superman.nuMary Immaculate of Lourdes NewtonThe ADVENTURES of SUPERBOY!Holliston School Committeefacebook    
  •   forum   •   COUNTDOWN TO MIRACLE MONDAY: "IT'S REAL!" •   fortress   •  
Superman Through the Ages! Forum
News: Superman Through the Ages! now located at theAges.superman.nu
 
*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 09:09:16 PM


Login with username, password and session length


Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Working Class Heroes  (Read 13708 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Gangbuster
Superman Squad
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 589



« Reply #16 on: September 05, 2005, 03:45:04 AM »

nt
Logged

"Trying to capture my wife, eh? That makes me SUPER-MAD!"

-"Superman", 1960

Gangbuster
Superman Squad
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 589



« Reply #17 on: September 05, 2005, 03:45:56 AM »

Back to liberalism, social movements are always sparked by the elite on behalf (or perceived behalf) of the people. Zorro is an excellent example of this. Likewise with Green Arrow, who basically is Robin Hood.

There does appear to be a total lack of working class heroes in the Golden Age; the worst of the Depression hit before that, when Pulp heroes reigned supreme. However, it looks like the writers opted for people who had the power to change things for the working class. Superman became a reporter so that he could help, and become "the champion of the oppressed," for example.

This deficit appears to have been corrected in the Silver Age. Alan Scott was replaced by the Green Lantern Corps, and all the Green Lanterns from Hal Jordan forward have been working class. (Not sure what Guy Gardner does, but Hal was in the Air Force and Kyle Rainer was I think unemployed.) Perhaps sidekicks were used as a counterweight to fix this perceived problem. Jimmy Olsen was given a greater role in Superman comics, and Robin the Boy Wonder figured prominently into Silver-Age Batman comics.

While the comics industry had been based in New York and largely ignored the South, we began to see the emergence of black superheroes, and other Southern characters like Gambit, Rogue, and Swamp Thing.

Speaking of Swamp Thing, there are many, many magical characters in the DCU. Magic is something that the very lower classes believe in or practice, while the upper classes either dismiss it or campaign against it...and Swamp Thing is himself homeless. If you are looking for working-class characters, the magical sector will probably provide a gold mine, starting with The Spirit.
Logged

"Trying to capture my wife, eh? That makes me SUPER-MAD!"

-"Superman", 1960

ShinDangaioh
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 269



« Reply #18 on: September 05, 2005, 12:23:07 PM »

Quote from: "Gangbuster Thorul"


This deficit appears to have been corrected in the Silver Age. Alan Scott was replaced by the Green Lantern Corps, and all the Green Lanterns from Hal Jordan forward have been working class. (Not sure what Guy Gardner does, but Hal was in the Air Force and Kyle Rainer was I think unemployed.) Perhaps sidekicks were used as a counterweight to fix this perceived problem. Jimmy Olsen was given a greater role in Superman comics, and Robin the Boy Wonder figured prominently into Silver-Age Batman comics.


Guy Gardner was first a college football player, then a lawyer, then he worked with physically challenged children until the time of his coma.  Afterwards, he was just a hero until he gained the Vuldarian powers and he became a bartender and owner of a succesful chain of bar and grills called Warrior's

As matter of fact, Guy has actually employed other heroes and some villians to act as waiters, waitressess, and bouncers for Warrior's.

Kyle Rayner was unemployed until he succesfully sold some of his artwork to a museum. He then got a job being a comic book artist until his assistant got beaten nearly to death.

John Stewart is an architect.

The pre-Crisis Supergirl went from reporter to student counclier to soap opera star.


Quote
Speaking of Swamp Thing, there are many, many magical characters in the DCU. Magic is something that the very lower classes believe in or practice, while the upper classes either dismiss it or campaign against it...and Swamp Thing is himself homeless. If you are looking for working-class characters, the magical sector will probably provide a gold mine, starting with The Spirit.

Mark Merlin a detective of the occult is another
Logged
TELLE
Supermanica Council
Council of Wisdom
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1705



WWW
« Reply #19 on: September 05, 2005, 07:40:07 PM »

Quote from: "Gangbuster Thorul"

This deficit appears to have been corrected in the Silver Age. Alan Scott was replaced by the Green Lantern Corps, and all the Green Lanterns from Hal Jordan forward have been working class. (Not sure what Guy Gardner does, but Hal was in the Air Force and Kyle Rainer was I think unemployed.) Perhaps sidekicks were used as a counterweight to fix this perceived problem. Jimmy Olsen was given a greater role in Superman comics, and Robin the Boy Wonder figured prominently into Silver-Age Batman comics.

 Magic is something that the very lower classes believe in or practice, while the upper classes either dismiss it or campaign against it...and Swamp Thing is himself homeless. If you are looking for working-class characters, the magical sector will probably provide a gold mine, starting with The Spirit.


Again, my initial urge was to eliminate educated professionals (white-collar workers) and agents of the state (cops and soldiers), just to see how many blue-collar workers could be dug up.  I eliminated predessional athletes and entertainers as well, or else Deadman, Dick Grayson, and early Stuntman could be used --arguably circus trapeze artists are "blue-collar".

Lots of rich people believe in magic as well, but that doesn't mean that magic superheroes are working class or "ruling class" or anything else.  (Wait, the Spirit is magic???)

Jimmy Olsen, office boy and Jimmy Olsen, reporter are 2 different things and only reporter Jimmy gets superpowers, no?
Logged

Everything you ever wanted to
know about the classic Superman:
Supermanica
The Encyclopedia of Supermanic Biography!
(temporarily offline)
nightwing
Defender of Kandor
Council of Wisdom
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1627


Semper Vigilans


WWW
« Reply #20 on: September 06, 2005, 01:50:48 PM »

Maybe our heroes are more working-class than we thought.  Check out these cool photos from a fun site called, "Dial B for Blog"...

http://dialbforblog.com/archives/56/
Logged

This looks like a job for...
Gangbuster
Superman Squad
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 589



« Reply #21 on: September 06, 2005, 09:56:16 PM »

hehe...now that's more like it.

Well, here we go then, with more recent characters. I would consider cops, firefighters, etc. more working class heroes than government agents. But I digress.

Superboy. Maybe this is why people like Smallville better than they like other Superman shows... it shows the Kents, farming.

John Henry Irons- as we first saw him, a construction worker saved by Superman. Since then, the character has been really messed up a lot.

Spider-Man- Peter Parker, photographer.

Swamp Thing- the last, most homeless Earth elemental. That's gotta suck.

Clark Kent has taken blue-collar jobs since being Superboy, working in mines, etc, usually as an undercover operation. For example, in "The Steeplejack of Steel" he was a construction worker. Part-time working class hero.

Mutants- the story of the Xmen in a lot of ways parallelled the Civil Rights movement. There are plenty of blue-collar members of the Xmen, Alpha Flight, and their offspring, most famously Wolverine.

Booster Gold was a janitor. Kyle Rainer, Green Lantern, was...unemployed, I guess.

Bobo, the Detective Chimp

That's all for now...might edit later.
Logged

"Trying to capture my wife, eh? That makes me SUPER-MAD!"

-"Superman", 1960

Johnny Nevada
Last Son of Krypton
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 299


Milwaukee, WI


WWW
« Reply #22 on: September 07, 2005, 12:30:48 AM »

Quote from: "Gangbuster Thorul"
hehe...now that's more like it.

Well, here we go then, with more recent characters. I would consider cops, firefighters, etc. more working class heroes than government agents. But I digress.

Superboy. Maybe this is why people like Smallville better than they like other Superman shows... it shows the Kents, farming.


Pre-Crisis, the Kents also owned the Kent General Store in Smallville, where young Clark Kent helped out (they had sold the farm and bought the store by the time Clark began school).

Quote

John Henry Irons- as we first saw him, a construction worker saved by Superman. Since then, the character has been really messed up a lot.

Spider-Man- Peter Parker, photographer.

Swamp Thing- the last, most homeless Earth elemental. That's gotta suck.

Clark Kent has taken blue-collar jobs since being Superboy, working in mines, etc, usually as an undercover operation. For example, in "The Steeplejack of Steel" he was a construction worker. Part-time working class hero.

Mutants- the story of the Xmen in a lot of ways parallelled the Civil Rights movement. There are plenty of blue-collar members of the Xmen, Alpha Flight, and their offspring, most famously Wolverine.

Booster Gold was a janitor. Kyle Rainer, Green Lantern, was...unemployed, I guess.

Bobo, the Detective Chimp

That's all for now...might edit later.


Kyle was supposed to be an artist (though judging from the imaginativeness of his ring constructs that I saw, probably not much of one.... ;-P).
Logged

Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

CURRENT FORUM

Archives: OLD FORUM  -  DCMB  -  KAL-L
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS! Dilber MC Theme by HarzeM
Entrance ·  Origin ·  K-Metal ·  The Living Legend ·  About the Comics ·  Novels ·  Encyclopaedia ·  The Screen ·  Costumes ·  Read Comics Online ·  Trophy Room ·  Creators ·  ES!M ·  Fans ·  Multimedia ·  Community ·  Supply Depot ·  Gift Shop ·  Guest Book ·  Contact & Credits ·  Links ·  Coming Attractions ·  Free E-mail ·  Forum

Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
The LIVING LEGENDS of SUPERMAN! Adventures of Superman Volume 1!
Return to SUPERMAN THROUGH THE AGES!
The Complete Supply Depot for all your Superman needs!