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Off My Mind: Birth of Superheroes in the 20th Century

How come we didn't have more heroes before the 1900s?

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Superheroes have existed for less than a hundred years.  Sure heroes like the Lone Ranger and Jonah Hex are from the 1800s, but they aren't super. By today's continuity in comics (in Marvel and DC), there weren't any costumed heroes until WWII.  So why weren't there more heroes before the 1900s? 
 
Recently artist Francesco Francavilla drew a picture depicting the Avengers if they were alive hundreds of years ago and Neil Gaiman showed us what Marvel characters would look like in the year 1602. Wait a moment, knights and soldiers wore colorful armored suits but that still doesn't make them super.  
 
Not being a historian or anthropologist, I have to wonder what was it about the 20th Century that caused the birth of costumed superheroes? 
 == TEASER == 

   Everyone looked so stuffy in 1602.
 Everyone looked so stuffy in 1602.
In the old days people were more refined. Men stuck to the rules. They were cautious and too humble to wear a gaudy crime fighting costume -- they wore gaudy hats instead.  Cities were smaller -- the United States was getting settled after all -- and people lived rural lives. There was never a need for a costumed vigilante to rise to the occasion. So there weren't any superheroes.
 
   Apocalypse in his early days.
 Apocalypse in his early days.
There are some characters that have been around a long time like Apocalypse, Vandal Savage and Ra's al Ghul. Even Mr. Sinister started his genetic tinkering in the 1800s. Despite this, it doesn't seem like people even had superpowers before the 20th Century. Were there more individuals with powers but were too shy or conservative to use them publicly? You never hear today's comic book characters talking about heroes in their past.
 
When I first started reading comics, I thought the 1960s was the birth of heroes. Nuclear testing, radiation poisoning and mutations jump started the entire superhero explosion, right? But superheroes did exist before the nuclear era like Superman and Batman. Their origins have been tweaked so they didn't until modern times. Today we're seeing more of a focus on Marvel's costumed WWII heroes in the Invaders and All-Winners Squad
 
What was it about the 20th Century that caused the birth of mutants, Thor's banishment to Midgard, visits by Martian Manhunter, the Silver Surfer and Galactus? We have seen in Jonathan Hickman's S.H.I.E.L.D. series that Galactus did come to Earth before (but no one seems to recall it) and there were some heroes such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton. They just didn't wear flashy costumes or have superpowers. 
 
We could just chalk it up to fate and the destiny of mankind. The time wasn't right before. There could be some celestial force that saw the destructive path the human race was headed and pushed mankind into entering the next phase of our existence. Superheroes are here to stay. This is the Age of the Superheroes. Time will tell if there will be another evolution for the heroes of Earth.

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greenenvy

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Edited By greenenvy

Superheroes existed since the dawn of time! How!? CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY DUH. Superheroes today are considered MODERN MYTHOLOGY while  classical mythology is the ancestor of superheroes. Hercules, Samson, arc angel Micheal, Jesus himself, Greek gods/heroes, Norse gods/heroes, Egyptian gods/heroes etc. The old pantheons  of myth and  folktales inspired the likes of superman, batman, wonder woman etc so there you have it. 

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difficlus

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Edited By difficlus

Good Off my mind G-Man, i guess its because nowadays society is more open and more like a global village, back then things were rough, not that there wasn't a need for superheroes but that the time period was bad, racism, prejudice and stuff were all big back then and of course the world was a closed community. 

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MrFantastic

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Edited By MrFantastic
Kamen Rider Kajiki  has it correct that there is a long history of Super-heros dating back to the dawn of history.  Many classic heroes had "super" abilities (Ulysies, Beowolf, Hercules, Achilles to name a few). If the bigger issue is costumed heroes, then we need only to look a little deeper to find a few (Santa Claus, Sir Gawain the Green Knight, Will Scarlet for example). 
  Now if you include the realm of comic books there are ample examples of superbeings pre 1900, although most remained in seclusion (a few hundred Inhumans, the Eternals, all those Amazons, the Pantheon, the Atlantians...).  One might make the point that giveing the increase in wold wide population since 1900 the number of super beings may have actually decreased as a percentage of world population.
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PowerHerc

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Edited By PowerHerc
@MrFantastic said:
"Kamen Rider Kajiki  has it correct that there is a long history of Super-heros dating back to the dawn of history.  Many classic heroes had "super" abilities (Ulysies, Beowolf, Hercules, Achilles to name a few). If the bigger issue is costumed heroes, then we need only to look a little deeper to find a few (Santa Claus, Sir Gawain the Green Knight, Will Scarlet for example).    Now if you include the realm of comic books there are ample examples of superbeings pre 1900, although most remained in seclusion (a few hundred Inhumans, the Eternals, all those Amazons, the Pantheon, the Atlantians...).  One might make the point that giveing the increase in wold wide population since 1900 the number of super beings may have actually decreased as a percentage of world population. "

Agreed.   
     There are almost an innumerable ammount of pre-20th century heroes that could qualify as 'super.'  Maybe the advent of so many technological advances during and after the industrial revolution caused humankind to open their minds and expand their collective imagination. 
     People had just recently witnessed the coming of the radio-which gave them entertainment broadcast from an outside source right in their own homes.  Airplanes and automobiles - which gave people much greater ability to travel and and imagine place to travel to.   A horseless carriage?  A flying machine?  A box that played sound?  These things alone seemed fantastical and nigh-impossible to most in the 19th century.   
     These and many other heretofore unimaginable advances most likely inspired many to imagine other breakthroughs and possibilities, and quite likely had the effect of inspiring writers and artists to conceive such characters as Doc Savage, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Green Hornet, Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, Flash, Captain America, etc. during the pre-Golden Age and Golden Age;  which in turn inspired the heroes who came after. 
     I think the 20th century was a great time for superheroes and was, in fact, the era in which the concept was named and expanded.  But it was not the era in which they dawned. 
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Brickabrack

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Edited By Brickabrack

What if it's a cover up? What if there were super heroes in the middle ages but there were no news stations to cover it. No newspapers to advertise? What if a clash of the Super Heroes caused the dark ages and the Bishop struck the history of it from the records?  
 
What if every age has had them but the telling of the tale turned them into legend? Hercules? Odysseus  from the Odyssey? Dracula? Grimms Fairy tales? Conan? So many more. What sets the 20th century apart the most is radio and TV reporting. Air travel and automobiles shrunk the world.  
 
How many thousands of years will pass before what we take for fact today is only a written shadow on the wall of a cave?
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CellphoneGirl

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Edited By CellphoneGirl
@Deadknight said:
"
They did have a Runaways story where the team ended up in 1907 New York and met several "wonders" as they were called, including an earlier Punisher, the Yellow Kid, and a dapper zombie. "
I love that you posted that :D
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deactivated-5a162dd41dd64

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...Everyone looked stuffy in 1602? You saw what they wore, no kidding they 'looked stuffy'. That clothing is NOT comfortable!

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emmbro30

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Edited By emmbro30

If you look close, the acient egyptian heiroglyphs look an awfull lot like Mike Mignola comic art. 
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goldenkey

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Edited By goldenkey

They came around in the 20th centary because of the popular growth of sci-fi books, movies, and t.v..  A lot of comics were more Sci-fi based.  Flash Gordon etc.  There were some hero type characters buy they were more vigilante style do to what was around.  There was a lot of ganster type issues happening so you had vigilantes fighting mob like characters The Phantom, but  westerns were so popular and entertained all ages.  I was easy to see the differences between good and bad because of the White hat Black hat seperation, so you got the Lone Ranger.  Robin Hood was a huge movie, and was an enormous book, (books, the first television) and Robin was a vigilante of sorts, so the Lone Ranger fit right in.  The Lone Ranger and Zorro.  Both wairing masks and fighting for justice.  Superman (at least I think so) came from sci-fi fans.  After all he did come from another planet.  He is sci-fi based if you look at it.  Captain America was a guy who drank a serum (also sci-fi based) and became the toughest guy on the planet.  He didn't really get any super powers (thats what all you people say on here when you do the battle forums) he just had his body honed to physical perfection.  The first Torch was a robot, and Namor..........well Im not sure if Namor is exactly sci-fi based he just seemed like the perfect guy to fight Torch since fire and water are obvious enemies.  Before the 20th centary sci-fi was as popular because there really wasn't a ton of science like stuff around.  Not till the steam engine, and the light bulb got really really popular.  There wasn't that much difference in the way of living from the dark ages to the civil war.  Homes were similar, transportation was the horse or the boat.  and the difference of homes style was the material.  We wouldn't have comics right now if it wasn't for the popularity of sci-fi.  Comics are in fact sci-fi themselves plain and simple.  I bet if Captain America was invented today, that super soldier serum he drank would give him super powers now.  Powers like being able to jump incridible distances and heights, prolonged stamina, a healing factor,  the speed to be able to fight ten or more men, and the strength to pick up or at least stop a tree from falling.  Oh wait, he can do that now.
 
 
 
 
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goldenkey

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Edited By goldenkey
@PowerHerc:
I agree with a lot.  I can't believe I didn't think of myths as an insporation.  I still think they came more from sci-fi fans, if you read my post you might agree with me as well, but think about Captain Marvel and all his powers coming from Norse Gods its easy to see.  But most of the characters, when they were created had a sci-fi back ground.  Myth characters are divine in how they get their powers.  Born with them because Zeus or .....what's the Norse version of Zeus named again, Apollo, gave them to them or they were born half god, half man so they were like mutants.  But other super hero got their abilities thru science.  Spider-man, Superman, the F.F., Captain America, Flash. etc.  Sci-fi was a huge entertainment at the time of comics coming out.
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LP

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Edited By LP

This is your best OMM article yet G-Man - and it asks all the right questions.... I figure it was simply because crime, hopelessness, economic turmoil, terrorism and urban decay wasn't as serious, urgent and pervasive as a problem then as it was in the Great Depression up to 2010!

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RedheadedAtrocitus

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@G-Man:
The question you pose here is an interesting one, especially for an historian and comic lover like myself. In addressing the issue of how abruptly superheroes came onto the scene during the twentieth century, I think we must remind ourselves that the study of history itself is the study of change over time. And in no period of human history was there more change than the leap from the 1800s to the 1900s. Revolutionary tides of epic proportions swept the planet.  Scientifically, humans saw some of the most drastic improvement seen. By the end of the 19th century, internal combustion technology forever obliterated the need for man-made labor and horse drawn carriages. Within three-quarters of just that change alone, we had not only penetrated the skies but the cosmos. Hence why it was natural for superheroes to become a wholly "new" fascinating subject to people. For with change as I have discussed comes discussion of possibilities. And possibilities yield imagination. So where in the 1860s there was the grittiness of the American West contained in the dime novel, by the 1930s there was then discussion of "chosen ones" from other worlds that could defy the very laws of nature that we hold most dear. Regardless, heroes have always existed.  But because of what I like to call the Second Scientific Revolution that marked the demarcation between the "Long 19th Century" and the 20th Century, heroes became more than just simple legends. "Super" entered the lexicon. And where people on the frontier once enjoyed the exploits of Buffalo Bill Cody, downtrodden Depression-ridden folks of the 1930s began to enjoy the tales of Kal-El of Krypton. By that implication, then, one might say then that the 20th century was indeed "super," and that the heroes that came to be a part of it reflected that century on in to today's world.
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TheMess1428

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Edited By TheMess1428
@angryamazon: Haha thanks. =]
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kapitein_zeppos

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Edited By kapitein_zeppos

Are superheroes simply a retelling of old myths ? Or are the ancient myths merely early superheroes ?
 
I believe superheroes are the modern mythology or maybe a sub-genre.
 
We don't get superheroes before the 20th century simply because certain ideas did not exist before.  Most early superheroes are based on earlier characters from the early 20th and 19th century which include the "mysterious masked character" (Dick Turpin, Zorro or the man in the iron mask), the colourful costume (circus performers and fancy theater and ballet costumes) the superpowers (virtually any magical or mythological figure)  etc.

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Eyz

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Edited By Eyz

Well, considering Thor or Hercule are superheroes in the Marvel U, I'd say yes, they've always been heroes in the past (exemple: DC's Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, El Diablo, Hawkman, Black Adam, etc..) Only, they only started to get colorful and hid behind masks and capes in this century :P
 
In Comics, the Greek/Roman mythology was just superheroes in the past.
 
Imagine that, the earlier supervillains wer badass creatures like the Minotaur, Hades, the Hydra...

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Comicjew

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Edited By Comicjew

Nobody came up with the idea of a superhero until a few years prior to World War II.

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dewboy01

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Edited By dewboy01

everyone in the world lost their faith for all hope to come. Heroes of the Old testament did their job, we need the heroes of the New testament.

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Jnr6Lil

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Edited By Jnr6Lil

indeed. Greek Myths have superheroes
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SigersonLTD

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Edited By SigersonLTD

The term itself didn't exist until Stan Lee coined it himself in the 60's. The medium didn't exist before what, 1935? Classic literature has all sorts of instances of what we would today refer to as either costumed heroes or superheroes. They just weren't called that back then.

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Enosisik

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Edited By Enosisik

I'm not even bothering reading anymore of this..superheros come from mythological stories and have been around as long as man has had enough intellect to create story.

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