or the continuing schism among Marvel’s heroes after being ordered to register their identities and abilities with the government. That debate began last year and will affect the group for some time to come.

 

The future of heroism is what Ms. Stavitsky hopes visitors will weigh at the conclusion of the exhibition; specifically, she said, “What kind of role should superheroes play now?”

 

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NOTE: One of the featured images in the story is Batman #17. Here is my copy.

 

[kc120us]

Cool article, Mark!! I'll have to check out the exhibit when it opens.

[Point Five]

 

I was finally able to read this article (thanks for the text & background updates, Arch & co). I will want to check out this exhibit too; sounds great!