Since the depression was overtaking the concerns of Americans during the 1930s, readers enjoyed seeing superheroes fight against those who exploited the bad times for their own financial benefits. 'Even as a form of escape,' Scott Cord claims, 'the comic book allowed readers to fantasize about punishing real life wrongdoers. Comic books also became popular for other virtues during the 1930s, which was experiencing the Great Depression.

Secondly, Superman espoused the virtues of hard work, justice, and truth. You could argue that Superman was the ultimate immigrant being away from his parents and his family. Like many Americans, Superman was an immigrant, albeit from an alien world. Superman became popular for many reasons. Other characters soon followed, including the Human Torch, Batman, the Sub-Mariner, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, The Shield, and of course Captain America. And he became a star of the result of this issue. In June 1938 Action Comic Number 1 premiered and released and exposed Superman to the world, the character who encapsulated all that was good about America and humanity. Comics have been a showcase for national views, slang, morals, customs, traditions, racial attitudes, fads, heroes of the day, and everything else that make up our lifestyles.' Comic books as we know them today arrived in the late 1930s. 'From the 1930s through today comic books have expressed the trends, conventions, and concerns of American life. Back in 1977 author Michael Uslan stated the following about the nature of comic books. In fact, the comic book still embodies the same virtues today. The comic books embodied the virtues of what it was to fight evil during World War II. But for children, comic books became the method of this communication. Most adults would see this propaganda in the forms of posters and in short films before movies. To persuade Americans to purchase these bonds, propaganda was unleashed in many forms. After Pearl Harbor the principal concern became financing the war effort, which resulted in the US Treasury creating a defense bond program. The isolationist stance taken by the United States during the early months of World War II was quickly dissolved after two years. So I just wanted you to be aware of that before we start our presentation today.

They are very much just plainly racist, the way some of the other nationalities are drawn in caricatures. And so we'll be discussing them as they were presented. These were illustrations and slogans that were written in the '30s and '40s. Real quick disclaimer about some of the content today.

Heroes of ww2 history