Superman Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Slater Brown

Critical Essay by Slater Brown

It was only two years ago that Superman was first revealed to the youth of this country…. But the response which greeted his appearance was so enthusiastic and so immediate that already Superman has surpassed such long established classics as Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy and Popeye….

[It is not], to those versed in primitive myth or to students of the blacker arts of modern demagogy, difficult to understand why this new comic should have become so generally and so fantastically popular. For Superman, handsome as Apollo, strong as Hercules, chivalrous as Launcelot, swift as Hermes, embodies all the traditional attributes of a Hero God. He is, moreover, a protective deity whose role, according to the authors, is the "savior of the helpless and oppressed." In other words, the comic strip, besides affording entertainment for the romantic young, seems also to fill some symptomatic desire for a primitive religion. And...
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