The history of why we're all here - comic books.
The Beginning
The history of comics themselves - not superhero comics, not U.S comics, but comics themselves-probably goes back millions of years. We know that cavemen drew - we have whole caves full of proof of that. The first comic probably was something along the lines of a man chasing a deer with a slightly sharp stick, and then stabbing it in the gut. This shows how far our current industry has come, right? But the history of superhero comics is a little shorter-by maybe a few millenniums. The history of superhero comic books in the U.S actually started where almost all of our published stories started-ancient times, in civilizations like Greece, Sumer, Egypt, and Rome. Almost every comic character today follows an archetype. A quick Dictionary.com search gives the definition as "the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based." What this means is that an archetype is the standard, or the cliché. It's the stereotype. For instance, there's the archetype of the hero-a flawed but brave person with big dreams and a good heart. He fights an evil villain and goes through hardships with a group of colorful friends. An example of an archetypal hero is Luke Skywalker. The Star Wars movies are a good example of a story full of archetypal characters. Luke Skywalker is the hero. Han Solo is an antihero. There are the sidekicks, R2-D2 and C3PO, and, of course, Darth Vader is the archetypal villain. The ancient world created those archetypes-so almost every character in comics is modeled after one. Some examples of archetypes are the hero (Luke Skywalker), the child (Linus Van Pelt), the wise old man (Gandalf, Merlin), the cosmic man (Silver Surfer), the antihero (Blade, Punisher), the villain (Doctor Doom, Darth Vader), etc. Philosopher and psychiatrist Carl Jung named many of these archetypes. An example of a superhero based on an archetype from ancient literature would be Superman. Superman is a godlike alien from another planet that helps humanity, to him an inferior race. Gilgamesh, an Ancient Sumerian hero, and Heracles, the ancient Greek demigod, both are gods or demigods that help an inferior race with amazing strength. That is the true root of superhero comics.
The Golden Age
Flash forward to the twentieth century. It's the early 1900s. This is where superhero comic books were invented. In the 1920s, comic books were 20 years old-but not superhero comic books. Newspaper comics and the first comic books had come before, but the modern superhero comic book was invented later. "Tarzan", "Dick Tracy", and "Flash Gordon" all had their own comic books before superheroes and were very popular. In 1934, the first "superhero" was published-"Mandrake The Magician". Mandrake was very popular for a short time, and although he didn't use a costume or the name "superhero", he used powers to fight crime. He was created by a 29-year-old man, Lee Falk, and was published by King Features. Mandrake used skills as a hypnotist and illusionist to fight crime. However, the first real superhero was created two years later, also done by Falk. It was "the Phantom". Phantom was an immortal superhero in a dark costume. He prowled the streets fighting criminals. Phantom was hugely popular. America liked him, but he found much more success overseas, where movies, many books, and more have been made about him. There's a Phantom amusement park in Sweden. The stage was set-and DC entered it.
DC Comics was formed by two men-Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and
