We live in exciting times for comic-book fans. Batman, Spider-Man, and Avengers movies rake in box-office gold; even Marvel’s obscure Guardians of the Galaxy (a raccoon marksman! a sentient tree!) will have a big-budget film debut on Aug. 1. Mild-mannered Life With Archie stirred up buzz this summer by having its titular character killed off by a homophobic gunman. Thor is being re-introduced as a woman in comic books this October, while Captain America is being replaced by his black partner Sam (a.k.a. The Falcon), who will don the iconic red-white-and-blue suit himself.
Comics have changed with the times, but they’ve always made for gripping storytelling. And, as Tablet has previously discussed, most of the early superheroes were created by Jews and packed with Jewish subtext—brainiac/wimp persecution, the need to “pass,” the possession of hidden strength, the urge to do tikkun olam and fix a broken world. Jews created the first comic book (Max “Charlie” Gains, ne Ginsburg, produced Famous Funnies, a compilation of newspaper strips sold as a book in 1933), the first graphic novel (Will Eisner’s A Contract With God, which featured Orthodox Jews), the first Comic Con, and the first comic-book direct-distribution network. Check out Danny Fingeroth’s Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero for a more extensive overview.
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