Understanding Superhero Comic Books

Alex Grand is an internationally established comics historian, founder of the Comic Book Historians, and a regular panelist at Comic Con International: San Diego, Wonder Con, and San Diego ComicFest. He has been featured in comics-based documentaries, television, and radio programs and has appeared or been published in The Wall Street Journal, Hollywood Reporter, The Comics Journal, The Jack Kirby Collector and Alter Ego. He lives in Sacramento, California.

“No one does comic book history like Alex Grand. He is a meticulous researcher and an insightful interviewer. Understanding Super Hero Comic Books is a fascinating study that weaves together the intricate relationships between comic strips, pulp magazines, old movie serials and comic book super heroes. If you’ve ever been i ntrigued by the colorful characters that populate comic books—and fill our television and movie screens—this book is for you.”—Tom DeFalco, editor-in-chief of Marvel in the late 1980s and early 1990s

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsForeword by Jim SterankoPrefaceIntroductionPart 1—Building Blocks1. Early Comic Book Origins2. Comic Strips’ Legacy in Modern Storytelling3. Comic Strips That Influenced Superheroes4. From Pulp Fiction to Comic Books5. Classic Hollywood Cinema and the Golden Age of Comic Books6. Classic American Illustrators Intersect with Comic Books7. Macfadden and Houdini, the ­Real-Life Superman and BatmanPart 2—The Rise and Fall of Superheroes8. Superman’s Greatest Strength: Litigation9. Cosmic Rays Create Superpowers10. Golden Age Comic Book Artists Leave Superheroes11. EC Comics versus Fredric WerthamPart 3—Flight of the Superheroes12. Julius Schwartz’s Silver Age13. The Birth of the Marvel Comics Group14. Golden Age to the Marvel Age15. When Monsters Became Superheroes16. How Lee, Kirby, and Ditko Advanced Superheroes17. The Marvel Method’s Credit Controversy18. Stan Lee Expands Superheroes Beyond Comic Books19. Jack Kirby’s Space GodsPart 4—Modern Superheroes20. Jim Starlin and the Death of Superheroes21. John Byrne and the Modernization of Superheroes22. Alan Moore and Deconstructing the Superheroes23. The Origin of the Superhero Graphic NovelPart 5—Diversity and Aftermath24. Women in ­20th-Century Comic Books25. African Americans in ­20th-Century Comic Books26. The Death of the ­20th-Century Comic Book GreatsEpilogueChapter NotesBibliographyIndex