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    LIFE Rise of the Superhero: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen
    LIFE Rise of the Superhero: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen
    LIFE Rise of the Superhero: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen
    Ebook212 pages54 minutes

    LIFE Rise of the Superhero: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen

    By The Editors of LIFE

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    Today, superheroes are more popular than ever, with action-packed movies, TV shows, comic books, graphic novels, and other genres celebrating themThe craft has become more sophisticated, the stories more intricate, with the entire art-form now elevated and celebrated. For as long as characters such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America, etc. have been a part of popular culture, the oldest "modern" superhero is only just over 80 years old, that being Superman. Now, in a new Special Edition from LIFE, Rise of the Superhero, which includes an introduction by the legendary Stan Lee, the editors of LIFE trace the superhero phenomenon from its earliest days, then explores the superheroes of today, through historical and current photographs and entertaining text. Essays place the evolution of various superheroes throughout the context of world events through each decade, antiheroes are explored, and the technology that has been used to create the movies and comic books - and influenced the stories - is explained, giving the reader a complete and concise history of the genre. An exclusive bonus showcases the great Adam West, the original TV Batman, with little-seen photos. Celebrate the history of great superheroes with this keepsake collectible.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLife
    Release dateNov 10, 2017
    ISBN9781547840816
    LIFE Rise of the Superhero: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen

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      Book preview

      LIFE Rise of the Superhero - The Editors of LIFE

      Copyright

      Remembering

      Adam West 1928–2017

      His Batman scaled sides of city buildings, worked an unendingly versatile (and lifesaving) utility belt, escaped giant man-eating clams, and beat back criminals with a Pow! a Sock! and a Bam! From 1966 to 1968 (and then for many more years in reruns) Adam West, who died in June of 2017 after a brief battle with leukemia, starred as TV’s lovable, sometimes fallible, but ultimately unbeatable Caped Crusader. He delivered his campy lines with a wry deadpan (She’s put the elevators out of commission, Commissioner!), he teared up now and then, and despite obvious temptation he stopped short of falling for the treacherous Catwoman. West defined a Batman that no future incarnation—no matter how powerful or dark—could eclipse. Our dad always saw himself as the Bright Knight, West’s family said in a statement after his death. He was certainly that when LIFE shot him on the show’s set in ’66, and he landed on the magazine’s cover.

      YALE JOEL/LIFE/THE PICTURE COLLECTION

      YALE JOEL/LIFE/THE PICTURE COLLECTION

      YALE JOEL/LIFE/THE PICTURE COLLECTION

      YALE JOEL/LIFE/THE PICTURE COLLECTION

      Foreword

      Heroes Welcome by Stan Lee

      AP

      At Marvel headquarters in New York City in 1976, Stan Lee (top), then publisher of Marvel Comics, discusses a Spider-Man cover with artist John Romita, who in 2002 would join the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

      The term superhero came into usage barely 80 years ago. It all started when National Comics (later to become DC Comics) published Superman, the creation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Suddenly, in the realm of adventure fiction, we had a hero who was superstrong, could leap over a skyscraper, and run faster than a speeding train.

      After Superman, it was as though the dam had been broken. Suddenly Timely Comics (later to become Marvel) introduced the Human Torch, a hero created by Carl Burgos, who could burst into flame and fly. They also brought forth the Sub-Mariner, Prince of Atlantis, by Bill Everett. He could breathe under water, was superstrong, and had the power of flight.

      As events led up to World War II, the publishers all got on the patriotic bandwagon. Suddenly the super­heroes fought more than gang leaders and crazed assassins. Now they had the Nazis to conquer. Among the many patriotic heroes, Timely’s Captain America, a shield-slinging super­soldier, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, was one of the most successful.

      But the superheroes were more than a wartime fad. Even in later years, in peacetime, they became the most popular of all comicbook characters. In seeking a reason for their amazing and long-term popularity, I’ve come up with a theory . . .

      Almost without exception, every young child has been weaned on fairy tales, stories involving witches and monsters and demons and magicians and giants—perfect fodder to feed a youngster’s sense of wonder and magic.

      Naturally, in a short time we become too old for fairy tales. However, I believe we never lose our love for those tales of people who are bigger than life. They are faced with all sorts of monsters and dangers that are likewise bigger and far more colorful than anything in real life. And of course we also have the birth of the supervillains.

      Regarding the tremendous popularity of today’s comicbooks, it’s interesting to realize that during the early days of comics parents tried their best to steer their children away from comicbooks. Many of them were convinced that because comics were illustrated stories, the youngsters would be so caught up in the pictures that they would never become good readers.

      Being aware of that concern, I made it a point to actually use college-level vocabulary on all of Marvel’s comics. If a youngster wasn’t familiar with a word, he’d learn what it meant by its use in the sentence or, if he had to go to a dictionary to look it up, that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

      Later, as schools looked into the effects of comicbook reading, they found that comics were actually an aid in making youngsters into readers because kids had to be able to read and understand the text in order to get the full impact of the story itself.

      Today, comics are more popular than ever. But there is one serious problem that I’ve been relentlessly trying to solve. Too many people write comic book as two words. That means a funny book, which is not its intention. It should always be written as one word, comicbook, which refers to a specific type of reading material. Don’t ever let me catch you spelling it wrong! *

      Can’t write any more just now. Dr. Octopus is trying to break into my study and I’ve got to contact Spidey while there’s still time! (And remember: Never omit the hyphen in Spider-Man’s name or he might just ignore your call.)

      Excelsior!

      Before They Were Supermen by Richard A. Lupoff

      HIP/ART RESOURCE, NY

      Thor, the Norse God of thunder, wields a hammer.

      Think of a mighty hero with rippling muscles, indomitable courage, a man invincible in battle—all except for one potentially fatal weakness. Superman leaps to mind, that strange visitor from another planet whose Achilles’ heel is kryptonite.

      But wait, what was that about an Achilles’ heel? Ancient Greek myth recounts the story of the great hero Achilles: His mother dipped him as a child in the River Styx, and the water made his body invulnerable—except for one spot: the heel by which she held him. To cut a long story short: Shot in the heel with an arrow, Achilles died.

      Where did writer Jerry Siegel and cartoonist Joe Shuster get their ideas for Superman anyway? Out of thin air? Hardly! Teenage science fiction fans in the 1930s, they could hardly avoid the novels of Philip Wylie. A figure much like Superman, although created in a laboratory, appears in Wylie’s Gladiator (1930), and the story of an exploding planet, its survivors sent by rocket to another world, occurs in When Worlds Collide, co­authored by Wylie and Edwin Balmer. In this novel it is Earth that is destroyed rather than Krypton, with survivors headed off to a distant planet to create a new civilization. But combine the themes of these two novels and you’ve got the full saga of Jor-el, Lara, and Kal-el—and eventually of Superman and his secret identity as the timid Clark Kent.

      As for Superman’s one weakness, kryptonite, that was a brilliant idea. Not part of the original comic book, kryptonite was reportedly introduced in The Adventures

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