I'm wondering whether Superman and the other superheroes who came along in the 1930s had any predecessors in the Western imagination. Maybe folkloric heroes such as Paul Bunyan, and the heroes of tall tales. But the idea of persons not named Jesus with supernatural powers—I think such ones would be looked upon with suspicion, because how does one get such ability? From a bargain with dark forces, and/or the mysterious female powers descended from the sins of Eve, no? Heroes untouched by any of this, who acquired their powers innocently and would just naturally use them to do good—maybe this was something of a novel idea. Of course there had already been figures such as the Homeric warriors, Alexander Nevsky, Sigurd/Siegfried, David, Moses. But there it was more a matter of a righteousness in them that earned them some divine assistance here and there, not so much that supernatural powers were intrinsic to them. Unless you go back to, I don't know, maybe Hercules.

So what changed? Keep in mind that the comic-book heroes came with backstories that gave purportedly scientific explanations for their powers. And, as has been pointed out in a recent book—I'll try to track down the title and author—Superman came along when the threat from Hitler was becoming more and more obvious. Maybe there was a sense of, okay, we're living in a technological age, and Kristallnacht takes place in a different world, maybe a different universe, from the parting of the waters. And are the gods of our fathers around to stop an existential threat? So—human, or humanesque, heroes with both pure intentions and purportedly material bases for their powers are needed.

Still...we're talking about fantasy, a kind of narrative distinct from both myth and realism, and arguably weaker. And it is unfortunate, eighty-five years later, that the resources of Hollywood are now spent so much on the universe of Marvel Comics rather than those of art and thought.